The following is a chapter from an improvisational fanficiton posted at
http://indiemadnesse.sandwich.net.

This chapter was written by Thomas Wilde (talespinner@msc.net).

* * * * *

"I'm telling you you're in the wrong *film*, fatboy. You're not in the
*cowboy* film you thought you were in. This is a *different* kind of movie."
 -- Grant Morrison, _Invisibles_ #1, vol. 2 ("Black Science Part
One: Bangin'")


 His name is Jimmy "DeathRazor" Polowski, and he cannot be stopped.

 At the age of sixteen, "Razor" is already a straight-A student, an
insanely successful heavy-metal guitarist and singer for the slightly
eponymous Razor's Edge ("the first utterly original band in history", says
Jim DeRogatis of _Rolling Stone_; "I would give up my first-born child for
them", says Greg Kot of the Chicago _Tribune_); an international movie
star; a teenage heartthrob, the star of young girls' bedroom walls across
the world; and the creator and artist of a best-selling underground comic
book entitled "The Razor Chronicles", which features a protagonist with
incredible powers named -- wait for it -- "Razor" who travels the
underworld, kills people with sharp things, and never meets any women who
have normal-sized waists or bother to get fully dressed.

 Razor finds time for all of this despite his top-secret work for
the CIA, which at any given time could mean that he is doing anything from
singlehandedly rescuing POWs from a heavily guarded hidden base in Vietnam,
to singlehandedly sabotaging the nefarious plans of America's enemies, such
as the notorious terrorist organization KILL (Knights Intending To
eLiminate Liberty; to be fair, they are much better at international
terrorism than they are at coming up with kicky acronyms).

 He is a busy kid.

 When he entered the Street Fighter tournament, those who followed
the fight scene were a little shocked, but didn't expect it to amount to
much. He was a moonlighting pretty boy, a rich kid who wanted attention.

 When he was interviewed as to why he intended to embark upon a
fifth or sixth career as a Street Fighter, Razor claimed by way of response
to have black belts in Shotokan karate, jeet kune do, judo, tae kwon do,
capoiera, hakyokusaken, Magatama, Ler Drit, Muay Thai kickboxing, and three
different kinds of kung fu; to have proven worthy of the knowledge of
certain ancient mystical Tibetan techniques, and to have signed documents
from the last two Dalai Lamas to prove it; to be the end product of a
century-long special breeding project meant to create the ultimate fighting
machine; and that his entering the Street Fighter tournament was the first
step in his eventual complete fulfillment of several ancient prophecies of
the Mayans, Nostradamus, and a particularly liberal interpretation of the
Bible, most of which had to do with a "great evil" threatening the world
and the "one man" who could stop it.

 Now the fans *knew* he wanted attention. They decided to let him
dig his own grave, and settled back to watch the kid make an ass of himself.

 When Razor beat Dan, the fans were still openly scornful. Everyone
beat Dan, although not everyone put him into a three-month coma.

 When Razor beat Sakura, the fans started taking notice of him, but
it still didn't mean a hell of a lot. Sakura had spent half the fight
looking like, coincidentally enough, a lovesick schoolgirl. It is hard to
land a damn punch when one's eyes are replaced by bulging pink hearts.

 When Razor beat Zangief, the fans were willing to give him some
respect. Anyone who could beat an old veteran of the circuit like Zangief
deserved some credit, especially when it was done as quickly as Razor had
done it. Zangief reportedly lost consciousness after being tossed through
two concrete walls.

 When Razor beat Akuma...

 ...well, things were different then. Rumors about the fight spread
like wildfire across the world. Akuma was still alive, they said, but not
by much.

 One of the most often-repeated rumors was that, near the end of the
fight, a near-dead Akuma had executed his most powerful technique: the
Raging Demon, also known as the Instant Hell Murder. The technique was
close to unavoidable, and left even those who survived it horribly injured.
Akuma's reputation as a merciless, powerful killer was in large part due to
his mere knowledge of the technique.

 It didn't even knock Razor down.

 The fans were awestruck.

