FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

**I.

Mercenaries**

Morgan stared across the street that had become a battlefield and swallowed hard as he felt his chest tightening with apprehension. High powered projectiles fired across the street from behind downed, or parked vehicles or around the corners of buildings. The air was occasionally punctuated by the heat, light and odd static of high powered energy weapons. Morgan hated those things so much; they always made the hair on his arms stand up and his heart skip a beat. Looking into the light of a laser beam, or an ion pulse was like the grandeur of god: beautiful, brilliant, and untouchable. It was like life and death combined into one hideous line of destructive salvation.

His sister, Andrea on the other hand laughed maniacally and returned the fire the gang shot at them with a kind of sinister gusto that he never would understand. It was for her sake that he had taken up mercenary life when he had never felt cut out for it. Even now after the pair had traveled for years he still felt like a scared puppy that had been placed into the pit of a dog fight. Why did he need to follow her around anymore anyway? She was the one who enjoyed this; she was the one who was capable.

Suddenly, Andrea vaulted over the vehicle into a hail of various ammunition and darted across the street. Their enemies shouted at each other incoherently and filled the air with perfunctory curse words, half hearted commands, and city rat slang. He wanted to turn away as he was sure the young woman would die (as he had been so many times before) but once again he couldn't. Once again she was dipping back and forth with a speed that astounded him endlessly as she serpentined through the thick gravel. Around him, Dead Boys in their pristine armor that was as black and white as their government mandated morality shouted for him to get down, and barked information and commands over their com links. The girl's death was assured, and their lieutenant saw this as "one less merc to pay". So far, nothing had managed to touch her.

Andrea bounded onto the roof of a downed hover-car and leaped over the gang of young men whom had been deemed usurpers, terrorist, and criminals by the Coalition of Man and began to ladder hop up the side of the building that was behind them. Little attention was being paid by the gang, but her display had drawn fire away from the soldiers that the two had been sent with on this cleansing mission.

Suddenly some of the rats stopped shooting and shouting from the opposing barricade rose in pitch to a terrified scream. Andrea yelled over her loaned com link for her compatriots to hit the dirt, and they all promptly complied. White hot plasma erupted from the gangs position sending blisteringly hot shards of high tensile polymers flying in the form of molten slag. The mercenary woman had managed to barely make it over the lip of the roof above them, and the soldiers on her team were barely spared the fallout from the sudden firework display. Groans rose from the smoke and the gunfire stopped indicating that her grenades had done their job. The soldiers moved in perfect formation to sweep and clean the last of the surviving Sympathizers and complete their dangerous mission without suffering one casualty. Morgan followed them with trepidation as he gripped his energy rifle. He mused that he was totally missing out on the confidence that such a situation should inspire.

Were Andrea a citizen of the Coalition State she would most likely have received a commendation such as a medal, or perhaps a promotion if not the opportunity to step in line for one. However, Andrea and Morgan were not members of the Coalition of Man. They were hired mercenaries, expendable resources. They were given their pay of 6000 credits each, and asked to move along and keep their noses clean. Andrea was rewarded with amnesty from suspicion of the illegal human augmentation that her display had smacked of, and asked to not let the sun set on her in the Chi-Town suburbs. She smiled, accepted her pay, and headed out as though nothing was wrong in the world. She and Morgan had received the thanks of the soldiers they worked with and that was considered to be enough for the time being. Andrea had "what she came for" as she put it, and the pair were off to enjoy a little spending before setting up for their next assignment, whatever it might happen to be.

**II.

Apocalypse**

"Why do we keep doing this?" Morgan asked as the pair of them reclined in a small booth of a bar, "Why can't we just take what we've earned and stop? For Pete's sake, Andrea, we have a fortune between the two of us. We wouldn't even have to live together unless you wanted to. I just..." He stopped. None of this was sinking in. Andrea didn't care about what he wanted, only what he had to do, and he had to keep following.

"It won't be much longer" she said as she cut up her meal of suspicious looking meat, "just a while longer."

She paused to chuckle at the comment and glanced up to see if it was lost on her brother. He hadn't missed it. It was actually the name of the small inn she insisted they eat at every time they came this way. Cute.

Morgan sighed and pushed the food on his plate around. That was always the answer. "Just a while longer." No wonder they always came here to eat when they were in the 'burbs. A while longer. What kind of crap is that?

