Hmm, this chapter has a lot going on . . . a lot of threads starting out. I really like this one. Plenty of action and interest. Hope you guys like it too, as always if you see any typos or whatever (that aren't products of my wonky Canadian spelling) let me know.

Chapter 3

The air was wet and oppressive. He was running faster than he was bleeding thank god. The adrenalin coursing through him mercifully shielded the true extent of his pain from him, for now. If he stopped moving, it would come crawling back to the surface. He had avoided most of the unfriendly encounters that waited for him in this unfamiliar green maze, but there would be more. There always was. Even the trees were his enemies here. Trees were something he had only seen in ornamental parks, and never so tightly packed as they were now. The ground was moist and spongy and his boots skidded on the layers of slippery leaves, sending divots of the rotting stuff flying up in his wake.

There was motion ahead of him, not the desperate thrashing of a fleeing animal, but the sleek rustle of a being who was at home in this infernal jungle. Those footsteps were a steady, muffled tattoo on the damp ground. Why a jungle? Why allow himself to be led into a domain so utterly incongruous with the one he knew best? That didn't matter, so long as he drew closer to his prey. He clawed at a tangled curtain of vines and burst through, panting.

Could he even consider his query as prey anymore? The precognitive ease with which the faceless monster constantly eluded him had initially left him despairing. In those moments where he laid huddled in some dark corner, impatiently waiting for danger to pass, he had wondered if he were really the hunter at all. Within the first few months, he had been shown otherwise.

He leapt headlong through a cluster of vine and thick leaves and found himself surrounded by empty space. The sudden impact of gnarled roots and solid earth against his torso knocked the air from him in a rush. He scrambled for purchase in the crumbling earth and slid a short ways before finding it. Dirt drizzled down and he blinked rapidly, spitting to clear the grit from his mouth. He'd lunged blind into a shallow ravine and now hung by his fingertips from a shelf of hardened mud. A thin ribbon of stream threaded by below, little more than an inch of water over sodden plant matter.

He could no longer hear the faint footsteps thumping in the distance, or the slithering sound of leaves brushing skin and fabric. There was only a chorus of buzzing insects and the sound of wind and night birds. From past experience, he knew that did not necessarily mean that the one he chased had kept on running out of earshot. With a gasp and a strained growl, he latched onto a root and hauled himself up. A rather large spider skittered across his hand and he swatted it aside, then rubbed the dust from his eyes.

This really wasn't really a game of fox and rabbit, after all. It was predator versus predator.

With a violent jerk, Sieg came awake. He pulled himself out of virtual like a man struggling to the surface after a long submersion in water. He even gasped, taking in a deep lungful of air and compressing it within his chest, forcing the oxygen into rapid circulation. He released it again and took another, his nerves afire and his senses saturated with the scent of his own sweat. Fumbling with near-drunken inaccuracy, he managed to paw the thin visor from his eyes and the nodes from his temples and ears. The tangle of equipment tumbled into his lap with a clatter. He ignored it and relaxed back into the sculpted chair. The stiffened joints of his fingers creaked as he uncurled them from the padded armrests.

These pods were murder. Fortunately the trembling began immediately. There would be no manic crescendo of reality. No, this time reality had the manners to kick down his doors and barge in without knocking. The shock of surfacing would be over quickly. Thank god.

He recalled reading about old style wired internet cafes once in some historical documentary. He had read about sex clubs as well. The room he was sitting in sometimes fit the image that had come to mind during that research. People once gathered in those places as they gathered here, and entered into whatever private fantasy they pleased. He continued to pant as he looked out through the pod glass.

There was a man in the unit across from him. He wore a sleeveless jersey and jeans, and was tall, enough so that his waist rose above the bottom of the glass window. He also had a prominent erection, it seemed. For a moment, Sieg wondered what the specifics were of the scenario that was unfolding within that enclosed space, in that man’s mind. He watched the stranger’s face, read the crease in his brow, the show of teeth and the eventual cry made soundless by the sealed pod.

He closed his eyes again and breathed. The restraint strap that was velcroed across his chest felt suddenly stifling and so he stripped it off.

The people in his virtual instance tended not to be pretty or amorously inclined. If they were, it gave him cause to be suspicious. He touched the part of his chest where the ghostly ache still lingered. He played games of war rather than games of love. It galled him to have to come to a place like this when the Angels had far more advanced units. The dive at headquarters was effervescent and smooth, and the ascent as easy as waking from a lazy dream. Unfortunately, the virtual menu they had there was limited to militant training programs and the loading platform was contained within the Angel network itself. Nothing unauthorized could be loaded onto that deck without administrative access.

These tanks took a strip off his virtual hide with every transition. He could still feel the dampness of the tropical heat on his skin, the slick rub of paddle-shaped leaves beaded with warm rain. His blood was buzzing in his ears. Pain that occurred in that place, especially in machines as crude as these, did not always fade when the headset came off. The separation was not smooth and so the lines defining what was real and not real became smudged. Smeared sensations from one world encroached upon the other. It was worse for him, it seemed, as his mind had the tendency to resist transition both ways. Some people were like that, he’d heard. It made the ride twice as rough. He was definitely feeling it, not just the pain, but muscle-deep fatigue as well.

The pod hissed as he released the catch on the inner surface and the tepid air rushed out. The plastic lid rose upward and he heaved himself out of the chair with a grunt of effort. There was no doubt that he was tired. These old models didn't have anything as decedent as force feedback controls. He’d always found it somewhat ironic that he needed to recover from a journey he had never actually embarked on. A hot shower would be nice.

He slid up the small panel that protected the pod’s loading console. At the push of a button, the narrow, blunt end of a data card popped free of its slot. Sieg took it and tucked the two inch square into his pocket. He would take his world home with him and play in it again another day. The elusive beast within would wait patiently, he was sure.

