FanFic: "Ghosts of the Past" NOW COMPLETE in 11 chapters!

[DezoPenguin]

Well, this is it--a brand new Sejanus fic, "new" in the sense of "just finished writing it last Wednesday" as opposed to "wrote it two years ago and am introducting it to PSOW just now." This one is longer than the previous two and moves the story on to just past Episode II. You'll see a few old friends from the games and have a few loose ends from previous fiction tied up before we're through.

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GHOSTS OF THE PAST
Chapter 1

"Where is it?"

A blow crashed into my stomach. I was forced to admit that even with the Photon driver disabled, an Angry Fist was still quite capable of living up to its name.
"What did you do with it?"

This time the fist exploded into my jaw, knocking me clean out of my chair onto the floor.

"Come on, Sejanus, you're not making this any easier on yourself."

"This is a waste of time. Just let the bot snuff him and be done with it."

Of course the bloodthirsty voice was female, which on this job always seemed to be the case. In my experience, women were the kinder, gentler, nurturing sex only in the delusions of idealistic but patronizing men.

"Have some patience. I have no intention of going home empty-handed. Besides, I think our friend here--" He took advantage of my prone position to ram the toe of his boot into my belly. "--is going to wise up and start talking."

"It's your party. Just wake me if you decide to put him down, okay? I don't want to miss the entertainment."

A hand fisted in my hair and jerked my head up to meet my interrogator's eyes.

"Do you hear that? You haven't got a friend in the world here. She knows how to take orders, though, so I'm going to bet she can keep from making a big stink about it until you're praying for me to finish you. Which I won't, because you know what's coming up next, after we're through here. If I were you, I'd talk right now. It's the only chance you've got, believe me."

I didn't even bother to groan in response.

"Your call, Sejanus. It looks like we're in for a long, ugly night."

He all but threw my head down so that it bounced off the floor, hot sparks of pain shooting through my skull, and only one thought kept repeating itself in my mind:

Damn you, Mome.


* * *

It had started on a bad note. I suppose life is going to keep throwing these little omens at me until I wise up and take notice of it. I was in the Hatless Dezorian bar downing my third glass of owner Tendall Grant's best brandy--the real thing from Coral, not the synthetic junk cooked up by Pioneer 2's food systems--when a scowling face interrupted my self-pity.

"Sejanus, you look like hell."

"The woman is observant. Somebody give her a medal."

Her name is Talissa. She's a fellow hunter, and one of the genetically-enhanced race of Newmen. I think there must have been some kind of mutation in her development, though, because she's the only female Newman I've ever met who actually prefers a wardrobe that leaves anything to the imagination. It reflects her whole attitude--she's a no-nonsense woman with a zero-tolerance policy for crap.

"I'm serious. You look scary enough as it is--"

"Thanks so much."

"--but this is ridiculous."

For the record, I'm tall, cadaverously thin, and prefer a bright red bodysuit. My hair is white and worn in the ragged shoulder-length cut of a man who can't be bothered to actually take care of it. Lately that same apathy has put a scraggly layer of stubble on my cheeks. Add in the dark circles under my eyes and the bloodshot look of steady drinking and I looked like death warmed over. Twice.

"Look it up, Liss. It's called depression. You know, the thing you feel when you read over your black-market copy of Heathcliff Flowen's last mission report and realize that the best you can hope for your sister is that she died a clean death at the hands of demonic fiends?"

"Right. Sucks to be you. Sucks to be Matha Grave or Nol Rinale or anybody trying to catch fish in the underground channels, too." She plucked the brandy glass out of my hand; the fact that she could do it so easily was a good indication of how miserable my condition was.

"Who died and made you my wife?"

"Nobody has to die for that, Sejanus; you've never been married. Now sober up."

Her hand came up fast, spraying a fine mist into my face from a small atomizer. A Sol Atomizer, obviously, because a jolt shot through my brain like a thunderbolt and left me with a clear (though still depressed) head.

"Liss, what the--" I was going to add hell do you think you're doing to that, but in typical fashion she cut me off.

"Oh, quit whining. I know that the military cut you from the string they had you on--one more reason why you're curled up with a bottle, I'm guessing--so you need a job. I've got one, but I want some long-range firepower to cover my butt."

"And you don't know any nice Racasts?"

"That I'd trust with my life in that twisted nightmare under the sea?"

"I can think of a good four peoiple better suited to the job than me."

"Yes, but how many of them have a military access code, Clearance Level Beta?"

When I'd been on retainer, the military had given me limited access to their resources, which made sense--how was I supposed to keep them abreast of the latest Ragol situations if I didn't have clearance to do it? Especially given that Principal Tyrell, being a former hunter, had given the Hunter's Guild rather than the army the go-ahead to investigate the situation and so they needed people like me.

"Liss, I know you don't have a lot of respect for the military mind, but they aren't complete morons. When they canned me, they deleted my access as well."

Talissa grinned.

"When did they cut your strings, Sejanus?"

"Two days ago."

"And, I'm sure, they nulled your access in their computers through the online net. But I doubt they've yet sent a tech-grunt around to all the independent systems just to say that your code is cancelled. It'd be done as part of regular maintenance."

She was starting to make sense, I reflected.

"In the upper section of No Man's Mines, the 32nd WORKS division has set up a long-range teleporter pad. They use it to sneak into areas they aren't supposed to have access to. As you may know, Gal De Val Island is under Lab jurisdiction for the present time, but the military wants a piece of the action. They stole, spied, or bribed away the Seabed facility's coordinates and have been accessing it from their hidden teleporter. That way, there's no log of any WORKS personnel using Pioneer 2's teleporters to go somewhere they're not supposed to be."

"Sneaky," I agreed. "Which for those people is par for the course. For a special forces unit, WORKS certainly spends more time on general backstabbing and treachery than they do on actual fighting. How does the teleporter tie in with my access code, though?"

Talissa shrugged.

"It's kept offline. Given the extent of the D-Factor viral infection down there, they don't want it compromising the military subnet if it happens to get infected. They actually learned something from that fiasco about eight months back, even if they did have to lose an entire research team to do it."

"Not to mention all but one of the hunters sent out as a cleanup crew," I noted dryly. The rumor mill had been going for weeks over that operation.

"Yeah, well, we are talking about the most thick-skulled people in the world, right? It takes an awfully big lesson to get their attention." Then, she grinned at me. "You're getting interested, aren't you, Sejanus? You never have that sarcastic wit going when you aren't."

She was right, of course, damn her. I wanted to find out more about her mysterious job much more than I wanted to grab another brandy and crawl back into my hole. It wasn't a nice, comfortably snug hole, after all; it was cold and dark and scary in there.

Besides which, it was about time I worked my way up to the "anger" stage of grief, and the concept of emptying a few Photon packs into D-cellular sub lifeforms not entirely unlike the ones that had killed my sister seemed just about right.

"All right, Liss, you win. Sit down and tell me more."

She grinned and slid into the seat opposite me, then ordered two of something pink, fizzy, and nonalcoholic from the autoprogram menu. Instead of the usual android bartender, Tendall brought the drinks over himself, setting the heavy crystal glasses down on the table's sleek black surface with a fluid efficiency that reminded me the ex-Hunter was more used to handling daggers than a bottle. He looked me up and down, then glanced back at Talissa.

"So, you managed to yank him out of his rut? Good for you."

The drink tasted about like you'd expect--fruity, sweet, and generally like something a five-year-old would grab at a candy shop. I made a face."

"Why don't you get on to the quest, Liss; maybe it'll go down better."

"Cultured palate my rump. You're just a snob when it comes to drinks."

"The job?"

Talissa rolled her eyes.

"Right. It goes sort of like this. The Council wanted the Lab to report on the Gal De Val investigation. It's still under Lab jurisdiction but the bigwigs wanted some formal feedback on the topic. Chief Milarose put Dr. Mome in charge of compiling the report."

I looked at her in disbelief.

"Mome."

"Yes."

"That bungler."

"Yes."

"For heaven's sake, why?"

She shrugged again.

"Probably because he was the one who commissioned the retrieval of the Beta772 overrun data. Remember?"

I nodded. I'd never met the man personally but our jobs had crossed paths in the past.

"Well," Talissa continued, "the way I see it, Mome already had access to some of the details of Dr. Osto's research, so rather than open up all the dirty details to more people, Natasha put it all in the hands of someone who already knew more than just the rumors."

"I see."

"Besides, you and I both know anything really sensitive would be over his head. Montague he's not."

"So you figure some of the important details, or at least the conclusions to be drawn from them, would slip by Mome and therefore stay out of Administration hands?"

"That's how I figured it. Only, it didn't work out quite that way. Dr. Mome isn't a genius scientist but he does take his work seriously, and he's got a knack of putting himself exactly where he needs to be. Only now he's in the med-center and the medical staff isn't sure whether he'll wake up."

I sat up straight, shocked.

"Was it foul play?"

Talissa raised an eyebrow."

"Do you know, Sejanus, that you're the only person I know who could get away with using a line like 'foul play'?"

"Liss!"

"Sorry. Anyway, yes. It's no accident. Someone deliberately put him in a coma. The doctors suspect poison, but standard treatment methods aren't having any effect."

Well, that was about par for the course.

"Between antidotes, Sol Atomizers, and the Anti technique, there's basically no poison that can't be negated in seconds," I pointed out, "to say nothing of what's available in any medical center. I presume that this is something new?" I paused for dramatic effect, then hazarded some speculation. "Maybe something based on the abnormal Photons found on Ragol?"

"Sejanus, you're coming off a three-day drunk. How could you possibly know that?"

I had to chuckle at her bewilderment. First laugh in three days.

"It's obvious, Liss. Everything new and unknown that's come our way in the past nine months has something to do with Ragol, the abnormal Photons, and/or the D-Factor."

Now Talissa had to chuckle as well.

"All right, I'll give you that one. And yes, for the record, whatever's been given to Mome supposedly duplicates some effects of the D-Factor, if you read between the lines."

"That's a nasty thing to do to someone," I said, a bit lamely. "Nasty" just didn't cover it. Horrific was more like it. Being eaten from the inside out, your body cells captured and slaved to some alien, demonic entity's DNA.

God, Vel, I hope your death was easy, not something like that.

"Someone must have been really desperate to keep Mome from talking," I finished up. If I kept talking, I didn't have to think.

"Uh huh. So, do I have your attention?"

I nodded.

"Yeah."

"Let's go meet our client, then."

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NEXT CHAPTER PLUG: <melodrama> Just who hired Talissa, anyway, and what does the client want her to do in the Seabed? The webs of conspiracy begin to enmesh Sejanus once again...</melodrama>




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DezoPenguin on 2004-03-29 12:56 ]</font>


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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DezoPenguin on 2004-04-26 08:31 ]</font>

[Solstis]

Very melodramatic! And intriguing! And (insert adjective)!

Not to mention new!

*Waits for the next episode*


[note]: Got a couple of stray quotes floatin' around there.

[Sunblast]

Wow, this is pretty interesting. I like the characters; they're funny. http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif


On 2004-03-26 13:51, Solstis wrote:
[note]: Got a couple of stray quotes floatin' around there.

I noticed those as well. They're at the end of a couple of sentances.

[DezoPenguin]

Chapter Two finds our heroes learning what's at stake, so it's off to the Mines...

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GHOSTS OF THE PAST
Chapter 2

Talissa had dropped a lot of information on me in piecemeal fashion, the point being to tease and tantalize me into taking her up on her job offer. That meant being interesting, rather than coherent. At this stage, I didn't actually know whom we'd be working for or what our job would be. Since I wasn't drunk anymore, I figured it had to be the depression slowing up my brain.

Still and all, since we were on our way to fill in those blanks, I didn't raise a stink as Talissa took us in her aerocar to the section of Pioneer 2 under Lab control. Hunter's Guild facilities had been opened in this area, and slowly but surely the support network of shops, storage facilities, and entertainment venues was taking shape. The area lacked the retro-industrial sheet metal decor I was used to, and parts of it felt quite claustrophobic, but the piped-in muzak in the Guild facilities was the same as I was used to, for that touch of home.

I'd expected to meet our client in the Guild as usual, so I was surprised when Talissa took me from the aerocar dock to the Medical Center admissions desk.

"Good morning; do you need assistance?" asked the nurse on duty.

"Visitors for Dr. Mome," Talissa said.

"Oh, yes. He's in Room 338. I'm afraid that the room has been sealed except for medical personnel due to the nature of the case," she added with a commiserating pout, "but Observation 3-4 can be used for viewing by friends and family."

"Thank you."

We stepped through the door and took a lift cell to the third level, the followed the blue line to Observation 3-4. The holoscreen image that filled one whole wall showed Mome lying unconscious in a life-support cylinder, his body at the center of a nest of tubes and scanning devices while doctors, nurses, and support androids bustled around him and tiny robots flitted through the air on who-knew-what vital tasks. I couldn't make head or tail of the medical significance of what I was seeing, but the despair and frustration on more than one face told me more than any med-report could. They were losing him. Maybe it was fast and ugly, or maybe it was slow and by inches, but either way they weren't winning the battle.

It just wasn't fair. Mome...well, let's be honest. Mome had always been one of life's comic relief characters, earnest and enthusiastic but bumbling and a little clumsy all at once. It seemed the height of cosmic injustice to inflict on him a fate reserved for tragic heroes or for villainous types reaping the rewards of their misdeeds. It was just another reminder that life didn't fall into the neat, convenient patterns of fable and genre fiction. Which was, I supposed, why I liked genre fiction. In it good won, evil was defeated, and love conquered all. Heroes (and let's be honest again, aren't we all the heroes of our own life stories--in our own minds, at least?) were inspired by their siblings' tragic deaths to transcend their limitations and accomplish the impossible, not be buried under a sea of misery.