"Andrea" he said sharply which was unlike him, "I can't keep doing this. It's been 'a while longer' for something like six years now. How much longer am I going to have to keep this up?

"How much longer can you keep this up? You don't even need me for this mess anymore. I... I'm not cut out for it. I just never get any better. You're fine without me." He placed his head in his hands, rubbed his fingers over his eyes, and set his forehead against them to rest. Exhaustion showed clearly in his dirty features, and betrayed his growing sickness of this line of work.

"You know that isn't true, bro" she said without missing a beat, "I can't do this without you. I need you as much or more than you need me. What would you do without this life? You know we can't stop. We have to find them: The ones that raped and killed me. Once they're put in their place then we can stop." She looked at him intently, and he wished that she wouldn't. He had never managed to say no to that look and he hated it when she talked like that. He always wanted to tell her how crazy it sounded because he knew it never happened. For goodness' sake she was sitting right in front of him, eating and talking.

"How much longer?" he asked dissonantly.

"A while longer" she replied.

"How long is that? How much longer, Andrea?"

"A while"

"God Damnit!" he exclaimed as he slammed his fork down. Other patrons of the bar turned to look at him nervously and he quieted immediately. They stared at him like he was totally out of his mind. What was their problem? They seemed afraid of him but for what reason? He wasn't armed, he was small, and mousey, and outbursts like that were not uncommon. Why was it then that people always stared at him like he was a freakish D-Bee or something?

A young waitress approached nervously and clasped her hands in front of her. She held them over a tray that rested flat against her stomach. She looked down at him and forced herself towards his table.

"Is everything alright, sir?" the nervous wench asked with a tremble in her voice, "Is there a problem? I can talk to the cook if your food is bad; that's for sure." She looked at him and he looked back at her. She wasn't growing any more comfortable even though he seemed to be shrinking. He cast his eyes down at the table and his lip shook but still she stared at him like he might suddenly explode and take everything in the town with him.

"No" he replied, "I'm fine. The food is fine. I was just..."

He paused and picked his fork back up with a long sigh. His hand moved to begin pushing the vegetables on his plate around again as he had been before. He felt an inch high right about then.

"No." he said again, as his mind began to undress the young woman and lust over her healthy appearance, "It's nobody's fault. I'm just a little frustrated. Can you get my sister another beer though? I know she'll want another and I'd prefer to draw less attention than she is sure to." The waitress looked at his sister, then back at him with a confused expression. Andrea waved at her impishly as she chewed on a piece of food and grinned as she read her brother's expression. Andrea could read him like a book and it never failed to amuse her how his temper could change at the drop of a dime. The waitress smiled uncertainly, and said "Sure."

"I found him" Andrea said suddenly as the serving girl walked away from their table and out of Morgan's fantasy. She shoved a forkful of pasta into her mouth and said "The last one" around it.

Morgan looked towards his sister and away from the departing waitress. He stared at her intently. Was she serious? Was this serious or another one of her sick jokes? She liked to make them but she never joked about certain subjects. She never joked about 'the men who raped and killed her'.

"Seriously?" he asked.

"As a heart attack."

"No foolin'?"

"No foolin'."

Morgan swallowed hard as a slow smile spread across his face. His mind raced with the prospect. Could it be that whatever strange fantasy she had arranged for herself was at an end? All they had to do was kill one more guy and it would be over? Finally?

"It's possible" she said as though reading his mind, "one more and it's over. I promise. One more and we'll never have to do this again. We just buy a nice little house and chill until we find our respective 'one and only's', then we split off and start families. It'll be just like we always planned. Scout's Honor."

She continued eating and said nothing more. Morgan sat and quietly stared at her for a long time. The bar around them had returned to its regular dull rumble of conversation and scooting stools. Somewhere a man, or thing more appropriately was playing a guitar and singing a song but Morgan wasn't paying attention to the words. He wondered about it momentarily and figured this must be a sympathetic bar. Morgan's stared at the unrecognizable vegetable on his fork and wondered if it had crawled out of the same primordial soup that he had, or if it had sprung from the face of a world that he could never see or imagine. A Sympathizer bar... That could be a dangerous place to be in a city like this. Sympathizing with the D-Bee menace was a death sentence if the coalition found out about them. Then again, that little guy wasn't really a D-Bee, but something strange and different but no less off-putting to the mercenary.