The only redeeming thing about this ditch of a VR arcade, was that the pods were old. New pods connected to a mainframe and a preloaded selection of customizable rooms, games, events, anything at all. These loaded from external chips. They were not connected to anything but the electrical socket in the wall. The content of these was not monitored for legality or anything else and he was protected from the voyeurism of less than scrupulous game moderators who got their kicks from peeping on others' instances. Nobody cared what a body did here so long as any mess was wiped up afterward. That thought drew his attention back to his randy neighbour. He folded his arms and observed him briefly once again. The man was still behind the glass now, barely breathing, like a pinned butterfly.

His breath lodged in his throat and he doubled over, his mouth tugging into a grimace. The pressure of the piercing thrust came first, then the pain after it. Only after a second or two did the realization that he had actually been critically struck register in his brain.

The flavor of blood bloomed across his tongue. He fell downward and his fingers clawed the soggy leaves and soil. Those same leaves clung to the curve of his cheek as he died. The game interface crumbled around him, shedding digital shards of itself in a rising swirl and degenerating into a plain of endless white. A voice giggled at him like it always did, disturbingly feminine, probably a perverse joke on behalf of the programming team who had built this for him.

“ Game over, Mackenzi. “

He had given them explicit instructions to be generous with their wit in creating obstacles for him. He knew he had not yet explored even a fraction of the real depths of this little heaven, and he had been playing for almost two years now.

Anger flared in him and his disembodied voice formed a curt reply, “ Don't call me that. . .”

Two years, and damnit, he’d lost again. He usually did.

One of these days he was going arrive at the final echelon of the challenge he’d taken on. If he couldn’t find the man-- or woman, he supposed-- who had killed Kurt and watch the Angels atomize his sorry flesh in life, then he would play at it until he could.

For now though, it was time to go. He paid at the desk for the time he had spent indulging and left, once again unsatisfied with the degree of his failure. It was supposed to be predator versus predator, but that implied that he was the same kind of monster as his enemy. He was not; not yet at any rate. Maybe that was the problem.

Sieg heaved a sigh of relief as he settled into the contoured ass-cradling comfort of his cruiser and strapped himself in. It was a dull day so he left off his sunglasses. Now he could go back to Angel Headquarters and roast himself alive under hot, sanitized water.

Dinner was uneventful. Today, he carried his meal away from the dining hall and ate it in solitude in his dormitory. He didn't always, but the bad ascension from the game had left him more jumpy than usual. Not much had changed since his time living with Kurt and Fin. If anything, the distance between he and the rest of those he worked with had only grown greater. It wasn't that he hadn't been doing well. He had. Modesty aside, he was doing very well indeed. His technical record and performance neared if not nudged the highest end of the scale. Ethically, though, he fell short of the mark-- or so he'd been told by the adjudicators. They'd forced the aggravating imposition of monthly psychiatric examinations on him, and a prescription. Even with the resurgence of empath soft touch psychiatry, the government sanctioned doctors still favored a colorful selection of medication as the most efficient cure for any ailment.

There were other angels he had trouble with and he knew himself well enough to anticipate the times when he would be especially prickly. These particular individuals seemed to sense his moods like sharks scenting chum and enjoyed closing in as such when they sensed a little fight in him.

Half of his plate lay bare when his mobile buzzed on the pillow where he had tossed it earlier. It vibrated its way off the clean linen and nearly dropped to the floor before he reached it. He flipped it open and brought it to his ear without checking the screen, which was somewhat of a mistake, it turned out.

“ Sieg, how are you, man? “

It was Fin, of all people. His stomach twisted into a knot around his supper. He answered briskly, “ well as can be expected. You haven't called in a while. “ I wish you hadn't called now.

The instant brightness in Fin's voice told him that the man had taken his words more positively than he had intended, “ Yeah well, I been a little neglectful, forgive me, Siggy. “

“ You're turning on the accent and the petnames now? You must want something. “

“ I can tell yer rollin' yer eyes. “

“ Can you blame me? “

There was a moment of silence. Sieg took the opportunity to stuff another few forkfuls of grilled caesar salad into his mouth and chewed.

“ How old are you now and you still have that bad habit? “

Sieg sighed, “ What ‘abit? “

“ Eatin’ on the phone. “ Fin laughed, “ And talkin’ wif yer mouth full. “

“ Oh. “ Sieg swallowed, “ What do you care? “

“ Same Sig as always. Anyway, do you want to come out? Ain’t good for you working nonstop. You know what they say, ‘ all work and no play—“

“ Makes a very very dull proverb, Fin. Spare me. “

“ Sarcasm. I like it. Anyway, no excuses, I already called you in sick. “

Much as he hated it, Sieg found himself smiling, “ You didn’t. “

“ Ah, but I did. I told em you got food poisonin’. S’only legit sudden illness we got anymore. Wif the caf’ food being what it is. No surprise. “

He kept his argument brief for a change. Why he was agreeing to see Fin when he had the nerves of a Parkinson’s patient, he didn’t know. Hopefully Fin was bluffing. If Fin had really called him in sick then he would have to meet him anyway to express his displeasure in a somewhat violent way.

An hour and a half later, Sieg was sitting across a pub table from Fin, his ears deafened by the pounding of obnoxiously loud music. Fin chose the damnedest places to get together. He could barely remember which one it was, but they were somewhere in Sector 2, anyway. Maybe it was the Irish blood that the man was so proud of that dictated rowdy entertainment and bucket loads of beer. They had gone through two good sized pitchers of the stuff and a sixgun tray of gold rum shots already and he was feeling like he was afloat in the half darkness.

“ So then we pupped up an 'e wuz sae scared 'e turns 'round an runs 'is face inta the-- “ Fin paused and let out a hearty belch, thumping his chest proudly before continuing, “ Ahem, inta the screen doors. S'uh balcony there, there was. Broke on troo and nearly flipped 'is arse over th'edge. “

Sieg smirked, his friend's slurred and barely understandable description conjuring dopey cartoonish visuals in his head. He had to search for a moment before the topic of the story resurfaced. Oh yes, Fin's encounter with some privileged criminal or another. He didn't care to remember the name, but was entertained nonetheless by the thought of this individual plummeting several hundred stories to his death.

“ An' then? “ He prodded.