I hadn't realized that I'd even clenched my fist until I noticed that I was flexing my hand so strongly my fingers had started to hurt. The realization of pain shocked my brain loose and made me see that there was someone else in the observation room besides ourselves, a tall, red-haired woman in a long, formal dress with a delicate monocle over her right eye.

"This is quite a tragedy," she said in a voice that was exactly what you'd expect from her appearance: elegant, aristocratic, and precise. Emotion was there, but it was secondary; for this woman practicality would always win out over personal concerns.

"It's a senseless waste," Talissa said flatly.

The red-haired woman shook her head.

"Oh, no, not senseless. There is distinct purpose in this, whatever else can be said." She looked at Talissa expectantly, as if waiting for some cue.

"Oh, yeah. This is Sejanus Lyon. I've hired him for backup purposes on this job. Sejanus, this is our client. I'm not sure if you've ever met, but her name is Natasha Milarose."

"Chief of Pioneer 2's Lab," I finished up for her. After Principal Tyrell, Natasha was probably the most influential person in the government, although some bigwigs in the military and on the Council might have debated that. "Which, of course, brings up the question of, why are we here and not in your office in the Lab? From what I've heard, you're not shy about bringing in Hunters when you need their services on Ragol."

Natasha nodded once, inclining her head slightly in my direction as if to acknowledge my existence.

"As you have no doubt already realized, this is a private request. I do not wish it to be generally known that I have contacted you."

Now I understood. It explained why we were here--we were all just visiting a sick friend. We'd come separately, would leave separately, and wouldn't go anywhere in the hospital but here. Coincidence we'd come at the same time.

"Are you prepared, Talissa?"

"Yeah. Thanks to Sejanus, I think I've arranged access to the Seabed without you having to authorize access to the Lab transporter."

"Have you, indeed? I will be most interested in hearing that portion of your report."

I just bet she would.

"Now, on to the details of your actual mission. As you are already aware, Dr. Mome was preparing a report for the Council's benefit on our discoveries on and under Gal De Val Island. His poisoning has completely short-circuited this project."

"Why is that? Can't you just assign someone to take up where he left off?"

"Unfortunately not, Talissa. You see, all traces of Dr. Mome's work are missing. The Lab AI, Calus, indicates that no data on the matter was ever uploaded to him, although Dr. Mome did access Calus's records before beginning with his on-site research. Nor has any data been discovered on Dr. Mome's personal unit or workstation."

"Stolen?" Talissa asked.

"Possibly, especially if it had been stored on a disk, but I think not. I've had our computer specialists run analyses of the various machines, and they found no traces that significant data was recently wiped. Now, such an analysis isn't foolproof, especially given the caliber of e-runner found in association with certain underworld elements, but it is certainly more likely than not that no data was taken. Hence, your hiring."

Talissa tapped her foot impatiently. I, on the other hand, took Natasha's hint and asked the question she was apparently seeking.

"Are you saying that you think Mome's data is still down in the Seabed?"

"It seems the likeliest possibility."

"Why the heck would it be there?"

"Since compiling the report involved a certain amount of field research, I suspect that Dr. Mome employed an on-site terminal to handle data searches and other information-gathering processes and found it easier to do the complete project there."

It sounded absurd to me, but then again I had no idea how much "field research" Mome needed to do or how inconvenient it would be to upload the data to Calus.

"It's an aspect of the investigation I cannot afford to overlook," Natasha continued. "Enemies capable of doing this--" She waved a hand at the screen Mome's sickroom. "--certainly would not overlook the Seabed for long."

"Maybe they never overlooked it at all. Maybe that's why Mome's here," Talissa said.

"Then that is all the more reason for you not to delay. I am sure that experienced Hunters such as yourselves are aware that Pioneer 2 is a house divided. The Administration, the military, and the Lab all compete against one another to get what they want. Beyond that, there are criminal elements that have taken root." Her eyes focused on me for a long moment, and I got the distinct impression that Natasha knew all about me, not just as a random face but as a person who'd crossed paths with the crime syndicate called Black Paper on two occasions.

I glanced, in turn, at Talissa. Was it a coincidence that Natasha knew of me? Or had my fellow hunter brought me aboard at the Lab chief's request? Was this whole scene an elaborate charade being played out for my benefit? If so, why?

Paranoia was the most pervasive of emotions.

"You're saying that you expect trouble," Talissa said.

"My dear hunters, the only inescapable truth I have learned so far about the planet Ragol is that trouble is inevitable. Be careful, both of you." She favored us with a wry smile and added, "I think we can agree that your deaths would serve neither of us."

"I so love," I murmured, "an enthusiastic client."

It reminded me of a line about the laws of probability. An optimist, my trainer had once said, was another name for someone who was bad at math.

After leaving the hospital, Talissa and I stopped off for our field gear, making sure to arm weapons whose Photon attributes were tuned for effectiveness against mechanical and/or D-cellular enemies. We left from the field teleporter near the Guild's main offices as planned; the...oblique method of accessing the Seabed made even more sense now given that the other side clearly had an information pipeline into the Lab. A couple of hunters strolling through to use the teleporter there would be just a trifle obvious for even a halfway competent spy to overlook.

Of course, I thought as we arrived in the eerily green-lit corridors of No Man's Mines, there was also a down side to the idea. My first clue was when I stepped through the security door outside our arrival point and a Sinow Beat tried to take my head off. The violet-red Photon blade that sprouted from the back of the robot's wrist lashed out, and if I hadn't been diving forward from the moment I heard it drop to the floor behind me (that much metal dropping from the ceiling to a ceramic-tile floor simply cannot be stealthy about it) I would be testing just how close to clinical death one can get before Moon Atomizers stop working.

I tried to roll and bring a weapon to bear, but rifles are not designed to be spun around into firing position in the middle of impromptu acrobatics. Fortunately the Sinow had landed with its back to Talissa, and before it could take further action the pale-green tip of one Photon sword burst from its chest while a second detached the sensor array of its "head" with a sweeping cut.

"I'm beginning to understand why you like that Musashi," I remarked.

"You're welcome. Just remember, Sejanus, that I'm the Hunter here. I'm trained to be two inches away from the hostiles while I fight them. From now on--"

"You go through the doors first. I've got it."

"Good. Teamwork, and all that." She reached down and gave me a hand up, then kicked the Sinow's head skittering across the floor.

"Between all the hunters and the military crawling around this place over the past year, I'm surprised there are any of these things left."

"The automated factory keeps churning them out," I told her. "It mines raw materials, assembles components, and builds robots. No one can shut it down because we don't have the labor force. The military won't risk sending down a robotic force of their own, yet, because of the risk of infection with the virus, and of course it can't be a citizen labor force."

"So why not just detonate the place?"

"What? And pass up a chance to exploit it for their own ends?" I said in mock surprise. "Surely you aren't speaking of our governing bodies, are you, Liss?"

"I always forget what a joy your sense of humor is."

"The mind, no doubt, protecting itself from the horror via amnesia. Let's get going, shall we? I don't want any of those WORKS goons catching us near their precious teleporter."

I should really know better than to toss lines like that at the forces of fate. Right on cue, the far door hissed open, and another humanoid mechanism entered the room. Unlike the Sinow Beat, this wasn't a crazed robot, but an android bearing the WORKS blazon. Other aesthetic details escaped me, though; the repeaters in his metal grip commanded most of my attention.

Guns tend to do that when they're pointed at my breastbone.

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What does WORKS have in store for Talissa and Sejanus, and will they be able to get past it to the Seabed? Or is their mission about to take a sharp turn to the right? Find out in Chapter Three, coming soon!

[Sunblast]

Hehe, I'm loving Sejanus' sense of humor. http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_razz.gif Keep it up!

[DezoPenguin]

GHOSTS OF THE PAST
Chapter 3

"Hunters, lower your weapons," the android announced in an eerie monotone. I've noticed that military androids favor that voice despite the technology being available to make them sound completely human. I figure it's psychological warfare--to make the listener see the android as an inhuman killing machine instead of a person and so instill fear.

It was working.

"Who are you and why should we comply?" Talissa barked.

"This area is under the jurisdiction of the 32nd Galactic Mobile Infantry, WORKS, and is off-limits to all hunters."

From his hammerlike head and relatively massive build, I recognized the android as a TYPE:R. They were designed essentially as mobile armored gun platforms, very tough but not too swift with the reflexes. I glanced over at Liss, and she glanced back. I knew we were both thinking the same thing.

Clearly the RAcast knew, too, because he fired. The monotone voice also tends to trick observers into thinking the android speaker is stupid and unperceptive, a low-grade electronic intellect.

The three-round burst that stitched into my armored chestplate pointed out just which one of us really was stupid. The impact blew me off my feet, the third photon charge hitting me while I was actually falling. Next to me, Talissa landed in an equally embarrassing heap.

"According to WORKS Regulation--" the android began, but I didn't let him finish. Instead, I swung my blaster up and fired--hipshot, really--while still lying on my back. Apparently I had access to better equipment than WORKS, because the shot punched a smoking, sparking hole in the android's upper leg. It swayed, trying to correct its balance, and its next several shots peppered the floor instead of us.

Talissa followed my example; with a flick of her blade she called forth the Zonde technique, slashing the military RAcast with lightning. We got lucky; the android's failsafes tripped to prevent electrical damage to its AI core, leaving it frozen in place, its body beyond control until the charge dissipated.

"He's going to remember us," I said grimly. "He'll be able to download visuals from his memory to any computer for an ID scan."

"No, he's not."

"Liss, we can't kill him. He's a person, not just a robot, and we're the criminal trespassers here, so it's not like a real case of self-defense."

"What do you take me for, Sejanus?" She got a bright purple metal disk, about four inches across, out from one of her belt packs and slapped it against the back of the TYPE: R's head. No more than two seconds later, the RAcast pitched forward and hit the ground with a crash. "Disabler. It should wipe the last ten to twelve minutes from the android's memory. I do plan ahead for these jobs, you know."

"Sorry, Liss. I'm not exactly at my peak, mentally."

She flashed me a grin.

"First time I've ever heard a guy admit to that! Now, let's get going before the rest of the WORKS crew gets here."

I couldn't argue with that, so we moved on, slipping through a network of corridors and rooms and being careful to avoid being spotted by the occasional WORKS guards. Luckily, the military had done a decent job of keeping the area clear of hostiles, so we didn't encounter any more robots on our way to the teleporter pad. A small terminal sat next to it and we approached. The teleporter was inert, so I inputted my access code. If it was possible for nanoseconds to crawl past, they did, until the message, "CODE ACCEPTED. SET DESTINATION COORDINATES." appeared.

"Your turn."

Swiftly Talissa entered the Seabed destination coordinates which she'd no doubt been provided by Natasha. Once the teleporter hummed to life with scarlet light-bars cycling through the air, we stepped onto the pad. For a few seconds the world was swallowed in darkness...

...and we opened our eyes to look upon Hell.

"We're here," Talissa said softly.

We stood in water up to our ankles. The main lighting had been shut down, leaving only a ghastly yellow illumination from the emergency lights. The humidity was all but total; water leakage and the power drain from ventilation made each breath hot and wet. I all but drank the air rather than inhaled it, and the stifling heat made perspiration stand out on my face within seconds. It was like being in a tropical jungle, only worse, since the steel walls on all sides and the knowledge of the water pressing in all around them--water obviously not being kept out in all places--made the Seabed more horrifically claustrophobic than any outdoor location could be.

"I wonder if this place is even stable?" Talissa asked.

My stomach lurched as I thought of the tons of water above crashing down and engulfing us.

"Please don't mention that."

I switched my blaster for an autogun, a less powerful weapon but one that was considerably easier to handle in these confined spaces.

"How are we going to find Mome's data?"

"We'll start here and work outward, checking every terminal we find," Talissa decided. "There's no other way."

We crept down the hall, the silence around us broken only by the sloshing of our steps through the water. I barely suppressed a shudder as I remembered the rumors of the kind of creatures found in this area and what an obvious signal to them all the noise we were making would be.

The first room we came to looked less like part of a research facility than it did part of a basement. Large polycrete pillars, most chipped and cracked in places, supported the ceiling while pipes and conduits snaked along the walls. There were, however, two computer terminals mounted opposite one another in the middle of the long sides of the room. One looked dead, a mere lump of inert gray metal. The other, though, seemed to still be active, green bars of text scrolling up its display.

"Let's go take a look," I suggested.

"You're better at computers than I am."

"I don't even know what to look for."

"Neither do I."

"Good point." We crossed to the terminal, Talissa keeping her eyes on the room in case of hostiles while I worked the machine--the reason, of course, that I'd have preferred it the other way. Even with a partner to look out for me, the idea of turning my back on any room down here clamped an icy hand around my heart.
How could Mome have stood it, working for hours down here? He was a scientist, not a fighter. How could he have done it? Had the monsters all been eliminated, somehow?

That wasn't my problem, though. I quickly ran through the various options the terminal offered, and soon hit a wall: the facility's AI core was inaccessible. It wasn't as if I was being locked out by a security wall; there was just nothing there, as if the core, "Olga," had been shut down outright or physically disconnected from the network. It was really quite strange. Since the terminals were computers themselves, the Seabed subnet still existed, but the core and most of its processing power were no longer available to use.

Coping as best I could, I ran a network scan for any signs of recent activity. I found a few traces, probably database searches run by Mome and his team. They hadn't been performed at this terminal, though, but remotely. Then I got the bright idea of asking the machine where the search of this terminal's memory had been sent from, and I got an answer.

"Upper level, Section A9, Block 4," I recited.

"What's that?"

"The location of a computer which sent a search request to this computer four days ago. Probably, it's where Mome worked from when he was in the Seabed."

"Can we get there from here?"