He and his sister had no real problem with sympathizers, or anyone who wanted to read (another activity forbidden by the reigning government). They only took jobs for the Coalition because they were safer, legal, and paid decently. Sometimes he thought about just giving up the merc life and applying for citizenship, but he had mentioned it to a soldier once who told him not to bother. More than that he had laughed the same kind of chortle one might hear from a school boy mocking a fat kid who wanted on the basketball team. For some reason he was not acceptable. That had been his life though: poor, average Morgan who was not even worthy of consideration. The proverbial chunky outcast not laudable to participation.

"You're absolutely sure?" he asked quietly, "this isn't a false lead? This isn't a sick joke to get my hopes up so you can have a better dinner?" He stuffed a mouth full of potatoes and meat between his lips to shut himself up. Andrea was sensitive when it came to matters like this and he was prone to say things that upset her.

"I told you" she said, "Scout's honor. I saw him, Morgan, and I'll never forget his face. I'll never forget any of their faces. Those... those..." She grit her teeth for a moment and took a deep breath. Morgan's concern rose and his heart sank. It made him sick to see her like this. He wondered what had gone wrong to cause this sickness in her; to make her so... crazy. Did he really think she was crazy? As long as they had been brother and sister he never knew anything that happened that could have driven her so mad.

"Damn" he thought quietly to himself, "She was always so together when we were younger." Maybe she meant they had killed her in a sort of symbolic Zen trip that Morgan wouldn't be able to fully understand, and these men really had... hurt her like that. Morgan swallowed some of his questionable meat and resolved to believe that as much as it hurt him to imagine his beloved sister in that position. It was a rough world and he wasn't around all the time was he? Wasn't it better if there was a method to this madness? Killing for a reason seemed less... What? Awful? Disgusting? Top of the line, better than average, song and dance time jake?

"It's not gonna be a picnic though" she said quietly, "You saw him too, but I guess you wouldn't recognize him now, would you? Lieutenant Andrews? The man we went on Mission with today? It's him, the last one. He's the last obstacle to our happiness."

Morgan's blood froze, and he sat rigidly. Over the past six years they had tracked down and killed four men that she designated as her attackers and Morgan always wondered if it was true. Honestly by this point he didn't care. So what if two of them were family men and left behind widows and orphans? He just wanted to stop. He just wanted out and he couldn't tell his sister 'no'. This however, was different. This was a member of the Coalition State, and more than that; an officer. This was a suicide mission at best. They were really going to kill a lieutenant in Prosek's army? Was she serious? Of course she was. He tried with everything he had but he just couldn't do it. Andrea was going to have her way. Andrea always had her way. He wanted to tell her to do it herself but he knew that it was going to end up the way it always did.

"I need you, bro" she'd say, "I can't do this without you and you know it. How can you turn down your baby sister when it's all that she lives for? How can you deny her justice for what they did?" It was hopeless... he was going to kill this man or die trying. Maybe that was the plan all along...

**III.

Emprise**

Morgan and Andrea combed the streets for information while keeping their eyes out for the man she had marked for death. He didn't dare question the validity of her claim that he had violated and murdered her as he had in the past because it aroused in her, to put it lightly, a negative reaction. He figured that he would just do this one more thing: kill one more man and it would be over. He could finally quit this wicked trade and get on with his life, and his sister could as well. As much as he had grown weary of her antics over the years he loved her very deeply and that was probably a major reason he couldn't leave her on her own. She was the only family that he had left.

When they had first moved to the 'burbs in their teen years he had made a promise to his now dead parents to look after her. How were they to know that he was never going to grow out of that silly, awkward phase? How were they to know that it would be their daughter who grew up to shine and he would spend his life living in her shadow? Somewhere off in the cloudy Illinois sky thunder cracked like a shovel of earth falling on a casket.

Their search led them deep into a newer area that was simply called "Bucket Town" thanks to the odd geography of it's settling. The Coalition rarely had anything to do with the strange, sunken city and those in charge were bought and paid for. This made things a lot easier for mercenaries who were looking for good old fashioned information because few questions would be asked. Morgan remembered something from a few nights before that troubled him. His memory was hit or miss these days and sometimes important things slipped by him. He tried not to pay too close attention but this time it was something that might have come back to bite him in the ass.

While the two of them were sitting quietly at "A While Longer" those few days past, Andrea had impishly broken his concentration with a poke to his arm with her fork. She smiled at him when he looked up confused and he couldn't help but smile back. It dawned on him how miserable he was feeling, and how fed up with the weight of everything he had become. His little sister's zest for life had always kind of had that affect on him.