Fin snickered, “ An' then when we hads him all cuffed, we saw he went an'--

Reality slipped from Sieg's grasp once again and he listed drunkenly against the wall, a placid smile fixed on his face in the absence of his usual bristly manner. A waitress returned, he was lucid enough to notice that she wasn't the same as the one who had brought their last round. She slid a Pain Killer across the table and Sieg blinked at the dew beaded glass. He raised his eyes to meet Fin's tipsy grin. It quickly became contagious.

“ That what I think it is? “

Fin snatched the cherry from the golden liquid and wagged it temptingly in front of his friend's face, “ Wif no ice. Ah don't forget that easily. “

With a snort, Sieg snatched Fin's wrist and caught it between his lips, plucking the candied fruit from its stem. He held the bleeding cherry between his teeth for a moment and grinned.

Fin hadn't forgotten, but there were times when he forgot. He forgot the jar of those obscenely sweet cherries that Kurt had kept in the back of the fridge—gooey along the upper edge and always somehow half empty. This was his favorite drink and Fin had remembered. It softened a part of him that he had left behind in that empty apartment they had all once shared.

They talked until every vessel of liquid on their table was empty and went through a plate of onion rings on top of that, although Sieg barely tasted them. Their conversation meandered from work to floorball, to Kurt, to Fin's recent sexual encounters and back again. Eventually Sieg became aware of an irresistible need to piss.

“ Just a sec, “ he planted a hand on the table and heaved himself out of his chair. For a moment, he wondered why the pub's glowing lights were rotating to the left and then he was flat on his face on the floor. In his daze, he dimly realized that Fin was on his knees next to him, howling with laughter. He started laughing too as the redhead hauled him to his feet and sent him off in the direction of the toilets.

It took him a minute to figure out his zipper but after that, he managed alright and stumbled back out. Fin shouldered half his weight and they navigated their way out of the pub's interior and into the dirty golden light of the streets. It wasn't a short walk to the parkade tier where they had left Fin's car. They were halfway there when the night became full of deafening sound. A cluster of cruisers screamed through the steady stream of traffic, tail-lights a streaky glow as they darted between the slower vehicles.

Adrenaline dragged Sieg from the sleepy grasp of his indulgence and he jerked upright, one hand ghosting instinctively against his hip in search of his sidearm. His fingers brushed only jean. He began to tremble, although not in fear.

“ Holy shit . . .” Fin cursed, grasping the catwalk rail next to him as they watched the cars spin to a stop in the drop-off lane a few hundred feet ahead. Symbols glowed in lurid fluorescent colors through the smoke glass of the rear windows and matching racing lights flickered along the running boards.

They were so distant now that Sieg couldn't recognize the symbols, but the colors-white and blue- jogged a relevant piece of information from his sodden memory. Anywhere you went, any sector, there would be some kind of criminal family to contend with. Just as wild animals claimed territories and staged their little wars, so lawless humans did the same. They were in sector two and so here the name to fear was Luster. That explained the blue, but the white? He drew a blank.

“ 'Ey! Wait jest a minnit, Sig! “

Sieg paused. He hadn't even realized that he was moving forward. The other pedestrians on the walk were beginning to react to the ruckus up ahead and were flowing in the opposite direction like a school of spooked fish. Sieg and Fin were quickly enveloped in a loosely packed human tide.

Anxiousness and something else-- something he failed to acknowledge in his current state spurred Sieg to fight his way onward regardless.

Two figures emerged from the sleek cruisers and stormed toward eachother, closing in violence on the walk. Their shouts were audible to Sieg even over the thrumming of the traffic to his left. He had lost sight of them and become immersed in the river of people. Fin was somewhere; he didn't know where, but he felt no restraining hand on his arm and so he momentarily pushed that concern aside. So much noise. He was getting a headache. The piercing sound of glass shattering and metal striking metal with grating plinks was the last straw.

When he finally broke from the maze of bodies, he emerged onto a stretch of empty walk. Here the catwalks were paved with concrete rather than pervious grating and so the bodies that lay before him were ringed in spreading halos of blood.

Oh God. His brain chanted those two words as the scent of death reached him and initiated a reprehensibly delightful shiver. A cluster of people lingered near, leaning against a steel-paneled wall and speaking far too casually to simply be witnesses to what had occurred here. Nearby, one of the racers was crackling and bobbing precariously. Its front end was mangled, the windshield and headlamps smashed and the hood repeatedly dented.

A few of the suspicious strangers noticed his presence and gestured in his direction. There was a woman among the group with beaded honey dreadlocks spilling over toned bare shoulders. He couldn't hear what they said. The rest turned to face him as well and seemed to appraise him for a moment. The nearest one- a man of medium height and slight build- twirled an aluminum bat against the ground. Even at a distance, Sieg could see the streaks of car paint that marred it.

He advanced, his stride uneven but deliberate. The bat man came to meet him as well, unhurried and with an indulgent smile. His feet left prints of blood on the pavement as he stepped over the dead.

“ You have a lot of questions, you know. A normal person doesn't ask half as much as you do. You must realize that you're a little . . . strange. “

Sieg nodded. It was blessedly dark and he couldn't see the face of the person he was talking to, but nonetheless, he recognized the voice. Somehow, it seemed familiar to him, maybe from a memory in a deeper part of his mind. That was a feeling he was used to-- knowing without remembering quite where the knowledge came from. What he knew absolutely for certain was that his arms and legs were bound to a stiff-backed chair and that his bones were aching right to the core. He stared into the darkness and asked yet another question.

“ Why do I keep getting so few answers? “

A laugh. “ You never wanted the game to be easy. It's because of your masochistic love for misery that you even continue to play. “

Why were his arms throbbing so much? It felt like someone had stuffed his limbs into a trash compressor and let it munch away at him. This discomfort and the verbal exchange were beginning to stir his memory a little. He'd had this conversation before.