"I don't know; I'm not finding a schematic in this machine's database, nor anywhere that's easily accessible on the network. Of course, it would help if I had some of the security codes, but we do what we can. Honestly, I don't think it's there to find. Why eat up local data capacity with maps and maintenance schematics when you can just put it on the mainframe and access it whenever you have to?"

"Can you access Mome's computer from here?"

"I'll give it a try."

I did, both with voice commands and using the terminal's touchpad. Unfortunately, the word "try" when used after the fact, invariably equates to failure, and it was so here.

"Blast it!"

"What's wrong?"

"I'm hitting security blocks on the network."

"I don't understand. You weren't before."

I shrugged.

"I was checking the operations logs, then, seeing what various computers were doing. Now I'm attempting to actually access data. That's something different. I know, it shouldn't be, but with the core hacked out of the subnet the system design doesn't make sense anymore. I'm assuming that network oversight was an AI core function and that it was this Olga that handled security. No Olga, no defenses. The databases are different; they have multiple levels of security installed on the local datastores themselves as well as on the network channels to restrict unauthorized access."

"So how did Mome get into the data? Oh, never mind, I'm sure the Lab's staff could whip up some kind of codebreaker for him to bring down, some kind of security disk."

"I wish Natasha had bothered to give us one."

"Probably, she didn't want us poking around where we didn't belong. We're just here to retrieve Mome's file, not look at it."

"These people treat melodrama and paranoia like they're food and drink, don't they?"

Talissa clapped me on the back.

"See, Sejanus, that's the problem with seeing the world all in shades of gray. You get so you can't recognize right and wrong when you encounter them."

"How pleasant. Now, how does Natasha expect us to recover Mome's data without having security codes?"

Talissa chewed at her lower lip.

"Okay, we know that our client isn't an idiot; quite the opposite, in fact," she said.

"Right."

"So she expects us to be able to bring her the data if we find it. Meaning that she doesn't expect it to be sealed, right?"

She was ahead of me, again.

"I think you've got it, Liss. The security blocks on the network restrict the flow of data from machine to machine. I checked this terminal's datastores and found them secured, but that's all data from the original Pioneer 1 staff."

"So if we actually go to the computer Mome was using..."

"We ought to be able to download his files, the new files, out of local data, so long as they don't have to pass to another machine on the network."

She grinned broadly.

"Finally, some progress!"

I was less inclined to be optimistic. Big surprise there.

"That's presuming, of course, that our deductions are accurate, that we're able to find the computer, that no one's beaten us to it, that Mome didn't slap a load of fresh security on his own work, and that nothing eats us on the way."

"You're such a ray of hope, Sejanus."

"On the good side, we probably won't be ankle-deep in water on an upper level, if we can get there."

__________________________________________________ ___
NEXT EPISODE PLUG: It's not going to be so easy as that, is it? You can bet it won't be. Finding Mome's computer and retrieving the data will be a struggle, and not everyone will come out of it alive...

[DezoPenguin]

The action picks up again in this chapter, and how! I mean, really...how long did you think Talissa and Sejanus could slink around the Seabed before getting into a fight?

__________________________________________________ ___

GHOSTS OF THE PAST
Chapter 4

Slowly and grimly we trooped through the twisting corridors of the Seabed research facility, traversing rust-brown metal halls, skirting the edges of half-flooded, arena-like pens where, no doubt, tests had been run, and crossing through wrecked laboratory facilities where computers, electronics, and diagnostic instruments had been ripped apart as if in a frenzy of manic hatred. The thick air seemed to be sodden with threat, and both Talissa and I found ourselves jerking around, weapons at the ready, at every creak of metal or drip of water into the standing pools. Our lower legs were soon drenched from sloshing through the flooded rooms, which just increased our discomfort.

We'd been looking for an elevator or short-range teleporter that would lead to the Seabed's upper section, but didn't find either. What we did at last stumble across was a service conduit, a narrow column which let maintenance workers access certain utility connections. Along one side, steel rungs were fixed to the wall; a thin layer of rust already caked them due to the extreme humidity. We glanced at the rungs, then at each other, then up the conduit, which looked like it ran a good eighty feet up at the least.

"We take what we can get," Talissa said with a shrug, put away her blades, and began to climb. I followed her example, our feet on the rungs echoing up and down the conduit as we ascended. The whole trip up, I couldn't help but think of how frightfully exposed we were, faces to the wall, backs to the open air, and hands engaged in climbing. My paranoia came to nothing, though, and we emerged through a hatchway into another area of the facility.

The area we found ourselves in was basically intact, much more the kind of place where Mome could have done actual work. Not only were the floors dry and the walls undamaged, but the decor was attractive, designed to put people at east. Plastiglass panels in the corridors turned the seas outside into an aquarium for the Seabed staff to enjoy (if they could get past the fact that there were millions of tons of water outside waiting to rush in if the panels cracked). Most of all, it was the fact that lights and power were fully engaged on this level, so that things looked the way they were supposed to instead of being shadows of themselves in the emergency lighting. The air, too, was clear and clean and the temperature at a cool, comfortable level, so it was plain that the environmental systems were also intact and functioning normally.

The best news for us, though, was that the conduit's exit adjoined a maintenance office. The office's computer was working, and it contained a full schematic of the Seabed.

"Here it is: Section A9, Block 4. We're in A7, Block 2 right now. We'll need to take this corridor here--" I indicated the course on the screen with my finger. "--then follow it around to the right, cross this overpass in this square room, and turn left at the security gate here. That should get us where we need to go."

"Finally."

I didn't know the full extent of the experiments Pioneer 1's Lab had carried out here under the sea, and I tried not to think about it while we crossed through a research laboratory on a sort of catwalk. If it wasn't for the fact that people like 32nd WORKS were after the data Mome had gathered, I would have been perfectly content to leave it down here, where it wouldn't inspire people to recreate the mistakes that had been made.

When I mentioned this to Talissa, she gave me one of her classic looks.

"How do you walk, carrying the weight of all those ideals on your back?"

"Liss--"

"No, I'm serious. We've got a deeply screwed-up situation here on Ragol. All we can do is the best we can, not run around second-guessing and third-guessing our clients and everybody else. It's the lack of cooperation and the political games that are stranding us in orbit."

"You expect the Council, the Lab, and the army to actually get along without stabbing each other in the back early and often?"

"Expect? Not bloody likely," she snorted. "I'm just saying that if they did we wouldn't be in this mess. At least as Hunters we can be part of the solution, not part of the problem. We can choose to do things the right way."

I gave her a sort of half-smile, the corner of my mouth quirking upwards.

"And you accuse me of having ideals?"

"It's not about idealism, it's about professionalism, people doing their jobs instead of promoting their selfish interests or their ideology."

Talissa shook her head, almost ruefully.

"Check the atmosphere down here, will you? I think the oxygen must be getting a little low, or else I wouldn't be rambling on about my blasted philosophy of life, especially not to you."

I couldn't help but wonder what she meant by that.

The discussion served a purpose, though; it brought us through the remaining corridors to our destination in Section A9, Block 4.

"That's got to be it," I decided, looking at the unusual computer terminal stuck in a corner of the room. The chamber itself was strange, basically square but separated into two levels, about a third of it six feet higher with a ramp connecting the parts. The decor was faux natural, with the "slope" between levels ornamented by rocks and growing plants. Corporations did stuff like that in order to make their worker drones more comfortable and relaxed, tricking the subconscious into thinking they weren't a faceless cog in the machine of commerce. I guess the same thinking applied to Lab drones, especially ones working at the bottom of the sea.

The computer was almost a mini-mainframe of its own, but instead of the bulky block shape I was used to this was a cylinder at least ten feet tall, tapering to a point. Reds and whites replaced the ubiquitous black-and-green color scheme, and keypanels ringed the lower part of the terminal so that six workers could use it simultaneously.

"It looks entirely different than the computer terminals down in No Man's Mines, or the ones on Pioneer 2."

"They seem to all use the same interface, though," I said as I attempted to call up a directory. "Lucky for us."

"How will you identify the target data?" Talissa asked, reading the file names scrolling by.

"Well, since Mome wasn't nice enough to call his file 'Mome's Secret Data' or something equally silly, I'll go by date. This one, coded Gamma 040, was the last file inspected, two days ago at 14:42. Nothing else outside this subdirectory shows anything recent, but the other files have time stamps from the last few days. This has to be it."

"You'll take the whole subdirectory, then."

Talissa handed me a data-storage disk she'd picked up while we equipped and I inserted it into the computer. Copying the data took only a few moments.

"That's that," I said, withdrawing the disk.

"Not quite."

Talissa and I spun to the right, shifting our gazes upward. There, on the elevated platform, stood two people. One was a tall human Hunter with a scarred face and blue outfit pointing a charged autogun in our direction. Next to him was a female android Ranger, also in blue but with a synth-skin face and limbs. The launcher she carried was bigger than she was, and was capable of spraying a wave of five lethal projectiles with one pull of the trigger. Neither wore insignia other than their Section ID badges; like ourselves they were hunters from the Guild.

"I wouldn't suggest trying anything stupid," Scarface advised. "You don't have a gun out, and the girl's blades ain't gonna reach this far."

He was right and we knew it. Two more men came forward to join Scarface and the android, presumably entering the room by some other door or passageway. One wore long robes, immediately marking him as a Force, trained in the use of mystic techniques rather than in combat. His spiky white hair matched his robes, the latter almost looking more like a wedding dress than a hunter's uniform. The other was a huge man with a bright pink Mohawk--when you're that big, you don't have masculinity issues--carrying paired Photon knives. I wondered what it was that made he and the RAcaseal both choose weapons that looked ridiculous for their respective sizes.

"Go get the data, Rouge," Scarface told the big one. The Force followed the giant Hunter down the ramp and around towards us. "Put away those stickers, now," the enemy leader ordered Talissa. "I don't want you getting any bright ideas when my boys get close."

"Whyever would you think I'd do something like that?" she muttered, but powered down the Musashi, put the weapon away, and slapped the datadisk into Rouge's hand.

"Better frisk her, to make sure she's not hiding anything," suggested the android in the voice of a six-year-old girl. There was a twisted, leering sense of anticipation in her speech that was immediately echoed in Rouge's face, but while the big man's look was merely offensive hearing that tone in the android's child-voice made me shudder in horror.

Talissa didn't waste time on horror, but just acted. When Rouge, having emptied his hands of disk and daggers both, reached for her she took a quick step into him and elbowed the Hunter in his lower belly, below his armored chestplate. She then pivoted into and around his body, using him as a human shield, and let loose a Zonde technique. The blast spiked into the android, but without the shorting effect it had had on the military bot earlier. Sometimes your luck just wasn't in.

Meanwhile, I'd reacted to Talissa's plan by trying to simultaneously dive for cover behind the computer terminal and draw my gun. I wasn't fast enough, though (dulled reflexes from my physical and emotional state, hopefully, rather than being my natural plodding slowness), and I felt a burning pain in my lower leg snap that leg sideways and change the momentum of my dive. I went from a controlled leap to a clumsy belly-flop on the hard floor.

I did manage to draw the autogun, though, and trying my best to ignore the pain I rolled onto my back, half sat up while pulling my legs back up to my chest to get them out of the open (try that a couple hundred times for a good abdominal workout), and shot at the Force, who was my only real target of opportunity.

The Force had been trying something and had his concentration interrupted when my shot hit his shoulder. Obviously, though, whatever protective frame was equipped under those robes was a good one, because while his shoulder was snapped back no wound blossomed and he whipped up his other hand, conjuring a technique which took little time or effort.

Rouge chopped down with a massive hand onto the left side of Talissa's neck.

The RAcaseal laughed, a shrill keening, then squealed in pain as she fired the launcher. Berserk, I realized, a technique-like weapon augmentation unit that drained life from the firer to power up the Photon shots. Blasts scored the floor, smashed the walls--and two of them punched right through her ally, Rouge. One of those pierced Rouge's hip and went straight on through into Talissa's abdomen.

Fire burst from the Force's hand, streaking towards me. It impacted dead-center on my chest, and I felt my armor crackle further as the blow snapped me over backwards, slamming me onto my back on the floor.

I was down, and Liss was worse-off than I was, I feared. We were finished.

Then Hell decided to remind all of us where we were.

The android went flying down off the platform for no reason I could initially see--flying down, crashing into the far wall. I could see the huge caved-in spot in her upper back where a blow of titanic force had been struck. Almost as soon as she hit the ground, long rubbery tentacles snaked out, barbed tips whipping the metal body, striking sparks as they carved it open. The door was suddenly full of squid-like bodies, sea creatures somehow translated to land, balanced upright on several tentacles and striking out with the two long ones in front. I'd heard of them, Dolmolms and Dolmdarls, though I didn't know which were the blue ones and which the violet.

Even wounded, Rouge leapt into the fray, the blue Photon blades of his knives carving unnatural flesh. The Force conjured again, Gizonde lashing out with a bolt of lightning leaping from monstrous squid to another.

On the platform, Scarface was firing at...something. I couldn't see anything there, but the smack of Photon against metal was clearly audible. I raised my own gun and fired as well, trying to get to my feet. The something hit Scarface and he went down, rolling away.

Rouge went down, too, swarmed by the squid-things.

I fired twice more, and caught a glimpse of something huge and light blue in color. It was pivoting towards me, legs flexing...then it was gone again.

I flung myself down once more, just in time. I felt the rush of air left by the invisible machine as it hurtled through the space I had just vacated. It crashed into the computer terminal, utterly wrecking the conical workstation.

Dols swarmed towards myself and the Force.

A spray of frozen shards passed over my head from behind; the invisible robot had some sort of ice weapon.

I grabbed Talissa's ankle.

The Force raised his hands, clouds of purple swirling around them, an expression of pure fury twisting his face. I knew what was coming. Megid. Instant destruction.

