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And here it is finally, the end of part one. The finale, the bigger =
bang. Sorry it took so long but I was wrestling with the web page, which =
I am pleased to announce is finally here.=20

http://us.geocities.com/aescension/index.html

(Though Im still looking for web space without any damn ugly banners.) =
All of part one, plus the first four chapters of part 2 in that so fresh =
and so clean .doc format. I highly suggest you read it from the web page =
and get all of the italics, underlines and all that stuff .txt leaves =
out. I tend to use it whenever I can to properly convey speech. But its =
up to you, i will still post the story from e-mail each week. As always, =
any comments will be taken in and given motherly love, however they go. =
Like I mentioned before, even an email that just has the sentence "hey, =
i read this, and it was okay" is pefect, and itll only take you twenty =
seconds. Hell, even a blank email with a number 1 through 10 in the =
subject line will be much appreciated. Im not really looking for english =
advise, just a personal responce to what was written.=20

Peace.



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    11

  Chris had been off his guess as Alie had predicted, but 
fortunately not by much. There were three white middle-aged 
officers throwing cards at a table in the heart of a cylindrical area 
surrounded by the cells. There was a handful of change and a 
single one dollar bill in the pot. Stealing a look from a small 
walkway in a forest, Incarceration Block Lambda opened five 
stories overhead and had rings of unpainted metal cage doors 
encircling every inch of the wall. 

  The doors on these metal closets were squares only two feet 
in height. There was no surprise that the sight triggered instant 
nausea in my already knotted stomach. Faces pressed against bars, 
intently watching the game below. The only sign of movement. 

  In the rare occasions when prisoners are released from their 
cells, they crawled like animals. Spending every day of your 
sentence in this penal amphitheater quickly steals your sense 
acuity. I never so appreciated the smell of stale cigarette smoke 
and nitrous exhaust like the cool August Ninth they let me out. I 
felt sorry for every human in here, a quarter of a mile under a 
landscape equally as lifeless.

  My bulky machine gun had been irreparably damaged 
when it saved me from a bit of lead in the spine, but there had been 
one more automatic rifle in Chris's bag. It was a 9.48mm GMPG 
mini gun, and I had the chain of ammo wrapped several times 
around my forearm and shoulder. The guards did not notice as I 
walked within ten feet of them, stealth forgotten. I did not yell or 
laugh at them like I had an urge to do. This did not feel like the 
time for selfish gratification.

  The weapon just started firing. All but completely on its 
own. The first two went down before they knew they had been hit, 
and the third was almost able to pull out his sidearm before I got 
him too. I won't describe much here; it was no kind of conflict. 
Better that way maybe. Permanently branded a cop-killer, the same 
death sentence would be mine if my face was linked to any of this. 
But this would not be the thought that made me look up and 
wonder.

  When it was over, I stood still, letting the barrels of the gun 
spin gradually to a stop. The weight of legal obligation had just 
been lifted, as I could now violate anything I wanted and still incur 
the same punishment. Though that didn't make me forget the news 
clips of vampire-like SWAT soldiers descending on unsuspecting 
code-two's everywhere from Lanz Island to the blackest slums of 
the city. 

  No one who had seen me here was alive, except for the 
woman I tied to a chair at the top of the elevator. Though I had a 
wild hunch that when Chris came through and saw that eye 
witness, she would not remain so for long. Government workers 
knew what they were getting themselves into when they took their 
jobs, just as I did when I decided to break into Lanz Island prison 
and seek out a convicted murderer. How many people down here 
weren't murderers, but had been helped on down by that woman 
and all her associates? 

 I was trying to rationalize it, so what. The truth lay plain. I 
could not say that the three dead in front of me had been killed in 
self defense, so in the eyes of the law, and those of conventional 
morality, that made me a murderer. I felt very little for those who 
had been unlucky enough to be here; similar men had beaten and 
spit on me when I myself was underground four years ago in the 
city.  I did it because their associates had wronged me. 

  Expressionless, I turned back to the hall for Alethea who 
had not wanted to see my act. I held her for the second time that 
evening, but this time it was I who had done the deed, and needed 
consolation. It helped a little.

  When we walked back into the large room, I saw the faces 
of prisoners watching me through the shiny bars; suspicious 
though silent. Round eyes and feverish mouths drooped on every 
sunken face. 

  Sorry, not here for any of *you*.

  I scanned the rows for Zig's cell, but did not see it. Alethea 
and I jogged up the metal steps to the second level, and again 
searched for and did not find him. We checked every level, looking 
in each cell, and caught only blank stares. This was bad. 

  Betting there had not been time for a transfer, I ran back 
down to the floor and across the room to where the execution 
chamber idly sat.

  Pre-modern prison blocks were built to be high atriums, 
letting every inmate view the Plexiglas and chrome execution 
room. It was a reminder that anyone could be erased down here 
and no one back home would ever know. Execution in the past five 
hundred years has been done by exposure to toxic chemicals as a 
more humane method than that of live embalming. But six years 
underground had taught me otherwise. The chemical used was 
called myrrh, and was a highly caustic reddish substance that 
occasionally filtered out of lead pipes under the city. No one knew 
where it came from, and as with everything else, they did not care. 
It was poisonous even by touch, and criminals sentenced to capital 
punishment were drenched in it until death. This usually only took 
a minute or so.

  "You open it," said Alethea.