"Get up, Gloomy Gus" she said whimsically and stood up from her place at the table, "We're going to go over there and listen to that little guy play." Across the bar from them on a small, ramshackle stage sat a young Psi-Hound playing away at a guitar. He was singing some kind of song about the woods up north around Manitoba and playing rather beautifully. It was clear by his manner of dress that he was not from around there, and his accent, if one could be picked out through his odd, long-muzzled speech was a bit foreign to him. Still, in spite of his odd little slurring of the American tongue he had a pleasant voice. Morgan listened and watched for a few moments feeling a bit oddly mesmerized with his performance before realizing he was daydreaming and followed his sister to the other side of the room.

Morgan never really figured out why people liked the strange creatures they called Psi-Hounds so much. Most people around called them "Dog Boys" and most even liked them, but he knew many who saw them as a menace. The young male in question (that was how he had to think of the thing, not a man, but a male) was about six feet tall, and well toned. He was also quite well dressed and had an air about him that belied a lack of military conditioning so Morgan figured he must be a "Feral", or free born.

The Coalition State had started growing, and breeding the odd little mutants roughly eighty some odd years earlier in a secret facility down south, and used them now by the thousands. They were famously loyal and generally little little guys but they were in some ways a terror. The Psi-Hound was also famous for its ability to almost unerringly sense magic and psionics within hundreds of feet and could track them down by a strange sort of psychic 'scent'. The Coalition used them as shock troops, riot control, and first and foremost to hunt down and eradicate unregistered psychics and wizards. More so the wizards. The practice of magic in Coalition territory (or any territory they happened to trod trough) was treason, and likewise punishable by death.

After some time of the youthful creature seamlessly passing from one song to another, he finally bowed out (Morgan chuckled to himself as he thought of the young fellow 'bow-wowing' out) and headed over to the bar. The owner gave him a few drinks, and a small meal in gratitude for keeping the patrons entertained otherwise for free. Morgan listened to their conversation for some time as they chatted about how things were happening here in the 'burbs, and about the worries of his home in Lazlo, far to the north.

He had apparently traveled here with his wife, and her mother on a routine trip. His mother in law had all but raised him from an orphaned puppy, and he had later in life grown rather accustomed to the face of her youngest daughter. The pair were now married but he was letting the girl get some years behind her before they started a proper family of their own. He told some other stories that were utterly fantastic and unbelievable, but such stories were always welcomed in alcohol laden pits like this one.

After the proprietor had broken off with a promise to return the young dog looked his way and smiled. He threw back a few deep gulps of his beer (Morgan had noticed that all dogs seem to like beer for some reason) and turned in his seat towards him.

"Name's Rusty" he said cordially, "My mother in law could take a look at that for you. She'll charge of course, but her prices down here are pure charity." Morgan looked confused at him for a moment.

"Excuse me?" he said as he eyed the young man, "What do you mean?" There was no malice in his voice, but genuine confusion. He had no idea what this Rusty fellow was talking about. He may as well have been asking him how the fourth tier on the Mandelbrot set factors if Z is 12.

"Your arm" he replied, tapping it for good measure, "I don't know a whole lot about this stuff. I'm a Wilderness man myself and this technical hoodoo is right over my head, but I've been around enough to know when something could use some maintenance. My mother in law is a Cyber Doc and my wife is an Operator so I've seen my share of mechanical what-nots. Your arm is lookin' a little run down and could use a bit of maintenance. I mean, it's not like it is going to stop working tomorrow or anything like that, but if you're going to be over near Bucket Town any time soon you should call on Emily Tarn. That ain't a real relation to the writer or anything, but she took the name cuz she didn't have one of her own. I guess the man that raised her had a lot of illegal books and she really liked the old lady's stuff."

He took another long drought of his beer and smiled at Morgan in a friendly manner. Morgan looked at him absently for a moment as he continued to talk about people who enjoy reading, and learning, then inspected his arm. It was of course cybernetic. He had lost it when he was younger but the work that he hand his sister involved had allowed him to afford the replacement. She had in fact paid for it. He must have had more to drink than he previously thought. How could he forget he had a fake arm?