“ Don't be an idiot, you won't catch me. Even if you had the chance, I bet you'd prove to be more Hamlet than hero. “

“ Shakespear? “

“ Yes, I think it's very fitting considering your most recent . . . encounters. “

He struggled against his bindings and strained his eyes into the dark, “ This isn't the game, is it? I remember this, but it isn't the game! I never dove. Where the fuck am I? “

The voice fell silent for such a long time that Sieg thought he might finally be alone. His stomach clenched in panic, but his unease didn't last.

“ You're getting more perceptive at least, Prince of Danes. Oh and don't forget to write it down. “

Write? Write down what?

“ God damn you, who the hell are you! “

“ Sieg? “

He cursed again, thrashing against some sort of resistance. This time the pressure gave easily enough, but he became quickly entangled in whatever it was he was fighting. Something was shrilly beeping in his ear and that, combined with the brilliance of the light that was glowing pink through his eyelids was giving him a stellar headache.

“ Siggy, ease off, yer alright. Christ, stop yer wrigglin'! “

“ What? “ He growled. That voice, he knew that one for sure and for once he didn't suffer the usual stab of dread, “ Fin? “ His own voice on the other hand, he barely recognized. Had he swallowed a cupful of acid recently? His throat was so raw and his hand, God!

“ Nnng, Fin, the fuck happened? “ It took a lot of effort, but he jammed his elbow into the soft surface he was sprawled upon and pushed upright. Nausea instantly gripped him and the previously painful burn of his throat became all the worse as he choked on the taste of sour bile.

“ Whoa whoa, hey-- “ There was a deafening crash and someone, probably Fin, shoved some sort of bowl into his lap and tipped his head forward. He promptly seized the plastic lip of it and gagged until his stomach complained no more. Only then did he attempt to open his teary eyes and have a look around. The whiteness of the room earned his enmity immediately.

“ Hospital? “ he croaked, squinting sidelong at Fin.

Fin grinned, his own face padded with a few folds of gauze and tacky white tape. Both eyes were bloodshot and one was a little purplish around the outer edge, but bumps and bruises tended to make Fin look roguish more than anything else. “ I forgot what a bitch ye could be when ye're drunk. “

“ What? “

“ Drunk. “ Fin patiently repeated, “ I wish I'd seen all of it, but I got laid up in the crowd. You mauled a buncha street racers. Caught a bloody bat swing an' broke every bone in yer hand. “

Sieg stiffened and jerked his right arm up in alarm. It was cast in glossy white fiberglass right down to the tips of his fingers. No wonder he'd had such a twisted dream. He was probably dosed to the eyes on pain killers, and not the fun kind. Now that he'd noticed it, it didn't hurt half as much as he figured it should. He shoved the soiled bowl off his lap and began pressing and poking various parts of his body.

“ What's the rest of the damage? “

“ Not too much, “ Fin picked up a datapad from the tall metal table next to the bed and passed it to his friend, “ Lot of bruises, and a good whack to the head. Got you a concussion ya rowdy bastard. Probably got hell's hangover, too.“

“ Oh, yeah. “ Sieg threaded his fingers into his snowy hair and searched for a lump of some kind. Curiously, he couldn't feel anything out of the ordinary. Maybe the swelling had gone down already. The last thing he wanted was to suffer through a night on the flat, understuffed hospital pillows with a throbbing goose egg. What time was it anyway? He glanced down to check his watch but his wrist was bare.

His heart skipped and he gripped Fin's shirt and gave it a tug. He fumbled around the bedside table with his cast hand and knocked the plastic water glass and a packet of tissues to the floor. Frantically, he reached for those, nearly lunging over the edge of the bed, “ Get me a pen! “

“ What? “ Fin exclaimed, snatching the tissues up before Sieg could tumble to the floor in pursuit of them. He rummaged in his pocket, “ What for? “

“ I want to write something, obviously, “ Sieg growled and stole the plastic packet in his impatience. He ripped a sheet free and squeezed his eyes shut, muttering to himself.

Eventually Fin produced a pen and Sieg took it and scribbled on the tissue, seeming to wilt in relief as he stared at what he'd written. Curious, Fin craned his neck to see. “ What's gotten into ya? “

Sieg clenched the tissue in his fist and tossed the pen onto the sheets, “ Nothing . . .I just remembered something. “

“ Ff-fuck! “

Those words hissed through bloody lips. His fingers were also slick and red and pinched against the flaring nostrils of a man's nose. He twisted cruelly and the broken cartilage shifted with a series of grotesque pops. Fists beat at his chest, thudded into his side under the ridge of his ribs. He hit back and fire lanced up his arm. Snarls of pain and rage from both of them.

He backed off and his prey slithered away, the brand on his neck standing out in the lurid light of the streetlamps. Something clattered and for a moment, he was distracted by a flash somewhere below. His limp fingers brushed the sleek metal shell of a mobile laying face down on the ground.

“ Where are you man, gimme a hand here! “

He remembered hearing that, seeing that dark figure running ahead of him, shouting into the mouthpiece of the phone he now held cradled in his throbbing palm. He slumped against the face of a building and spat to clear his mouth of blood. There was a number clearly displayed on the screen.

“ Well, s'long as ye're not gonna puke again. “ Fin gingerly reached for the bowl and took it off the bed in case Sieg had another tantrum. The last thing they needed was second hand onion ring cocktail all over the sheets.

“ I feel . . . alright. So what, they come after you, too? “

The pause that followed that question caught Sieg's notice. Fin was staring at the far wall, quiet smile going stagnant.

“ Yeah, “ the redhead finally answered, “ but it wasn't nothin' serious. You won't have to stay here longer than ye want to either. Broken arm's nothing to waste a bed on. Now that ye're up I'll get the doc in here and we can get ya checked out. “

“ Alright. “ Sieg agreed, then asked, “ Fin, was there a phone? “ There was a black spot in his memory. All he remembered was the number. After that, there was nothing.

Fin looked a little suspicious, “ Phone? Not that I saw. Nothin' like that. Why? “

Sieg shook his head, and rubbed at the prickling goosebumps that had risen on his forearms.

