Leaving Home, Again

The way that the light switch clicked, plastic on plastic, as he switched it on was a comfort, even if the kitchen itself was dreadful.  He could see a few cockroaches in the shadows created by the table and the small indent at the base of the counter.  Tilting his head up, flickering light from the dust-covered light-bulbs assaulted his eyes with dull shades of orange.  It had been months of emptiness here, between when the last of the family moved away and when he had returned home.  It was his home, squeaking floorboards and bug-infested walls included.  

Stepping in, past the spider-web in the door frame, he came up to the refrigerator.  His hand brushed away the dust that covered the various magnets and papers that were a record of his and his brother's childhood.  Nobody had bothered to take it with them, maybe leaving it for him when, if, he came back, or more likely because the collage blended into the background as those things do.  All the rest of it was gone, packed up in boxes and driven away in a diaspora of his relatives.  The lights flickered once more, then quit, burned through wires that would rattle if you shook them.  Back to the half darkness, light shining in through the door behind him, but not much as the sun drifted lower.  He didn't need to see to know which photograph to pull out from under a magnet and stuff in his pocket, wedged between his wallet and the jeans.  

It was faded back before he had left, bleached from the sun that would shine in through the curtained window.  Three boys sitting on a pier, legs dangling down towards the water.  His brother holding a fish, sitting in the middle, grinning like it was five feet long instead of the eight inches it was.  On the left was the youngest, holding his fingers in rabbit ears, smirk plastered to his face, as it was most days.  He was staring up over the photographer, his father in the boat, up at the sky.  If he had asked his brothers, they would have said he was staring at a cloud, or lost in thought.  They wouldn't remember, wouldn't believe he had been watching it so long.  In the darkness, his fingers brushed lines of dust down the face of the refrigerator, traveling over the uneven surface with a hesitance.  Falling away in the gloom, to clench by his thigh, then pry themselves free to hang there, his fingers trembled slightly.  

Eyes closed, he turned and walked away, boots finding their way, surefooted around the creakiest boards as he strode towards the front door.  It was still half-open where he left it, and he slammed it shut as he exited, so it wouldn't jam half open.  Two steps over the porch, three down the stairs, ten to where his vehicle was parked on the dirt road.  He turned around, then, seeing less the old, wood pillars and the chipping red paint that covered the walls, more soaking in the years he had spent growing up there, the sounds of laughter, the smell of a warm, home-cooked dinner.  

When the moment passed, the sun had sunk low, almost eaten by the thick tree-line that surrounded the clearing.  He moved his hand to the door, typing in his five digit access code and then letting the cool air rush out over him.  Already humming to life, the ship's engines threw the dirt up in clouds around him before he managed to step inside.  The station would expect him back from personal leave in three hours, and the flight would take close to that if he started now.

Tinkerers workshop (VR Tidbit 2)

Piecing together a spell had a lot in common with schoolwork.  Not so much the history or literature, but the more scientific stuff, and a bit of the punctuation from writing.  It still doesn't make classes worth it though; I could have figured it out without them.  Best thing that's come out of it is the speed I get through all that work so I can get back to playing the game and tweaking my spells.

Most of the mages who I see in the game don't even make their own spells, they copy templates off other people or use the in-game spell creation tool to get something playable.  There have been very few times this has put anything dangerous in their hands.  Sure they can throw around fireballs or rays of ice, or magic shields, but the only thing that gives them any utility, or that they use for any utility is the flight spell every one of them has.  Flight also has the tendency to leave you a sitting duck with a target on your back while it guzzles away your mana to power itself.  That leaves the mages that build their own in the more hands on spell creation tool.

I'm relatively certain it was the original debug and/or creation tool that the developers used, then put in as an afterthought before they added the sleeker, more dumbed down interface.  It was horrible to learn at the start of it all.  When I transitioned from just knives and stat boosts to a magic casting version, I lost quite a few times as things backfired or didn't work quite like I expected, or just didn't work at all.  This all happening after the testing I put them through beforehand to make sure they would work.

First spell I got working correctly was the magic vision spell.  I hadn't seen it circulating around the VR forum boards before I got it working, so it was either new, or people didn't spread things like it around.  The people who I've run into who do make their own spells makes me think it's the later.