 The fighters were either furious or afraid. Some were both.

 Razor was on top of the world.

--------

 "Hello, what city?"

 "Seattle."

 "Please hold while we trace your call to the appropriate dimension."

 "What? Hello?"

 The hold music is elevator jazz. It is predictably infuriating.

 "Hello?"

 "I'm still here."

 "Very good, sir. Now, what seems to be the problem?"

 "I heard you guys take care of... people who seem to be out of place."

 "We do that, yes sir. Could you tell me more, please?"

 "Well, it's this kid. He's sixteen, and he's mastered about a dozen
martial arts, which should've taken him decades of training. He keeps doing
completely impossible things for no good reason, no one seems to remember
how to fight when they're in the same room with him, and he's way more
confident than he should be..."

 "Yes, sir." The sound of a pen, scratching on paper. "We've heard
of this kind of thing before. Has he slept with anyone you know?"

 "...I don't know, but Sakura fell for him awfully quickly."

 "Ah. Sakura. Of course." Understanding, dawning on the other side
of the 'phone. "...and has he completely and utterly defeated accomplished
warriors, gamemasters, wizards, or other similarly skilled individuals,
despite it being completely illogical for him to do so?"

 "Yeah, twice now. Three times, if you count Dan... I don't, but --"

 "Very well, sir. We can handle your problem."

 "Thanks."

 "We'll send an operative as soon as possible."

 "Hurry. I have to fight this kid in four days."

 "He'll be there by then, sir."

--------

 Razor, dressed in his usual fighting gear (jeans, boots, a pair of
black fingerless gloves, and a tattered black T-shirt with his band's logo
on it), has an enormous grin on his face. He is standing next to the
swimming pool at Ken Masters' palatial Seattle home, on a walkway of
perfectly arranged cobblestones. It is inexplicably not raining.

 Ken, wearing his tattered red gi, cracks his knuckles and lets out
a long breath. "Come on. Let's get this fight over with."

 "Good point," the kid says, still grinning. "You ready to lose?"

 Ken doesn't get the chance to respond. Razor launches himself at
him, spinning into a technique Razor calls his Whirling Lightning Hurricane
Super Kick (tm; use it without permission and it's yo' ass). It can easily
maim an unprepared opponent, such as Ken; he is openly gawking at this
strange spinning ball of death that Razor has become.

 Fortunately, the move never connects.

 Razor gets halfway to Ken before noticing the slightly raised
cobblestone on the walkway. He thinks this is odd, but does not pay it the
attention that it turns out to deserve, because it is concealing a land
mine. Razor steps on it.

 After the explosion, Ken turns around and gives the man he hired a
thumbs-up.

 The man gives him a thumbs-up back.

===========================
Self-Extraction
a charming little tale of people who write themselves in,
and the people who shoot them back out

Chapter One: Mission Statement
as prophecied in the Dead Sea Scrolls
by Thomas Wilde
===========================

 Jack Carver neatly folds Ken Masters' check in half. It has both
his name and a lot of zeroes on it. If Carver looks at it for too long, it
makes his head swim. "Pleasure doing business, Mr. Masters."

 "Yeah..." Ken is clearly uneasy. "Look, this kid..."

 "Don't let it worry you, Mr. Masters," Carver says smoothly. "I
won't bother you with the technobabble, but it's like this: you won't
remember the kid was here within a week."

 "Really?"

 "I've seen it happen before," Carver says. "Kid comes in, tears
everything apart, messes up a lot of good people's lives... and then he
leaves, and things go right back to normal, because there was never any
good reason for them to change, if you get what I'm saying."

 "I don't."

 "Good." Carver puts on sunglasses. "If you should need us again,
you have the number. Thank you for your patronage." With that,Carver gets
into his company car and drives off. Ken stands in the driveway for a long
few minutes, trying to figure out just what is going on. By that night, he
finds he can no longer remember Razor's face; he also hears that Dan has
suddenly come out of his coma.