Music thudded dully somewhere, the sound muffled by several layers of wall. Alek was not taking part in the party tonight, unfortunate as that was for everyone involved. He’d met who he needed to meet and was still feeling the mild buzz of alcohol and sexual afterglow. For some reason, he was plagued by a considerable headache, among other pains and it had dampened his craving to dance. Instead, he had retreated to one of several smaller more private rooms. This one he was now sharing with a few tweaked out teens who were snorting sloppy lines of white powder off an artfully shaped mirror-topped coffee table. He couldn't say whether it was cocaine or some other narcotic recipe. There were so many now that looked pretty much the same. Regardless of what they were tripping on, they hadn't minded him being there when they came in. They probably didn't even notice him anymore in the dim red light and he stayed out of their way and found a corner with a bench to stretch out on. This was an establishment under Luster protection, and so a man with a brand could pretty much go where he pleased. Now to get down to business.

He pulled his mobile out of his pocket and thumbed the glossy screen. It glowed to life and a little holographic box expanded upward, blinking. He had five new messages and one of them was flagged with a red capital 'L'. Urgent Luster news was never good when it was sent directly to his phone. He had a monitor to whom he frequently reported. Usually these things got filtered through Lucille before they came to him. Surprisingly, this one wasn't from headquarters, it was from Caleb, one of his racing buddies. That realization sent a little tingle of dread skittering up his spine.

Someone behind him giggled and he felt fingers ghost teasingly across the small of his back where the dual rows of oval bruises were already fading. He idly brushed them away and turned to wag a finger at their owner. Maybe later. For now, he brought the phone to his ear and listened. Some of his group had planned to go hooking for a race tonight along the border of Sector 1. That was Cerberus territory, morally bankrupt backstabbing pricks that they were.

“ Look, Shariah, uhh . . . I called you earlier, but-- Well, I sent you some images from just now. We got in a bit of a scrap and it didn't go too well, so--”

Disappointment extinguished that niggling worry that had begun to stir in him. He rolled his eyes. So they'd lost then, to a bunch of dogs. He'd never hear the end of that from the other teams. He was going to have some good times. Still, something about the quiver in Caleb's voice didn't sit well.

“ -- but it wasn't just the dogs, it was some other guy. He, uhh, pretty much wiped us all out. I didn't see any marks on him, but . . . maybe you'd know. I just don't know why-- Well. Nevermind, I'll let you know if the rest of the guys pull through. “ There was an uncomfortable silence then, which froze his pettiness in its tracks. If? If it were even a question of 'if' anyone would pull through it was safe to say this was more serious than he'd thought.

“ I'll see you around, man. Be careful. “

Alek paused for a moment and hung his head. If there was no brand then this was a civilian, or worse, an Angel. They were authorized to hit civilians when it came down to serious provocation. Intentional attacks, murder, or sabotage were among those things that warranted a family 'warning' per se. The rule was, stay out of our business, we'll stay out of yours, for the most part. Angels on the other hand, were pretty much off limits. Everyone in the family knew their own criminality. Cops did their job and it was more a shame than anything else if a Luster let himself be caught. Some families had more respect than others, but no matter how much power any one gang had, it was never wise to trifle with a military force. They had enough to worry about without having to take the kind of precautions necessary to hide completely.

There was no other addressee on the message. Why hadn't Caleb sent this to headquarters if someone had ghosted four of their six man team? As he downloaded the attached data packet and viewed it on the tiny screen, he realized exactly why. The image was small and blurred, taken on the run. The coloration was different, but other than that trivial difference it was disturbingly like looking in the mirror.

He stared at the flickering screen, at a picture of himself in negative advancing with a menacing snarl. A violent chill rushed up his spine. The obvious familiarity rose up in brilliant clarity and through some sort of mental resistance on his part, faded again. For a moment, he was disoriented by the loss. He didn’t give himself time to think about the strange and sudden lightness that gripped him and set his equilibrium afloat. He pushed it away and turned back to cold reason.

A general sense of suspended disbelief took him for a moment, and then an upwelling of laughter caught in his throat. He almost choked on it. What the fuck was this; some kind of practical joke? If it were, then Caleb was going to get it, and so was everyone else once he tracked them all down. No doubt they were having a howling fit right now. Oh sure, a pack of surly Luster got mowed down by a freakishly albino doppleganger of himself, with a couple of Cerberus tossed in there for kicks.

He called Caleb up. There was no answer, which was unusual. Caleb kept his phone in his ass pocket for one thing, and anything vibrating in that vicinity was bound to be noticed. After a second call without an answer, he gave up. Caleb was the headman, aside from himself. If this was just a gag then they were really digging it in. That unpleasant spark of dread flickered to life again as he took another look at the image.

Such hard blue eyes. Maybe he was the one mistaken or perhaps it was only his ego drawing the comparison between the appearance of this stranger and himself. The face was shrouded in shadows and the lurid glow of neon light.

Puzzled, he absently checked the other messages. Rudolph's frightened voice came over the small speaker, high pitched and tinny.

“ Shari! Where are you man, gimme a hand here! We took out some dogs and some guy just went nuts—Shit! “

Not a gag then. There was no mistaking the panicked words, the thick wheezing of breath, Rudy was running, and fast. He could almost hear the phlegm rattling in the guy's throat. No more smoking for Rudolph. Well, considering Caleb's ominous message, that might not matter anymore. Maybe Rudy would never take another drag again.

The message went on, although all he heard was Rudy's coughing pants and his scrambling footsteps and occasional grunts of pain. The chase continued and only once he heard Rudolph scream did he realize that he was gripping the steel edge of the cushioned bench he was sprawled on hard enough to whiten all three sets of knuckles. He released it.

Rudy was still screaming and there was something else, something that sounded distinctly like a snarling animal. It sent a shiver coursing through him. There were no truly wild creatures left in Salvation, but a dog might snarl that way, or some sort of deviant beast poisoned by the radiation. Caleb hadn't mentioned a literal dog. This was a dog on two legs, the white mystery man most likely.