Once I got that one to run smoothly, the rate at which I managed to work them all together just kept going up.  Look at the code for the stat boosts and a spell to do something like them is easy.  Look at the rules that drown characters underwater and creating a underwater breathing spell took a week.  The glimpses I get at spell-creators shows that they either work faster than I do, or they spend half a year tweaking the way the fireball looks when they use it.  For some reason, I don't run into enough of them in matches to really pick their brains at it.

Currently, I'm piecing together a teleport spell.  Not the easiest thing.  Either it works well but uses way too much mana to be viable, or it has very glaring faults and can't be used in a tactical sense.  Somehow it needs to soak some power from somewhere other than the mana reserve, but if it does that too much it makes the whole thing too complicated to fit the targeting in and the failsafes so as not to leave me stuck in a tree.  Tricky to balance it.  Might be impossible, but there was a rumor going around about some teleporting mage a week ago.  Could have been replicas, or huge speed, but I might as well try to get it working.

It figures that this is the exact time I get kicked off for server maintenance.  Some new patch, the notes are up already.  Gamemode changes top the list.  Half of it seems like gibberish, as if the fantasy world sim got mixed in with the fantasy arena.  Forum posts seem to indicate that that is in fact what is going on.  The maps that we play on are already taken out of the world, so now they just aren't separating the servers.  More update downtimes, I guess.  People are complaining for the same reasons I would, if I were to post anything.  I don't though.  The feeling is slipping back into my toes as I wiggle them, waking up for me.  If I'm not playing I'd rather be out of bed doing something.

Circumstance

What exactly differentiates me from them is the real question, the one that keeps getting back to me.  It lies under thoughts like, how close is my smile to his when he shoots into the crowded streets, reveling in the screams, or where do I draw the line when I bring out the long barrel rifle that comes standard issue?  Who do I answer to, superiors or my conscience?  I don't know, and that feels like a probelm I am incapable of surmounting.  I saw something like it in the eyes of the old men from the last war, when they were long gone from it.  I recognized the look as I glanced in a puddle at the end of a long day of suffering through the work.  I couldn't place it then, but I feel the pressure of it now.  I'll take it to my grave if that's how it is, but I sleep by telling myself its just the look of a soldier, that they made peace with this in their years.

Yet now I can't sleep, even with my hollow promises, vague hopes for my future.  The night that slipped into my tent here is thick and suffocating.  All I see is the blackness, no starlight or moonlight making it through the thick leather overhead.  Even an inch from my face my hand is invisible to me.  I'm caught up in my head so much that I miss the first shot, or more let it slip past me in the groggy fog that folds itself around me.  The second, a reminder, and echo of the first, gets to me.  I jolt up, pulling on pants by feel, then grabbing the rifle next to where I sleep.  Not a slow reaction, but it could have been faster, I'm struggling with the tent flap as I stumble shirtless into the cold evening air.  The tent does more than you would think filtering out the chill of late summer air.  Starlight, moonlight, torchlight are shining around me.  A silvery skin by the first two with pockets of orange that shine like eyes.  Then some of the eyes grow, expanding outward.  Not torches, but tent-fires.  The night is thick with screams, from dark shapes running between the rows of tents or the inhabitants as flaming wreckage collapses on the unsuspecting within them.

Rebels.  A word I turn to in confusion.  It must have been, must be them.  More shots, clustered together.  It reminds me to load my rifle and check for the rest of my squad in the darkness.  They haven't formed yet, my commander just struggling out of his tent without pants or his gun.  He's screaming incoherently, what's left of his hair is on fire.  As I run over to him it spreads, wreathing his torso as it descends around him.  My screams to roll on the grounds don't reach him and he is used up like a short candle.  I would feel worse if he were a stranger.

I'm kneeling when a wave of them runs through, torches lit and hands filled with small grenades, filled with oil if the spread of the fires is any indication.  One of the figures lights the egg-shaped object and tosses it on my tent.  The week has been dry, the leather cold, but flammable.  I crouch lower, staying out of the path of the rebels, watching the life I was leading flare up in a pyre of sorts.  Maybe it was born of insanity, but when the last of them pass out of sight, I drag my commander's corpse to my tent.  One solid throw/push and he lands in the wreck of my tent, under the roof where I was sleeping minutes before.  Then I run for the treeline, rifle in hand.  They taught me how to use it, how to respect it.  It feels good, the metal against my skin.  I don't know the line, still, but I want to find it, I want to make peace before I return home like the last generation, something broken inside.  I have time to fix that.

