Max M wrote:

  Life is but a dream. Row that boat, baby.

  Something in my head rattled into place, and I finally
remembered. Who I was, where I was, why I was involved in any
of this.

Always useful things.

  But there was a delicate problem. Even my new
recollections did not match up in certain places. I had several
different memories of the apartment I grew up in, and they did not
coincide. All my life I had wondered about my parents, about why
they had both left me in my pre-maturity. My life had always been
chaotic, but there had always been one way of looking at it or
another that left me with some feeling of sanity. It now seemed as
if there were a cleft in that timeline. It started about ten years ago,
and ran jaggedly up until the present, forming striking
incompatibilities in my conception of myself. It was not that I still
had bad spots in my memory, it was that my memory was now so
much clearer that inconsistent memories I had always disregarded
had become apparent, and troubling.

Ah, false memories. Now I see.

  Merusion. Death. Ureasonable power always walking hand
in hand

hand-in-hand

  Laid out next to me in a pile were my civilian clothes. I
discarded the white lab coats, and put on actual underwear that had
been recently washed. Fancy stuff, I tell you.

Heh

Donning my thick

jeans, leather boots, and racing jacket, I was not surprised to see
that my holster was empty. I had a good idea that it would not have
given me a lot of use. Rufius and White could not be killed with
little nuggets of lead. It was going to take a plan.

And power.

  The whole cavernous complex was far too big to be
contained within one building; something I became convinced of
in the following hours in which I roamed around aimlessly.

Yes. If you roam for hours, it is unbelievable big.

  These rooms being as barren as they were, a space behind a semi-
portable incinerator had been my only cover. Waiting for almost
ten minutes and not hearing any more, I assumed the noises had
been imagined. But as I stood again, ready to keep moving, I heard
my mistake. The tapping I mistook for footsteps was coming from
above.

Hmm.

  At first I saw nothing, because frost had settled over the
glass. I wiped it off quickly with my hand, knowing that if this
thing was on, there would be no way frost could form on the inside
where it would be unbearably hot.

Good point.

  Holding onto a stand of cabinets for support, I suddenly
heard a hiss of air, and the granite cross jolted visibly. A dark line
had formed on its side, and was running along its surface
lengthwise very quickly. The lid was opening! I looked around for
a place to hide, but then figured it would probably be a useless
maneuver. With the next reverberation the front face cracked away
and rotated forward and down on its hinges like a drawbridge. It
finally touched the floor, a shadow of the real chamber, and I saw
inside. It was White's tall frame which appeared through the steam
which billowed out, and he was struggling lethargically against
restraints.

And he managed to find it in that vast cavernous place. Most interesting.

  Clearly I had been wrong again.

  Eyeing me with disgust he let me get right in his face, and I
punched him in the gut. I almost broke my fingers.

Ouch. well, he isn't really human. Not a surprise.

  The space was empty.

  I waited about three minutes to see if he would show up,
but he did not. Either he was a really slow runner or I had lost him.
Assuming the latter, I turned around and entered the room I was
standing just outside of. Without exploring, I slammed shut the
heavy door and leaned against it since I could find no lock.

Heh. Like that will work.

  It was fairly large office filled with the fetor of stale cigars.
Along a painted wall there was a rectangular wooden table with
three people sitting at it, all of whom I knew. Oddly they all knew
me as well, or knew *of* me, though none expressed any outward
recognition. For a minute the only sound was the ticking of a wall
clock as I waited for someone to say something to me first. All
three faces looked unsure of what I was going to do, and
apparently had the same plan. So I walked forward and sat in the
fourth chair which had been neglected.

Hmm. Almost surreal. He does have a tendency to stumble into the right
place, though.

  I drummed my fingers on the table with growing
impatience, as she hadn't moved or said anything yet. The room
was cold and uncomfortable for an old office.

  "You know, I don't think '*Dad*' likes me very much," I
continued. "He almost broke me in half when I punched him, and
he didn't even have the respect to coldly finish the job. I guess he's
looking for me right now. Jeez, I mean, I could understand if I had
gotten you pregnant or something. It was just a friendly punch, in
the filial spirit-"

Heh. I didnt' suspect she was that high up in the food chain.