  Ignoring the whispering that had started between the cells, I 
pulled on the translucent door and saw Zig, alive, and strapped 
down to the x-shaped stone bier occupying the chamber's focal 
point. He was gagged and definitely unconscious. There was no 
one else in the room, watching or guarding. 

  I stood still for a second and tried to see if I had tripped 
some kind of alarm in the doorway. There were no visible lenses.

  Zig's skin was cold to the touch which wasn't altogether 
abnormal. My knife took more than a minute to cut through the 
two inch wide nylon straps, constantly turning my head to make 
sure we were still alone. Zig sucked in a deep breath as I took the 
gag off before opening his eyes. Bruised nose, neck and jaw. Blood 
and sweat sheened off of every surface. He was a mess.

  "Zig. Zigwell."

  Pinkish saliva muddled his response. I tilted his head to the 
side.

  "Wake up for me, man. It's time."

  "Tigh fo wha?" he got out.

  "Time to push it all down. I know it hurts, but you're 
untied." His hands didn't move. "You gonna live?"

  "...Ooh..."

  "Good, cause you don't look it."

  He wheezed. The red and black marks around his head and 
chest still looked fresh. Alethea put a hand on his cheek and 
rubbed his arm. Zig stirred. She whispered to him and after a 
second he woke up completely.

  "Screw... bout god damn time you got here. They were 
gonna execute me early."

  "No shit."

  "I resisted, they beat me down and strapped me here 
anyway. Screw listen, I have to tell you something. There is this 
man, an old man, and he's here to get you."

  "Wells?" I asked.

  "Wells..." he repeated, curling his upper lip in repugnance. 
"Yeah, that's our asshole. Look, I have to level with you."

  "Okay."

  "I told him where you lived, that's all. He said he was from 
the parole office and that he was going to help you! I thought I was 
doing both of us a favor." He paused. "I admit there was also some 
talk about my own legal problems. I really don't know what I was 
thinking."

  The straps came half way undone and Zig sat up. Alethea 
was by the door and I could see the prisoners in their cells stare at 
her. No harm there. I put a gun in Zig's hand, and helped him off 
of the metal slab.

  "Tell me the whole story later. Special Forces units are 
going to be here any minute when somebody sees the bodies 
upstairs."

  "Bodies?" said Zig, but I did not hear him. I pulled him 
away with hurried force. The chrome and stone were very cold to 
the touch and I noticed that I was shivering. And it was almost 
getting buzzy again.

  "Things have changed. Wells might not be trying to kill 
me," I continued, "but he'll kill anyone he finds trying to get 
between us. It's just the his thing, I can't really explain it. We have 
to-"

  Alethea let out a short cry.

  "I'm pleased we've finally come to an understanding, 
Screw."

  I did not have to turn around to know what was there. 
Where was the characteristic ring? The haze, the shimmering? 
Habit and annoyance must have persuaded my eyes and ears to 
block it out.

  My hands were clearly visible and were not holding guns. 

  Zig saw Wells behind me, shouted out a warning and in a fast 
second things slipped into a fury. 

  Zig fired the gun I had given him and rolled off the table. I 
turned and saw Wells, draped in his distinctive black garments, 
deflect the bullets upward through the glass ceiling by force of 
will. I still wasn't familiar with this, but I had a feeling Chris was. Wells leaned his head forward slightly and Zig fell against the 
back wall, dropped his gun and slumped to the floor.

  With the voice of every screaming inmate now echoing in 
the room, I pulled out my Beretta knowing that he had not been 
able to effectively dodge these bullets before. I started to fire, but 
the trigger would not move. I used both hands, but I could see that 
Wells was concentrating on it. He looked different, maybe even 
older than the last time I had run into him, standing ten feet away 
like he had been there for minutes. Thin lines of what looked like 
wood smoke had gathered across his neck and chin. I wondered 
what he had been through in the last two days.

  Inability to pull the trigger took my gyrojets out of the 
picture altogether. I dropped the weapon and with a fast fluid 
motion pulled out a boot knife, lunging at him. He glanced up and 
tried to blast me back with a force wave. But for some reason it 
didn't work this time. I felt the pressure on my body but was able 
to resist. I stared at his widening eyes and pressed on. 

  I raised the long knife above my head, immediately feeling 
the strain cease. The sudden lack of opposition carried me off my 
feet and I knocked him to the cold tile floor. 

  The cell block reminded me of something, I had seen it 
before; wide open spaces surrounded by a jeering crowd of people 
no more sophisticated than the combatants. A coliseum, maybe the 
Old Stadium. Not now, I thought. Just leave me alone, I said to my 
memory. And the image passed as Wells twisted under me and 
brought a cold hard fist to my temple. 

  "Congratulations," he said. "Again I'm forced to re-
evaluate you." The blow hurt, but I remained in control and 
pierced Wells' chest with the knife. He screeched in pain, and 
threw me off. 

  The second I was clear, Alethea fired the chain gun I had 
dropped. Wells deflected the assault with a calmly focused stare, 
though they were getting very close to his body. He was already 
starting to look exhausted and angry, though he had not spoken 
again. I lurched, grabbed two handguns out of the duffel bag which 
was lying on the floor, and started shooting as well. Wells slowly 
stood up, facing us.