Plug and Play (VR tidbit 1)

The numbness hits you immediately when you plug in.  It's cold in a way, like all of your body got flash-frozen down to the core, and then it all disappears.  No sight, no sound, no touch, smell, or taste, just an empty feeling.  Some people get phantom sensations in the few seconds it takes before loading up; I don't.  Then the senses start hooking up, sight coming in first.  You have to go through the tests: full range of motion, identify the colors, adjust the hearing.  Most of it's automatic and it doesn't take long, slipping into the skin of the avatar you loaded up on the info-screen back in the real world.  Depending on how you logged in, you get a few different views.  Some people just go right into the big game, virtual reality of one sort or another.  Other people use it for work, creating a calm environment to be bored in all day.  I warp into a ring of portals.  Twelve colors shifting through the rainbow in their circuit.  between and around them is the stone-looking arches that form the rest of the ring, and the stone floor I'm standing on.  They used to be labeled, various information on the specific arena in each, the number of people on each specific server.  Loads more than that if I looked in the menus for it.  I know where they all go though, and I know enough about the trends from day to day to know which one is populated.  I walk through the lime green portal.  Jungle arena.  A display comes up in front of my head, slowly rotating through the different models I have for combat.  I have a few there, but only one of them is up to date, the others haven't been touched in months.  It looks like a fairly normal body type: tanned skin, black hair down to the waist, just a tad short of six foot.  The knives strapped to my belt are long and sharp, both of them cost me a good dealing in winnings, but they have a few features that were worth the cost.  For clothing, the armor just covers my chest, strapped on under the green cotton shirt and pants that I have on.  Hard leather boots on my feet and a shiny silver hairband to complete the look.  On the inside, I'm packing a few spells, some physical augments, including magic-sight and improved hearing, and some extra reaction-time.  I just have the basic capacity for languages uploaded though.  Some players like to give themselves a boost by getting a few obscure ones loaded in and using code during a match.  I'm not a team player, nobody to talk to, and I usually don't need to know what exactly other people are saying to know what they mean.  Play this for five years every day and you get good at that.  You get good at the game too, which is why I'm running right as soon as it places me down in the jungle.  I get a glimpse of the rest of my team before I disappear into the bright green foliage.  There's an elf, looks like he's a soldier-type with the bow on his back and the long-sword on his belt.  He had a tabbard on too, but I didn't catch the insignia on it.  Standing next to him were two halflings.  One of them sported a big fancy hat and robes; obviously a wizard.  Cringeworthy even, since a hat that big was just a target.  The other one was dressed similarly to me, but the way he was looking around made it seem like he was new, probably invited by his friend in the hat.  Over on the right had been a dwarf, very typical with the axe and the beard.  Dwarves didn't generally do that well in jungle arenas, but from the way he had some smaller hand axes on his belt and the relative lightness of his armor for a dwarf it looked like he might do alright.  Last, and directly in front of me was another human.  I had to squeeze past him and the elf on my way out.  He had a long, thin staff with what looked like wings at the top.  Cleric, likely, or maybe another mage.  Either way, he was dressed light, pants and a shirt instead of the typical robes.  That was a good sign.  One of them shouted after me, probably the elf.  Something about tactics, but I wasn't much interested.  The first one to the moonwell had the advantage after all, and with the magic-sight I had going, it was easy to lock onto the glowing blob that stood half a mile off in the distance behind a stretch of forest.  Dodge that tree, jump over this rotting log, don't step on the green snake on that rock.  Easy.  Every little obstacle had a subtle clue if you looked for it.  The pit trap coming up went fifteen feet down into spikes designed to take you out for a few minutes while the healing kicked in, but the pattern of plants and the big openness of the clearing it sat in the middle of gave it away.  I cleared it, leaping to the other side and rolling out of the landing.  Maybe it would have been hard if I hadn't been augmenting my legs with more strength, speed, and reaction.  Even then, skirting the edge wouldn't have taken long.  Not that I would go without those augments on a normal basis.  They cost so little in points, mostly because they didn't do anything flashy or dangerous to any armor, but they gave me way more mobility than people usually expected.  Most people who matched me in speed had some sort of elemental casing around their legs, going for the coolest or most damaging effect they could.  That or they left them normal and relied on other means of quick-travel.  I bet that cleric back there had some sort of flight readied to cast when he needed it.  The others would cope one way or another, but all of them were too slow reacting at all that it barely mattered.  