  "I know you can't believe this, and I don't expect you too,
but I'll get it out anyway. White told me that if you were in danger
of death, your body would mature itself faster to protect you. He
told me to give you Anthanol which would keep you awake during
the merusion, so you would see me do it. Afterwards..." she trailed
off. "Though if I had been lied to as many times as you have, a
crying girl wouldn't scratch my surface either."

Also her words at the time were a little off, as I recall. Still, it's been
a while since I read that chapter.

  Hmm. I had to shrug a little, because it wasn't that she
wasn't reaching me. Okay, so maybe I did remember Rufius taking
me and Zig. I really had been unconscious the whole time but that
had never stopped me from having memories before. The truth
seems to be that I am never far below the surface, even in death. I
even know some things that happened to other people in other
places during that time. My old infectious presence coming back.

As, that explains the awkward read of some of the chapters when it involved
people that were around but Scrw wasnt'./

  "It's easier to hate yourself with everyone else than it is to
hate everyone else by yourself, you know?"

  I nodded.

  "And when I met you face to face

face-to-face

.... everything suddenly

changed. You were the focal point of all of this pain and hardship
in my life, maybe the reason that Rufius and my father turned evil
in the first place, and yet I could do nothing but love you. You
were my center too, and I could do nothing but chose shat

that

  "Because I was in the car that first time. White radioed him
on the CB, and they had a whole argument about it. Wells wanted
to let his students have open season on you to give you practice,
but White said no. When you killed Wells, the imposter Guy Jinn,
a man named Geese, ran off to get revenge and they couldn't stop
him either. Merusion always warps your conception of loyalty. The
fact that you managed to kill him at a immature state proved that
you had more psionic potential than anyone had originally thought.
And more intelligence, drive. This scares them and it is why they
would kill anyone to get a hold of you."

Makes sense.

a lot of my own past she didn't know about either. There were still
many things I was not sure of myself that it would be better for her
not to know. True, my intentions had not been to deceive, but I
could see myself telling the very same lies if I thought it would
smooth over certain circumstances.

Heh. Quite an admission.

 It all led back to the confused

state of frustration. So I merely held her there, and she cried semi-
dramatically into my arm.

  Finally she said, "Oh, I wanted to stay, I would have. But
when Mom put you in the chamber, I thought that she was just
going to do to you what my father wanted to do to me. My damn
parents, they're fucking crazy. All they care about is their 'Cause.'
In White's case, it's slaving away for Rufius and killing himself
for the man's every whim. The old woman is all about 'revolution'

Heh. she's related to just about everyone. I bet she's the real mastermind
behind it all. :)

  What do you say to that? I really had been a pawn all along.
And even as I tried to figure out who was good, and who was evil,
it turns out that everyone had their own agendas for me from the
beginning. I was probably the only person who hadn't been
involved.

True. he didn't have an agenda, which made him somewhat ideal.

  "Yes, I did. And yes, I can use psionics. I was there when
you had to break that brick this morning. I did it for you."

Ah, so that explains is.

  "Alie, I'm not leaving you here with these freaks. You're
home coming with me."

  "Screw, I can't! You said yourself that we just can't run
from these people anymore! I have to stay here and make sure the
job gets done. In fact if the old man even *thinks* that I am in love
with you, he might kill me too! I don't know why he erased your
memory, or why they want you so bad, or why they picked you in
the first place. But they did, and that means you have to get as far
away from here as possible. You can't do me or the city any good
if you get killed, and without your power that is exactly what will
happen."

Of course, it could be the lack of answers she has to those questions are
actually important.

  "But what about you? Do you think you are better then
both of them? Did they teach you how to fight?"

  "A little. I can defend myself if I need too. Please, I will
show you where Zig is. He is in danger as we speak. You must get
him out, and then escape from this place. It is the only possibility."

  I looked into her eyes and saw the waver. Yes, even now
she was vacillating. Who could blame her,

her?

 >

  I sighed. "But what will I do if something happens to you?"

Same things you did before you met her.

  Then she showed me the way.

Nice work that explained much. I enjoyed this. Will have to get to more
soon.

D.B. Sommer




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