 Carver, satisified with another job well done, waits until he's a
few blocks away before flipping one of two switches on his dashboard. This
switch fires up his car's instrumentation and onboard scanners. Two minutes
later, they tell him that he is not currently being monitored by any kind
of electronic or human agency; in other words, no one's looking. So
assured, Carver flips the other switch.

--------

 Imagine being completely submerged in a substance that feels like
warm gelatin, and looks like blue mercury. Occasionally, shapes form in it
for a second, a minute, an hour, and then are gone, as if they were never
there. Mostly, it's objects, like books, weapons, doors, keys, and the
like, but the occasional person has been known to show up, usually a woman.
Sometimes, she lingers.

 In this mercury, there are specks, most of which seem to resist
change. Most of them are round, and most of them are just a bit darker blue
than the mercury that surrounds them. If one looks closely, one may notice
that the specks are covered with whorls of white, and if one looks closer
still, familiar continents may or may not become visible.

 The mercury is, in fact, the raw stuff of creation. The specks, in
case it's not horrifyingly, broken-club-over-head obvious by now, are
planets; specifically, they are thousands upon thousands of Earths.

 When Carver flips the switch on his dashboard, he shifts off of a
specific Earth, and shifts to this particular facet of reality. This is the
world between worlds, the guiding path, the primal place where new Earths
are forged from reality and belief and chance.

 To Carver, it's the drive back to the office.

 Some people can get used to anything.

--------

 Jack Carver is forty-five years old, athletic, unmarried,
Caucasian, and moderately healthy. He has a calm, friendly face, like a
favorite grandfather. He makes very good chili, and attends as many Cubs
games as he can, because even though he hasn't lived in Chicago for a long
time, old habits die hard. He likes small children and dogs, and is a
longtime fan of Stevie Ray Vaughn (especially his later stuff, on worlds
where he survived the helicopter crash at Alpine Valley). He kills people
for a living.

 He doesn't do it frequently, because he's a specialist. Most of the
time, Carver sits in his office, listens to baseball games on the radio,
and plays a lot of solitaire. His secretary, Marie, is a sucker for those
cheap Harlequin romance novels, which she buys by the case. They go out to
eat often. Not much happens. There are a couple of dozen other people in
his building who are similarly employed. Carver's worked here for three
years.

 About once every two weeks, Carver's fax machine starts up, and he
is given a list of coordinates, at least one contact for each, and a few
pictures of people who would apparently be improved by multiple gunshot
wounds. These people are almost always disgustingly powerful and/or
competent, and are usually firmly entrenched in the local politics of their
particular Earth. When the fax comes in, Carver has a week to kill them
all. He usually does it within a few days. Carver has a very strong work
ethic.

 Last Friday, just as he was about to leave for the weekend, the fax
machine sent him a list of six individuals. The first of them was the late
James Herbert Polowski, also known as "DeathRazor". It is now half past ten
on Monday, and with Razor a slowly cooling stain on Ken Masters' patio,
Carver stops back at the office to get the next set of coordinates.

 When he walks in, Marie is not alone. She is talking animatedly
with a young woman, who may be in her mid-twenties. The woman is
black, long-haired, not unattractive, dressed casually, and Carver counts
seven separate weapons concealed on her in various places, mostly small
pistols and knives. Some of them are in places that he is not supposed to
be looking directly at. The woman notices. She seems to mind.

 "Marie, are you about to tell me --" Carver begins.

 "Word down from on high, Jack," Marie says, standing up. "This is
Kathleen Hale. She gets to work with you for a while."

 "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Carver," Hale says. She is cheerful and
friendly, with a ready smile. As she turns to show that smile to him,
Carver sees another two hidden guns. The words "pit viper" spring to mind
unbidden, which may be somewhat unfair.

 "I'm not due for a tutorial for another two weeks," Carver says to
Marie, ignoring Hale.

 "Russell's out of the business," Marie says. "He retired."

 "Retired retired, or fancy-doublespeak-retired?"

 "Fancy doublespeak. They lost him a few hours ago."

 "Shit." Carver leaned against the doorjamb for a minute. He'd known
Russell. The man loved his explosives, but he had been good at what he did.
"Who was he after?"