A sharp clink ended the chilling sounds. His mobile asked him if he wished to delete or store. He stored it, and kicked the wall with both booted feet. His tripping companions raised their heads in sharp unison, eyes wide, pupils wider. They stared at him, the shock slowly wearing off as awareness drifted away again. He ignored them and just let his feet slide downward.

There were no soul-deep secrets shared between he and the rest of his team. They raced together. They drank and partied and worked together. In China's case they had even fucked on a few occasions. Teams changed. People sometimes died, or went elsewhere but the bottom line was, a brother was a brother, and a sister a sister. Luster protected their own. This was some strange shit. And family honor made it personal.

The Luster hospital was cool and clean and elegantly furnished, more taking on the look of a distinguished office building than a medical center of any kind. Artfully sculpted live plants strove upward from their brushed steel beds along walls and in corners, fed from above by golden U.V lamps and a fine descending mist of water. Behind their leafy displays the walls themselves were thick panes of etched glass. Alek wandered in with eyes clouded by thought and thumped his waist against the immobile turnstile gate that should have permitted him entry into the lobby. The guard behind the counter sent him a look and pointed at the scanner.

“ Bit out of it, today? “

Alek nodded and passed his left wrist beneath a small panel protruding from the turnstile's frame. A bluish light crossed his skin, seeking the signal of the tiny bead beneath the surface. The guard glanced at his screen to look over the information that would have appeared there and the turnstile bleeped, ready to admit Alek through.

As many connections as he had, there were still plenty of people he wasn't on a first name basis with in Luster. The hospital staff were among those. He didn't have to come here that often, and he never would if he could help it. As little as he knew about the suspiciously gaping voids in his memory, he had quickly realized that hospitals scared him. It wasn't so much the waiting room, or the nurses or doctors themselves, or even being inside the intimate little care rooms to visit friends. It was the smell, a little bit, but more so the times when it was he in the bed. It was the sterile coarse linen on his skin, and the steady tone of the monitors that made his arm hair prickle. As if the injuries, whatever they happened to be, weren't brutal enough. He sometimes lapsed into feverish chills and reached an alarmingly high blood pressure.

The receptionist in the room beyond greeted him with a wordless glance and a questioning smile. He approached and asked where he might find Caleb, or Tooth, or Rudy. Any of the above would do. He was directed to the elevator and given two different sets of directions. The first gave him hope, and the second dashed it away.

Tooth and Essen hadn't made it. Even while his heart was sinking, he tried to somehow rationalize that. Tooth was huge, easily twice his weight and at least a head taller. That man had arms like bands of steel and he wasn't stupid by any stretch. He'd met some big idiots, a lot of them, actually. Tooth was a programmer when he wasn't bashing cruiser windshields in or breaking faces in the pits. He was very good, and he and Alek had come up with a language code a while back and sent messages that were usually lewd and ridiculous back and forth to eachother's mobiles.

Alek decided right then and there that he couldn't leave without seeing Tooth's body. There had to be some other explanation for how any one man could have killed him. Someone as big and solid and just-- permanent couldn't succumb so easily to a seemingly random attack made by an unidentified bystander. There had been no weapon in the image that he could see, only reddened knuckles and spatters of blood on a battered grey button down.

Essen had been new, young too, and they hadn't gotten more than two weeks to work together. He regretted that, too. He thought he'd probably miss the loud-mouthed brat anyway. From what he had seen, Essen really could've been something at the helm of a cruiser. But he was dead.

China and Rudy were still living though and he forced himself to remember that important detail as he rode the elevator up to intensive care. People sometimes died, or left. But a man had a responsibility to those still alive and near. After that panicked message, he was surprised to find that Rudolph was still one of those with a heartbeat. He wouldn't have bet on Rudy to win in any physical fight. Even as he thought it, he hated himself for thinking so low of him.

The elevator let him off and he wandered the glass halls. Even here, although the floor was no longer geometrically patterned carpet, the greenery persisted in small clusters. Nurses bustled past him, their own napes bare of brand or symbol of any kind. Luster had their fingerprint on them in other ways. This was but a small section of a much larger medical facility that serviced the general public as well as sworn family. The levels he passed through now were not marked on any guidance map anywhere within the structure. No average civilian would even find the door.

The door that Alek was after now, however appeared around a corner, the numerals outlined in blue light upon an off white door. Within, in the first of two neatly tucked beds, Caleb was already awake and waiting. And as soon as Alek laid eyes on him he was almost sorry that he had. The stout headman tried to rise to greet him but he lifted his hand in denial. The body in the second bed did not move other than to draw in breath after breath. Only a tuft of bleach blond hair protruded from slightly rumpled white sheets. The beeping of machines formed a steady and constant chorus. That sound made his spine tingle.

“ Come on Cale, don't even. I'm the one who should be sorry for all this. I was the one who wasn't there. “ Alek went to the bed on the left, where Caleb lay, his big arms resting limply over the sheets. A hard impact with the sidewalk grating had obliterated a corner of Caleb's chestnut goatee and the abrasion still looked raw despite the thin sheet of antibacterial film that covered it.

Caleb's face was lined with pain. He sucked in a breath and grimaced, carving the gulfs even deeper into slackening skin. He wasn't young any more, and dermal patches could only dull the physical pain. He pointed a neatly wrapped hand at the bed across from his.

“ It's Rudy we gotta worry about, and China. China's worse. She's still in one of those care rooms elsewhere. They can't let anyone see her yet . . . They brought. Tooth and Essen were brought in too, but. . .“

He stopped and Alek just gripped the steel guard rail of the bed and sunk to his knees next to it, one joint at a time. He shook his head. Rudy's heart blipped predictably, monotonously.

“ You know, I thought it was a joke. When I first got your message. I was gonna kick all your asses. “

Caleb made a sort of weak huffing sound-- a cruel parody of the laugh Alek had come to know so well. Beneath the sheets, he imagined more tightly wound bandages, more damage. “ Too late for that, Shariah . . .Just a bit too late for that. Oh I wish I'd thought of that one before. If I knew your real birthday, maybe. Then we could all, I don't know, pop out of somewhere . . .and China could flash her tits at you. “

“ But not Tooth. Or Essen. “ Alek added.