  Stray rounds ricocheted off every surface, but his 
concentration held in front of him, and he was only bleeding 
slightly from the knife wound I had dealt. He sneered at me, as I 
inelegantly jammed magazines into my handle and continued to 
fire. The man was a monster. With his outlandish power, I was 
starting to think I could not win and that escape was the only 
option. He never took his eyes from mine, finally beginning to 
advance on us. Alethea wailed as she spent the last of her 
ammunition, then dropping the gun, she fled back to the ruined 
execution chamber. The white floors and walls were spattered with 
the gray and black of chips and craters which matched the room to 
Wells frame of mind. Inmates roared in animalistic anticipation.

  Zig had not moved, and it was only the force of bullets that 
stopped or slowed Wells. I saw him focus on my guns and 
suddenly the triggers seized up again. He inclined his head at me 
and continued. The doorway to the chamber passed me by when he 
increased the pressure, and I felt myself violently shoved back 
again. The remaining glass walls of the chamber shattered outward 
as he started laughing. 

  I was pushed back and this time could not endure. Zig's 
unconscious form was pressed into a ball in the corner; Alethea 
tripping over his sliding body, and falling onto him in a heap. She 
had that unattractive fear that was so plainly unrehearsed. Failure 
was new to all of us.

  *I'm sorry, I thought. I wasn't ready for it either.*

  Wells came within a foot of me, was reaching for my 
throat, and I could start to feel that my eardrums were going to 
pop. He wasn't even visible anymore, just a cloud of menacing 
blurred color. So there it finally was. All I could feel were the tips 
of his withered fingers and the influx of foreign body heat. 
No one could help me down here, in this place.

  Then, clear and loud over all of it, I heard a rattle from the 
other side of the chamber. 

  The impossible appearance of Wells straightened up and 
screeched again. He dropped instantly to his knees at my feet and I 
spied Chris crouching in the background. There was a an intense 
look on his face.

  "Chris!"

  He stood.

  "Jesus Christ!" I yelled.
 
  "It's a good damn thing I-" he started to answer.
Alethea yelled as she picked herself up. "Screw! He's 
reaching for you!"

  I stared at Wells; saw dark syrupy blood leaking from the 
openings in his back. He grasped weakly at my knee and I pulled 
him up by the collar. 
 
  Wrapping my arm around the waist, I flipped him back 
onto the metal cross that Zig had been strapped to earlier in
a makeshift ugoshi. He was gasping and clutching at the air. 
The myrrh valve's switch was next to the door frame, 
which Chris wasted no time in hitting and 
jumping out of. I followed.

  "Screw..." Those lips would not stop moving. "...He 
cannot....musn't...fade away..." Wells sat up half way and reached 
out once more before the red fluid gushed from a trio of open pipes 
and drenched him with a hiss. 

  Myrrh in its purest, most radioactive form. Something even 
the city tried to expel from itself. It was a sight to behold.

  Alethea had thought ahead and pulled Zig out one of the 
broken glass walls before gallons of crimson myrrh splashed down. 
The convulsing body of Wells on the cross futilely tried to regain 
its stance. 

  Myrrh stopped flowing from its source after another 
moment and Wells dropped sack-like to the floor. 

  I suddenly became anxious that he might still survive the 
burning. I didn't know why, but guns hadn't done the job and I had 
tried enough of them. Chris walked up and took a closer look.

  "Where the hell were you?" I asked.

  "Taking care of business. I almost popped him before he 
got down here, but the old man is one slippery bastard. Good thing 
he didn't see it coming the last time. Where's the thermite bomb I 
gave you?"

  "Its in the duffel bag, over there."

  Chris snatched up the sack and pulled out the bomb, tricked 
the sensor, and reared back his right arm. I shouted "No!" and ran 
toward him.

  "You'll blow the myrrh valve! Leave him, he's dead!" I 
took the bomb out of his hand.

  "We have to make sure." Chris looked seriously at me. 

  "That shimmer you felt can be used for other things aside from 
knocking people down. He produces it himself somehow, and 
unless his body is completely torn apart, he will be able to 
regenerate. Give me the bomb."

  "Myrrh will kill us even faster! Do you want to flood the 
place? Look at him, his body is almost completely dissolved. He's 
just twitching now."

  We looked again at the red form of Wells on the floor next 
to the metal cross. He had gotten into a low crouch now, and 
seemed to be mock-tearing at his clothes. 

  Alethea whimpered behind me. Her arm was around Zig's 
neck but my friend was not responding.

  And then Wells rose, carefully and intently. Dripping flesh-
like rust from every limb, yet still not broken. My heart sank.

  Chris and I each opened fire once more, without thought. 

  This time Wells was not really deflecting the bullets but seemed to 
just be wiggling a bit to get out of their way. His natural energy 
was already spent and he could do little more than use it to throw 
his own crippled body from side to side. Any minute he would 
freeze our triggers and then start slinging the myrrh around which 
was what I had wanted to avoid. I could not throw a grenade for 
the same reason I was not going to let Chris use the thermite bomb. 
Myrrh  dripping off in thick beads, much of his body mass 
had been dissolved. 

  He staggered forward, hand outstretched toward me, and 
nothing presented itself as a plan. If Chris was right about him, in 
another minute he would use his power to heal, and we would be 
back where we started.

  The prisoners beat on their cages as loud as they could, and 
had been doing so since the first shots were fired. When I had 
killed the guards, they must have assumed we were terrorists and 
were there to set some of them free. Now they were yelling at us to 
kill Wells, demanding to see a resolution. I knew it was what I 
would have been doing. 