 "American martial artist, Earth #43157, Code MA." Marie has already
stolen the file from what used to be Russell's office, and hands it to
Carver. She has worked for him for a long time. "Currently based in Japan.
The call was placed by some local girl name of Tendo. Apparently, the
martial artist in question kept beating her fiance senseless and requesting
her hand in marriage, sometimes two, three times a day."

 "Did he deserve it?" Carver reads the file. Energy projection,
superhuman speed... a world with highly selective gravity... shit. Russell
had been in over his head.

 "Maybe." Marie grins a little, but sadly. She'd liked Russell too.
"Martial artist is named Kevin Kelsey, answers to 'NinjaSkillz'. Age
fourteen, Caucasian, evidently superhuman. Characterized by full black
ninja gear minus hood, and a tendency to unnecessarily and badly skulk."

 "They get younger all the time..." Carver finishes reading the file
and seems to realize Hale is still standing next to him, tapping her foot
impatiently. "...all right. Come on, kid."

 Hale sighs and follows Carver out.

--------

 Hale nearly loses it completely on the drive to #43157. Most of the
new people do. Carver represses a grin.

 "What... in the *hell*...?" she says. Her knuckles are tight on the
car's seat.

 "Where are you from?" Carver asks.

 "New York." She looks out the window. An Earth floats by. Its
Yucatan Peninsula is much, much bigger than most. Hale instantly snaps her
head back and looks directly at the dashboard. Her eyes are wider than
necessary.

 "Which one?" Carver snorts. Someone had been lax. "There are a lot
of New York Cities, Hale. Who's President back home?"

 "Um... Bob Dole?"

 "I'm sorry. Name a movie star. ...let's say, comedy."

 "Joe Piscopo."

 "Jesus, no wonder you want to kill people. Who are you with?"

 "Um... I used to be in the Marine Corps. I got this offer in the
mail..."

 "Yeah. That's how they got me, too." Carver's steering wheel beeps
at him. They begin their final approach.

--------

 The car emerges in an unattended alleyway in Nerima and instantly
enters stealth mode. From the outside, unless one happens to be Carver, the
car is now invisible, intangible, and has no respect for the laws of
physics. A moment later, Carver and Hale step onto these Japanese streets.
Carver, not caring who sees him, pulls two Glock 9mm pistols out of his
shoulder holsters.

 "What the hell are you doing?" Hale yells, scrambling to keep up.

 "This world's Code MA," Carver says. "It means Martial-Artist. It's
a catch-all term. It means that for some reason, any-damn-body with a black
belt and a funny outfit might as well be a superhero. It also means that
people on the street are used to seeing weird things happen." He appears to
be right, as no one is taking a second look at his guns.

 Carver stops suddenly as a red-and-black blur crashes through the
wall they are walking by. The blur in question takes out a bench, a fire
hydrant, and a good chunk of the sidewalk before it resolves into the form
of a young boy, wearing a red and black kung fu suit and slippers.

 "Like that?" Hale says.

 "Just like that," Carver replies.

 The boy in the street has been beaten quite thoroughly. To Hale,
this is the kind of damage someone does in a few days to a bound man with a
sledgehammer. Carver knows better. The boy starts to get back up. He
doesn't seem impeded in the least, except that he's breathing hard.

 "How in the...?" Hale says.

 "He's a martial artist," Carver says flatly. "They get to do that
sort of thing here."

 "I'll keep doing this until you leave this town, Ranma!" someone
yells, bounding through the hole in the wall. "So swears NinjaSkillz!"

 "Look, pal, you can *have* that tomboy, all right?" Ranma yells
back. "I don't even like her!"

 "Like hell!" NinjaSkillz declares. "I know of the true love that
beats in your heart for Akane Tendo, and know that only I am worthy of it!
Only I--"

 "Hey, Kelsey?"