A Dolmolm (darl?) whipped his chest.

The sound of gunfire. Scarface, up again?

My free hand slammed down a telepipe.

I heard the concussive boom of the vortex opening, the gateway back to Pioneer 2.

The Seabed faded to black as we ascended from one Hell into another.

[EdenJurai]

GREAT story thus far! http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

[DezoPenguin]

Thanks for the kind words--and thanks to all of you who are still following the story (the few, the proud, the people whom I can count on one hand. ^_-). Anyway, this chapter features the appearance of a few NPCs we all know and lo--well, that we all know, at least, and Sejanus finds out just how deep the rabbit hole really goes.

__________________________________________________ ___

GHOSTS OF THE PAST
Chapter 6

Hopkins was on time for our meeting; in fact, I was two minutes early and I found him waiting outside the bar for me. When his father was involved, Hopkins definitely didn't keep people waiting.

Of the people I knew on Pioneer 2, Hopkins was one of the more interesting characters. He was a fellow hunter, specifically a Force, and like Talissa a Newman. Fashion was definitely not his strong suit; he himself was short and heavyset and the yellow outfit did nothing for his build. His hat was tall and wide, actually larger than his head. Then again, I've never actually met a male Newman whose clothes sense was anything but outlandish. I think that whatever twist of brain chemistry programs most females of the race to wear as little as possible goes a little haywire in a man's body.

As far as fieldwork went, Hopkins was strictly a second-rater. What he could be relied on for was information. He kept track of all the rumors that buzzed around the Guild, and when anything significant went down he was sure to know about it. I'd only learned recently the reason for his interest, namely his father, Paganini.

Paganini had once been a key member of Pioneer 2's Lab until a quarrel with Natasha had forced him out of his official position. He continued his work, however, which ran into areas that many of the factions on board considered their exclusive purview. He therefore kept tabs on all of them through his network of informants and underworld contacts. Although Hopkins wasn't part of Paganini's project, the scientist did use his son now and again to liase with the Hunter's Guild.

There was, I supposed, an outside chance that it had been Paganini who had sent out Scarface and the others, since Mome's data would probably be of interest to him. I doubted it, though, not because Paganini was incapable of it but because neither the hunters nor their methods fit his usual pattern. Paganini used first-tier hunters, not thugs, and preferred to act by stealth instead of using brute force that would give Natasha and the Administration an excuse to crush him.

As always, Hopkins brought me to his father by using a series of warp pads, no doubt with their standard destinations recoded for this purpose. The miniteleporters were the easiest way to make sure I didn't know Paganini's exact location on Pioneer 2. Not surprisingly, he guarded his privacy jealously.

"Father!" Hopkins called as we emerged from the last teleport. "I've brought Sejanus to see you."

"Excellent. I won't detain you any further; I know that you have an important Guild Quest to attend to. Just remember to take along a partner--a Force of your talents can always use a Hunter to engage the enemy at close range while you use your techniques from a distance."

"Oh, don't worry, Father. You know I always go on jobs with a team big enough to handle them."

"Hm," Paganini murmured noncommittally. Hopkins apparently took this for approval, because he smiled and ducked out of the room.

"He's a good boy," Paganini remarked, "but he tries too hard, I think, and I'm afraid it's all to please me. You're his friend, Sejanus; try to keep an eye out for his welfare, will you?"

"Of course."

His fingers rhythmically caressed the head of his cane.

"Now, all we need to do is to look out for yours. By the way, you'll be glad to know that I have no particular interest in Mome's data. It has little bearing on my work."

"How did you--?" I shook my head. "Never mind. I ought to expect it by now."

"Probably you should. Certainly, I'm not the only one with eyes inside the Lab. The Administration, the military, organized crime, they all are involved in spy activities there. Unfortunately, it means that I don't know who's necessarily responsible for what actions."

"Maybe I can narrow it down for you. I've got two names, four faces, and a job to ask about; I need whatever details you can give me."

"Of course," he repeated, and smiled broadly at me. "Still and all, you're now entering into the realm of business decisions, Sejanus. Information is power, and the more I tell you, the less power I retain."

I'd known it would come to this, and I'd come prepared. I took out a small pouch and spilled five glittering green-blue drops of crystallized Photon into my palm.

"I think that's fair payment for information received," I offered.

"Sejanus, you're out to break an old Newman's heart, aren't you? Not even a pretense of haggling, just an opening offer high enough that to turn it down would be an insult. Where's the fun in any of that?"

"I'm afraid I'm a bit too pressed for time for fun," I said regretfully.

"I suppose you are at that." He extended a hand, and I pressed the Photon drops into it. "So, what is it that you want to know?"

"Recently, Dr. Mome's been working on a research project for the Lab--but I guess you know that already," I added, recalling Paganini's initial comments. "I'm certain that he had an escort of hunters; as I found out for myself there's no way he could have done the job without it."

"Quite," Paganini agreed with a glance at my braced leg.

"I want to know who those hunters were. I need to talk to them."

"I see. Well, as it happens, I do know whom the Lab hired for that job, because I thought I might need to approach one or more of them for information. There were four: Gene Dyson, Feric Loramis, Parlo Astwell, and Kestrel."

"The last one's the android? Or someone else by the same name?"

"Falcon-Type #7, Hunter matrix programming," Paganini verified.

The rest I could access through the city directory. Since two of the names were the ones Dr. Karuta had identified as the people who'd brought Mome to the medical center, I was sure that Paganini had his information straight.

"Now, Sejanus, I hope that's not all you want to know, or else I'll have to give you change, which would truly depress me."

"It's not. I had a run-in with a team of four hunters, the kind who aren't too picky about the kind of jobs they take on. I have a bad feeling they're working for one of the underworld groups; they were definitely that type. I'm hoping you can put names to a few faces, and more importantly fill in who's pulling their strings."

"I can but try. Go on."

"It's another team of four, two HUmars, a RAcaseal, and a FOmar. I've got one name, Rouge. He's one of the HUmars, with a pink Mohawk and a thing for daggers. He is--was--huge, too; he could give most RAcasts a run for their money in the size department."

Paganini shook his head.

"I'm afraid that particular combination doesn't ring any bells. That's not surprising, though. He sounds more like a Downtown street-fighter than a hunter. Those types are commonly used as thugs by underworld bosses, so he probably got his Hunter's License only so he could provide backup, muscle, for the others."

"Probably. Rouge was taking orders, not giving them, and he didn't say or do anything that would suggest he'd be anything but another example of the classic stereotype of 'big and dumb.' It was the other Hunter who was clearly in charge of the group." I described Scarface with as much detail as I could.

"Hm, that could be one of a number of people...wait, now--the RAcaseal. Was she tiny, with an organic look and an aggressively sadistic personality?"

"That's her--or, more accurately, was her. The monsters were quite thorough in their treatment."

"I would not complain. She was a thoroughly nasty character, first of a set invented by Seiji Muramasa at Coratec Industries fifty years ago."

"Fifty years?"

"Yes, she was an old-model android, not an independent one. She often works as support for a scarred hunter called Dual, which is obviously not his real name. Most people think he's her master, but that isn't the case. Dual works as a field agent for Muramasa-ichi's real master, who happens to be one of the underworld bosses who make up the syndicate called Black Paper."

"Them again. I thought we'd heard the last of them for a while." I'd crossed paths with Black Paper before; they were wired into various government, military, and Lab power centers and interested in anything having to do with Pioneer 1 and especially Dr. Osto Hyle. Their actual underworld activities were in smuggling, black-market operations, dealing in weapons and android components, and even slavery. "What's the boss's name?"

"Hideki Takamura."

My reply was anatomically unlikely.

"Apparently you know the gentleman?" Paganini said wryly.

"We've met." I'd crossed paths with him in an attempt to close a missing-hunters case several months ago. I'd traced weapons stolen from the missing hunters to Takamura, and in response to my provocation he'd sent a goon squad to kill me. Things had just been getting interesting when someone stepped in. My military employers made it plain to me that any further activity by me in that area would cost me any chance of searching for Vel, while at the same time Black Paper's leadership had obviously weighed in to keep Takamura from pursuing personal grievances against me.

I should have guessed it wasn't finished between the two of us. He'd be certain, now that I was again in his way, to try and reduce me to crematorium dust. Yet on some level I welcomed it. I'd felt worse about myself than I ever had before when I'd allowed that lieutenant from WORKS to make me back down. Now, life had conspired to give me that rarest of rare gems.

A second chance.

"Are they known to freelance?" I asked, just to cover all the bases. "To take on jobs that don't come from Takamura?"

"Dual does, sometimes. Like most of Black Paper's pet hunters, he tries to maintain enough of a cover that the Guild can't eject them and thereby see them banned from Ragol. Muramasa-ichi, though...no. She wasn't trustworthy enough to be let off her leash. Unfit for service as a hunter or any job involving controlled violence."

"That clinches it, then. They were working for Takamura, in pursuit of Mome's data." I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. "Now, I just need a plan to try and expose them."

"It will not be an easy trick."

"No, I don't think it will, but it's worth doing--and not just because it'll keep me alive. Thanks for the information, Paganini."

"You paid for it, Sejanus. A deal is a deal. Which reminds me that you have not yet obtained all that you paid for."

"What? Oh, yes, the Force." I'd almost forgotten him, once it had been established that Takamura had commissioned the enemy hunters. Still and all, Paganini had a point--I'd paid for it. And why not be thorough?

"He was tall, only an inch or so shorter than I am, with spiked white hair and wearing a white robe. He was young, though; the hair was either his natural color or an affectation but it hadn't gone gray. Oh, and he didn't appear to have any weapons equipped, not even one of those little technique-enhancing wands, which is kind of odd. He must have been going for speedy technique use."

"Hm. A human male Force with white hair, white robes, and a disdain for weapons use. Do you know, Sejanus, that while I'm unaware of any connection between he and Takamura, you've just given me a respectable thumbnail sketch of Parlo Astwell."

[DezoPenguin]

Did you think that Black Paper would just sit there letting Sejanus gather information about them? Not likely!

__________________________________________________ ___

GHOSTS OF THE PAST
Chapter 7

Astwell!

That someone like Takamura was involved in this came as no surprise, though his specific involvement was an attention-grabber. That Parlo Astwell, one of Mome's escorts who'd brought him to the medical center, was also one of the hunters who'd attacked us in the Seabed, was the first genuine bombshell. Had Black Paper hired him to learn as much as possible about Mome's mission? Or, more likely, had he been Takamura's plant all along, and the likely suspect as the poisoner?

The implications were such that I barely remembered to ask Paganini the last thing I wanted from him: to place my military access code on the black market for sale--and if possible, to doctor what records there might be to indicate it had been available for at least a full day. It was an alibi for when WORKS queried their computers to see who'd used their pet teleporter in the mines. He agreed, and I left. My exit was barely polite, but I had to talk to the other members of Mome's escort if I was to pin down Parlo's guilt.

I'd never met Gene or Feric, but I did have a passing acquaintance with Kestrel. I wouldn't have called him a friend, but we'd worked together on a couple of quests and he was a reliable teammate. I'd start with him, then, and branch out to the others. A quick PDL call verified that he was at home, and I programmed the aerocar to fly to his residence block. The computer beeped and displayed the revised destination map.

Then the aerocar failed to take a turn when it was supposed to.

A block later, it did turn, but right instead of left and dropped two traffic channels while doing so.

Aerocar transit was strictly regulated on Pioneer 2; it had to be. The impact of flying missiles into tall buildings in under artificial-gravity conditions was bad enough, but if one somehow managed to get out of control to the extent that it would strike the dome, things could get messy. Of course there were safeguards against a dome breach, automatic repair systems, the fact that the buildings would seal shut airlock-tight to preserve atmosphere, but some things weren't to be played around with. Travel was largely automatic, guided by the traffic channels, and even manual control was subject to many automated overrides. There were no breakneck-speed aerocar chases on Pioneer 2 the way there were in Coral's cities. The pure need for survival outweighed personal freedom.

Knowing all this, I didn't panic. It would be next to impossible for any hacker to make my aerocar crash, and raise far too many questions. No, a more likely scenario was that someone had hijacked my autodrive to being me to a specific location. Perhaps it was for a meeting, but more likely it meant an ambush. Elimination.

If that was the case, panic would just do their job for them.

There weren't many convenient spots for disposing of a person in the city. It was only three years old, after all, and every industrial facility vital to the population's survival, so there were no abandoned factories, no stretches of urban wasteland. There was the Downtown slum, of course, and a few empty offices...

Then again, I'd once had an attempt made on my life in a crowded shopping arcade. Sometimes the bad guys just didn't care about the collateral damage.

The aerocar made two more turns along the way before it slowly settled in towards a floating park, on a level with some of the upper decks but not attached to any building. Trees, shrubs, footpaths, and even an ornamental lake made for a little slice of the natural in the colony ship's wholly artificial world. Yet despite its beauty and its civilized surroundings the park was as much the killing ground as that cold metal and plastic nightmare factory under the sea.

Human evil knew no geographical boundaries.

As the car slid into a docking slot, I used the opportunity to prepare. Although not a Force I did have some limited proficiency with technique use, and I employed Deband to boost the effectiveness of my damaged armor in repelling physical attacks. I then drew my autogun, verified that the Photon pack was nearly full, and activated the driver. As the sighting bar faded into existence I powered down the aerocar, then opened the door.

I took it as a good sign that a rifle shot didn't strike me the moment I got out.

The entrance to the park was a sweeping arch ornamented with the kind of designs more common to ancient temples than Pioneer 2. It was as if the architect had realized that the usual multicolored beams and shifting patterns of light would look horrid next to the natural beauty of green growing things, as out of place as a flower-box in the Lab control center. I knew that the arch was equipped with Photon-detectors to scan for weapons such as the one I carried.