  Though, in the instant I was able to keep a clear thought, I 
supposed their fury might mean they would be inclined to...?
As Chris and Alethea valiantly attempted to keep him back 
with concentrated gun fire, I faltered, turned, and scooped up the 
thermite bomb. I slung it like a bowler into a cell on the end of the 
wall to my right. Chris yelled something at me in surprise, but was 
drowned out by the deafening explosion. If that didn't alert the 
Special Forces, nothing would. Like Chris had said, when the 
smoke cleared there was a huge hole in the wall and floor, and I 
could see the wreckage of the smashed underground machinery 
below it.

  "Come on! We're getting out of here!" I yelled to Alethea 
and Chris.

  Wells had stopped his advance when the explosion had 
occurred, and was looking at me too.

  "What about him?" Chris yelled back. "He has to die now!"

  "Just come!"

  They stepped sideways over to me, dragging Zig behind, 
and Wells turned my way too. But he never made it. I had found 
the console that controlled the doors to every other cell in this 
block. I pounded the main release button, and they hissed upward 
revealing the surprised faces of desperate men. After a long second 
of universal surprise the mates scrambled out, and ran down, 
screaming at the top of their lungs. Wells turned and saw a flood of 
naked bodies running at him, and attempted to hold them back with 
a wave of pressure. I shot him once more in the back, and he just 
couldn't keep his concentration. 

  Murderers, rapists, and worse descended on him, the 
evident authority figure, like disturbed bees. Uselessly fighting 
them off with weak force blasts, the numbers proved far too great. 
They grabbed him by the arms and legs, beating him and stomping 
on his chest, unaware that the myrrh was corroding their skin. 

  Before jumping down into the hole after Alethea and Chris, 
I saw Special Forces officers rush out of the hallway on the other 
side of the block and fire into the crowd. Half the swarm of 
condemned prisoners, many of them unable to fight against the 
flow, turned en masse and brought the officers down as well, one 
living body. 

  It seemed no other sight could have concluded the our fight 
with Wells as melodramatically. Dodging the unrestricted ooze of 
myrrh pooling around my hole, I lost sight of any single individual 
in the tide of elation and wrath; naked and unrepressed at long, 
long last. My heart was with them.


------



  The dense network of pipes below the hole were also 
destroyed and I could see red-hot pools of thermite still eating 
through. We climbed down carefully, dodging moving gears, and 
the sharp edges of moving machinery. There were no floors here, 
so we quit our decent when we spotted an octagonal pipe big 
enough to walk on. The four of us ran along the rusting surface, 
attempting to head west by Chris' gyroscopic compass. 

  The idea had been to travel quickly until we found the train 
station above us, where we would get aboard however possible. In 
an Island-wide emergency security condition, it was likely the 
sidewalks in and out of the main station would be stopped, if the 
trains were even running at all.

  We climbed through the darkness by the light of 
phosphoric flares found earlier in the trunk of Wells' Ford. Zig was 
fully conscious and alert now, and Alethea and I let him walk on 
his own. The fourth member of our entourage remained quiet.

  Zig asked me for a cigarette, and when he took it he asked, 
"What the hell happened back there? Things sure weren't looking 
good from my spot on the floor."

  "Your friend Wells crashed the party and was tossing us 
around until Chris showed up and shot him in the back. I opened 
the prison cells, the prisoners mobbed him, and then the cops 
mobbed them as we left through a hole in the wall."

  "Chris is here?" Maybe not fully alert.

  "Yeah, he came with us, despite the mutual lack of trust. 
He saved our lives."

   Chris grunted from behind, but said nothing else.

  "Wells finally let out what government bureau has you on 
their shit list?"

  "Didn't say. A boss was mentioned, but if he's employed 
by the state this visit was strictly pro bono. He got all the 
information he needed about me elsewhere."

  It may have been a cheap shot but that's what came out. 

  Zig winced and turned his head. "Look, I said I was sorry 
about all that. It's just that Wells had me believing Chris was the 
one out to get you, and that he was trying to save you from being 
another casualty in an upcoming gang war. Which seems to be 
real, by the way, from the conversation my cellmates had in the 
holding tank. The whole story was all muddled up, I should have 
seen through it from the start. But hey, I wanted to do the right 
thing for you after my holier-than-thou speech about Alethea 
here."

  She squeezed his shoulder while I considered, and kept 
walking. Something about the road to hell, maybe?

  "You said that he told you he was going to help me. What 
was the terrible problem supposed to be?"

  Zig looked thoughtful as he stumbled along, and finally 
said, "He mentioned something about you going through changes. 
I thought he meant medically. Shit that would make you very 
unpredictable and dangerous. And you know I hate to say it, but at 
the time I thought I saw some truth in that."

  I stopped. "What truth?"

  He was obviously laboring just to move and this was 
causing him to breathe heavily. He was probably seeing bright 
flashes of color in his vision as his body waffled over how much 
blood to send into his brain. All of us were in some state of shock. 
But it didn't change what I heard. "Why didn't you die in that car 
crash? You fell five stories off the track in a car that exploded. 
Boom. It'd take an act of god to save you from something like 
that."

  I didn't know how to respond to this because I didn't know 
the answer myself. But what difference did that make? "What does 
that have to do with Wells?" I said.