"I don't know" he said absent mindedly, "What's a dog boy going to know about bio-systems? I mean, I know they do some medical stuff for the Big C, but this is... well, I guess top of the line." He took another drink of his own beverage and grimaced at the taste. It wasn't bad for the 'burbs, but it was certainly from the 'burbs.

"Oh, yeah. Hell yeah" he said getting a serious look on his face, "yeah, Emily is the best CD in Lazlo. Important people come to see here all the time, no foolin'. Even that guy that looks after Erin Tarn, what's his name, I can't think of it right now came in once to get some of his stuff looked at, and Cyber Knights never do that. You really ought to make the trip out there. She comes down because her own mother died of some wasting sickness in a hole out in one of the shanty towns when a novice of a doctor could have saved her. Em' likes to come out and help people when and where she can. She'll take good care of you." Rusty finished his drink, called a thanks and good by to the bartender, then slapped Morgan on the shoulder in a friendly fashion.

"You come on out" he said to him, and let him know where they would be. Morgan was a little taken aback by this and watched the young man go. That is what he was now, he supposed, a young man, not an alien thing. Still the idea of a dog boy tinkering around inside his body was a bit off putting. He had put the thought out of his head for some time after thinking about how reckless it was to broadcast an illegal chop-shop operation out here in the shadow of the mega-city. He might as well have said "come on in for all your mystical needs".

The incident was still in his memory though he had buried it until his sister had brought it up to him. They were relatively close to where Morgan was told the shop would be and Andrea was rather insistent that he get the wear and tear on his implants checked out. She assured him that if this was a scam the two of them could spot it, sniff it out if you will, and get out before anything really bad went down. Besides that it was near an underground DB bar where inhuman creatures that had come through the rifts hid to socialize and drink.

Another thing that you simply do not want to be in Chi-Town was a Dimensional Being. The Coalition of Man doesn't look kindly on the strange, other worldly people who congregated on this earth either by accident or on purpose, and they drew no distinction between elf and demon. The way they saw it this world belonged to humans and anything else had to go, usually by way of the energy pistol. Morgan found himself musing that at least their executions were quick, and the terror leading up to it would end abruptly with little pain. They would stop in so that he could get a check-up from the Psi-Hound, and then bop over to the bar. By some "good" fortune the man they hunted worked in bucket town most of the time, and if anyone knew his movements then it would be the men or women in that den of criminals, and disparate.

The building they found themselves standing before was relatively new but not a particularly well built structure. The entrance led them underground into a basement area that was more than likely intended for storage but had been changed into a makeshift doctors office. The mercenaries looked over the equipment, all of which was reduced in size for portability. Morgan wondered at how anyone -especially a Psi-hound- might ever have the funds and connection to afford such things. It was a strange thought that made him stumble across something. He hated dog boys. He found them dirty, and obnoxious things that were utterly despicable. He didn't know why; he liked real dogs well enough. What was it about them when they walked on two legs?

The room was filled with a light, antiseptic scent filled Morgan's nostrils as he continued to look around. The walls and ceiling had been scrubbed surprisingly clean, and they had gone so far as to put down some kind of cellophane lining on the floor. Every piece of her equipment was immaculately kept, spotless and maintained. There was a certain amount of confidence in such small details, but a place this clean in the burbs kind of put the mercenary off a bit. It reminded him of something that he could not put his finger on. Some half-remembered dream, or youthful memory.

There had been a bit of an interview with a young female of the canine variety when he first arrived. She had a thick accent that let him know that she had spent a lot of time in this area so he assumed that she knew what she was looking for. He was being screened for safety reasons. He passed through this security measure with the standard bored distance that he handled most things in the world. The young woman seemed as put off by his blasé dissonance as he was the slight slurring of her speech. As hard as she tried there were words that her muzzled mouth could not pronounce correctly. He was almost amused by the sound of it.

Finally, after a period of waiting he was confronted by a pleasant voice greeting him. "Hello" it said and he turned to view the woman who would be attending him. She was a tall psi-hound female of the German Shepard variety and spoke with surprisingly sharp diction. He felt both at ease and put off talking to her thanks to the strange duality of her tone. She spoke with a manner both matronly kind, and world weary, or haughty. Their conversation was kept quite bland, and clinical, like the make-shift facility that surrounded them. She offered to replace his cybernetics should he wish but of course the cost of such a procedure would be far greater than he wished to spend.