I was all but given a heart attack by the squeal of the alarm. I leaped back in shock and powered down my autogun's Photon driver at once, causing the alert signal to lapse into silence. Since no security personnel appeared to ask me why I was attempting to carry a charged weapon into the detection field, I assumed that...arrangements...had been made to delay any official response time. I did, however, put away the gun.

The good news was that so far as I knew Photon-dets were either on or off. They applied to everyone. Whomever was waiting for me did not have armed Photon weapons either, and I'd know instantly if one was charged up. Either this was supposed to be a peaceful meeting or else I wasn't up against hunters. Common thugs rarely had powerful Photon weapons, instead wielding purely physical implements, the kind of thing that works fine in a back-alley brawl but not when a Booma is trying to claw your head off.

The park was eerily deserted as I started off down the path, the soles of my boots echoing quietly off the faux-rock flagstones. The spot between my shoulder blades itched as if it was in someone's gunsights. No one else was in sight, not even a tiny maintenance robot flitting by on some errand. Above, an aerocar drifted past in the traffic channel, and between the trees I could see peeking through the lights of the surrounding skyscrapers but for all that I felt just as if I was alone in the Ragol wilderness, expecting danger at any moment.

It was that mindset that saved me.

I'd heard that ping! noise many a time before, the noise of a Photon-camouflaged trap arming for detonation. I didn't think, just reacted by flinging myself aside. My shoulder hit the soft lawn and I rolled, feeling a wave of chilly air wash over me. Freeze trap, I realized, and knew that I'd been just out of range.

Two figures had broken from the cover of the treeline when I'd triggered the trap and were pounding towards me now. Street fighters, I guessed from their synthetic-leather pants and tattooed torsos. Both were lean and rangy, well-muscled but not big like Rouge. One had metal plates fitted over his knuckles and solid bars gripped in his fists, adding mass to his punches and unyielding steel to the impact. The other wielded a small flail consisting of two bars linked by a short chain.

They were on me in an instant, but I managed to block the first punch of the metal-fisted one with my wrist to his forearm and swiftly responded with a counterpunch to the belly. The flail man was trying to flank me, since he needed a little more space to operate than his partner, so I kicked out and scored on the side of his knee, making him stumble.

Fist-man came at me again; he was tougher than I'd guessed, the stomach-blow having only slowed him momentarily. I bunched my shoulder to absorb a punch, then jerked my head back to avoid an uppercut and ended up taking a flail hit across the spine. I dropped at once, feigning weakness, then as soon as I hit the ground I scissored the flailer's legs and twisted, propelling him face-first onto the grass. I chopped at the side of his partner's knee and sprang up, only to take a punch to the breastbone that sent me staggering back. Without Deband, I'd have probably been in a lot of pain.

As it was, I still retained enough of my equilibrium that when Metal Fist followed up with a long, looping right hand I forestalled it with a quick jab to the face, then a second that bloodied his nose. I might have been able to press my own attack then, but was cut off by the flailer. The nunchucklehead had gotten up and was taking a swing at my skull, so I mule-kicked in desperation. I'd been going for the low blow (you do what you can when outnumbered) but missed, instead catching him just at the waistline.

Talissa would have put them both down by now, I thought as the puncher recovered himself and made his next attack. I was fending them off but not really able to make any follow-up moves because they were fairly competent.

That was when I realized that in the stress of the fight I'd lost sight of my overall strategy. What I needed was to escape, not waste my time slugging it out with these punks.

With that in mind I made a feint to lure Metal Fist into an attack, an easy thing to do, and when he punched I sidestepped and grabbed his upper arm for leverage, then used that grip and a hand to the small of his back to send him stumbling into his partner. They both went down and I pivoted and ran.

My flight carried me into the park, but then again my aerocar probably wouldn't work anyway, since its flight computer had been hacked. If I could get to the other end of the basically rectangular park, I might find the transport my ambushers had used. It wasn't likely they would have disabled their own vehicle.

Ping!

My vision swam and my head spun dizzily. My next steps were random staggers. I couldn't see straight, couldn't balance right.

Confusion trap! I hadn't been able to dodge it because my reflexes were dulled by thinking--planning my escape had divided my attention and cost me the half-step I'd needed. Now I wasn't stepping anywhere; with my vision and balance disrupted by the trap's sonic attack I could barely keep from falling down, let alone move in a straight line.

The only good news was that the effect would clear when my body stabilized itself. Since I was neither carrying a Sol Atomizer nor knew a high-level Anti technique I couldn't dispel the effect, so it was good that it would wear off.

Footsteps.

I couldn't even turn around to see who was coming, couldn't focus my vision well enough to make it out anyway. I was sure, though, that it was an enemy; this was the killing ground and I was without friends.

Only one option made any sense to me. I used my Zonde technique. The confusion had left me unable to effectively aim, but I could still use techniques and Zonde didn't need to be aimed, merely homing in on the nearest viable target. I heard the crackle of lightning and a short grunt of pain in a woman's voice. A woman--so now there were at least three against me. I tried to call up a second Zonde but there was no time. The sword-strike hit me like a thunderbolt, the attacker's open hand as rigid and unyielding as the blade the handfighting blow was named after. It was Deband, again, that kept me from being incapacitated, that perhaps saved my life, but my already weakened torso armor shattered into pieces and I was catapulted off my feet, hitting the grass hard.

Sometime between the blow and my impact with the ground the confusion faded and I could see my enemy. She was an android, with a perfect, beautiful face and jet black hair, clothed mostly in red. She stood in an open-hand combat stance; unlike Muramasa-ichi this one had a Hunter template and clearly her neural net had progressed well beyond the basic combat program.

It took no thought, no reaction time at all for my hand to close around my autogun's grip while my finger reached for the arming switch. If I tried to go hand to hand with this HUcaseal I was a dead man. Legal penalties for using a Photon weapon in a prohibited area or for engaging in an unauthorized investigation on board Pioneer 2 be damned!

I didn't have to worry about the Photon-dets going off, though, as a sharp kick swept the gun out of my hand before I could even get the Photon driver active. She yanked me to my feet and used an immobilization on my right arm, sending pain searing through me.

"Worthless Ranger. You know nothing of honorable battle, using guns because you fear death. A true warrior does not need to cower at range from enemies."

I could have responded by pointing out that she was nothing but a machine, a weapon built by someone even if she was an intelligent and self-aware one and that her employer was so cowardly he hadn't even bothered to show up for the battle at all. That would have been stupid, though. Instead, I used the time her speech took to call up another Zonde. Her body spasmed wildly and she staggered back--and she let go of me.

I didn't waste breath jeering or to try to save pride with a counterattack; I ran. Hard and fast I lit out, to get away from the deadly android and try to reach the park exit. Only, when I rounded a bend in the path I saw Parlo Astwell standing there in his Force's robes. He was well back from the turn--far enough that I couldn't bowl him over with my charge--so I veered hard to the left as his hands came up, just in time that the explosive fireball from his Foie barely missed me. I plunged into a small copse of trees, which offered cover from many kinds of technique, hoping to get out of Zonde range (or that Astwell just wasn't good with it).

There were footsteps behind me, obviously the android's. I couldn't stop moving or she'd be on me. My lungs burned with the exertion of sprinting, and I burst from the trees--

--only to careen into the four-foot wall that marked the edge of the park. My momentum nearly carried me over, but I caught the edge just in time. It was a long way down, at least eight traffic channels. In the uppermost a long, purple omnibus was slowly moving by.

With a crash the android tore free of the trees. I was trapped, finished.

When the idea hit me I acted on it at once. Had I stopped to think I'd have been out of time. I grabbed the edge, vaulted up, my boot getting a slight foothold, and then I was plunging through the air. My aim was good, though--judging range, distance, and predicting motion of targets is what I do as a Ranger, after all--and I landed with a jolt on the roof of the omnibus.

The HUcaseal was not daunted by my Net-broadcast dramatics. She mounted the edge, ready to follow, but before she could leap a spotlight stabbed down from one of the upper channels, accompanied by the squeal of a siren from a military police cruiser. For some reason the cruiser was completely ignoring me, the guy who'd gone leaping through open space, and instead focusing wholly on her. She turned at once and vanished back into the park, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I'd been extremely lucky to escape that trap, or else I had a guardian angel looking out for me.

I crawled to the forward right corner of the omnibus and managed to get myself down onto the auxiliary ladder. My arms trembled so badly from exhaustion and the aftereffects of the adrenaline rush that I was afraid I would fall, but I managed to hold on, open the door, and swing myself inside. The driver looked at me, dumbfounded; I doubt he got too many mid-air passengers.

"Which bus is this?" I asked, digging out the fare.

"Um...it's the Purple Line Number 4," he managed to say despite his slack jaw.

I dropped my ten meseta into the slot.

"Well, that's just typical."

"What is?"

"Wouldn't you know it? I go through all that trouble to catch the bus and it's not even going the right way."

__________________________________________________ ___
NEXT CHAPTER PLUG: Things quiet down momentarily as Sejanus tries to trace what actually happened to Mome.

[EdenJurai]

EXCELLENT!!!!!!!!! I can't wait for the next chapter!!!!! http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

[Solstis]

When I have mental energies, I'll finish reading it.

I guess I'm used to shorter chapters.

but, without further ado:

http://img43.photobucket.com/albums/v133/Toldos/award2_03.gif

...man, I love your descriptions.

I can feel the Seabed.

Ew... sticky...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Solstis on 2004-04-13 17:06 ]</font>

[DezoPenguin]

On 2004-04-13 16:49, Solstis wrote:
When I have mental energies, I'll finish reading it.

I guess I'm used to shorter chapters.

...man, I love your descriptions.

I can feel the Seabed.

Ew... sticky...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Solstis on 2004-04-13 17:06 ]</font>


Thanks! My very first award in FanWorks! I feel special now. And I'm glad you were able to feel some of the creeping horror I first felt when I ventured down into Seabed. That level really had an effect on me (as opposed to, say, Caves or Spaceship which were basically arenas for combat) when I initially experienced it...an effect that was only deepened when the Sinows started attacking my poor HUcaseal for the first time.

[DezoPenguin]

Thanks to everyone who read that last chapter--nearly 15 of you!--as well as those who made nice comments. This time out, having escaped the assorted goons, Sejanus digs deeper into the conspiracy before they can get the chance to do their jobs right...

__________________________________________________ ___

GHOSTS OF THE PAST
Chapter 8

"You're late."

Never go to a HUcast for sympathy. Even the ones who aren't programmed to be cold-blooded killing machines are rarely warm and fuzzy.

"People were trying to kill me. I'd have been very happy to let them know I had an appointment somewhere else, but they simply weren't interested in my schedule."

"Pity. Villainous louts are so rarely considerate."

"Actually, one of the louts was a former teammate of yours, a Force named Parlo Astwell."

Kestrel tipped his head to one side. Actually, for a HUcast he had quite an advanced emotional program and a number of mannerisms that displayed those feelings. The Falcon-types, I recalled, had been specifically designed to operate as special forces units integrated into a team of humans and Newmen. Therefore, they were supposed to be as "normal" as possible in order to help build unit cohesion.

"You surprise me, Sejanus."

"You didn't think that he would do that sort of thing?"

"No, it is your knowledge that I worked with him that surprises me. I have only done so on one occasion, and that a government mission subject to a high security classification."

"You know how it works around here. No secrets--except the ones that really matter."

"Indeed."

Kestrel turned from me and went to the windows. His quarters were spartan in the extreme: his regeneration capsule, a computer/broadcast system, and three chairs were the only furnishings. He did, however, have a very nice view, and seemed fond of watching the world go by.

"I think that Astwell might be responsible for what happened to Dr. Mome."

Kestrel nodded slowly.

"It is not inconceivable. I found him to be a cold and unpleasant figure, although a skilled professional. Perhaps ironically, on a number of occasions his command of techniques was required to save our lives against the denizens of the Seabed laboratories."

"But you still think he was capable of poisoning Mome."

"Indeed. My assessment of him would be that he was loyal to money, a true mercenary with otherwise limited ethical standards."

That was as good a description as any of a man who voluntarily worked for Takamura.

"Can you tell me what happened that day, when Mome was attacked?"

"I see no harm in doing so," Kestrel remarked with a shrug. "Dr. Mome was working at the computer while the four of us patrolled the surrounding area. You see, our purpose was to intercept any creatures or robots and engage them well away from the doctor."

"Yeah, nothing like letting a stray shot hit the guy you're trying to protect."

"That, and the Zoa and Zele-type Sinow units found in the Seabed are equipped with short-range warp devices. This makes it impossible to act as a shield in the immediate presence of the one you are trying to protect."

I hadn't known that. Fun toys Pioneer 1 had come up with, weren't they?

"It was Feric who gave the alarm. He'd found Dr. Mome sprawled at the base of the computer. I was the last to arrive; Feric had already ordered Parlo and Gene to get Dr. Mome to the medical center."

"So Feric was your team leader?"

"Nominally. We had no formal leader but his was the quickest mind in a crisis situation. Since our mission was supposed to be a secret," he continued, the stress obviously for my benefit, "we couldn't leave anything lying around. I packed up the chemical analysis supplies, while Feric closed out the computer program Dr. Mome had running and then shouldered the lighter load. We took the teleporter back to the Lab so as not to appear in the middle of the Guild deck with all that equipment."

I nodded.

"No reason to let the military know what you'd had with you--and therefore what you'd been doing."

"Which, I may point out, raises the question of why I am talking about this with you."

I scowled at him.

"Maybe you missed the news, Kestrel. The military decided that they could do without my services. I'm not reporting to them."