They were back there "planning" and I just broke the treeline into the moonwell glade.  It sloped down into the ground, green grass unusually short on the hillside of a jungle, and unusually pure of other plants.  Even in five years they hadn't been improving the realism of these virtual reality games that much.  Still I was only picky because I hadn't gotten into the action yet.  Just five long strides before I jumped, clearing the last ten feet and splashing into the water.  There was a tingle on my skin as it got everything on me wet.  Not like the numbness, more of the opposite if anything.  Then I was sinking to the bottom, soaking in the magical energies that were infused into the water.  This is when I activated the first spell I had prepared.  Underwater breathing.  Meant I could stay under here and the other team, and my team, would be none the wiser, at least for a little while.  I dove for the bottom, pulling myself down onto the smooth, stone basin before flipping over with my feet under me, touching the water.  I had enough magic stored up by then to cast the second spell, a variation on clairvoyance that let me see what was going on in the clearing above without having to re-surface.  Usually the enemy would assume it was some enemy scrying from outside of the clearing and lower their guard.  Then I waited, storing up magic for the next step.  It was about a minute later before the next person entered, some Elf I didn't recognize.  He was floating, scanning the opposite edge of the clearing as he drifted out toward the water.  Mages like that spent points on giving themselves a starting magic reserve, and he must have meditated a bit to get it up high enough.  He was followed by another elf, similarly outfitted as the one on my team, but with a crossbow instead of the normal recurve.  Both of them approached the pool.  This was time for spell number three, which was a five second burst of physical power.  It was two seconds longer than it needed to be, this time.  I was rocketing out of the water just as they reached the edge.  One action to slit the floating one's throat and the other to fall feet first into the warrior's chest and slit his with my other dagger.  Two down, four to go.  Then I was up and running off to the side between where I had made my entrance and they had.  That sort of trick only worked once. At least against anyone competent, and I couldn't risk the rest of them being competent and making me pay for that.  It would be another two or three days before people started checking the bottom of the pool before strolling into the clearing, so the first use was safe enough, what with it being out of the common tactics these days.  I curved right, parallel to the route the other team must have taken to get to the pool.  My magic reserves were brimming, and I was confident about my chances if I ran into them four on one.  A blip of magic appeared on my radar, and I heard two voices talking in some dialect I couldn't make out as they closed in on the well.  I gave them a little room and then headed farther back, looking for the stragglers.  One halfling in full plate armor, slowly pushing through the undergrowth.  Spell number four gave me a boost to my knives sharpness.  Activating that and the third spell gave me a strike powerful enough to stab through the helmet and quick enough to stop him from attempting to parry me as I came up from his side.  Three left.  Then an arrow went whistling past my head.  Frosty, pulling snowflakes in its wake that burned as they touched my cheek.  It was a dwarf with an absurdly big bow that had been trailing even farther behind.  He grinned as he started to draw it back for the second time.  I didn't have enough magic left to pull the same stunt again, so I just ran at him.  The reflex augment helped me dodge the next arrow at a safe enough distance that the frost-burn didn't hit me again.  The pain on my face might have been a little distracting i I hadn't been used to it.  A third arrow, and it was even farther off than the last two.  The dwarf's grin had faded, a straight line of pursed lips in the middle of his red, bearded face.  It stood out quite nicely against the green and brown of the forest.  He started drawing his own dagger too late, somehow stupid enough to underestimate my speed even after the stunt he saw me pull on the halfling.  Then he was down, knife to the throat.  I turned back toward the last two that had been going towards the moonwell just in time to see my teammates ambush them.  An arrow from the elf, a lightning bolt from the halfling mage, and the other two keeping track of the rest of the area as they walked down towards the pool to inspect the two elves that were already dead.  Ther looked like they were still expecting a fight, but the return started and the whole area faded out, transporting me back to the circle of portals.  A score screen floated in front of me, tallying the points I earned.  Not that many, but that had been an easy match.  The matching algorithms must have been off, but I wasn't about to complain.  Maybe they would have been more of a threat if they had been given time to get up to speed.  Next to the score screen, a message box popped up.  I didn't recognise the name, at first, but it appeared somewhere on the scorelist too.  Probably some angry asshole upset about getting his ass handed to him.  I deleted it.