  "Screw," he continued, "sometimes you've reached for things and they 
moved a little so that you touch them without looking."

  My incredulous look almost spoke for itself. "What the hell 
are you talking about? I don't like the idea of unlikely 
coincidences either, but that's why they're coincidences. And what 
is this about things moving into my hands? When was this?"

  "I don't know any of the damn dates, but I swear I've seen 
it. This last week even. And all those years back when we were 
each getting into racing. You were driving like you had done it all 
your life on the first lap you ran. But we had both never ridden in 
anything faster than a sedan."

  "Are you still pissed about that? That was fifteen years 
ago!"

  "I'm not fucking pissed off, Screw. Confused. You think 
I'm always walking around in a haze, but I'm not. Not always. I've 
had this same thought for a long time, and when Wells put into 
words these 'things' had been happening with you, I knew what he 
was talking about. There is something about you, man, something 
that's... I don't know, abnormal."

  "Like Wells was all that normal?"

  "I didn't know about his little secret power when he first 
approached me. He just said he needed to contact you to help with 
your problems. Find some of the missing pieces, whatever that was 
supposed to mean. Appointments you had broken were mentioned. 
You can't deny that one."

  I didn't try.

  "Lately," he continued, "you've even gotten to Alethea 
with your little coincidences and we just wanted all of that to either 
stop or be out in the open."

  "You too?!"

  Alethea was about to say something or defend herself but 
Zig interrupted. "Relax, she never knew about Wells. I'm not 
trying to pass any of the damn blame, here."

  "Zig," I said. "I don't want to hear about this bullshit again, 
okay?"

  "Damn it, you know what I mean! You don't have to deny 
it to me! It has probably been since you got out of prison, stranger 
things just keep happening to you. Your job, your apartment, the 
way you speak. Every day its something new and you act like 
nothing has changed. But it has, and not in the natural, reactionary 
way." 

  "What the hell does that mean? You don't think I should 
have changed at all in the last four years? Moved on? Look at you! 
You're a criminal now! You're wanted by the police and have 
been since before I got out of jail! Talk about change from when 
we were younger!"

  He shook his head. "No, no, you know that's not the same 
thing. I wanted to race just as bad you did and when you were 
picked and I wasn't, I never left you to go off to the College or 
start trade school. I stayed in the pit crew and became one of them. 
You and I still tore down the city every night. When you went 
underground I moved south and kept up with the people I had been 
working and dealing with. I didn't change, even though a large part 
of me wanted to. When the problems with our free market 
economy got so bad our friends were turning to low end retail and 
worse, I stayed in my building and if anything, took myself farther 
out of the city lights. I became a dealer as the natural extension of 
who I was and the choices I made.

  "But you..."

  "What do you mean, 'but me?'"

  "You aren't a racer anymore Screw." Zig looked at me very 
closely. "You have too much control over your life, your actions. It 
just stopped being necessary a long time ago. Sometimes I think 
you're becoming a machine." He gave a two second attempt at 
laughing the thing off, then frowned and turned away. "Whatever 
that means."

  Alethea added nothing to his conclusion.

  We kept on, the four of us picking our way through the 
dark, oppressive forest which probably stretched equally far in 
every direction. No surface appeared smooth enough to reflect the 
yellow light from my flare, which was now less than six inches 
long. I let it drop into a wide crevice and lit another.

  There was nothing to say. Had I been betrayed? It felt like 
it. I did not need to say I had never noticed abnormal or alien 
phenomena surrounding me. At least not until Wells himself 
entered the picture. And even then, the only thing that had 
confused me concerning myself was my incredibly poor driving 
when I raced Jarred a week ago. 

  There was also the fact that I had not fallen off of his car 
fighting Jarred, and at the time I had thought Wells had been 
behind it. Come to think of it, there were times when Wells 
couldn't get his power to work and had looked as surprised as I 
was. But there was nothing to say he wasn't simply as crazy as he 
looked, too. I remembered sending him across the hall back in my 
apartment building. Who knows. As for flying cigarettes, it 
sounded too much like Zig was believing what he wanted to. The 
man was habitually stoned after all. 

  I shook my head and sighed again. It didn't help. Despite 
everything else, the comment about my personality hurt. How 
could I defend myself against something like that. It wasn't fair. 
He hadn't been through what I had been through. Not necessary, 
my ass.

  Chris had been silent and separated during our exchange, 
but now spoke up with impatience as if cutting short an argument 
between old women. "We are now directly below one of the train 
tunnels."

  It was true. The train tunnel was visible behind a mess of 
whirring fan belts less than a story overhead. It spanned more than 
thirty feet in diameter, a perfectly circular steel ribbed tube, itself 
rumbling with restrained energy. Like a single live artery down the 
spine of an unborn. Disturbing.

  "It spirals down the inside of the plateau and lets out at 
level ground. We will hop the train, from inside the tunnel."

  "Don't those things move much too fast?" said Alethea.

  "Not when they're turning," I said. "Chris is right. The 
loading platform will be off limits to anyone but cops, we'll never 
make it aboard that way. But as the train car comes around a tight 
turn, the train will slow to around twenty miles an hour. We can try 
to catch it then."

  "Oh, I don't like this."

  "Neither do I," said Zig.

  "What if I fall?"

  "You won't, because I'll be holding onto you. Come on, we 
have to climb on top of this thing." I pushed her up first.