Ironically, I now knew something that they'd probably be interested in knowing. If all Mome had been doing was assembling Dr. Osto's data from the Seabed computers, there'd be no need for additional equipment. Clearly he'd been doing experiments of his own, although nothing too elaborate if the equipment was portable. Probably testing or verifying some of the results he'd found.

Well, Mome is the head of a Lab research team. He's not a moron, for all that we hunters make fun of him.

"I see. I am sorry to hear that."

I shrugged.

"I don't know. I'll miss the steady work, but given some of the stuff WORKS had been getting up to...No, they aren't people I really want to be associated with."

And, surprisingly, it was the truth. I was sick of 32nd WORKS and their twisted games. They were, at times, no better than Black Paper. Maybe worse; at least Black Paper, being an underworld syndicate, wasn't supposed to be protecting the colonists on Pioneer 2. WORKS, though, was betraying their duty as military officers. Vel would have been ashamed of them.

In a strange way, I was almost glad she wasn't alive now, to see the stains being put on the uniform she'd loved so much.

"Without Heathcliff Flowen," Kestrel agreed, "the military is no longer what it once was."

"Amen to that. Do you know how to get in touch with Feric? I'd just call him up but he'd probably be more likely to talk with me if the request came from someone he knows and has worked with."

Kestrel's head dipped, and his eye-lights dimmed momentarily.

"I am afraid that will be impossible, Sejanus."

I got that old sinking feeling in my stomach again.

"How come?"

"Feric died yesterday, of an apparent heart attack."


* * *

"Feric Loramis? Oh, yeah, I know the name. Died yesterday--heart attack, though, so not my problem. Just popped on the list."

Inspector Laleham was Pioneer 2's Chief of Homicide Investigation. Murder was his business, and it was a bitch of a job for an honest cop. With the three arms of government constantly working behind each other's back, the jurisdictional question of who could enforce what on Ragol's surface, and the fact that even the underworld gangs had ties to political muscle he ran into more cover-ups than he knew what to do with. Added to his problems was that there was no civilian police on Pioneer 2, so he and his staff were military, subject to the military chain of command. It wasn't hard to see why his job was immensely frustrating.

"Heart attack," I said dubiously. "You're the second person that's told me that."

"Well, damn, Sejanus, I'm not going to make up a new cause of death just so you can have some variety. Good old myocardial infarction's what killed your fellow Ranger."

"Allegedly."

"You've got a suspicious mind, Sejanus."

"And you don't?"

Laleham shrugged.

"You're a hunter, so you've got a little more freedom of action to poke around on fishing expeditions. Me, if the medical report says natural causes I've got no jurisdiction to look into things unless I've got hard evidence there's trout in that particular pond. What I've got is a diagnosis saying heart and a tox screen countersigned by Dan Whatshisname--you know, Chief Milarose's aide--saying nobody helped that along with poison." He drummed his thick, spatulate fingers on his console. "You're giving me the fish-eye on this, Sejanus. Do you have any reason for suspecting otherwise? Something I can use to open an official inquiry?"

I opened my mouth. Then I closed it again.

Laleham was honest, but he was also military. Mome's mission was a joint one between the Lab and the Administration. If Laleham opened an official file, it would put the details of the job right into military hands. There was no way on Coral my client would want that. I didn't have the authority to make that call--and I didn't yet have good reason to go against Natasha's wishes.

He could see my answer in my face before I gave it.

"Didn't think so."

"Damn."

"I say that a lot, too, Sejanus. But I'll tell you this--I've got nothing at all that even suggests foul play except that Feric was a hunter and thirty-two years old. Death by natural causes could happen to even hunters, though. Just look at Donoph Baz."

He had a point. Donoph had been a legend, but he'd eventually succumbed to Nature. I'd actually been to the funeral, since Donoph's adopted daughter Alicia was a friend of mine.

"Yeah, maybe so. Besides, if the body's been cremated by now there'll be no way to prove murder anyway."

"Sucks to be an honest cop in this town. Or an honest hunter, I suppose."

"I wonder sometimes why it is we bother."

"Don't know about you, but I like being able to sleep nights."

"There's that, I suppose. Thanks for the information, Inspector."

"Not a problem. And hey, if you get to the point where you can actually talk about the reasons why you're so suspicious, come back and see me."

I stopped on the way out of milipol headquarters and entered a report on my aerocar, how its computer had been hacked and I'd been steered to the park. I left out the follow-up details, making it sound like a generic irritant. They promised to retrieve the vehicle, sweep the autodrive system clean, and do a repair-and-upgrade job on its security, which was about the best I could hope for. I doubted their sweep would pick up any traces back to the original hackers, but you did what you could and it wasn't like the milipol had Lab-quality computer equipment or programmers.

Feric had turned out to be a dead end in more ways than one, so I figured I would talk to Gene Dyson. He probably didn't know anything more than I'd already learned, but I didn't want to confront Takamura without knowing absolutely everything I could. Bad enough he was sending people after me; I didn't need to be starting any countermoves without a coherent strategy. I might as well just draw a couple of nice white circles on my torso and say "come and get me."

Which he probably would, anyway.

I flagged down a taxi and gave it my home address. I needed a decent meal and to make a few calls and that would probably be the best way to handle both at once. I might even manage a bit of online research.

"Sorry, bud. We ain't going there," the driver remarked. The divider between front and back hissed open and I saw not the usual android operator but my old friend Metal Fist from the park, his nose puffy and swollen from where I'd apparently broken it for him.

His passenger was the Hucaseal.

"My master wishes your presence," she stated in a delicate voice that did not go with her metallic-engine-of-death combat routine. "Do not resist or you will be forcibly restrained."

The locks shut with an audible snap. I was alone and unarmed in the vehicle.

"How can I refuse such a polite invitation?" I said sourly, and sank back into the seat. I tried to enjoy the ride. More than likely, it was going to be the most comfort I felt in a while.

__________________________________________________ ___
NEXT CHAPTER PLUG: I think we all know what comes next. Kidnap. Interrogation. Possible torture. Fun stuff like that. See you Monday!

[EdenJurai]

GREAT stuff! A HUcaseal this time, eh? I remember the last RAcaseal...*shudder* GREAT writing! Keep the up the GREAT work! Can't wait for chapter 9! http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

[DezoPenguin]

Well, we've made it up to Chapter 9. Thanks again to all those of you who are reading along...if the page views are any hint, it looks like more people have been reading lately than did at the beginning of the story! Maybe the advertising campaign is working...or maybe somebody's browser's "refresh" button got stuck. ^_-

Anyhow, I shall now reward you for your diligence in following Sejanus's adventures by having the crud beaten out of the main character. This story's been hard on the protagonists!

__________________________________________________ ___

GHOSTS OF THE PAST
Chapter 9

"The last time we spoke with one another, Sejanus, you were extremely disrespectful and rude. I treated you with the courtesy due a Ranger of your skill, and in turn you behaved like an animal, an unrefined brute without the slightest concept of civilization."

Hideki Takamura looked exactly as I remembered him. In his mid-fifties, he utterly scorned personal ornamentation, wearing dark, close-fitting clothing and keeping his iron-gray hair short and square-cut. An inch taller than me, he was also more muscular. I had a feeling he'd be nearly as deadly as his pet android in combat. His face was lined with deep grooves, but there were no laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, probably because he never laughed.

The HUcaseal had let her hair down and had donned an elaborate white kimono decorated with a plum-blossom motif. She knelt by Takamura's side, a sheathed katana across her lap; I didn't know if it was one of the famous Legendary Katanas or only a sharpened piece of steel, not that it mattered since I had been stuck into a chair, my hands tied behind me. Seeing the blade pointed out something that hadn't hit me at the time: the ambush at the park hadn't been meant to kill me, but only to capture me. Now, if I attempted escape, she was prepared to do something more permanent. Nor was she Takamura's only available minion. I could see the two thugs from the park, a rail-thin female version of their type with tightly curled pink hair, and completing the list, the scar-faced hunter from the Seabed that Paganini had said was called Dual.

"I had intended to offer you proper chastisement at that time. However, certain associates of mine informed me that this course would be injurious to their future plans, and so out of consideration for their well-being I withheld my hand."

A fancy way of saying that his bosses in Black Paper had choked up on his leash.

"Now that consideration is no longer relevant, as you have forced yourself back into my arena. I am quite pleased by this turn of events."

"Well, that makes one of us."

I don't know why I say things like that, sometimes.

The android lifted her head.

"Master, may I be permitted to reprimand him?"

I came as near as I ever have to losing bladder control in that moment. There was something in that sweet, jewel-bright voice that spoke without words of needles slipped into the skin, of wire-jackets, of tiny cuts with a razor's edge, of flesh delicately peeled layer by layer. I'd never known an android's artificial eyes could be so expressive.

Takamura saw my reaction and defied my expectations by chuckling softly. He slid his hand over the android's hair and gently cupped the side of her face in his palm.

"Not just yet, Muramasa-shi. I need him for a bit longer, and then you may amuse yourself with him."

"Thank you, Master Hideki."

"It is my pleasure, my dear. A gift to console you in your grief over your sister's passing."

I really had to wonder what kind of man collected non-independent female androids with sadistic tendencies.

Takamura turned back to me. Actually, he'd never really turned away; he'd been all but smirking at me the entire time, and it refined the impression of his character I'd gotten in our first meeting.

"Now, Sejanus, you understand your position. You are going to die in pain, an animal begging for a merciful end to its life. However, I am a man of practical needs as well as one of honor. You have something that I want. My associates will obtain this from you. The longer you refuse them, the longer I will permit Muramasa-shi to withhold the killing stroke when you have been given over to her."

He bowed from the waist, then turned and left the room. Muramasa-shi rose and followed with an elegant grace few androids were able to emulate.

That left me alone in the room with four thugs. Apart from the chair there was no furniture; the floor was faux wood and the ceiling high, the walls appearing to be wood frame and paper (although this was just an artificial layer over ordinary walls). The effect seemed to be a formal training hall for handfighting or bladecraft. As torture chambers went, it was a fairly unusual one. I doubted that would make it hurt less.

"You two, get out of here," Dual ordered my friends from the park.

"Hey, you got no call to be doing that! We got a score to settle with this buttmunch."

"I know. That's why you're going to leave. This isn't about settling old scores."

"Don't worry, boys," the pink-haired girl said. "Maybe Mr. Takamura'll let you watch M-shi do him when we're done. That ought to be plenty of revenge."

Both street fighters shuddered rather than looking happy. I appreciated the point. That HUcaseal was too creepy by half for macho bravado and bad jokes. They left, and Dual came to stand in front of me, looking down with his arms folded across his chest. I could see the armored gauntlets he wore, a martial-arts weapon called an Angry Fist. It was a nasty weapon, quite capable of taking down creatures as powerful as the Sinow Beat in one stroke, if you could get close enough to use it. The Photon drivers weren't charged, though, which made sense--Dual didn't want to reduce my skull to a fine red mist with one punch, after all.

"Okay," he said, "fun and games are over. You know the score and you know what we want. So let's have it."

"Have what?"

He slapped me, backhanded, across the face.

"I'll give that to you, once, just to make sure this doesn't turn into a stupid farce. We want the disk with Dr. Mome's research data on it."

"The last time I saw that, you had it."

He slapped me again, this time giving me a split lip.

"I said once and I meant it, Sejanus. Playtime is over."

"Do I look like I'm playing, here?" I protested. I wasn't, either. The last I'd seen of the disk was when Talissa had given it to Rouge. Surely Dual and Astwell hadn't been so stupid as to leave it in the Seabed?

"Where is it?"

A blow crashed into my stomach. I was forced to admit that even with the Photon driver disabled, an Angry Fist was still quite capable of living up to its name.

"What did you do with it?"

This time the fist exploded into my jaw, knocking me clean out of my chair onto the floor.

"Come on, Sejanus, you're not making this any easier on yourself."

"This is a waste of time. Just let the bot snuff him and be done with it."

Of course the bloodthirsty voice was female, which on this job always seemed to be the case. In my experience, women were the kinder, gentler, nurturing sex only in the delusions of idealistic but patronizing men.

"Have some patience. I have no intention of going home empty-handed. Besides, I think our friend here--" He took advantage of my prone position to ram the toe of his boot into my belly. "--is going to wise up and start talking."

"It's your party. Just wake me if you decide to put him down, okay? I don't want to miss the entertainment."

A hand fisted in my hair and jerked my head up to meet my interrogator's eyes.

"Do you hear that? You haven't got a friend in the world here. She knows how to take orders, though, so I'm going to bet she can keep from making a big stink about it until you're praying for me to finish you. Which I won't, because you know what's coming up next, after we're through here. If I were you, I'd talk right now. It's the only chance you've got, believe me."

I didn't even bother to groan in response.

"Your call, Sejanus. It looks like we're in for a long, ugly night."

He all but threw my head down so that it bounced off the floor, hot sparks of pain shooting through my skull, and only one thought kept repeating itself in my mind:

Damn you, Mome.

Damn you for playing around where no one should go. Damn you for letting your guard down so Astwell could get to you. Damn you for pulling me back into this crazy mess.

I saw him again, as he lay there in his medical center bed, a helpless, pathetic, and vulnerable figure. Childlike, even.

I saw Talissa, the strongest spirit I knew, lying just as fragile, just as helpless.

Damn you for making me care.

I saw myself as I'd been less than twenty-four hours ago, sitting in the Hatless Dezorian, a piece of human wreckage.

And thank you.

"Hell, Dual, you hit him too hard. He's out."

"Just dazed. I figure it gives him a chance to think things through."

Yeah, it did that, all right. Takamura and his people were never getting that data, so long as I had any power to prevent it. Besides, they were going to torture me to death, anyway. I wasn't at all eager to move on from the mere beating to the systematic infliction of pain by a sadistic artist.