Crack

Consider it a blessing.  Even in the last throes of its existence the building made for a spectacular show, each window exploding outward in showers of twinkling glass to the streets below.  From the street it looked as if someone had tossed buckets of water out them, falling in a very liquid pattern.  Inside the collapse had started, each floor smashing itself down upon the one below, downwards into the basements and sub-basements.  Ruined support pillars that should have prevented such an event had been torn up by the blast, falling inwards to be flattened under the load.

The only piece that didn't seem to fit was the silence, oppressive in its nature.  It should have been loud, cacophonous even as the debris mashed together, smaller bits and dust flooding out into the street and above the pile of stone and wood and metal.  The blast before, the boom of it all left all ears within a few blocks deafened, effecting a silent, beautiful collapse.  The eardrums would be healed in a few weeks, perhaps.

Now begins the panic, mouths opened in mute screams, wide eyes and wild gestures.  Each playing a part in each other's silent movie, devoid of subtitles.  If they stopped to think for a moment some might have even found the humour of the phenomena.  As it is, bits of building raining down cut out any levity that could spark and scared people dash for cover.  Most make it, bruises and cuts and a thin covering of dust for their skin.  Some stumble, fall, hit by larger pieces.  Others just get the coating of dust, having reacted more quickly, been more lucky.

Unlike the silence, the movement doesn't shut off as completely as the sound did.  The building is still, some of the people are still, but others are walking around as the dust settles gently.  People are shocked, slow.  Somewhere deep under the pile of rubble is a stirring.  Most of the surface is braced together, so the movement alters nobody present of the street.  Still, down below an entity stretches its limbs.  The set up had taken time, precious time when the building had been empty.  Each of the three cases before, days, months, weeks ago had been scrapped as people returned to the building.  It had succeeded this time, been faster, been given more time.  With a wriggle, the entity started to worm its way through the spaces, upwards, out of the mess that had at one time been considered a prison of sorts.  The surface began shifting after a while, little bits moved as the entity climbed and squeezed and pushed.  The street didn't notice, either because there was no telltale noise or because of the inconsequential nature a few shifting rocks meant to them.  That they thought was inconsequential.  Still, the entity was spotted as it surfaced, crimson snout first as it pushed away a chunk of concrete.  Teeth like knives lined up in its smile, the rest of its vaguely anthropomorphic lizard body.  And then it screamed.

In the same way as before, the windows around shattered first, supports and walls crumbling in the echo that was unheard.  The wind of it still hit them, though.  People fell down if they weren't lying on the ground already, some confused and more frightened at the continued explosions, not seeing the entity.

Then it was gone, escaped, leaping over the broken and breaking streets towards the edge of town.  Its captors would return in minutes, curse, and begin the chase.  Perhaps this one would be considered a terrorist bombing or a generator explosion.  The people there would be silenced themselves, by money, fear, or patriotism.  Those on the outside would believe it, perhaps.  Conspiracy theories had been raised before, some even on the right track, so this was nothing new.  Still, next time the entity would be locked up a bit tighter.

Dialogue of a boring nature.

Honestly, can you really say you have never tried?

Never?

Not even once?

Nope.

Weird.

It isn't really.

It so is.  Everybody does it.

I don't.

But it's so easy.  I almost do it on accident sometimes.

I don't want to.

Come on, please?

It's a waste of time.

But it's fun!

Sure, and so are other things, like reading.

Yeah, but you can do that any old time.

And I am.  Right now.

Just do it once.

It's juvenile.

It's awesome, you just don't think you can do it.

It's not hard, just dumb.

So everyone is dumb.

Guess so.