  We climbed racks of unmoving gears, and got on top of it. 
With less than five feet of head room to maneuver, the trek up its 
slope was agonizingly slow. Alethea, followed by Zig and I with 
Chris bringing up the rear ambled along the upper surface of the 
train tunnel as it shook and rattled underneath. Scanning the 
shadows to either side, I tried to find anything stable to grab hold 
of if I lost my footing and was thrown. As soon as a train itself 
came barreling down the inside, we all might find out.

  "There! Look, is that a tight enough curve?" Alethea was 
the first to spot it.

  Chris pushed past me and stood next to her. "Yeah, that 
should work."

  There wasn't another thermite bomb to open a hole, so he 
crouched, and produced the small canister I had seen him with 
earlier.

  "Is that napalm?" I asked.

  "No, nitrous. It'll work like magic on thin paneling."

  With the help of a crowbar, he poured out the steaming gel 
into a puddle and bashed the tunnel's steel shell until it tore. We 
were able to pry open the cracks in the outer covering and stare 
down at the mag-lev rails on the inside. Bright blue sparks 
periodically shot between the voltage cells and I had to look away. 
It was only a matter of time before the next train came barreling 
down. 

  Three minutes passed before one did. A huge metal snake 
with a windshield grin, glancing at us as it went by.

  "Here she comes."

  Chris prepared to jump down first with Zig, and then 
Alethea and I would follow. The top of the train cars were uneven 
and rutted, but Chris just hopped down through the hole without 
looking back. Twenty miles an hour is still fast and I had some 
doubts about his ability to hang on himself, let alone holding onto 
a 170 pound injured guy. But he rolled when he hit, and the two of 
them appeared to make it safely. Zig lay sprawled.

  Alethea and I waited a second to let their car pass, and then 
jumped down ourselves. We also rolled, grabbing onto a hatch 
mount in the middle of the roof. My arms strained in their sockets. 
The pain in my back was even worse. Alethea bit her lip.

  Around and around we went, faster with each successively 
wider turn. The train wanted out just as bad as we did.

  Not moving until it exited the tunnel, we found ourselves 
outside after ten minutes. The clean, cold air hit us like a waterfall, 
and was well more than bracing after twenty four hours in the 
Island. I sucked it in greedily. Gray rocks and bits of shrubbery 
continued out to the horizon in all directions. The tall black walls 
of the Turbine were a speck in the distance.

  Finally, inch by inch, I relaxed.

  Chris and Zig crawled their way toward us when the train 
had stopped accelerating, and we sat huddled on the roof together 
watching Lanz Island recede from view. We were all hurt, but no 
one complained. Our victory declared itself more important than 
whatever thoughts of distress could be heard over the roar of 
electric power. 

  Still, many things felt unfinished. That thought never 
completely went away.

  Though the moon was directly overhead in the otherwise 
black sky, it offered no warmth and tonight was going to be one of 
the coldest of the season. 



--------



  I thought about the prisoners back in the cell block who 
would either be shot or given indefinite extensions to their 
sentences for rioting, even though they had taken no part in their 
own release. I also supposed that each one of them was grateful for 
the chance to give back to their captors what they had received 
every day underground. Any break in the monotony and surreal 
boredom was a blessing when you were in prison. It is why state 
prisoners were forbidden to come in physical contact with citizens; 
why so many of them were committing crimes within the week 
they got out. In a cell all you can do is wait, attempt elaborate 
escape plans, and contemplate your revenge on those who hurt 
you. The cruelty of the establishment perpetuates the cycle of 
crime and punishment that is the whole life of every man in there. 
The mates were more than happy to kill anyone even remotely 
affiliated with the government. Wells had felt this first hand. My 
shirt was wet with that blood and putrid fluid.

  "So would you call that a success, Chris?"

  He gave an inexpressive grunt. The sharp west wind 
gusted, then gradually lulled. 

  "Why's that?" I said.

  "Wells was just the tip of the iceberg."

  The train went under a tunnel of rock, and loose dirt. I tried 
to see around in the second that the moonlight was blotted out. 

  Chris started frowning.

  "Which means the war aint over yet, boys and girls."

  "That's not what you said this morning." This from 
Alethea.

  "While the Mandate may leave the three of you alone, the 
boys and I must continue to fight for change. Change in the 
constitution of the Mandate itself. True Freedom doesn't just mean 
a functioning driver's license."

  I sighed heavily. I hadn't thought Chris would start harping 
on this so soon. That same unoriginal idea all insurrectionists have, 
that his actions were automatically noble in purpose, if not in deed.

  "What does all that mean to me?" I said.

  "Should the people not rule themselves? Should voting not 
actually have an impact on the results of elections? Political protest 
was rendered completely useless long ago; today there aren't even 
regulations for it. You know this. There is no room for another 
technicization age for the city to re-evolve. Evolution implies a 
transfer of power, and we know that will never be allowed to 
happen. The only way to stop the Mandate is by violence, however 
unfortunate. And I'm not talking about sporadic terrorist 
demonstrations here. I am talking about an actual coup de tat of the 
entire ruling body."