Me lying there taking a rest break wasn't in Dual's plans, though. He hauled me up, dumped me back in the chair, and gave me another shot to the gut for good measure.

"I lost a teammate chasing after you, Sejanus."

My head snapped back from the blow to the eye.

"Muramasa-shi lost a sister. That android's none too sane when it comes to torture anyway, but just think what she'll be capable of doing to you for revenge's sake."

Dual wasn't systematic. The beating he administered wasn't fun, but it wasn't what it could have been, either. It wasn't the utter nightmare that was waiting for me.

"Takamura hates you, Sejanus. You know that, right? You disrespected him to his face and he had to let you get away with it. Every minute it takes me to get the data could be fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, even an hour with her. You've got to talk."

I tried not to think about that.

"There are other alternatives."

That wasn't Dual's voice.

"Both of you, step away from that man."

I couldn't see who was talking; he was standing behind me and I couldn't turn my head far enough to see him. Whomever he was, the pink-haired girl did not look impressed. Her lip curled, and her hand dropped to the hilt of her knife.

"Like hell I will, arm--"

The Photon blast hit her unarmored chest dead-center, making a nice little burn hole the size of my fist. She toppled at once. Dual wasn't waiting; he dove to one side and rolled, minimizing his target profile enough that two more rifle shots--I recognized them by the sound--missed him. He then sprang up and was through the door in an instant.

I felt a fine mist spray over me, cool against the side of my face. Immediately my injuries were healed, even the lingering pain gone. My leg was the only exception--but all the damage Dual had inflicted might as well never have happened, thanks to the Star Atomizer. I stood up and saw two soldiers had come into the room from behind me, one in a red beret and one in green. Both wore the insignia of 32nd WORKS.

I recognized the one in the red beret. He'd been the one who warned me off investigating Takamura eight months ago. He'd all but threatened to have my Hunter's License pulled if I hadn't dropped the matter.

It looked like I was out of the frying pan, and into the fire.

__________________________________________________ ___
NEXT CHAPTER PLUG: Thursday, April 22nd...be here when it all goes down! Sejanus, Takamura, Muramasa-shi, Dual, Astwell, 32nd WORKS, and a cast of thugs collide! Oh, and we also learn whether Sejanus prefers game statistics or aesthetic appearance when choosing his equipment.

[EdenJurai]

Again..EXCELLENT!! Had me going there for a minute...it looked like it was the end of Sejanus at some pretty sadistic hands. *WHEW!!* Good writing...kept me on the edge of my seat. Hopefully, that rotten HUcaseal and her miserable master will be given their proper comeuppance. Keep upo the GREAT work!!! http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: EdenJurai on 2004-04-23 05:43 ]</font>

[DezoPenguin]

Last night I celebrated my first victory over Ultimate Dark Falz on Gamecube. W00t! Today, I celebrate Chapter 10 arriving, full of action and excitement. Old scores are about to be settled, and there's gunfire aplenty.

__________________________________________________ ___

GHOSTS OF THE PAST
Chapter 10

"You could," dryly observed the 32nd WORKS officer, "consider thanking me."

He untied my hands while the other soldier kept his eye on the room's two doors. By the rifleman's practiced movements, I could tell that he'd had Ranger training.

"I would, but I'm too busy considering what it's going to cost me, Lieutenant."

"Captain now, Sejanus." He tapped the rank insignia on his shoulder. "Thanks to some of the classic blunders committed by my former superiors, and to the success of my own operations--some of which I have you to thank for, by the way--Leo Grahart has seen fit to reward me."

"Well, bully for you." There was nothing like a good shot of Star Atomizer to make a man feel sassy. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

He gave me a look of complete innocence.

"Why, investigating an illegal intrusion into a WORKS-controlled area on Ragol, of course. Earlier today, your access code was used to bypass security for a WORKS terminal, and the criminal apparently also assaulted a WORKS android and used an illegal disabler."

I shrugged.

"I'm afraid that I sold that access code when the army decided they could do without my services."

The captain clucked his tongue.

"Selling a classified computer access code, Sejanus?"

"A terminated code," I pointed out. "Valuable only as a curiosity. I had no idea an officially canceled code could still be used to access classified data. That sounds like a serious security breach in your technical maintenance." I gave his look of mock innocence right back at him.

"Well, that's what our questioning indicated, but you understand that we did have to verify it with you personally."

"Oh, of course, Captain."

We both knew that the other was lying through his teeth, of course, but I certainly wasn't going to point that out and the officer seemed to have no interest in doing so, either. I thought I had a good idea why.

"Still, the fact that you were an important suspect in this case did give us jurisdiction to step in when you were apparently kidnapped. That was lucky for you; the milipol would have had to establish probable cause to take steps, something I believe they would have a great deal of trouble in doing."

"I can't say that I don't appreciate the rescue."

"In which case, I would like to offer you further employment on behalf of 32nd WORKS."

"You...what?"

"Clearly these criminals need to be brought to justice. Pioneer 2 cannot afford to have this element running loose. If we left now, they would only go to ground and escape justice. However, my aide and I can hardly take on an entire army of underworld thugs. Therefore, I wish you, a trained Ranger, to assist in bringing Hideki Takamura and his employees to justice. For this we would be prepared to offer the sum of ten thousand meseta."

"I'm not exactly equipped for battle, here."

"Actually, Sejanus, as a coincidence I believe I can address that. Since I was searching for you anyway, I'm also running a second errand--efficiency, you know. Based on logs retrieved recently from Ragol, it appears that your late sister Velaria had earned a commendation and reward while in service under Deputy Commander Flowen. As her next of kin, you would be entitled to that reward."

From somewhere he produced a case made of sleek, crimson reflective hex-panels. I snapped it open. A gun rested inside, a handgun-sized piece with a barrel extension that boosted it up to rifle status, together with four clips of ammunition. The latter was necessary because this was not a Photon weapon but an archaic slug-thrower, the top of the line before Photon technology revolutionized weapons design. I'd seen these before but had never actually held one; many experts swore that for pure stopping power and accuracy they were as good or better as the best Photon guns.

It was a Yasminkov 3000R. I knew a couple of fellow Rangers who had the kind of dreams about these things most of us reserve for girls.

"You're offering cash, a rarer-than-rare gun, and the chance to close the books on Takamura. Why?"

"There's no why to it, Sejanus. I'm in a position to help you, and you're in a position to help me. Simple logic."

"Uh-huh."

He snapped his gloved fingers theatrically.

"Oh, there is one more thing. I've received information that Takamura has obtained certain data retrieved from the Seabed facility on Gal De Val Island. It would be a key mission parameter that this stolen data be recovered and turned over to me."

Of course. I get money, revenge, closure for eight months ago, the security of knowing Takamura won't be around the next corner ready to take my head off, and the Yasminkov--he just had to use Vel as his excuse, didn't he?--all for the slight service of selling out my client and giving WORKS the data. Only Takamura didn't have the data, and neither did I.

Or did I?

"All right," I said, and slipped a clip into the Yasminkov. "It's probably a moot point. Takamura's long gone from here."

"Oh, no. We're blocking his only exit."

"Captain, there's a dozen aerocar docks on the upper levels of this building that he could leave by."

"That's true. It's a regrettable tragedy, though, that this building's elevator system has acquired a serious glitch which prevents the doors from opening on this floor."

I was starting to understand why this guy had been promoted. In most of the WORKS operations I'd come into contact with, concepts like "planning" and "forethought" had been notorious by their absence.

"Captain, we've got incoming," the aide announced. A moment later the far door opened and Metal Fist and his flail-swinging friend charged in, only armed with handguns now. The rifle-bearing soldier and I fired simultaneously and the cannon fodder dropped.

Then the explosive detonation of Rafoie dropped us.

That was the whole point of cannon fodder. It was how they'd gotten the name. The general sends them out first to tie up the opponent's troops, letting his own elite operatives act freely. In this case, while we'd shot at the thugs, Astwell had dropped a technique on us.

I was getting really sick of pain.

The Force stepped through the door and tossed the telltale purple cloud of Megid at the captain, who dodged aside and returned the fire with his own rifle, two clean misses.

Unlike me, the aide had the advantage of a military-grade frame under his uniform, so he wasn't half so stunned by the technique as I'd been. He popped back to his feet and fired a quick three-round burst into Astwell's chest. Either Astwell was armored too, or had a Deband technique in effect, or both, because the shots did little more than rock him in place. They did, however, keep him from taking any further action while the captain lined up a few more shots of his own. Higher rank apparently meant a better gun; the laser sent Parlo Astwell to join the goons in death and wreaked a little vengeance for Mome.

I got to my feet, shaking my head to clear it of the last bits of fog.

"We'll split up," the captain decided, when no more troops made their appearance. "No telling who else Takamura's got around here."

"Yeah. If you happen to see a HUcaseal with a katana, don't waste your time on warnings. Just shoot her."

"We're aware of her--and you can rest assured that we'll do exactly as you suggest."

The door at the far end of the room opened into the middle of a corridor, so we went in opposite directions. I opened a couple of doors but found nothing. From time to time I heard scattered gunfire, so I assumed the WORKS soldiers had found someone. I hoped it wasn't Takamura; it was selfish, I knew, but I wanted to bring him down myself.

I kicked open another door and hit the jackpot. Takamura was there, leaning over the shoulder of another man who was working frantically at a computer terminal--trying desperately, I supposed, to undo whatever the captain's e-runners had done to the building's systems.

A shot from the Yasminkov nicely reformatted the computer's memory-ware. The e-worker vaulted out of the chair as if I'd been shooting at him and scuttled out the room's far door.

"Sejanus. You have more lives than a cat," Takamura observed.

"No. It just seems that way. Just like how your bosses have decided that I don't need to be protected, so has the military decided that their alliance with you isn't worth giving up Mome's data."

"Very well," Takamura said. "So it comes down to you and me." He took a katana down from the wall, then lifted down a second one and extended it to me hilt-first. "Let us settle this, for once and for all."

"Oh, please," I sneered. "Do you really think I'm going to go in for that duel of honor crap? This isn't 1975, and you're not some feudal lord. You surround yourself with the trappings of ancient times, you practice swordsmanship, and you prose on about honor and respect, but it's all an act. It's a skin-deep veneer over the core of a cheap thug. You're not an oyabun, Takamura; you're a wannabe poser who gives himself away every time you open your mouth."

"You insolent dog!" he raged. He dropped one katana and lunged with the second. I knew he'd try something; the man had no ability to take an insult. He did manage to surprise me, though, with the speed of his attack. Shooting him wouldn't stop the strike, I knew reflexively, though he'd be dead when he finished the stroke. I shifted my aim and fired. I'm a Ranger, after all; fast, accurate shooting is what I do.

The Yasminkov's slug hit his katana just above the handguard at the base of the blade. A Legendary Katana like Sange would have deflected it effortlessly. A first-class normal katana, too, would probably have withstood the impact.

Takamura's katana snapped, the blade spinning away harmlessly.

"Fitting," I said. "A cheap, modern imitation. Just like the man holding it."

He backed slowly towards the door, staring at the broken stub of his sword still clenched in his trembling grip. I leveled my gun at his chest.

"Don't try it, Takamura. You're under arrest."

His eyes met mine; there was something unfathomable in them. Hatred? Fear? Or just the shocked realization of what he'd done with his life? Then, with a spray of blood, his head separated from his shoulders.

Guess who?

"Master Hideki often expressed his wish that he die rather than being subjected to the indignity and shame of capture," Muramasa-shi said with faint overtones of sadness. I didn't wait for what came next; I just shot. She was so damned fast, though, that she read my intention before I pulled the trigger and my slug tore a gouge from her shoulder instead of piercing her torso. The tip of her bloodied katana flicked out and tore the Yasminkov from my hand, the second time she'd managed to disarm me. She reversed her stroke, and I knew my head was about to join Takamura's.

"Shi! Stop it!"

In a more theatrical storyteller's hands, the blade would have stopped just as it touched my neck, perhaps after severing a few wisps of my long hair to go fluttering to the floor. Actually, the android checked her swing with a good three inches to spare.

"Why should I spare this enemy, Master Dual?"

The scar-faced hunter had entered the room from behind me. It was interesting that with Takamura dead, Muramasa-shi had defaulted to Dual as her new master.

"Because he's a hunter, a businessman, and because we can strike a deal to our benefit. Right, Sejanus?"

"It's your android with the sword at my neck."

"Too true. I'll keep it simple. She and I walk. No charges pressed, no revenge, no military hit squads, nothing further on either side. I did my job, you did yours, no hard feelings."

"What about the data?"

"What do I care about that? It was Takamura's business, not mine. My interest was in the money."

"I can't speak for WORKS." Why do I have to tell the truth at these inopportune moments?

"Sure you can--because you have what they want. They don't care about me or Muramasa-shi, if it gets them that data."

Did I trust Dual? Yeah, I did. I knew his type: mercenary to the core and a pro about it. He'd keep his word because it was good business. If Shi left me a corpse WORKS would pursue the two of them under the assumption they'd taken the data from me. And "no revenge" was good business for him, too, because he had no emotional stake in taking me out and no reason to start a feud with my friends, people like Talissa who'd come gunning for him.

"You'll have to sweeten the deal," I told him.

"Sweeter than your life?" he asked dryly.

"Hey, I'm offering you both your lives in return. That's two to one." I managed a grin, and Dual actually laughed.

"Why not? Ask away."

"I didn't get a chance to ask Takamura. I want to know how to cure the D-cellular poison Astwell slipped to Dr. Mome."

"There's no antidote."

I said something unprintable about Astwell's mother and what she'd done with how many Vulmers to conceive him.

"Creative," Dual commented. "What I meant, though, was that there's no antidote because there's no D-cellular poison. It's just a generic nerve toxin, which Dr. Elessa at the medical center is being bribed to make sure doesn't get cured."