What if I take your book away?

Then I whack you on the head, get it back, and keep reading.

But what if I hide it?

You won't get far enough to hide it.

Throw it out the window then.

I toss you out to fetch it, simple.

It's two stories down though!

Eh, you could limp back up, just don't land on your head.

Fine, fine.

. . .

Please?

No, go away, you're distracting me.

I'll stop if you do it.

No.

So I keep distracting you then?

Beware of my vengeance if you do?

You'll throw me out the window?

Only if you take my book.

Then what?

I'm not telling, it will be a surprise.

Not even a hint?

Nope.

You're bluffing.

Might be, or I might have a devious plan cooked up for this very situation, now shush.

No, you gotta do it.  This is for your own good as a person.

. . .

Really, it's like, a facet of our generation.

. . .

Defines us as a culture these days.

. . .

Stop ignoring me, and being stubborn and stuff.

. . .

You are no fun at all.

. . .

I can see that smile, it doesn't mean you won.

. . .

Yeah, whatever, I'll go play on my own.  Worst big sister ever.

Toodles.

. . .

Books are so much better than that silly virtual reality thing he's got going anyway, annoying little brat.

I heard that!

. . .

. . .

Space Krakken for the Space Ships.

Parking a squid is hard, doubly so if the station is not prepared in the slightest to accommodate it.  He liked to wrap tentacles around the place, sticking to the windows and polished siding while waiting for me to get back.  It's not as if he'd go anywhere on his own, it just freaks out the authorities enough that you come back to a "situation" as they tend to call it.  It was my second time at this particular space station though, so I hoped that things would go smoother than normal.  I eased off on the gravity well I'd been using to make him fall towards the station, reducing speed a bit with one positioned behind us.  We came in mouth first so I had to rely on cameras.  Only jostled it a bit though.  He grabbed out with his tentacles, better than normal docking clamps, as I unstrapped and floated down to the hatch down at his mouth.  The walls were getting a bit dryer, less wet than they had been at the start of the voyage so I put water on my list of chores as I made my way to the airlock.  It was fastened into place with the station, so I didn't have to suit up to get through, just go through two sets: mine and theirs.  Aupaula station was a spindle.  It wasn't like the giant donut types that spun around with a stationary dock at the center, and it wasn't a sphere that relied on internal gravitation fields to create a livable surface.  It was a long, thin needle that had docks on the outer shell and a second layer inside for the working and living quarters.  It orbited a moon, small and on edge of most normal trade routes.  This area had been colonized a while back because of a big gallium deposit that they found, back when those things were valuable.  It gets along half on the black market and half on the local resources of the moons in the area, but not enough that there is a full-time crew.  As a non-artificial gravity location, it couldn't act as a habitat anyway, crew having to rotate every few months anyway.  I didn't recognize the man in the suit that was pulling himself down the hall towards me, so I guessed I hadn't run into any of the same crew that was here 3 years back.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to explain your vessel."

"It's a techno-organic space vessel."

He doesn't seem to register what I said, either because he heard it before or doesn't understand what I meant.  I'd bet on the later.  "Once again, I'd like you to explain your vessel, and why it is latched onto my hull."

"If you go back through the reccords, I came here with it three years back. . ."

"That was before the reformation of the trade regulations, before the ship classification requirements for systems."  He was referring to the stipulations that popped up from the new political power recently.  Trade Proctorate.

"Well, if we're getting into the very technical applications, I and my large friend came here in a semi-assisted suit-less flight which under regulations means. . ."

"That we are obligated to receive you in and offer medical assistance if possible with limited risk to my crew.  Fine.  Prove to me you're limited risk."

"As I said before, the records. . ."

"Were wiped sometime last year in a magnetic storm.  Barely managed to keep the base from crashing into the moon."

"Well, do you have a connection down surface-side?  I think it was Major Phillips who was in charge at the time?"  He put a hand up to his ear when I said that, mumbled something into a fairly well hidden communicator.  I caught the word verify, but little else.  Lip reading might be useful to pick up.

"We should have an answer back shortly.  Major Phillips is stationed at landing zone Alpha groundside.  Got put in charge there a while back."  I wasn't sure if it was a promotion or not, so I kept my mouth shut on the matter.  I just smiled a little, not too much though.