Nodding to this she carefully removed his mechanical arm and gave it a full tune up. He had a few other parts but some of them she didn't want to handle because they would require invasive surgery and he needed to be fit. She informed him that if he was going to be idle for a while he should get a few of them checked out. She was afraid that there might be a glitch in one. Morgan thanked her, paid her, and finally left. He wondered at whether she was serious or simply trying to sell him something, but the price that she charged him had been pure charity, just like her long-eared pitcher at the bar. It was a fraction of what the work had been worth.

On his way down the street, while chatting with his sister, he decided that he didn't care. In a few days this would all be over and he could take things easy. All they had to do was this one last mission. All they had to do was kill one more man. Morgan didn't even see it as killing one more man, but rather making one more kill. It was a strange attitude but he didn't really take the time to reflect on it. It was just sort of him. It was almost like he was simply too boring to be guilty. He didn't have dreams where he saw the faces of the men and women that he had killed, or feel their ghosts peering over his shoulder. He simply continued to drift by, day to day and followed what his sister said. What would he ever do without her?

Had he always been like this? Had he never had any kind of opinion of his own? Was he always so distantly disgusted with the world around him? He couldn't remember anymore. Why was he forgetting so much? He felt like he wasn't even real anymore. It was almost as if he was dead and simply following around a living person because it was his last tie to life and he would rather drift miserably than fade into oblivion. It was almost as if he were not a part of the world any longer, but rather a casual observer watching it all on a holoscanner or gleaning it off of a page. Buildings passed by him in a haze as he wondered through the crowded streets of the centralized community. The tall cliff faces that formed "The Bucket" loomed in all directions and the gray sky hovered over it like a sick animal that wanted to lie down, but was unsure as to its safety.

Was this all because of his the life he had been leading? He began to wonder what it was that made him feel this way. Was it the filthy streets with their standing, foetid gutters, the pallid shanty buildings surround thing the proud factories that formed the center of the town, or perhaps the unhealthy, dissonant look of the people who walked by him? They came in droves almost all times of the day. It made him realize how densely populated this small section of the 'burbs really is. The clubs and factories kept the various shifts of workers filling the streets and walking shoulder to shoulder at almost all hours of the day. Morgan felt for a while as though he might vomit from the sheer banality of the place. He wasn't sure if it was better, or worse that his sister seemed enlivened by the environment.

**IV.

Nemesis**

The sun hung ominously orange between the heavy cloud cover that the factories issued all hours of the day. Thanks to the strange geometry of the landscape it seemed to pool. Where it was thickest the clouds pulsed with an odd, purplish electric discharge from whatever odd chemicals were permeating them. Morgan and Andrea crouched behind a shallow fence and watched a group of men walking through the street. Their armor glistened in the pallid light as they joked amongst each other. The humanity of their discourse poked at the mercenary but he ignored it. Just one more kill. That was all he had. It was turning out that it might be three. Luckily the Dead Boys in this neighborhood were so comfortable with their safety that they weren't even wearing their helmets.

Andrea was a stone beside him. He wasn't so desensitized as to miss the difference in her. Normally she was a bundle of energetic amusement before a fight but today she was as petrescent as marble. Her demeanor was one of merciless action that he had seen on so many other mercenaries over the years and it seemed to wake something up inside of him. The world was a little less hazy, and a touch crisper. The stale air filled his nose and he caught the scent of a thousand things surrounding them. He could hear the tiny clicks and mechanical whines of the ISS officers environmental armor, and the laughter of children some blocks away. It was something of a rush, and he found himself smiling. Suddenly, the smiling ended.

Andrea ground her teeth and it seemed that her chagrin had backed up too much to be handled any further. She hopped the fence and stalked towards the three men in the immaculate Coalition battle outfits. They slowly turned and their faces fell serious. She could tell that they wished they had worn their helmets so that they could increase the menace of their presence. They eyed her approach cautiously and moved their hands near their guns. Even in the relative safety of Bucket Town they knew better than to let their guard down.

"Do you recognize me?" she vitrioled, "Do you remember me or have I fallen into obscurity?" The men looked at each other without comprehension and in fact wondered to whom she had addressed her ire. Finally, the one that she seemed to hate so much smiled menacingly.

"No" he said, "None of us remember you. Go away you freak before we put you down. God damned crazies."