“ No. “ Caleb sighed and the little clear tubes that they had stuck in his nose steamed just a little, “ You know, Ess was still alive when he got here. They said he hung on for a bit, said he broke his nails he was hanging on so hard. But he went quicker than they could handle. Tooth was already gone before. “

“ That image you sent me . . . “ Alek trailed off. How was he supposed to form his question exactly? There was so much to ask and the little voice that sometimes tried to warn him of trouble wanted nothing to do with the answers.

“ Oh yeah . . .” Caleb's dark eyes flitted back to Rudy, “ Like I said, I got no idea where that guy came from, but I'm telling you this isn't an accident. It can't be. I've never seen anybody do what that guy did. He just . . . came out of nowhere after Essen settled our little dispute with the dogs. He had that stupid bat with him, man I regret ever going out last night at all, it was a mistake! A mistake! That stupid kid, we mighta talked our way out of it, damnit. We might've . . .“

Alek waited out the hysteria that was dragging Caleb's voice so uncharacteristically out of pitch. This was just one of those awkward moments where a man couldn't take another man's hand and squeeze it even if he wanted to. He told himself it was mostly because Caleb's were both injured and wrapped in layers of bandage.

After a while, the headman continued, “ No wonder you thought it was a joke, Shari . . . If he wasn't coming right at us, we woulda laughed too . . . You see it too, don't you? “

With a stiff nod, he agreed, “ He looked like me. I can't really tell how much because you took it on the run so I don't know for sure, but you saw his face in person so-“

“ It was your face, Alek. “ Caleb jerked a wrapped arm at him, his fingers like white cocoons, “ The same shape, same nose, same everything . . . Just white. Well not white, but pretty close. And blue eyes, you know it was weird. I noticed when he got really close. You know how in real bright light a guy's pupils get real small? That's what they were like, his eyes. Almost nothing but blue. “

“ Nothing but blue? “ It didn't seem like something anyone should be concentrating on while having the living tar stomped out of him, but Alek tried to swallow it anyway.

“ Yeah. Little pinprick of black in the middle.”

“ Well, was it bright? “

“ No, not much light at all, just street lamps. “

Alek changed the subject, “ What about the rest of him? Come on, Cale there had to be something different. There can't just be some . . . albino copy of me running around. It's impossible! “

Cale threw his arms up and wheezed, “ You tell me it's impossible but we're the ones in the goddamn beds. Tooth and Essen are still dead and I'm telling you the guy who did it looked like your twin fuckin brother dipped in a vat of fuckin bleach, damnit listen to what I'm saying! “

Alek did, even though the last thing he wanted was to be hearing this. What he wanted to hear was that there was a real man, a normal man out there for him to hunt down at leisure and punish for brutally beating two of his friends to death. If it was some illegally unmarked member of another family, all the better. Even a civilian would have been fine, but this was just too screwed up to deal with.

“ I don't have a fucking twin brother! “ he growled, standing suddenly, too angry to stay below Caleb's eye level. Normally he would have been relieved to find Caleb's humor still marginally intact, but not now.

“ Well then you tell me where the bastard came from! “ Caleb sputtered, “ How would you know anyway!? You tell me all the time you don't remember nothing from your life! I saw what I saw and what I saw was this guy catch a fucking bat! Essen swung on him-- and the kid isn't--I mean wasn't that small-- and he just caught it and I hear every bone in his hand crunching but he doesn't stop, he just-- “

Caleb might have continued talking. Actually, Alek was sure he was still talking because his lips were moving. However, the words were lost on him.

It was true, what Caleb had so brassily pointed out. He didn't have the first clue as to what had happened in that empty chunk of memory, that lost piece of time. For all he knew, he could have been anything, anyone. He could've sired 10 children by different mothers, although he hadn't caused any such disasters so far and he'd suffered his share of 'oops' moments. It was completely possible that somehow, this alleged bleached twin of his existed. The timing of his arrival, however was nothing short of calamitous.

“ You know how stupid this whole thing sounds, Cale? “

Caleb stopped and glared at him in the mid-gesticulation, “ Stupid? “

Alek pinched the bridge of his nose, “ Ok, not stupid just unreal. “

The headman's hackles eased and he picked irritably at the edges of his bandages. Any small hint of jest had fled him now, “ Shariah. It’s real. We were attacked. We tried not to report it. That’s why I sent it to you first, but. They know. Nobody can keep secrets from them anyway and we all ended up in the hospital. We couldn’t just lie, especially about . . . about Tooth. You’ll have to talk to Lucille. They’re going to want to find this guy, and they’ll assume it’s got something to do with you. “

“ I know. “ The headache from before was getting worse and worse, it seemed. Alek heard a soft rustle as Rudy shifted in his sleep across the room.

“ Just wanted you to get prepared. “ Caleb continued, “ You can’t exactly answer their questions, no matter what they ask. “

No, he couldn’t. There was nothing to tell. If he had ever had anything to do with this mystery clone, then he didn’t have any memory of it and he was quite sure that no amount of psychological massage would bring it out. He’d tried that before, on his own time, in an attempt to figure out what had happened to him; where he had come from. Nothing had come of that and his superiors would only frustrate themselves trying to extract information from him, even if he were completely willing to surrender it. More than ever he wanted to know where this ghost had come from, and why it was haunting him now.

“ You saw what happened to Tooth, didn’t you. “

Caleb winced. It was obviously something he had been trying to avoid discussing. He nodded slowly, “ Yeah, I saw. That’s why I think something fucky is going on. The more I thought about it after, well. He’s kinda like you that way, too. “

“ How much better is this going to get? “ Alek shook his head, “ Looks like me, and now he fights like I do, too? “

“ No no not like that. He doesn’t—it’s nothing like what we seen of you in the pits. It just had the same—I don’t know. He was fast, Shari. Really fast. S’why Tooth couldn’t hold up. Essen was never any good with his fists, but he was quick enough. Didn’t last more than a minute. “

“ Alright. “

They fell into a mutual silence for a while. Alek couldn’t help but feel like someone had snuck a ring into his nose while he’d been sleeping and was now dragging him through someone’s idea of a bad movie script.