 "What?" The boy in the ninja costume turns. "No one calls *me*--"

 Carver brings up both guns and starts shooting very fast. He isn't
really expecting to kill the kid, and he doesn't; he inflicts a couple of
meaningless flesh wounds before NinjaSkillz remembers that, oh yeah, he's
superhumanly fast and strong, and can probably dodge bullets if he really
wants to. He soon decides that, yes, he really does want to, and before
long, Carver can't hit a damn thing except conveniently placed glass. The
theory he'd been working on -- that he could somehow gain accuracy by
volume -- has just been disproven.

 Then NinjaSkillz is in front of him, and a kick to the jaw sends
Carver a very, very long distance. He thinks he recognizes the alleyway
that the car is parked in, and then he's about a block away from that,
tumbling ass-over-teacups across the sidewalk. When he gets to his feet, he
can't even see the battle.

--------

 Hale watches Carver fly out of sight, and decides that the kid is
officially too weird to live.

 She saw Carver shoot NinjaSk -- fuck that; Kelsey -- twice, but
Kelsey doesn't seem to have noticed yet. He's returned to battling the kid
in red and black. It is a decidedly one-sided fight, with Ranma dodging for
his life, and Kelsey's mad swings demolishing anything they touch. This
otherwise quiet area now looks like the trail Godzilla leaves. The eerie
thing is that no one other than Hale seems to think that this is weird at
all; across the street, there are mothers, shopping with children, who
aren't even bothering to look.

 Hale reaches for one of the eleven weapons she has on her, but as
she glances around, just checking six, she notices the store she's standing
in front of.

 The store sells camping equipment, and something occurs to her.

 She acts on instinct.

--------

 Carver berates himself on the way back to the fight. One of the
finer details of Code MA worlds is that guns are near-useless; the best
weapons tend to be hand weapons, and the less dangerous they're supposed to
be, the more dangerous they are. Carver once saw a kid on one of these
worlds cut a tank in half with a wooden practice sword.

 This is why he is making his way back to the fight with a knife in
either hand. He'd have a bokken, but he isn't carrying his martial-artist
kit, because he was too angry back at the office to pack it. Carver has
been acting like an amateur, and worse yet, he's been doing it in front of
the new kid.

 The new kid, he notes as he gets back to the fight, is sneaking up
on Kelsey. Kelsey, almost fully intent on trying to hit the amazingly agile
Ranma, does not notice until it's too late.

 Hale brings a mallet down on Kelsey's head. Kelsey does not fall
down so much as *distort*, his body crushing in on itself like a soda can,
and this gives Hale time to hit him again. Kelsey is not moving after the
third time Hale hits him, which means the fourth through tenth times she
hits him are really just gratuitous violence and aren't professional in the
least. Carver doesn't mind. He lets her make her own fun.

 Carver turns away from Hale for a moment to find himself being
tackle-hugged by a Japanese woman with enormous eyes. She looks up at him
with tears running down her cheeks and says, "Thank you! Are you the people
I called?"

 "Yes, we are, miss," Carver says, remembering his etiquette. "We're
sorry this took so long."

 "Oh, you were just in time!" The woman -- more of a girl, really,
now that Carver takes a good look -- takes a step back and hands Carver a
brown paper bag full of neatly stacked yen. It's far too big for her to
have been carrying it just now, and she didn't bend down to pick it up.
Carver decides not to think about that. "I hope this is enough, but it's
all my sister had."

 "Don't forget, Akane, thirty-seven-point-five percent interest,"
another girl says from nearby. She has a calculator and a notepad, and is
wearing a visor.

 The girl winces. "Thank you again, sir."

 "You're welcome, miss," Carver says politely. He puts the bag under
his arm. "If you need us again, you have our number." He bows awkwardly and
heads back to the car.

--------

 "What the hell did I just do?" Hale says.

 Carver gives her a mild going-over before he answers. They are
walking back to the car. Hale is still carrying the caked-with-Kelsey
mallet in one hand, and occasionally looks at it in wonder.

 "You killed a kid with a hammer, Hale," Carver replies casually.
"Good work."

 "No, I mean..." Hale takes one last look at the hammer and pitches
it away from her. There is a scream, and the sound of shattering glass.
"Look. I've been trained for this kind of thing. I've got guns; I should've
used them. Why didn't I go with them, rather than a damn *hammer*?"

 Carver thinks about it for a moment. "I think I know, but I'm not
going to tell you about it here. Get in the car."

 "Where the hell is the car?"

 "You'll find it." Carver has a small microchip implanted at the
base of his skull that connects him cybernetically to the car's onboard
systems. This is there in case he needs to, for example, get the car
offworld so it's not discovered by the natives, or, more frequently, run
someone over without actually being in the car. He thinks to the car, "Give
her authorization," and it is so. Hale now sees where the car is, and gets
in.

 As she closes her door, Carver is about to get in on his side, but
he notices a flurry of movement across the street. He has a brief flash of
worry -- this wouldn't be the first time he'd had to kill a target more
than once -- and looks closer.

 There is another car in the alleyway across the street, of a
similar make and model to Carver's. It is blue, where Carver's is gunmetal
grey. It is Russell's car.

 Russell is in it.

 Carver sees him and his jaw drops. Russell's response is to make a
"drinking" gesture with his left hand. It is a signal they've used before,
usually when they're both on jobs on the same world, or working together on
a team of targets; it means, "Meet me at the bar." It's more useful than it
sounds, seeing as how both Carver and Russell only frequent one bar.

 Carver nods to Russell, gets his composure, and gets into his car.
Hale has approximately four-point-five billion questions for him, all of
which Carver ignores until the car has left this particular Japan.

--------

 "As you're trying to ignore, there are millions of Earths, Hale.

 "Some of them are a lot like where you and I came from. Some of
them are different, like the one we were just on. They're all, more or
less, unique.

 "Sometimes, there's a certain degree of overlap between worlds.
Sometimes, I've run across an Earth that knows about another one, because
someone has been writing stories, or making movies, or whatever, that look
a great deal like that other Earth. Sometimes, it's accidental, if you can
believe that. Other times, it's magic or telepathy or some kind of weird
psychic symmetry. There's no harm in that, though, because people think the
other world is fiction, so I leave it be.

 "However, when actual *people* manage to get between Earths
somehow, they... change things. No one who's not on his or her native Earth
is a quiet recluse. They're always involved in world-changing events. I
don't know why. They just are. In the bargain, a lot of them are usually
like our late friend back there; they're powerful bastards. The average
world-traveler can make anyone on the world they're on look like an idiot
whenever they want, and they usually do. I don't know why that is, either.

 "Some people don't like that. They liked things fine the way they
were, or they're currently getting their heads handed to them by the new
guy, and because the new guy is so lethally competent, they can't fight
back on their own.

 "So they call us, and we take care of the problem."

 Carver finishes speaking, and leans back in his seat. Reality
slides by on all sides, coloring them both azure.

 "But why did I go for the hammer...?" Hale asks.

 "I know another woman at the agency who does the same thing all the
time," Carver says, after a moment's thought. "It's a knack for
unconsciously predicting how a world's laws will react to a certain action,
and planning accordingly. For example, that kid back there. We could've had
thirty guys in there with machine guns trying to blow that kid away, but
because of the rules of the world he's in, all the bullets would either
miss him completely, or he'd get a spectacular collection of flesh wounds
that wouldn't slow him down in the least. You, on the other hand, unlike
me, who should theoretically know better," Carver pauses to smile at Hale,
who doesn't smile back, "somehow instinctively realized that and used the
most effective weapon you could find."

 "Yeah, but what does that mean?"

 "It means that, for some reason, Hale, you were born for this job."
Carver lets it go at that, and Hale doesn't press the issue further. Things
are quiet until they pull into Carver's parking space at the agency,
fifteen minutes later.

--------

 Carver leaves Hale in his office to calm down and think things
over. Marie gives him the next dossier on his way out the door, but he's
not headed back out on the job just yet. He's meeting Russell at the bar.

 The bar is called the Middle of Nowhere, and it is one of the few
places besides Carver's office building that is unique to this plane of
reality, and is thus unique in the multiverse. It imports a great deal of
food and drink from a few hundred Earths, which would be a point in its
favor even if it wasn't the only place to eat near the office. A lot of
Carver's co-workers come here to eat every so often, as does a motley crew
of dimensional travelers, reality deviants, vacationers, and the occasional
creature from beyond the conventional limits of time and space.

 A man named Michael Kelly tends the bar and seems to own the place.
Kelly is originally from an Earth where a 17th-century Frenchman named
Horatio D'Arbanville managed to survive to adulthood and become an
inventor. Some of his inventions eventually resulted in a few important
items getting invented early, and D'Arbanville's Earth became a futuristic
wonderland by the turn of the 20th century. Mike Kelly, as a direct result,
is twenty-three years old, seven feet tall, weighs five hundred pounds, has
more steel in his body than there is in Carver's car, and can balance an
automobile on his index finger. There are no fights in the Middle of
Nowhere. Kelly and Carver are friends.

 "Dead guy's in the dark, shadowy corner booth," Kelly says to
Carver as Carver walks in. A draft beer and a hamburger are already on the
bar.

 "Thanks," Carver says, for both the information and the food. He
takes the tray and goes to sit down.

 Matthew Russell is fifty-two years old, and, off the job, is always
more nervous than an explosives specialist should be. He has the general
demeanor of a cokehead chinchilla. He never speaks about where he's from,
but Carver has met his family; Russell has a beautiful wife named Diane,
three college-age children, and a large house in an America in a relatively
peaceful Earth. They are under the impression that Russell is a wildly
successful stockbroker, his friend Jack Carver is an equally successful
investment banker, and that both of their jobs require a great deal of
travel. Carver is amused by this on several levels.

 However, Russell has another side to him, and that's the Russell
that is sitting at this booth in the Middle of Nowhere. He has an untouched
beer next to him, and is outwardly perfectly calm. His voice does not
shake; he is not nervously glancing in every direction but the one Carver
is approaching him from. This is the Russell that kills maybe a hundred and
fifty people a year, and who Carver has worked with many times. They may be
friends. Carver isn't sure.

 "Glad you could make it," Russell says by way of greeting.

 "I like talking to dead people," Carver replies between bites. "I
especially like it when they talk back. What the hell is this about, Matt?"

 "I'm retiring, Jack."

 "By faking your own death?" Carver pauses to drink. "Couldn't you
wait any longer?"

 Russell ignores the question and leans forward. "Look, Jack, you
ever wonder about what we're doing for the agency?"

 "Well, no, Matt. We're assassins. I can't see any way to mistake
that for another job."

 "Look, smartass, I'm serious. I think we're being used." Russell
speaks quietly and intensely, as if he's not sure how much time he has.
"You ever wonder where these contracts come from? Or who lets us know about
them? Who is giving us our marching orders, Jack?"

 "Part of the deal when we take this job is that we don't ask
questions about our employers," Carver says evenly. "Besides, most of the
people we go after more or less deserve to die. I don't see what you're
getting upset about."

 "I don't like being played for a fool." Russell slowly reaches into
his coat and pulls out a sheaf of papers. They are all contracts that
Carver, Russell, or any of the other employees of the agency have taken.
They have all been cancelled. "You see any patterns here?"

 "Yes. They're all quite dead. I killed CybrSlaya myself."

 "I know you're smarter than this, Jack." Russell tosses the papers
down. "All of our targets are young, attractive, powerful, and 'not from
around here'." The latter phrase is agency shorthand; when they're doing
investigative work, they tend to use that phrase more than any other. It's
almost a private joke. "They're all the same, Jack. Every last one of them.
They come in, they screw some people, beat some other people up, they're
all ridiculously powerful, and then we have to take care of them. What the
*hell* is going on?"

 "What are you suggesting?" Carver's tone is even. It is the same
tone of voice that he uses to tell people to put down their guns before
anyone gets hurt.

 "I think that we're killing someone's enemies for him. All of these
people are so unbelievably alike that I think we're being used as a
smokescreen," Russell says. "I want to find out what these people have in
common. While I'm at it, I think I'll find out just who the hell our
employers are, and what the hell they think they're doing. I'll be damned
if I'll be anyone's fall guy."

 "You suspect a conspiracy, in other words."

 "Exactly."

 Carver's food is gone, and with it has gone his patience. "I don't
have time for this, Matt. I have four more clients to get to before Friday."

 "Jack, listen to me --"

 "No, Matt, you listen to me. If you have any sense left, which I
doubt, you'll go back to the office, report your death as a false alarm,
and go about your business." Carver gets up, pays Kelly at the bar, and
leaves.

 Behind him, Russell sadly gathers up his papers, and stares at them
for a long time.

--------

 "Russell's always been too curious for his own good. It's fortunate
that Carver didn't believe him."

 "Do we eliminate him?"

 "Of course not. He'll just add some spice to things for a while."

 "...but if he comes too close?"

 "Then we either let him know what's going on, or we take care of
it. Maybe we'll do both."

 "Very well."

 "If that's settled, then can we move on to the morning's contracts?"

 "If you insist."

--------

 Backpack-fed plasma cannon. Check.

 Fully-automatic anti-personnel railgun. Check.

 Ground-zero-proof personal body armor. Check.

 Miniature self-deploying orbital particle cannon. Check.

 Half a dozen "World-Breaker" fusion grenades. Check.

 Strobeshow (tm) hallucinogenic lightshow generator. Check.

 Personal forcefield. Check.

 Tranquilizer darts, loaded with powerful sedatives and tipped with
Adamantium. Check.

 Affairs in order. Check.

 "Exactly what do we need all this for?" Hale asks, slightly wary.

 "You'll see," Carver says, checking his harness.

--------

 The planet Namek has never seen such a colossal match of titans,
and, most likely, will never see anything like it again, because those
titans are going to blow the damn thing up.

 That's the plan, anyway.

 Goku and Frieza are fighting each other with every ounce of
strength they possess. They knock each other through mountains, to the
deepest depths of the ocean floor, and thousands of feet into the air.
Neither are willing to give the slightest inch in the struggle, and both
know that the only way this will end is with one of their deaths.

 Then a third player joins the fray, and everything goes straight to
hell.

 "I," the newcomer says, materializing in a flash of blue light, "am
Sayan666! I challenge you, Goku!"

 "If you wish to challenge him, challenge his bloody, beaten corpse
when I am through!" Frieza snarls.

 Goku shrugs at the newcomer apologetically as he ducks a roundhouse
kick.

 The newcomer's response is to grab Frieza and powerbomb him through
the nearest continent. Frieza decides to lie unconscious at the bottom of
the crater Sayan666 has just dug for him, which seems just *slightly*
uncharacteristic for him.

 Goku's jaw drops. "What in the...?"

 "I am Sayan666!" he says unnecessarily, flexing. He is dressed
nearly identically to Goku, except that he favors black and red. His red
hair sits on top of his head like a sculpture of a bonfire. "I wish to
challenge you, Goku!"

 "I guess I'm not busy any more. Come on!" Goku's aura flares.

 "Prepare to die, Goku!" Sayan666 screams, and is suddenly gone.
Goku has exactly one second to wonder about what is going on before
Sayan666 reappears on the ground below.

 Without the slightest strain, Sayan666 drives his hands into a
previously unexploited fault line in the crust of the surface of Namek. He
straightens, picking up the peninsula he was just standing on, and clubs
Goku with it. Goku is sent spiraling over the horizon, and while he's not
unconscious, he would give everything he possesses to be somewhere else
right now.

 Carver parks directly behind Sayan666, unnoticed, and pulls out the
plasma cannon. "You ready, Hale?"

 "Fuck, no!"

 "That's your problem." With that, Carver, ignoring everything his
mind and body tell him, opens fire.

--------

Will Carver and Hale survive their battle with Sayan666? Is there actually
a conspiracy behind the agency that employs Carver? What other contracts
await Carver and Hale in the future? Is Russell completely insane?

Find out more in the next chapter of "Self-Extraction", written by the
Blackened Bastard!




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