Morgan bit his lip and felt his chest tightening. He started to hop the fence but things were already hitting the bottom of the hill. Interestingly it was the same moment they hit the fan. Andrea drew two energy pistols and opened fire. Her expertly aimed shots took the the heads off of the two men flanking her quarry and left them with falling to the ground trailing a sick, grayish vapor that had previously been the molecular structure of their skulls.

Lieutenant Andrews pulled his gun and let loose a wild volley of energy blasts from the nicely maintained C18. Andrea flipped nimbly to the side almost in response to the rising of his arm and only one of the shots clipped her body. The sickening sting of ozone filled the air as a tiny gout of smoke rose off of her armored leg and her clothing burned back a foot in all directions. Morgan rushed towards them but he had no chance of reaching them in time. Andrea was already back in motion, a blur before his eyes.

She slammed into the soldier and carried him several feet before her momentum slowed and the both of them fell to the ground in a pile. The Dead Boys pistol flew away from them and screams were beginning to fill the air around them. More ISS would be on their way in little to no time. It was now-or-never time and Morgan knew better than to dally.

As Morgan reached them, Andrea was perched over Andews with her weapon to his head. He was pleading for his life and screaming for help terrified. His sister moved the gun to the side and fired it against the ground leaving a deep divot in the concrete and causing a wisp of white hot vapor to rise along his face. The heat of the melting concrete caused blisters to rise where ever it touched and elicited another scream from him.

"You don't know what pain is!" she gasped between shouts, and sobs as she fired again and again, burning more of his face. Morgan tried to pull her away but found himself unable to. She pushed him back and kept firing. None of her shots were lethal. She was torturing him as she claimed he had tortured her.

"Please!" Lieutenant Andrews begged, "Please! I don't know who you are! Don't do this man! Don't do this!" His pleas only seemed to enrage her further and she started hitting him over and over in the face. Finally, Morgan couldn't take it anymore. He could hear the tell tale boot stamps, and mechanical shouts of approaching Dead Boys and knew that this had to end. He grabbed the vibroblade from her waist and swung it. Lt. Andrews promising career ended abruptly as the bright arc of the mono-filament blade cleanly parted his countenance. This chapter was a big Over, baby, and it was time to move on before Dodge went nuclear.

Andrea fell still and began sobbing. Morgan's mind raced furiously as mechanical screams echoed only a scant few blocks away. His hands flew to his grease-smeared hair and he looked around for some way out. Failing to see anything to save them other than action, and fast action, he laid out the "fast" as he grabbed her under the arms and pulled. Morgan was never one to take charge. He didn't know what he was even doing but he knew that it had to be done and the only time to do it was Now. The Now that towers over everyone all the time, greater in height and scope than even cyclopean Chi-Town. Now: the part that he always remembered.

Her cheeks were streaked with tears, and dust but her eyes were soft. A pleasant smile crossed her features and she reached out to touch his face as he stared stupidly at her. His confusion was palpable and the situation became more and more surreal. He was not ready for this by a long shot and his grip on the situation was slipping as sure as death and taxes.

"It's over" she said in a pleasant tone, "It's done. I can rest." Morgan stared back at her dumbly as she stroked his hair and smiled at his confusion. He swallowed hard and tried to find what he wanted to say or to force it through the knot in his throat. Andrea leaned forward and kissed him pleasantly on the cheek as he closed his eyes. His blind face felt a tear run down the hard line of his cheek. Morgan loved his sister dearly but for some time even that feeling had become muted, and dull. He smiled slightly as something in him seemed to come back. He opened his eyes again and the smile fell from his face. Andrea was gone...

He looked around for a moment in utter confusion. His mouth felt as if it was moving and heard his voice in the air around him but it seemed to be the mad mumblings of somebody else. His ears caught the sound of men shouting and ordering their lessers to take him down. Where were those voices? Why weren't they already shooting? Were they coming from those soldiers that were still a hundred yards down the street when he could have sworn they were right at the gates of Camelot? He ran until he felt his lungs and legs might burst as he thought about everything that had happened. Everything that had happened as opposed to the crazy trip that had just laid itself on his tired head in the past hour. Things were beginning to come back, and the sheer terror inside him grew greater than the fatigue.

**V.

D'enouement**

Morgan stumbled through the grass as he ascended the shallow rise of the hill. Even in the dark of night where there was no light but glistening Phoebe, the landscape of the Chi-Town 'burbs and the Brobdingnagian fortress city at its center rose menacing behind him. Even in this dark, rain-kissed nocturne the smoke rising over the vast, urban sprawl was visible in the light pollution of the stretch. Before him the hill crested and atop it rested a lonely marker made from lime stone stood morose in comparison to it's lush, green surroundings.

As Morgan reached the monument he found his self looking down at it with the kind of despair that was usually reserved for a youngster burying his first puppy. Somewhere in the back of his mind he could remember what it meant, the monument. The ground was soft where he stood shaking in the drizzling downpour and gave under his weight when he fell to his knees in desperation. His mind was as tremulous as the storm that cracked the sky with electric fire above him if not a maelstrom to rival the days when sorcerers brought their craft against the people who lived scant miles behind him. Everything was confusion, and his face waxed wet from tear, and drizzling down pour.

Wind swept around him with all the impatience of a dog trying to find that perfect resting spot and whipped the edges of his soaked coat around his hunched figure. He slowly lifted his hands and buried his face in them as only one totally alone can really muster. The meaning of this deserted place and its sheer gravity was beginning to settle into his mind as some of the proverbial clouds began to clear. She was gone. He began to break into sheer sobs as the knowledge burned its way through him and branded him as surely as any marking technology could. Things were never going to be the same and he knew it. She was really gone, and this is where she was going to stay. He was really alone.

Morgan felt his teeth grind together as he fought to figure out what he needed to do next. He could of course not stay here, he had to go. Men would be looking for him and there was no possible way he could hide forever. He had killed an important man and his compatriots were wide spread, and powerful. Resources would be spent to find him and little would be spared. Perhaps one day in a few years he could come back. He would still be a criminal but his crime would be forgotten except in the memory banks of the Coalition of Man's super computers, and the chance of anyone recognizing poor old normal Morgan were slim to none. If he kept his head down, and his nose clean he could make it here. Hell, maybe he could do it right now.

Maybe it wasn't too hot for him to rest in the 'burbs if such a risk was even worth it. It really wasn't, he concluded. He hated the suburbs around the Coalition capital and everything they stood for. This was not his home. He had only been here for her sake and now she was gone. He had no family left now and he had no friends of loved one's that he could turn to. The city was just like any other: a wound festering in the open sun with no ointment save for other infections. They could come in and wipe the current infection out but they could only replace the current germs with themselves. He wondered if they would talk about him in that damned bar... The only thing that he could truly be certain of was the blistering headache that was drilling its way through his skull. It felt like an all percussion orchestra was burning its way through a ten-city tour of his brain. Two shows a night, baby.

His thoughts were broken by the sound of approaching men. He some how knew who they were immediately, and what this meant. What he didn't know was how they had found him so quickly. Especially way out here where no one else would care to trot. He lowered his hands and looked to his left to see if his intuition was correct and surely enough it was. Through the darkness a team of Coalition soldiers in their heavy, stylized armor were approaching him and talking to each other through those disturbing voice modulators in their masks. They stood out in the darkness thanks to the white death's head of their face plates whose eyes glowed red in the darkness, like candles on the last birthday cake you'll ever try to blow out. A moment later they spotted him, and began to fan out.

Why were they being so careful? He didn't have any weapon and their infrared scanners would surely show them that. He was no threat to them in their high density, mega-damage resistant body suits, and even if he had poisonous grenades their armor was fully contained and environmental. They approached carefully with their high powered energy rifles trained on him and instructed him to put his hands up. One suggested they simply shoot him and be done with it, and someone -some thing- replied with a kind of quip.

Morgan recognized the slurred speech of a Psi-Hound and immediately understood how they had found him. A Psi-Hounds, still just as sharp at following the scent of an enemy of the state as their four legged counter parts. Morgan put his head back in his hands and scratched at his scalp absently.

Something was there. He pulled at it but it wouldn't come free. Was it a bug? His finger traced along the circular, metallic shape he began to run his fingers through his hair. He found several more and froze as his mind reeled with a desire to grasp what exactly it all meant. The calls of the Dead Boys were becoming more insistent, but so was the memories that floated just on the horizon of his understanding. He wondered what he should do, and realized that he was aware of everything in his surroundings. His mind pinched and an odd energy flowed through his limbs as it dawned on him that one of the soldiers was preparing to take fire. The rain pelted off of his cloak as he took a deep breath. He had a lot to think about, and he needed to privacy to do it in. First things first though: the party was over and the uninvited guests needed to beat feet. Big day tomorrow, baby.

Big, long, weary day.