  "How could you do that? Das Uberdog is not an army." It 
pissed me off when people started talking like this. I did not know 
a lot about Chris's group, but I knew that a full scale assault 
against the Special Forces would be worse than mass suicide, and I 
did not want to see any of my few remaining friends die. I had 
wanted to talk Chris out of this business when I first heard about it, 
but had not had the chance until now. After what had happened 
tonight, I didn't even know if the attempt was worth it anymore. If 
I asked politely, he would politely refuse. He had probably been 
fed so many lines of bullshit about his 'cause' from the higher-ups 
that reasoning with him would be impossible. I could only present 
doubt; maybe hope for a rare moment of discretion. 

  "I have something better than an army. Eight long years 
underground and the will of the people, the only things that were 
never taken from me. It is from their ranks that we will wage my 
war."

  I shook my head. "The 'people' are not going to do your 
fighting for you. Most of them are too scared to get on a bus 
without police protection. And they sure as hell wouldn't band 
together under a figurehead like you."

  "You would be surprised by the weight a flawless track 
record pulls."

  "I doubt it. And by the way, eight years in the can never got 
rid of your ego either." 

  He laughed. I didn't. Chris was not the answer. He would 
tear the city apart and hurt far more than he would help. And the 
real problem is that once he got going, that was it. No changes in 
the plan, ever. It was just the way he worked. I doubted his Cabal 
had a firm grasp on that fact. Again, the bottom line was that I did 
not want to see friends die.

  Chris was about to reply, when Alethea interrupted by 
saying his name slowly. "Chris, over there--"

  I turned to see what she was looking at, and was surprised 
to see a bloody hand just lying at the edge of the last train car. 
Dark blood had clotted a few inches up the wrist, which was where 
it appeared to be severed. It wasn't moving of course, but I knew it 
had not been there a minute ago.

  "What in god's name is that?"

  I pulled out my Beretta, which I had remembered to take 
before I left the Incarceration Block. Chris shifted into a crouch 
and slipped is machine gun from his right shoulder.

  "It had better not be what I think it is," he said.

  The two of us crawled toward the back of the train, staying 
low so as not to be blown off. Alethea pulled out her gun too, and 
put an arm around Zig who was not in fighting condition. 

  I crept closer, and remained unharmed. I peeked over the 
edge of the car, and saw where the hand had been cut at the wrist. 
The fingers looked burnt, with thin slivers of brown gel dripping 
from the nails. All five of the nails were split. How it had gotten 
here I did not know. I was afraid to touch it, so I moved back to 
where Chris was covering me.

  "No one's there. It's just a bloody hand."

  "But it wasn't there when we got on this thing! I was 
gazing in that direction as we came around the last turn, and there 
weren't any body parts lying around. Severed and bloody or 
otherwise." I could see that Chris was tensing up his back 
reflexively.

  "It shouldn't even be staying there, we're going way too 
fast, right?" Alethea said.

  "I don't know. Poke it with your barrel," I said to Chris.

  "Why me?!"

  "Because you have the big machine gun! Go on, it can't 
hurt you."

  Chris gave me a look, and then crawled forward. I 
wondered why this seemed to so disturb him. The train's wide 
slipstream coalesced in a whitish canopy four feet overhead, 
whipping my hair into my eyes. Through it, he still blocked my 
view of the hand when he got close. I tensed up as well. But then I 
heard him choke.

  "What? What is it?" Alethea yelled.

  "Oh man, oh man." Chris was still for a second, and then 
started firing like mad at something below him. 

  I shouted in surprise, let go of my handhold and slid across 
the dimpled steel to his side, internally wavering over whether or 
not to panic, only in that final instant to see true fear realized. 

  The hand was not severed at the wrist, it just appeared that 
way because the arm was sticking out of the back wall of the train 
car. The dirty brown streaks spiraled all the way down the equally 
foul arm inside. But now he had wrenched out an even larger hole, 
and I could see him half out of the car, concentrating on the 
mechanisms in Chris's gun. This time I did not even attempt to use 
mine. I dropped it without a thought and reached down to grab 
Wells by the head.

  It was as if he had been skinned like an animal; he was 
almost completely without external flesh. Blood was openly 
leaking from his body, trailing a light pink cloud into the air 
behind, and in other places his muscle had been eaten away to the 
bone by myrrh. I did not know how he had gotten on the train, after 
the ordeal in prison. But he was here now, staring past Chris into 
my round eyes. He raised another arm, this one a mere stump 
beyond the elbow, and shoved me on my back across the train car 
roof. My feet slipped in blood.

  Alethea let out another scream which I ignored. A second 
later I saw Chris having problems holding his gun. Then it came 
out of his hands altogether and arced off into the wide Aqueduct 
channel, paralleling the tracks a hundred feet south of us. On a 
small yacht, a couple caught a glimpse of us as we roared past. 
They were the only ones out tonight. 
  
  He was knocked back as well, and before either one of us 
could stand up, Wells pulled himself onto the top of the car, 
unaffected by the incredible winds. He glared at me and did not 
even have the courtesy to tell me to 'freeze' before pointing a gun 
of his own.

  "Rufius hates these little sordid episodes." he said in a low 
rasp. "I don't."

  "What happened to just wanting to take me to your leader?"

  "To hell with him, I no longer care. I seem to have this 
difficult habit of letting it get too personal and I am sick of you 
running away. Too bad there aren't any flagpoles down there for 
you, huh?" His head motioned off to the side.