"He says you're about as far from harmless as you can get out in space."  That would be Major Phillips for you, why had I thought of him first?  "He also said to send you down to the land-side port because you and he need to have a little chat.  Says to put in in Granite Lake and he'll take a car out to pick you up."  Well, not a total loss then.

"Thank you for your time, sir."

"It's my job, civilian.  Now get off my station."

Protocol

Listen to the blast.  Two, three, four, boom.  Way down the street behind a few corners, still going at a semi-steady pace.  It's like a microwave with popcorn in it, just more intense.  Honestly, it's about as everyday as a microwave.  Hard to see tech like that coming into being without being used.  Especially when the only people who can't afford a jammer are too poor to really get a voice.  Just enough time to get a scream out before they pop.  Sickening if you see it the first time.  Second time you think you've seen it, then you really watch, really take in the details of how the blood seeps out through the eyeholes.  You never get over it, just learn how to stifle the reflex once it starts, faster, earlier, more firmly.

  In some sense I'm even glad the perp is leaving a trail like this.  makes it easy to track if they leave a dotted trail right to them.  He's not even getting picked up and put down for this, it was for something trivial, poaching might be, I don't care enough to check.  All I need to know he's heading deeper in, down to the darker parts of the crater-city.  down to the parts where electricity starts becoming a commodity again.  Maybe he lives, or lived down there.  Made a break and got a little power, but still thinks of it as home.  Too bad for me I have to follow in.  Even without some of the sensors picking up the heat signatures I can see, I know there are a few watching, more coming.  Still, I've got enough stuff on me to wipe out a city block, so it's not as if it's dangerous for me.  Just painful to go in there and see it all, see the dotted line he's leaving.  A jog then, more than the stealthy stroll that I''d been making up to the edges of the place.  Catching him off guard would be fast, but if I had to spend two hours sneaking up on him before a three second kill, it would still be longer than a ten minute match-off after a thirty minute chase.

The explosions peter off.  A bit in and the house walls started loosing their siding, revealing the pipes and wires underneath.  Half of them were dry and empty, but the splatters were harder to pick up on the uneven surfaces, especially with the grime.  Then they stopped.  Maybe the guy got tipped off, maybe he got bored.  Now I had to switch to real tracking.  Flip a switch on the visor, moving it from visible light and heat to x-ray and auto-scan.  Too many and it got a bit hard to visualize what was going on unless you were really good with them.  Some people ran with all eleven filters running, but I liked to keep it simple.

Tracks led left, through a back alley and up a roof-access.  Gave me a little warning before my jammer beeped in my ear.  Rooftops, right.  He was making it easy on me then.  No cat an mouse once he realized.  When I got a fix on his skeleton up at the top, three floors up, I could see his mouth move, likely to swear by the body posture.  I grinned a bit; swearers were entertaining, especially if it were only from his stolen tech not working.  I could hear him as I hurtled upwards toward the roof, relying on the strength of the tech snuggled around my legs and arms to get me a safe landing.  I hadn't practiced anything like this much, but I'd seen some of the more veteran jump and draw taking down four or five people with a few shots in the air before landing, but I figured that would be just a bit too showy.  Plus I wasn't so great at the quick-draw that I'd risk dropping my gun three stories.

His face was crumpled into that angry expression people get when they know that somebody is about to do them a wrong turn.  Blames it on me.  He knows he's not living through this.  Tries to fire off the device at me again, hear him pull the trigger with a click at the same time my jammer beeps again.  I sigh as I draw, watching him drop the piece and rush me.  He bowls me off the rooftop, out into the open air, but I get the gun dug in where his heart is and pet out a shot, straight up.  Gonna have blood on the suit;  gonna get yelled at and have to clean it when I get back.  Hitting the ground barely registers as I go over in my head what I have to file this as.  Easy to push him up and off me as I stand.

In one of my pockets there's the standard issue marble.  Small, no external sources of propulsion, runs entirely on gravity.  It sticks when I drop it on his torso, then raises him up like some brutal marionette of a ballerina  arching her, his, back.  I took the stairs this time, letting the body float in the street until I went to get it.  It lay where he dropped it, a long sleek chrome wand.  interfaced directly with the nerves, no buttons on the surface.  It went in a pocket and I hopped down, landing on my feet this time.  Now all that was left was the slow walk back to the base.  The easy part was done, now he had to figure out how to talk his way out of being the research team on this guys motives.  Damn shame protocol demanded instant execution if possible.