“ I’m sorry. “

Alek shook his head more violently, “ I don’t want to hear that again. No sorries. Forget it. What the hell’s your damage, anyway? You and Rudy are still alive. “

“ Just fractures and road rash . . . bit of concussion. When that fast motherfucker grabbed Essen's bat away, he flung it and it clipped me one. I just stayed down . . .I--“ Caleb looked away, seemingly unreasonably ashamed of the mildness of his injuries compared to everyone else. “ Rude’s just wiped. Had to have his internals lasered to stop the bleeding. Otherwise . . . .”

Caleb didn’t have to go on. Alek knew what he was thinking because he was thinking the same thing. He would come back later and fill in all the details. There was time for that, at least now that the crisis was over. For three of his friends, at least, there was time.

“ Where have they got China at? “ he asked.

“ Intensive. She’s piped and wired. They might not even let you in. “

“ That’s fine. I’m going to try anyway. I just need a minute. “

“ Yeah yeah, that’s okay. You go see her. She'd want you there. “

He drifted out again, into the high shine of the glass hall. Somewhere there was a man with blood on his hands. The goals began to surface and arrange themselves in his mind as he retraced his steps to the elevator. His boots clicked like steadily dropping marbles on the silvery tiles. He would visit China, and then progress down his little pilgrimage of death to Essen and Tooth to let his anger gather momentum. Then he’d be ready to advance along a road he had begun to know very well. Intimately well. At the end, he planned to be the one with bloodied hands.

The elevator chimed and admitted him once again. When he explained who he was at the smaller reception desk in the Intensive Care wing, they did not give him the trouble he expected.

China’s room was not put together like Caleb’s and Rudy’s was. The previous chamber, with space enough for two wounded bodies, at least made an attempt at simulating a comfortable place of rest. Intensive was completely different. It chilled his blood to even walk the halls of this ward, let alone spend any measure of time inside the rooms, or worse, within the small and claustrophobic care units themselves. He suffered the bite of fear as he stood in the doorway, staring at what was left of the face he could once have recognized anywhere. Shielded by a thick, curved pane of glass, slept a woman he now barely recognized.

The care units were remarkable in their versatility. This one enclosed China’s once strong, lean frame like a glass coffin. It had been set at a 45 degree angle, would probably be shifted later to relieve the pressure of bloodflow to China’s legs. Nice legs, Alek remembered. His heart ached for what he saw of her now, what shape still showed beneath the casting and bandages.

She had a broken neck, that much was clear. A curved steel plate encircled the line of her jaw, anchored with pins through her pale skin to the bone. More halos of gleaming steel framed her head, her neck, connected to eachother, to her, and the padded panel she laid against in the same manner. The oxygen mask that forced air into her lungs seemed to barely fit into the network of pins and wire. She suddenly seemed like a suffering machine, halfway between human and a painless mechanical existence.

Her bleached dreadlocks had been drawn up from her face and neatly tied above her head. For a moment, Alek’s eyes settled on the little stretch of bared throat just above her collar that peeked between the plastic brace and the metal and bandages. He couldn’t see any trace of the marks he had put there himself once. That had been some time ago. But he still remembered the taste of her skin. With a shake of his head, he buried the memory. What good were idiot thoughts like that at a time like this? It was as bad as fantasizing about the dead. He wasn’t even sure if she would survive, although the chances were better since she’d lasted through the first night.

The nearness of the walls was getting to him. He rubbed briskly at the goosebumps that had sprung up along his arms.

With a frustrated sigh, he approached the upright glass shell and placed his hands against the cool surface. The glass immediately steamed under the damp skin of his palms. He peered intently in at China and smiled. “ Hey little girl . . . you made it, so don’t go slipping away from me now, hey? “

He didn’t believe in all those romantic stories of thoughtful loving words reaching those who were unconscious, or in comas, but for a moment, he did swear her dark lashes fluttered a little. Or maybe it was the play of his own reflection on the glass. In any case, he gave the unit a little thump with his fist and pushed away.

Women were strong, these days more than ever. He couldn’t believe that anyone had ever underestimated them at any point in history, really. But he still hated to see a lady hurt, and hesitated to hurt a woman himself, even in the pits where a man always at least stood the chance of getting his ass brutally kicked. That someone had hurt China so cruelly, for no reason that he could see, only made him all the more eager to get on with his hunt. She was vibrant, full of smiles, body like a well trained dancer. She hadn’t deserved this.

Neither had willowy Essen, or huge, soft-spoken Tooth. While China might not walk again for a long time, those two would never even see the light of day.

The visit to the cold storage lockers where Luster kept their dead somehow proved less spine-tingling than the wards of the living had. He paid his dues to his friends there, while the family coroners stood by in sympathetic silence. He wasn’t sure if he would ever escape the memory of their faces, distorted and broken by the damage they had taken. In a morbid way, he was glad that their savaged bodies would stay burned in his mind.

A while later, he returned to Caleb’s room to find that the headman had fallen asleep on him and was snoring loudly with his head canted to the side on his pillow. He had a little datapad on his lap with the half filled frame of a word puzzle still displayed on it. With a grim frown, Alek checked on Rudolph, then left the two of them to rest. There was no point in disturbing them now. They had suffered enough already and his questions could wait until his incredulity and shock had faded.

Only once he was outside the cool and sterile halls of the hospital could he breathe normally again. He knew that he should head home and try to puzzle out what had happened, but he walked for a while instead, weaving through the sparse flow of pedestrians. Traffic was getting lighter now that the early hours of morning were stealthily approaching. The sun vents were beginning to glow faintly with light filtered down from the hazy sky. Every twenty feet or so, he crossed their weak beams and his eyes lit gold.

So, what do you think of that one? You can definitely see the twins spiraling inwards now, hey? grin Constructive crits always welcome, although it has already been through half a dozen other hands, and is almost where I want it to be . . . Still a draft though. And I still value input.