  As Chris lay groaning behind me, thrown farther back, and 
Alethea cowered next to Zig, I knew I had run out of ways to 
confuse and anesthetize the situation. I hated this man. Even 
without the hideous disfigurement he made my skin crawl. I 
shuddered like the first time, hearing his voice over my phone. Just 
like his house, Wells was not alive, merely active. We all have 
embarrassing idiosyncrasies; a strange walk, funny look, habits 
that make us individuals. Wells had none of these. He was all 
function and no form, as if there was nothing else in his head or 
spirit that had a slightly less malignant intent. Even standing in 
front of me on the speeding train he was statue-like. Maybe this is 
what Zig had been implying about me, that I was somehow 
becoming like Wells. It was too horrible to consider. 
The arm that was not holding a gun lay limp and forgotten 
at his side. I could tell that he must have some small amount of 
emotion, because he could not hide the fact that he was angry. I 
was angry too.

  Signposts whipped by below, signaling our approaching 
arrival at the city. It was strangely silent, though sound just might 
have been drowned out by that damn ringing in my ears. Alethea 
dared not fire her pistol. Wells let his burnt out eyes stare down, 
not moving a muscle, and I returned it, not moving myself. He had 
selflessly attempted every last thing he could do to ruin my life and 
I could see he didn't even know how to quit. His own existence 
had been put completely in check by whatever demiurge drove 
him; and now personal thought wasn't something he was capable 
of letting himself do. The only way I would ever be rid of him is if 
he killed me now. It just wasn't fair. I had never done a single 
thing to him or his own that I knew of and yet he had singled me 
out from every other racer in the city to prove himself to. This, the 
obvious torture of my parole officer, it was evident self loathing. 
But it wouldn't stop him from pulling the trigger.

  How ironic that the man had survived the myrrh, because 
he was myrrh himself. A corrosion, an infection, here to 
dispassionately destroy everything I had accomplished since 
returning from prison. The hardest, poorest four years of my life 
had ended up a big fat waste. And all for some secret government 
source that had no idea what I even looked like. Maybe Chris had 
been right. This had to stop. No civilian should ever have to endure 
this. If I could have, I would have fought Wells to the end, with 
every ounce of my strength until he died like a light, or christen my 
existence a flat failure. I could not let Alethea and Zig and the nice 
woman down the hall ever be subjected to this freak of nature's 
heartless whim. Life, I thought, why did you wait this long.  

  Damn it, what the fuck was he waiting for?!

  So I stared at Wells' bloody face; perfect portrait of 
indomitable will. He still did not move, just looked and pointed a 
high-end Special Forces deadly weapon at me. My muscles tensed 
as I sneered impotently back at him. I felt myself exuding hate and 
more than a little fear. But he continued to stand. If I could just get 
my hands on him without that gun, or his special powers. If I could 
stand and heave us both off into the rocks. I would crush him, 
break his body into bloody chunks, grind his head down to a nub. I 
pictured his smile caving inward, peeling away, and screeching 
emitted from an exposed windpipe. He would feel all the pain he 
had caused me; I would die to see it happen. And yet the bastard 
continued to stand there.

  Wells' smile had turned to a frown. It seemed like the two 
of us had been staring for ages defying the other to make a move. 
As I resisted him mentally, I did not see it, but he was twitching 
around the neck. His face remained expressionless, but his red 
limbs had begun to waver, and blood now blew off freely in the 
wind in places it had remained only smeared before. And I was 
wavering too. Someone might have called something out behind 
me, I couldn't be sure. The air was just howling around us, 
shimmering gray-white and crazy, and though I never stopped 
trying to rise, my muscles deigned not to respond.

  I could no longer distinguish between the form of him I 
was actually seeing, and his tortured image which danced just out 
of visible reach. The two crept together, so slowly, becoming the 
same image. The body got smaller and thinner, and most of all, 
redder. I brought up the sensations of crushing him with the same 
desperate hate he must have felt looking down through his sights, 
and I must have been delirious, because it looked like he was 
scared of it.

  Chris woke up aside of me, and gasped "dirty shit-faced 
mother fuck-"

  I only peripherally noticed this because I was staring so 
intently at Wells, trying to will him into ruin. It had been a battle of wills; his unheard-of power matched against my meager refusal to 
let it work. His body which had beaten mine so many times, was 
failing. It was receding, oozing blood, dropping the gun. Into the 
air. 

  Dropping.

  Dropping.

  Dropping.

  When it was done he was no more than a puddle that ran 
off the roof in streaks. He had been mighty in life, but had left 
nothing but a stain. 

  I felt the others around me, talking into my ears, shaking 
my arms, but their words were lost in the roar. Like the nights in 
prison where I forced myself beyond the bounds of consciousness 
to save my nuclear sanity, I was no longer on any train heading 
back to the walls of my city. I was standing above a hole in the 
world, the blackest, deepest whirlpool I had ever seen. It was far 
below, beckoning me slowly down and I wanted nothing more than 
to let it. Strangely familiar and all too soothing. 

  Is this what I remembered? Is this finally how it was at the 
beginning? When I was alone and first leaning you? 

  I spoke this to a part of myself.

  We couldn't have been this close, could we?

  Wells' death would bring life back to me. The inertness, the 
silence that accompanied him was gone now. It had taken every 
part of me to do it, but there had not been a choice. It had to be 
him, and not me. That much I knew.

  I fell deeper, accepting the changes like weather.










End Part 1

Part 2, Divination, coming soon.
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