Ellucid Dreaming

I slip under, feeling the hazy half-real fever dreams when your body just needs some time to protest your current activity.  It's black in here, real black, but fuzzy, kind of.

Hey.

That's new.

Hey you.

It's like a ball of bright white light streaking around inside here.  Looks like the lightning from before.

I ~am~ the lightning from before, and you will address me by my full name.

Usually my mind only summons up the occasional conscience.  I talk to myself enough, but this is different.

Stop ignoring me.  I'm not you.  Of course I'm not you.  Do I look like some lowly two-legged creature?

Well, no.  It, I mean you. . .

You may call me His great and terrible Conqueror of the western skies and all that fall below; Terror of the inland sea and. . .

Anything shorter?

. . .scourge of the great nation of Kwai; Magnificent Serpent of. . .

I'm going to call you Ning.

. . .the expansive ceiling-ocea-what no!

I'm not going to say that whole thing.  Plus, you look like lightning.

I ~am~ lightning, or lightning is a lesser form of what I am.  Don't just casually undermine my status as. . .

Come on, lighten up.  It's just a nickname.

I am not "nicknamed" by mere mortals.

What are you, then, and why are you in my head?

Weren't you listening to my titles?  I'm the great and terrible. . .

A short version oh your eminence?

Stop interrupting me mortal!  This is the short version. Now let me finish.  I have to start over now.  I am the great. . .

He's a sky dragon.

It's coming from behind me, I thought, but when I turn I don't see anything.

No, down here.

Stop.  Interrupting.  Me.

My arm is on fire again, and a form is squeezing itself out through black crevasses in the charcoaled skin.  It's orange and flame colored, flickering a little.  Not like anything I'd ever seen fire do before.

Of course not, flame spirits are quite different.  But anyway, that glowering thing is what you humans have been calling sky dragons.

Such a noble being as I could not take so small a name or so simple a title.

Like the legend of the prince and the seven seals and how he goes to restore the beauty of the land?

Hmph, I should have eaten that one when he showed up with the silly talking donkey of his.

That is one instance, yes.

Stop ignoring me, mortals!

The children's fairy tale.

I mean it!  I shall smite thee both to dust!

You are talking to a flame spirit and a prideful ball of lightning in your dreams.

Point taken.

I'm going to do it, I really am.

Oh come off it cloud-breath, you're insubstantial in here, nothing really happens.

Not until I eat him and take over his body.

Until you what?  Until he what?

Don't worry, the beast is overestimating his capabilities.  We would not make a good snack for him.

I think you will both be delicious and a good three hundred and thirty fifth paragraph for my title.

You seem to be forgetting that eating a human from the inside is not the same as eating a mage.

Mages don't exist anymore.

Just like your kind, cloud breath?

A mage?

Yes, a wielder of high sorceries.

But I'm not a. . .

Yes, well, you show some of the signs.

He most certainly isn't one.  I would have seen the aura before I jumped inside to eat him.

How do you explain me, then?

A figment, the boy has obviously imagined you in order to dissuade me from eating him.

Care to test that?

Gladly.

Ning leaps forward and the fire expands out into a huge mass of flame between me and him, perched on my arm.  Lightning meets fire and the two spark back and forth at each other.  Heat building up that I can feel, unlike the fire.  Err, flame spirit.  It takes a while, but the two eventually split apart.

Would you stop your narration, mortal, it is becoming annoying to my divine perception.

It ~is~ a bit silly.

I can't help it, this is the weirdest dream I've ever had, I have to think through it like this!

Must you though?  Can you not talk just like the rest of us?

Ning rubs his singed nose with his tail.  Ah, sorry, see?  I can't help it!

This will doubtless work much better when you are awake.

But then you two dream figments will be gone.

. . .

. . .

Right?

Things have just gotten a bit more complicated for you, I'm afraid.

No they haven't, as my divine and me-given right, I will eat him.  Not complicated at all.