"You would betray an associate, Master Dual?" the HUcaseal said warningly.

"Not an associate," Dual replied. "A paid servant who accepted Takamura's bribe to betray her medical oath."

Muramasa-shi inclined her head, conceding the point. The thought struck me that the insane android actually had a better grasp of the ideals Takamura had attempted to emulate than the man himself had. I wondered what would happen if some day she decided that Dual did not live up to those ethics.

"So, Sejanus, do we have a deal?"

"We do."

"Then farewell. The way to the front door should be clear, at least until your soldier friends finish with the rest of that street muscle." He gave a jaunty little wave, beckoned to Muramasa-shi, and left. She flicked her katana once to remove Takamura's blood, sheathed it, then followed, leaving me alone. I recovered the Yasminkov and verified that it was undamaged, then glanced down at Takamura's corpse.

Dual was right. The past was the past. I couldn't change it, so why should I waste my future worrying about it? Ragol was a whole new world, and I had my own life to live here.

I turned my back on the dead and went to go find the soldiers. I wanted to get this done. There were better places to be.

__________________________________________________ ___
NEXT CHAPTER PLUG: It all comes down to this in the final chapter of "Ghosts of the Past"! Sejanus seems to have made a deal with the devil; now we get to find out just how far he's put his soul in hock. Meet us at the medical center as the last few answers are put together!

[EdenJurai]

[quote]
On 2004-04-22 13:23, DezoPenguin wrote:
Last night I celebrated my first victory over Ultimate Dark Falz on Gamecube. W00t!

CONGRATS!!! http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif
__________________________________________________ ___
EXCELLENT!!!! I'm eagerly awaiting the climax of the story!!! I still hope that that rotten HUcaseal gets her comeuppance! She's scary!

Good job!

[DezoPenguin]

Well, this is it! The last chapter has arrived. No car chases, gunfights, or jumping from ceilings, but I hope there's still plenty of tension in the one last confrontation remaining...

__________________________________________________ ___

GHOSTS OF THE PAST
Chapter 11

The medical center was the point of convergence for everything else that had to be done. Sometimes it just worked out that way.

The WORKS captain and his aide accompanied me directly while Inspector Laleham met us there. My testimony alone (which was hearsay anyway) was by no means enough to charge Dr. Elessa on, but it was enough to have Dr. Karuta come in and take over. His skilled medical testimony, on the other hand, would be more than enough to convict.

As far as the deal I'd struck with Dual went, the captain had no difficulty. The attack on Takamura had been done under color of law, and Dual had never had his hands on the Seabed data. Ergo, he was no threat to WORKS.

"Jumping at shadows is what got a number of my predecessors in hot water," he told me. "I have enough on my plate without creating new problems."

All this official authority, my unofficial status as Talissa's friend, and the general goodwill I'd worked up with the medical staff by helping to save Mome was more than enough for Karuta to let me into Liss's possessions, the things she'd had on her when she'd come back from Ragol. The datadisk, of course, was there. It basically had to be. Rouge had taken it from her, but Dual and Astwell definitely weren't stupid enough to have left it on the body, or lying on the floor of the room if Rouge had dropped it in the fight.

I made a mental note to compliment Talissa on her fast hands. I hadn't even seen her pilfer the disk back while she was grappling with the big thug. Fast thinking, too, to take the step once the melee had broken out and people were paying more attention to survival than anything else. I'd have never thought of it, but then again she was a Hunter. Her primary concerns in combat were the things one could accomplish when close to an opponent.

"What's your partner going to think about this?" the captain asked when I handed over the disk. He checked it to verify that it did in fact contain the target data as opposed to, say, Talissa's grocery lists, then secured it in an inner pocket.

"She'll understand," I said. "At least, she will once I finish explaining it to her. I'll tell her while she's still weak from recovery, so she doesn't put me through a wall before I do finish, though."

The captain chuckled.

"Good plan."

"I thought so, yes."

"It's been a pleasure working with you again, Sejanus." He extended a hand. After a moment, I took it.

"Better than last time," I agreed.

I hoped it wasn't too petty of me that I gave the captain's hand a bit of an extra squeeze...for old times' sake. I certainly didn't have a HUcast's bone-crushing grip, but I managed to get the captain to wince.

Like I said, petty.

Laleham and the WORKS soldiers received top marks for efficiency, though. They were done and gone by the time Natasha Milarose made her appearance. I met her in the same observation room as before. Same chairs, same table, same computer panel, even the same holoscreen display of Mome's room. About the only thing missing was the sense of despair.

"I'm told," she said, not bothering with introductions, "that you found the cure." A nod towards the screen indicated Mome.

"Well, not a cure per se. Basically, Black Paper had bribed a doctor to keep Mome ill."

"Why not just kill him?" she wondered. "I've never heard of Black Paper to be squeamish about such things."

"Psychological warfare. This is a lot scarier, particularly for Lab researchers and hunters who are familiar with the effect D-cellular infection can have. And it divides resources. If Mome is dead, there's only one problem--the data. Alive, there's a second problem--the cure. That makes the Lab less able to keep Black Paper from getting its hands on what they want."

"Did you learn this from them as well?"

I shook my head.

"It's mostly deduction. It does hang together, though. Covert operations are like any other battlefield. The tactics are different, but the ultimate strategies are the same. Anyway, Dr. Karuta thinks Mome will be fine in an another day or so, once he's had a chance to recover from the shock to his system."

Natasha turned away from the screen to look at me.

"You seem different, Sejanus."

"I think this mission's been good for me," I told her. "I doubt Dr. Karuta would recommend getting twisted up in a web of deceit, three life-or-death fights, and a beating by a guy wearing metal gloves as a cure for grief and depression, but it seems to have worked. By the way, I presume the Guild has our meseta as usual?"

The Lab chief frowned.

"Sejanus, while I do appreciate that you have been through a great deal, and I am extremely happy for your efforts on Dr. Mome's behalf, you and Talissa were hired to retrieve specific data, and you have not done so--unless you are counting on Dr. Mome being able to provide it to us once he recovers."

I shook my head again.

"No, not that. Actually, the Seabed terminal where Mome had been doing his work was pretty well trashed by a Sinow...Zoa, I think it's called. The computer was physically destroyed, so there's no chance of data recovery by anyone."

"I see. That is extremely unfortunate."

"However, before that happened, I was able to make a copy of everything in Mome's research subdirectory."

"Ah! So you have that to give to me?"

"No, I gave it to the 32nd WORKS division."

Natasha's eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Sejanus, if this is a game..."

"No game. They have the only copy in existence of what we found in Mome's research files."

"I'd heard that you had connections to the military, but was assured that these connections had been severed. Trust me, Sejanus, the Hunter's Guild will be informed of your actions."

I waved my hand dismissively.

"Spare me. You got exactly what you wanted, and if you go running to the Guild, Chief Milarose, then rest assured that my defense will center around the fact that the Lab hired two hunters through the Guild and hung them out to dry on a tailchaser. You have everything you hoped to gain, so don't spoil it for yourself."

"You are making serious accusations."

I nodded.

"It's a serious situation, and your hands are filthy with it. Some things I understand, but I don't know how you can justify that." I pointed to Mome. "Did he know what he was getting into?"

"Dr. Mome knew and accepted that field research in the Seabed facility was a dangerous prospect."

"Being trampled by a Delbiter, yes. Being poisoned and abandoned by his own superiors..." I shook my head in disgust.

"I don't know where you're getting--"

"Please," I interrupted, "like I said, spare me the usual crap. I'll lay the whole affair out for you, just so you know that I'm not wasting your time with random paranoia. Fair enough?"

There was a long pause, during which the tension was so thick I could have used it for armor. Then, at last, Natasha nodded.

"Very well. Tell me what you think."

I took a deep breath, exhaled, and began.

"I have to assume that you were telling me the truth about what Mome was doing in the first place. Since the monsters haven't yet been purged from the facility, you hired a hunter escort for him. Black Paper, in the person of Hideki Takamura, managed to get one of their own on that team, a Force named Parlo Astwell. You, however, had an ace in the hole: Feric Loramis. Feric somehow got wind of Astwell's plan to poison Mome and steal the data in the confusion. I don't know how he did it, by luck or by skilled investigation, but he did, and reported it back to you, which is when things started to get interesting.

"The expected course of action would be to apprehend Astwell and stop him in his tracks, but you didn't do that. You were playing for bigger stakes and you weren't going to lose."

"Go on."

"I don't know if you had one of your staff cook up some artificial data or if Feric was responsible for making the alterations. I suspect the former, because of the timeframe. In any case, when Astwell made his move, Feric was ready. He immediately sent Astwell off to the medical center so the spy couldn't retrieve any data then--there was no way Astwell could refuse without all but blowing his cover--and then, under the guise of closing out the files, substituted the falsified data for the real data. Unfortunately, the date stamp on the files gives away what you've done--they were altered so near to the time Mome was admitted to the medical center that only Feric could have done so. Feric delivered the real data to you, leaving the false data as a nice, shiny lure for your political rivals. Oh, and then you let Black Paper keep Mome incapacitated to make the false data vulnerable, and you murdered Feric so he couldn't tell anyone what he'd done, which is not really a very nice thing to do to a loyal agent but he really should have expected it from someone like you. Since your own people are in charge of testing for poison, the tox screen cover-up was effortless."

Natasha's mouth thinned and tightened, but she said nothing.

"Now we come to the part that concerns me personally. You had to take action, because if you didn't it would look suspicious to the other interested factions. So, you hired Talissa to retrieve the data. I doubt you had to actually leak that information, given the number of spies infesting this area, but I'm certain that you didn't treat the mission as top secret. The whole point, after all, was to provoke your enemies and make them think the false data was legitimate.

"From that point," I went on, "you couldn't lose. Your worst-case scenario was that Talissa and I would complete the mission you assigned us, but even in that case you'd learn a fair amount about what resources your enemies had, and probably we hunters would have taken a nice bite out of those resources on the way to our success. A more likely outcome was that we'd get killed and your enemies would get the data."

I was very proud of myself for not losing my temper with her. I probably would have, had I not known I was on a stage of sorts, putting on a performance.

"As it turns out, though, you've come out smelling like a rose. Black Paper has lost an underboss and several talented people; a whole operation of theirs has been smashed. 32nd WORKS will be wasting their time for weeks, maybe even months trying to extract something useful from the altered data you left for them. You have the original data, if it's actually worth anything to you. And now no one can blame you for not passing on that data to the Administration because it's supposedly been destroyed with the computer Mome was using. Game, set, and match in your favor. So, to get back to my original point, Natasha, yes, I damned well think you should pay us our fee."

"You have a point, Sejanus," she replied tersely. "The Lab will pay your commission in full--although, of course, it will be on a 'best efforts' basis."

"Preserve your cover story however you like," I said with another shrug.

"You have one part of it completely wrong, however. Neither I nor anyone from the Lab had anything to do with Feric's murder. I had originally intended that he would carry out this...tailchaser, as you call it. After all, with my agent in place I could make certain the false data was passed on as intended and so avoid your worst-case scenario. He was killed by Parlo Astwell, whom I presume had learned Feric was a Lab agent, or believed Feric suspected him of being a Black Paper plant responsible for the poisoning, or both. We had no need to falsify any reports because Astwell used Megid to kill Feric. The effect is the same as a heart attack; the body just...stops."

Was she telling the truth? Astwell certainly was proficient with the Megid technique, and she was right about the symptoms.

"I'd like to believe that," I said. "It would make me feel much better about keeping faith with my client and letting WORKS have the false data. But just in case it's not true, I'd like you to know that Talissa, although still a little shaky on her feet, is down in the med-center's security room, getting full audio and video of this conversation, copies to be sent to the Hunter's Guild, the Administration, 32nd WORKS, and as many of our personal friends as conveniently possible in the event of either of our deaths by 'natural' or suspicious causes."

"The Lab does not murder its own field agents!"

"Forgive me for doubting you, but having been tossed out in front of squid-monsters, Sinows, enemy hunters, street punks, and a very nasty insane android just so you could prove a point to your enemies, I'm having some trust issues."

"You aren't a Lab field agent, Sejanus. You're a hired hunter. I do, however, see your point. And you're quite right about one thing." She managed an actual smile. "I am very pleased with how this turned out. Until next time."

I didn't answer, just nodded my head back at her. There was nothing more to say, and besides, it's bad form to try and top a good exit line.

When she was gone I went over to the data screen and tapped a couple of keys on the panel. Talissa's face appeared.

"Did it work?"

"Clear as a bell. I already sent out a few copies by simple-mail to the locked nodes your pal Jeromy set up. Can't wait too long on buying life insurance." Her voice was faintly slurred, and much less tart than usual. "I still," she added, tapping her lower lip with her forefinger, "want to hit her."

"Thereby proving that red hair of yours is natural. We'd better get you back to bed before Dr. Karuta hits me."

"Yeah. 'Sides, th'painkillers are starting t'make me a little loopy."

"I can see that."

"But you know what? I was right!"

"Oh?"

"You were jus' what I needed to cover my butt on this job." She winked saucily (definitely the painkillers talking) and cut the link. I stretched and yawned. It was about time I got some sleep.

Tomorrow, I had a feeling, would be my first good day in a long while.

__________________________________________________ ___
And there it is! Thanks to all of you who've been following along thus far; I hope that this story was a little less X-Filesy Open-Ended in its resolution than Sejanus's previous two adventures and that you all enjoyed it. Comments are always welcome.

[EdenJurai]

EXCELLENT story...from beginning to end! I'd have loved to see that HUcaseal get her comeuppance but, hey! Can't have it all! http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_wink.gif Anyway, you should be proud of this story..its definately one of your BEST!!!! Keep up the good work!!!! http://www.pso-world.com/psoworld/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif