The following is a chapter from "Self Extraction," an improvisational
fanfiction hosted at Indie Madnesse (http://indiemadnesse.sandwich.net).

This chapter was written by Thomas Wilde (talespinner@msc.net), the series's
creator.

* * * * *

It's a place with no way in there
It's a road to no way out
I'm asleep when I'm awake
I can't get a break
 -- Urge Overkill, "The Break"

========

New York City
World #N321
Two days ago

 "I'm sorry, Hale, but you're a newcomer to the scene. You have to
build a reputation, and --"

 "So, McMurry," Kathleen Hale snarls into the 'phone, "what you're
telling me is that I need experience before I can get hired."

 "Yes! Exactly!"

 "And I need to get hired, if I am to build experience."

 "...um..."

 "What should I do, McMurry?" Hale says acidly. "Go whack a few mob
informants _pro bono_? Is there an honest cop who needs a bullet? Should I
advertise on basic cable? Help me out here."

 "Look, Hale, I'm just telling it like it is, all right? Maybe if--"

 "Thanks for nothing, you fat sack of shit." Hale hangs up on
McMurry, her highly theoretical "agent", and stalks out of the 'phone booth.

 Her boyfriend, Mike Connelly, is waiting for her. Mike works in an
office, doing various businesslike and corporate things that he doesn't
like to talk about. He's a nice guy, born and raised in Queens, and has
never been anything but sweet to Hale. He has no idea what she does for a
living; Hale has told him that she's currently unemployed. Unfortunately,
at this point in time, Hale isn't lying. "No luck?" Mike says.

 "No, none." Hale blows air out and up, fanning her bangs. "I may
have to go apply at McDonald's."

 "Don't even joke about that." Mike puts an arm around her
shoulders. "So dinner's on me again, huh?"

 "Look, I told you, you don't have to--"

 "But I *want* to, Kate," Mike says. "That's how this whole thing
works. I buy you dinner, and..." He trails off, letting a salacious leer
finish his sentence for him. Hale jabs him in the ribs, but she's grinning.

 He walks Hale back to her apartment building. They stealthily dodge
her landlord, who would like two months' back rent right about now, thanks,
and pick up Hale's mail. Inside are several advertising circulars, a letter
from Hale's mom (always on the same pink paper, written in the same
looping, near-illegible calligraphy), and a small, plain brown box. There
is no return address on the box.

 "What's this?" Mike asks, pointing at the box.

 "I don't know," Hale says, shaking it. "I'll open it later tonight."

========

Raccoon City
World #RE209
Now

 Hale puts a bullet between the first zombie's eyes. The body drops
in its tracks with an empty moan that Hale doesn't hear, because she's
already finding a new target. There are already a dozen zombies in the
lobby with her, and she hears screaming in the street outside. Hale starts
backing away from them, firing into the crowd. She's slowing them down, but
that's all she's doing.

 Behind her, huddled against the foot of the stairs, is Jill
Valentine, an elite police operative who is, for whatever reason, dumber
than plain white paint. Hale has every reason to believe that this is an
artificial condition, and is trying to not hold it against Jill. However,
Jill is currently making this as hard as she possibly can.

 "For the love of God," Jill shouts, "save the chair! It doesn't
deserve this! Please, miss, I beg you--"

 Hale has had quite enough of this shit. With her free hand, she
reaches into the holster at the small of her back, and pulls out one of
Carver's pistols, a Glock 17. She shoves it in Jill's face. "Do you
remember what this is, Jill?" she says sweetly, not looking.

 "...that's a gun," Jill says, guilelessly.

 "Good girl, Jill," Hale says. She kills another zombie. "Now, I
want you to go up those stairs and into your apartment. I'll follow you."

 "What about the chair?"

 Hale shoots the chair. Twice. "Get up the stairs, Jill."

 Jill, wailing, does so. Hale backs up the stairs after her,
covering their escape with a barrage of bullets from both guns.

 She's beginning to wish she hadn't opened that box.

=============================================
Self-Extraction
Itchier! Tastier!

Chapter Six: At The Last Second
adapted from the Czechoslovakian folk tale by
Thomas Wilde

series apparently co-created
by Thomas Wilde, AoD, and Quanah Harjo
=============================================

 Jill Valentine doesn't have much furniture, so it doesn't take Hale
long to pile it all up against the door to her apartment. Outside Jill's
third-floor window, Hale can see streets full of fleeing people,
occasionally punctuated with zombies. The fleeing people, she notes, don't
seem to know exactly how one goes about running for one's life; many of
them are tripping over their own feet, or running straight into parked cars
or mailboxes. The few refugees who've gotten into cars don't seem to
remember how to drive.

 "Great," Hale says, mostly to herself. She pulls the blinds and
looks at Jill. "Do you have any weapons here?"

 "I've got my gun," Jill says, after some thought. "It's in my bedroom."

 "Go get it." Hale takes a second look at Jill. She's wearing a
crop-top and cutoffs; while it's a great outfit if you're planning a day at
the beach, it is not the ensemble one would choose for a full evening of
killing monsters. "While you're at it, change into something more
appropriate."

 "Yes, ma'am," Jill says politely, and runs off.

 While she's waiting, Hale reloads her guns and sighs. She gives the
matters at hand some thought, and doesn't come up with anything
particularly new; she still doesn't have any leads, and she doesn't think
of anything particularly innovative to get her and Jill out of the city.
Finally, she pulls a cellular 'phone out of her jacket pocket and dials the
office.

 "Jack Carver's office. Marie Reynolds speaking."

 "Marie!" Hale says, sitting up. "I need some help..."

 "What's wrong? I put in your pay order this morning, so you should
have your share out of the last two jobs."

 "I got the money before we went out on the Gates contract. My
rent's paid. That isn't it." Hale gets ready to say more, but a thin,
wailing moan sounds from behind her improvised barricade. She pulls out her
Browning and aims it at the door.

 "What was that?" Marie asks. "Are you at the movies or something?"

 "...no. I'm on a case." Hale grits her teeth.

 "Jesus *Christ*, Hale!" Hale looks at the 'phone in wonder. She
wasn't aware Marie even knew how to raise her voice. "You don't take on
jobs alone until we say you do, Hale! You aren't cleared for this, or for
whatever bloody method you used to go onworld! Get your newbie ass back to
the office before you lose your goddamned job!"

 "Don't yell at me, okay?" Hale says. "I'm in trouble. I can't get
back to the car. I'm on RE209, working on a Code DUH. I need you to help me
get out of this one, or I'm going to lose my goddamned *life*, you get me?"

 "Fine. Whatever." Marie takes a breath. "What do you need?"

 "Whatever you can do." Hale's barricade shifts a little. She eases
her safety off. "I talked to the chief of STARS already, and he wasn't much
help. Now I'm surrounded by zombies, I've got a complete ditz to look
after, and I'm pretty sure I'm kinda screwed."

 "All right. It's a Code DUH?" Hale mm-hms. "Okay, then. Is it a
general stupidity, or just a given group?"

 Hale looks out the window again. A police car careens to a halt
below her, sirens blaring. The two police officers inside jump out, holding
their nightsticks. Hale can see a shotgun underneath the police car's
dashboard. "It's looking sort of general from here, Marie."

 "Okay, then you're dealing with some kind of exterior manipulation.
I can't guarantee you that it's actually from an onworld source, so your
best bet is to get back here however you can. We'll track it from here."
Marie types a little. "Hale, there's no easy way to say this... have *you*
done anything stupid lately?"

 "Besides come on this damn job?" Hale thinks about it. "Not to
speak of."

 "No, really. Have you forgotten anything you used to know, or been
taken in by a patently obvious ruse, or ran to someplace you can't easily
escape from and locked yourself in, or anything like that?"

 Hale winces. "Actually, yeah..."

 "Great. That means that you're being affected by whatever's making
people dumb. You need to fix that first, before you do *anything* else.
You've got Carver's car, right?"

 "Yeah, I do. It's parked outside." The barricade shifts again.
Holding the 'phone with her shoulder, Hale stands up on one knee in a
shooter's stance. Something thumps wetly against the other side of the door.

 "Good. Get to it somehow and check his trunk. He should have a
couple of gadgets in there in a shoebox. They look like earphones, and
they're designed to inhibit outside signals or exterior control. Try using
them, and hopefully, that should snap you out of it."

 "Got it. Thanks, Marie." The barricade shakes with a sudden impact.
"Look, I'm gonna--"

 "Okay, I'm ready!" Jill Valentine says happily. She bounces out of
her bedroom. She has what looks like a custom Beretta handgun in her hand.
It's a nice-looking, practical gun. Unfortunately, she's completed the
ensemble with a leather miniskirt, a blue tube top, and heavy leather
boots. A white sweater is tied around her waist.

 "Hale? Are you there? Answer me!"

 "I am paralyzed with helpless anger, Marie. I believe I shall call
you back." Hale snaps her cell 'phone shut.

 "Don't you like this outfit?" Jill says, posing for Hale's benefit.
"I got it at the boutique a few blocks over, it was a steal--"

 "I should shoot you myself." Hale is about to elaborate as to why,
but just then, the barricade shifts. Jill's couch slides a few feet, and
the lock splinters. Hale and Jill are treated to a brief glimpse of just
how many zombies are outside pressing against the barricade. Hale loses
count at "a whole damned lot".

 "What are we going to--" Jill begins. She is cut off by Hale
grabbing her by the arm and dragging her into her bedroom. "Look, ma'am,
I'm afraid that I just don't like you in that way, and--"

 Jill's bedroom window looks out onto a fire escape. Hale kicks the
window out and tosses Jill through it. At the same time, the barricade
falls apart, and zombies begin to flood into the apartment. "Get down to
the alleyway!" Hale says. "We need to get to my car!"

 "Look, maybe one day, if you're nice, I might--"

 "Just *go*, goddammit!"

 Jill "eep"s and slides down the fire escape's ladder. Hale kills
the first couple of zombies to come through the bedroom door, and gently
steps through the window.

 A claw nearly takes her head off.

 Hale looks up, and gasps. Clinging to the wall above the window is
a gigantic multi-limbed creature. Its skin is a mottled yellow, and
something dark and acidic drips from its mandibles. It looks like what
would happen if H.R. Giger had designed the cockroach.

 It is also very fast, as Hale soon learns. The creature drops off
of the wall and flips in midair, landing between her and the ladder. Hale
backs away, and a zombie grabs at her from Jill's bedroom. It flops roughly
out the window, onto the fire escape's platform, and begins to climb to its
feet. Others aren't far behind.

 Hale takes a look over the edge, swallows, and throws herself off
of the fire escape.

========

 Jack Carver lies back down, thinking about the current situation.

 Matthew Russell is confounding the hell out of him. Not only does
Russell seem to think he knows something about his "death", but Russell is
acting strangely in the bargain. Carver isn't sure that he wants to meet
Russell at the Middle of Nowhere; the best-case scenario seems to be that
Russell will say something carefully enigmatic, then disappear. Again.

 Of course, the late Gates twins are also on Carver's mind. Someone
warned them about the contract, and, specifically, about both Carver and
Hale. The implications of this worry Carver; it may be some precognitive
talent of the twins', or it may be indicative of a mole somewhere in the
Agency. Either way, he doesn't like it much at all.

 Carver begins to roll over. The bed squeaks underneath him.

 He freezes.

 The Agency paid for this hospital room. It is a very nice hospital
room; it has satellite television, a DVD player, nurses that don't look
like elderly bulldogs, and other such perks. One of those perks is that the
hospital bed's mattress is stuffed with goosedown, and rests on insulated
box springs. It should not audibly squeak. It didn't earlier.

 These are the small details that keep you alive, in Carver's line
of work.

 Carver, being very careful to not shift his weight around too much,
presses his call button. When the nurse comes in, he smiles nonchalantly
and asks for a shaving kit. It is a testament to the quality of this
hospital room that the nurse does not respond to this request by offering
to shave him herself.

 When she brings it to him, Carver waits for her to leave.
Carefully, he dangles the mirror over the side of his bed, and sees about
what he expected to see.

 A small automaton is standing underneath Carver's bed. It is a
cunningly designed delivery system for plastique, and Carver can see that
its chest cavity is bulging with the stuff. It is holding a coiled spring,
which is linked to an electronic detonator, which is in turn wired to the
plastique. The automaton is also, as far as Carver is concerned, holding a
large sign that reads, MATTHEW RUSSELL IS TRYING TO KILL YOU.

 This irritates Carver to no end.

========

 Instead of thinking about what she might land on, Hale fires at the
zombies as she's falling. She sees one of them fall down, a hole in its
throat, before they scroll out of sight. This makes her feel better for
exactly one second, right before she hits.

 She gets lucky, in a backhanded, stupid sort of way. Instead of a
dumpster (unpleasant), the ground (bad), or Jill (better), she hits a
cluster of plastic trash cans. They bend and break as she hits, absorbing
some of the impact, and she's still breathing after she lands. She rolls to
her feet and starts running. Jill falls in behind her, and after that, it's
a mad dash down the street.

========

 Marie is doing her best to help Hale. This, unfortunately, consists
largely of research into past DUH cases that the agency has handled, and is
therefore somewhat dull. Mostly, DUH cases wound up being a natural ability
of a couple of other targets, usually without the target's conscious
awareness; the target thought he was the smartest or cleverest guy around,
when in fact he was just telepathically lowering the bar on intelligence.
Hale's problem, the fact that an entire *city* is being dumbed down, is
rarer, and most of those files have UNSOLVED stamped across them in bright
red ink.

 Marie reads fast, and it doesn't take her long to realize that
these files aren't going to be much help. She pulls up the agency's world
database and punches in RE209. Strangely, the acronym RE is unexplained,
but there are a lot of RE worlds just the same.

 A couple of minutes later, after reading up on some details, Marie
comes across something. Hale had mentioned talking to the chief of
something called STARS, which is mentioned specifically in a couple of
files; some of its members have been recommended by various agency
operatives as possibilities for recruitment. However, according to Marie's
files, the STARS unit -- the Special Tactics and Rescue Service -- is a
subdepartment inside a police force, and as such, shouldn't have a chief of
its own. It should report straight to the chief of police.

 Marie ponders this for a couple of seconds. Out of curiosity, Marie
gets up from her computer and searches the office, hunting for stray faxes.
She finds one on Carver's desk, clearly detailing the case Hale is on and
the people she should speak to. The chief of STARS, a portly man with a
goatee, is mentioned, but not given a name.

 A thought strikes Marie just then. She drops the fax, runs to the
fax machine, and checks to see where the last few faxes have come from. The
first few -- the contracts on Jimmy Polowski, Kevin Kelsey, and the rest of
the unpleasant crew -- are from the usual number, the one she's accustomed
to seeing. The last fax is from a different number altogether.

 Marie stares at it for a few seconds. Then she calls Hale.

========

 "Shit." Hale pulls her hand out of her pocket. She has the key to
Carver's car in it, but she also has a handful of shattered plastic that
used to be a cellular telephone.

 "You smell bad," Jill observes.

 "You look like a hooker," Hale retorts. "Just cover me, all right?"

 "With what? I could get a blanket, or some paint, or --"

 Hale ignores Jill, and opens Carver's trunk. She finds the
earphones, and, in the bargain, a couple of shotguns and a box of shells,
lying on top of a duffel bag. Hale leans the guns against the car, and puts
on the earphones.

 The effect is low-key, but she notices it immediately; it's like
something near her has been humming gently for a long time, and has
suddenly shut off. Hale doesn't feel smarter, exactly, but it's suddenly
easier to think. Jill, still nattering on about the literal interpretation
of "covering" Hale, is too surprised to resist when Hale grabs her and
slaps on a headlock.

 Hale forces the earphones onto Jill. Jill clutches at her temples
and screams, as a few weeks' worth of brainwave patterns are forcibly
rerouted. While she's busy, Hale loads the shotguns.

 Finally, Jill gets back to her feet. She's shaky, but she doesn't
look unfocused any more. "Where am I? Who are you?" She looks down at
herself. "What the hell is going on?"

 "I'm Kathleen Hale. You're Jill Valentine. Hi." Hale hands Jill a
shotgun. "We're currently on the main street in Raccoon City." A pair of
zombies interrupt the conversation. Absently, Jill clubs one to the ground
and crushes its skull with the butt of the shotgun; Hale simply vaporizes
the other's head. "I think you can see what else is happening."

 "Umbrella," Jill snarls. "They have underground labs underneath the
city. They're working on a bioweapon, called the T-Virus, that turns people
into zombies..."

 "If you say so," Hale says. "Right now, I'm thinking that we should
use this car of mine to--"

========

 Carver sits on his hospital bed and calmly thinks about his
options. A great many of them seem to involve an explosion and his death,
which are both unacceptable.

 (A multiverse away, Hale goes into freefall off of the fire escape.)

 He doesn't know much about bombs; that was always Russell's
specialty. Defusing the bomb is, therefore, not possible to him at this
time, even if he had the tools to do it. Carver is also not a complete
asshole, so he immediately discards doing anything like luring a nurse in
here and tying her to the bed in his place.

 Carver gives it another ten minutes' thought

 (Hale opens the trunk of his car)

 and sighs. The only thing he can think of involves a great deal of
collateral damage, and won't be as subtle as the agency usually prefers him
to be when he's not actually on a contract.

 Carver's been around a while, though, and knows that sometimes, you
have to throw subtlety out the window.

 Break some shit.

 Bring the noise.

========

 "--leave."

 Suddenly, Carver's car starts itself. Before Hale and Jill's eyes,
it vanishes, disappearing into the space between worlds like a magic trick.
The gate the car is using leaks blue light for a moment before it vanishes
too, like it was never there.

 Jill turns to Hale. "I'll ask again. What the hell is going on?"

 "Okay," Hale says, "*this* will be a little harder to explain."

========

 Carver's car drives itself onto a street in the world where Hale
stowed him, coming out of the betweenworlds space in a flash of blue light.
It confounds a couple of traffic cops, startles a couple of other drivers,
and causes a couple of really nasty accidents. More than one person thinks
of "Knight Rider", sort of like you just did.

 Then Carver, through the microchip in the base of his skull, kicks
on the special systems.

 His car takes off. Sort of. It engages a couple of force projectors
mounted on the tire wells, calculates some geometry, does some tricks, and
rides up into the air on a pair of invisible ramps -- screw it, it's
flying. The difference is largely for academics and scholars and other
useless bastards. The car is flying.

 Most importantly, though, the driver's side window rolls down.

 Carver, all this time, is sitting on his bed in what used to be
called Indian-style, with sweat running down his face. Using the microchip
in this precise a manner isn't easy; it requires almost complete
concentration, and for all he knows, will generate a nice big fatal tumor
right in the middle of his frontal lobe. Oh, well. C'est la vie.

 The car runs up into the air, gaining speed,
sixty-seventy-eighty-ninety, and starts heading straight towards the
hospital.

 Carver gets up to his knees.

 People start screaming in the corridor outside. Some idiot looked
out the window. That'll teach him.

 The car punches through the outside wall like light through water.
It plows through that wall and  about halfway through the wall separating
Carver's room from the one to its left before it so much as slows down;
Carver's car is built to bloody well last.

 Carver jumps for his driver's side window.

 The spring compresses. The detonator sparks, the plastique ignites,
and Carver's hospital room is blown to the sky. A nurse is standing right
in the doorway, and she's fine, because the charge has been shaped with the
utmost skill. The ceiling above Carver's room is damaged, but isn't falling
in just yet, because Matthew Russell knows exactly what the hell he is
doing.

 Of course, so does Jack Carver.

 The moment he touches his car, he is within its systems' event
horizon, and he engages the "stealth mode". This is where everything in,
around, and including the car becomes invisible... and intangible.

 Carver is still inside the explosion, but he doesn't die. More to
the point, his car finishes the rough arc it began by traveling completely
through the hospital, ghostlike, unseen. When he emerges from the
hospital's other side, he hits the switch, tossing the car into the place
between worlds.

 It is an experience, all told, that he could've done without.

========

 "So you're an assassin?"

 "Yes, I'm an assassin, but I only kill people that deserve it,"
Hale protests. "These days," she adds, sotto voce.

 They are running through the streets of Raccoon City, avoiding the
increasingly-large mobs of zombies whenever possible and trying to figure
out how the hell they're going to get out of town. Jill isn't really buying
the story Hale is telling, which involves hallucinogens and brainwave
manipulations and the CIA's experiments with LSD in the early sixties and
generally any bit of bullshit Hale can think of that doesn't involve her
crossing dimensions to kick ass, but fortunately, Jill's more concerned
about the whole "assassin" angle that Hale let slip than she is about the
disappearing car. Compared to the walking dead, a disappearing car is
almost endearing.

 "Okay," Jill says. "I can handle that for right now, because I
think I remember you saving me back there. I owe you one. One more thing,
though."

 They take shelter next to a storefront, in an alleyway. "What?"
says Hale.

 "Who the *hell* dressed me like this?" Jill demands. "I look like a
cheerleader, for God's sake."

 "Hey, you dressed yourself, babe," Hale replies, half-grinning.

 "You must be--"

 Both of them have had military training, and know what a rocket
launcher being fired sounds like. Jill, on the other hand, sees the rocket
coming, and knocks them both down. The storefront blows apart next to them,
and both of them are showered with flaming debris. Jill gets off of Hale.
"Thanks," Hale says.

 "Don't mention it," Jill replies. "Who in the...?"

 They both see the rocket's former owner at the same time,
illuminated by the burning storefront. The creature is huge, at least seven
feet tall, and has more muscle than Hale and Jill put together twice. Those
muscles are straining a black trenchcoat to the breaking point. In one
hand, it is carrying a cannon that is roughly the size of the Lincoln
Tunnel. Its face is flayed, skinless, and covered in rough sutures; one
yellow eye glares out from its head's left side, and its mouth is frozen in
an eternal lipless grimace.

 "It might be a Tyrant," Jill says, climbing to her feet. "It's an
Umbrella bioweapon, a bioengineered killing machine..."

 "...STARS..." the Tyrant mutters. With its free hand, it unzips its coat.

 "That's great, Jill," Hale says. "Why the hell isn't it wearing pants?"

 "I... I... now hold on one goddamned *second*."

 "...STARS..." the Tyrant mutters again. To both Hale and Jill's
disgust, it appears to be very, very happy to see them both.

 "Okay, I'm shooting that," Hale says.

 "Oh, yeah."

 Both women open fire. The Tyrant doesn't even look like it tries to
dodge the clouds of buckshot that fly at it. Both Jill and Hale hit it
cleanly and repeatedly. Blood flies from a thousand wounds everywhere on
its body, but it doesn't fall. It raises the cannon.

 Jill is closer to the mouth of the alleyway, and has some room to
move. Hale, on the other hand, is further back, and has nowhere to go when
the Tyrant launches another rocket. It detonates against the wall next to
Hale, and she is knocked to the back of the alleyway by the shockwave. Her
head glances off of a brick wall, and the world gets very dark very quickly.

 Hale looks up. She sees Jill fleeing down another street. She
pauses briefly to fire at the Tyrant and yell at it, but Hale can't make
out the words. The Tyrant, as buckshot glances off of the back of its head,
grunts and follows Jill.

 "Thank God for small favors," Hale mutters, and falls unconscious.

========

 "If anyone calls, I didn't do it," Carver says, coming into his office.

 "Jack!" Marie says. She stands up, and has to suppress a grin.
"Nice hospital gown."

 "I really don't want to talk about it." Carver walks into his
office, where he keeps a spare set of clothes. "What's going on?"

 "Hale's out on a job."

 Carver pauses at his closet door. "Hale isn't supposed to be on any
jobs by herself."

 "No, she's not." Marie leans against the doorjamb in his office.
"She's taking her own initiative. She already mopped up this 'Hyperfox'
clown."

 "Shit," Carver mutters. "Where is she now? That was our last case
for the week."

 "Officially," Marie says. She puts a fax on his desk. "This came in
while I was out getting lunch. It's a contract that didn't come from the
higher-ups on a client that doesn't exist."

 "So it's a fake," Carver says, pulling on a pair of jeans.

 "Yeah. She's on RE209, working on a Code DUH. For the record, it
appears to be authentic. She had to use one of your brainwave jammers to
keep her head together. I don't know why she hasn't called back yet."

 "RE?" Carver thinks about it. "Is that the supernatural creatures
from beyond the grave, or the deliberately bioengineered killing machines?"

 "The latter."

 "I'll get my coat."

========

 Hale wakes up from a dream of being chained to a wall to discover
that it was, in fact, not a dream.

 Sort of.

 She is being held by two incredibly large men, each of whom are
clutching one of her arms. She is wearing her jeans and her T-shirt; her
shoulder holsters, jacket, boots, and most of her other weapons are missing.

 Hale and the two men are standing in what looks like an office,
except for the scale of things. The window in front of her affords an
excellent view of Raccoon City burning. The pictures on the walls look
expensive. Everything stinks of money.

 On the desk, in front of the window, is enough computer to run
Europe. A monitor is turned away from Hale, and several long beige boxes,
CPUs, are lined up next to it on the desktop. All of the CPUs are wired to
a satellite dish, which points straight out of the window with the
excellent view.

 Hale chances a quick glance to either side, and immediately tries
to break free. The men holding her aren't men at all, but are instead
near-exact duplicates of the Tyrant she saw earlier; this, unfortunately,
includes their muscle mass. Hale's arms may as well be sunk to the elbow in
granite.

 "Ah. She awakes."

 The voice is male, cultured, and smooth as mousse. Hale looks up,
the back of her head aching, and watches as a man in a finely tailored
black suit comes towards her. He is wearing a set of earphones
near-identical to the ones she realizes she's still wearing. He is
clapping, gently, like a spectator at a golf game.

 "Who the hell are you?" Hale says through gritted teeth. There is a drum
solo playing in her head. It's probably a minor goddam miracle that the
earphones still work.

 "I, my dear, am Patrick Jameson," the man says. He puts a hand on
her chin and tilts her face left and right. "You are exquisite, do you
realize that? A perfect specimen of African beauty."

 "I'm from the fucking Bronx, you asshole."

 "Oh. I stand mistaken." Jameson sounds genuinely abashed. "In any
event, I do believe that you believe you've been sent to stop me from doing
what I'm doing?"

 "Yeah." Hale decides that if she has to, she will kill this man
with her teeth. He's just that sort of person.

 "I thought as much. I make a habit of monitoring all
interdimensional communication while I'm on the job, as it were. I picked
up your little conversation." Jameson turns his back on her. "I see that
you helped Valentine escape. More's the pity; she was the main target of
all of this. I suppose I'll have to settle for the other benefits of this
job..."

 "What are you doing, anyway?" Hale asks, trying to keep the man
talking, to buy herself time to think of something impressive. She wriggles
a little bit more, and, to her surprise, something digs into her pelvis.
She still has a weapon.

 "Is this the part where I dazzle you with my villainous exposition?"

 "Sure is."

 "Oh, very well... I'll keep it brief." Hale doubts it; Jameson has
the look, to her, of a man who was born to talk about himself. "You see, I
represent a coalition that, for reasons I don't dare go into just now, has
a vested interest in various organizations and individuals across the
multiverse. These organizations and individuals have a, shall we say,
tendency, to lose in the end -- repeatedly, irrevocably, hopelessly.
Therefore, I am among those dispatched to... even the odds."

 "By making everyone stupid?" Hale asks.

 "What, the intelligence suppressor?" Jameson points a thumb at the
satellite dish. Hale nods; Jameson smiles. "Among other methods, although
this is admittedly one of my favorites. By sowing chaos among the denizens
of this city, I can collect such fine specimens. Even though you managed to
destroy my chance of eliminating Valentine, I've still collected a number
of... other potential targets." Jameson looks fondly to his left.

 Hale follows his gaze over to the side of the room, to a small
crowd of kneeling women positioned alongside the wall of Jameson's office.
The women are all in various stages of undress, bound with rope or wire,
and have sacks over their heads. Some are crying, although most are silent.
"What the *fuck* you after, motherfucker?!" Hale demands.

 "I am a man of somewhat exotic tastes, miss," Jameson says calmly.
"I have little sexual drive of my own, but I confess to being something of
a voyeur. For example, these... 'Nemesis' units, when they are created by
the Umbrella corporation, are sexless, like eunuchs. Their creators believe
that reproductive functions would only interfere with their ability to
function in a combat situation." He smiles, light glinting off of straight
white teeth. "I, on the other hand, immediately requested that those
functions be replaced. After all... imagine the possibilities."

 Hale thinks she sees where this might be going. She does not like
it. "You're insane, aren't you?"

 "I get asked that question a great deal, miss..." Jameson turns
back towards Hale. "You two. Take care of her."

 One of the Nemeses takes one hand off of Hale and grabs at the neck
of her T-shirt. With scarcely any effort, he tears it to her waist,
exposing her sports bra. Hale tries to tear that arm free, but the Nemesis,
even one-handed, is still too strong. Jameson sits down in a long-backed
leather chair, and steeples his hands.

 The Nemesis grabs her belt.

 Hale kicks it in the face. It doesn't react. It starts to pull.

 "Yesss..." Jameson hisses through his teeth.

 Carver's car crashes through the window.

========

 Once the car is over the desk, Carver disengages the ramps and
spins out. The car comes to a rest with the driver's side door towards Hale
and Jameson. The back end slams into the intelligence jammer's satellite
dish and shatters it, sending shards of plastic across the room.

 Carver himself, in jeans and a long grey coat, is out of his car
before it's stopped moving, a .50 recoilless rifle in his hands. He only
hesitates for a moment when he sees Hale, strung up between the two Nemeses
like a Frank Frazetta painting, and then he blows the left-hand Nemesis's
head off. It lets go of Hale and staggers backward, swinging its fists at
nothing. It isn't quite dead, strangely enough, but it seems incredibly
confused.

 Jameson backs away from Carver, his face a frozen mask of surprise.
"Who the hell are you?"

 "Jack Carver. Dramatic rescues a specialty. Do me a favor and give
me a reason to shoot you."

 "Carver!" Hale yells. "Gun!"

 Carver, while covering Jameson, reaches under his coat. He pulls
out a .50 Desert Eagle, which he immediately throws to Hale. The standing
Nemesis watches it fly, and lets go of Hale; it's not dumb; its first
priority is Carver.

 Whoops.

 Hale catches the gun at the same time the Nemesis makes a mad dash
for Carver. Carver grins slightly and shifts his attention to the Nemesis.
It's not two steps towards him before he opens fire with his rifle, tearing
chunks out of its torso. This gives Jameson the opportunity he's been
looking for, and he runs for the desk, covering his head with his arms.

 The Nemesis doesn't stop, even for this kind of punishment, until
Hale opens up on it too. She fires all eight rounds in the Desert Eagle's
clip as fast as she can pull the trigger, and suddenly the Nemesis is
between the hammer and the anvil. Hale's gun clicks empty; Carver raises
his rifle; only about half of the Nemesis is left to hit the ground.

 "It's all about having the right tools for the job, kid," Carver says.

 "Jesus, one rescue at the last second and you're fuckin' Bruce
Willis..."

 Carver smiles. "Oh, wait, what are we forgetting... oh! I
remember!" He turns around and points his rifle at Patrick Jameson. Jameson
freezes behind his computer like he's got his hand in the cookie jar.
"Hale, is this a bad man?"

 "Yes sir."

 "I think I might have to shoot you, friend. I've made a lot of
money this week, so I can afford to give one away..."

 "You can't!" Jameson yells, in that last second of denial Carver
knows so well. Carver pulls the trigger. His rifle clicks on an empty
chamber.

 "Well, shit," Carver says mildly.

 "Hah!" Jameson yells. "You can't touch me!"

 "Like hell," Carver replies. "I have more guns than Afghanistan,
friend."

 "Not in time to stop me!" Jameson cackles. "I can be out of here in
another second--"

 He trails off, because he's just looked at Hale, whose hand is down
the front of her jeans. Jameson looks like he might actually start drooling.

 Hale looks right back at him, and makes a little kissing gesture
with her lips.

 Then she pulls out a miniature .45 automatic and shoots him twice
in the chest. Jameson crumples backward, not quite dead, and looks down at
the gunshot wounds. He looks almost like he's offended.

 "*No*body ever frisks me there!" Hale yells. "You *moron*!" She
shoots Jameson again. "You absolute dumbshit psycho *fuck*!" She shoots him
a final time, and that's the one that does it.

 Jameson crumples backwards, bleeding like a stuck pig, and falls
straight out the window that Carver just burst through. There's a scream,
trailing off into the air like cigarette smoke, and soon afterwards,
there's a distant wet impact. Hale and Carver, walk to the window's edge
and look down at Jameson's corpse.

 "I didn't realize we were up so high," Hale says.

 "Fortieth floor," Carver says. "Sick fucks, girls in trouble,
ladies' lingerie."

 "I didn't realize your car could fly, either," Hale says.

 "Now you know why you don't get one yet," Carver says. "How about
we go back to the office, let Marie scream at you for a while, and go out
to eat?"

 "Sounds good to me. By the way, how'd you find me?" Hale asks.

 "I traced the transmission from this guy's intelligence jammer,"
Carver says. "Youwere just a bonus."

 "Thanks."

 "You're welcome. Nice bra, by the way."

 "Shut the fuck up, Carver."

 He starts chuckling. He keeps chuckling while they're freeing
Jameson's captives, while they're throwing the Nemeses out the window, and
right up until they get into the car.

 "What's so funny?" Hale says.

 "It's just been a real weird day, Hale," Carver says, and hits the
switch.

========

 "I did what you asked, Mephisto," Russell says bitterly.

 "You've killed Carver?"

 "I made an effort," Russell says. "I didn't stick around to see if
it worked. If it didn't, he'd know it was me, and I know better than to try
to take Jack on face to face."

 Mephisto seems to accept this, and turns away. Russell lets out a
quiet sigh of relief. "Very well. Come with me."

 "Why did you want me to kill Jack, anyway?" Russell asks. "What's
he to you?"

 "A minor threat, at best. A thorn in our side. But he was your
friend, Mr. Russell." Mephisto's smile can be heard in his voice, if one
pays enough attention. "Consider it a test of loyalty."

 Mephisto has had Russell meet him on what Russell would've called a
DW: a deadworld, a barren wasteland. It is as lifeless as the surface of an
undeveloped moon, except for the well-lit doorway that Mephisto is walking
towards. Russell follows him.

 "This is one of our testing grounds, Mr. Russell," Mephisto says.
"I wished for you to see it, so you could see the extent of what we do
here."

 "And what do you do here?"

 "We make dreams come true." They walk by a long window. Russell
looks through it, and sees a room lined with cylinders, like incubation
tanks. Naked men and women, boys and girls, float inside the tubes, eyes
closed, wires leading to their hearts and arms.

 Another window shows Russell a doctor's office, apparently. A young
boy is sitting on an examination table in a paper smock. A man in a
biohazard suit is giving the boy an injection. The boy does not look away
from the needle; he stares at it as greedily as a junkie does a fix.

 "Here is where we create the men and women of the future, Mr.
Russell," Mephisto says. "We've a group of clients that are almost ready to
be dispatched to an Earth right now, in fact. Would you like to see them?"

 "Do I have a choice?" Russell says.

 "You always have a choice, Mr. Russell. What you're asking is
whether you'd like the other available options." Mephisto opens a door, and
walks into one of the laboratories.

 Russell follows him, cautiously. Not for the first time, he thinks
of the loaded Colt Python that he has underneath his field jacket. Mephisto
is just a man, Russell thinks, and a bullet to the base of his skull should
work on him just like it does on most other folks...

 ...but no. He's committed now. He has to play out this hand.

 Mephisto is standing in an observation room, talking quietly to a
woman in a labcoat. The woman's nametag reads "Sullivan, Andrea". She is
blonde, pale, and visibly arrogant. She and Mephisto look like they'd be a
cute couple.

 "Ah, Russell. This is Dr. Sullivan, chief of our mutagenics
department. She won't say hello, so don't bother." Mephisto gestures.
"Shall we meet the troops?"

 "They're not quite indoctrinated yet, Marlowe," Sullivan says.

 "All the better... you can make them forget us while you're at it,"
Mephisto says. "Thank you, my dear."

 "'Marlowe'?" Russell says.

 "Well, yes, Mr. Russell... you didn't think that 'Mephisto' was the
name I was *born* with, did you?" Mephisto waves at him. "Shall we continue
our little tour?"

 Russell nods, and the two of them step into an oversized gymnasium.
The equipment is custom-made, to test skills and abilities a normal human
doesn't possess. The men and women using the equipment all have several
things in common: they're all improbably attractive, they're all clad in
skintight bodysuits, and they're all doing things that normal humans can't,
couldn't, or shouldn't do.

 "I've seen better," Russell says.

 "Of course you have," Mephisto says irritatedly.

 A young woman in impossibly tight red clothes flies out of the pack
and lands in front of Mephisto. She has black hair cascading down to her
waist, green eyes, and breasts that are best described as "improbable".
Russell is having a hard time looking her in the face. She doesn't seem to
mind. "Is there something you needed, sir?" she asks Mephisto.

 "Why not?" Mephisto says, smiling like a used car salesman. "I
think I'll say a few words to the class.

 "Come to me," he shouts. "Come, my X-Men."




========

Author's Notes:

Fuck *yeah*.

It's big, it's huge, but I kinda like it. In the last two weeks, I've moved
into a new apartment, ran home to see my brother graduate, ran off to see
my best friend graduate, driven from Chicago to Kansas City, worked a few
hours... fuck it, kids, this is the best it's gonna get.

Patrick Jameson's agency may show up again; Mephisto's agency may or may
not be responsible for setting up Carver and Hale; Russell may or may not
have deliberately tried to kill Carver in a way that he knew Carver could
easily avoid. This shit is what *other* writers are for. Go get it.

The next chapter comes courtesy of Raphael Russell, known to you lot as A
to the O to the D-second-D. Bust their lip, make 'em slip, yo.

Thomas Wilde
storyteller@msc.net
6/10/2000




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