by T5 and Kristogar Velo
St. Anna's was full of desperate people seeking shelter from the rain and a hot meal. Naecken watched with fascination and realized he had never seen men or women help each other so much before. That was when he began thinking, I don't remember what I'm doing here, but if the authorities are after me, I might've done something bad.
He left the scene and walked further down the street. Suddenly he knew a threat was closing in on him. He stopped and looked everywhere but couldn't find anyone or anything that seemed out of place.
Something cold was thrust into his neck, and a hard voice said, "Slowly... follow me, or I'll shoot you where you stand. Capiche?"
Naecken did as he was told and walked into a side alley full of scrap metal and dust bins. Someone had left a car there, and it had been picked apart for scraps.
"Okay, bub, hand over your money and coat!"
"But I need this to hide from..."
"I don't give a horse's ass what you want. Give the fucking coat to me, or I'll do you here and now!"
Angered, Naecken picked up the car and threw it at the surprised man. Needless to say, he was crushed to pulp. And Naecken stood there as surprised as the man was. How had he done that? Who was he really?
Then pain flowed over him as a flash of memory came.
Two intercepting cruise missiles were absorbed by the black sphere heading toward the base where Naecken was held.
South Pacific, 2002:
CNN News: "A small fishing boat rescues four people from an island. They were suffering from radiation poisoning, but they are alive."
This isn't real. The thought hit Marv Velo as he held a hand containing three aces and two jacks. It was not the hand that made him realize it. It was the knee. Rather, his knee. The knee that tore both the ACL and MCL and possibly more months earlier, that had been getting worse and worse as Velo kept putting off surgery.
Slowly Velo got up and walked over to where some shady characters were playing a relatively calm game of pool, ignoring the confusion he left behind at the poker table. He casually took the stick of one of the pool players and swiftly crushed it over his knee -- his bad knee. Everyone in the strip club stared at him, from the girls on the runway, to the little wino oddly being fawned over by several strippers, to the tough guys playing poker. After a moment of sizing him up, none of them challenged him, and everyone went back to what they had been doing.
This confirmed it. What was not answered was where the devil he was. It could not possibly be a virtual reality, and time travel was ruled out immediately. Velo was arrogant enough to presume that, were these technological advances to ever take place, he would be on the ground floor of it.
Velo strolled outside. At face value, he was standing in a perfect replica of New York City. But this was obviously an illusion. The smell of New York was there, the sight of it, the sounds... but the atmosphere was different. Marv Velo discovered that was where the illusionists failed. They could recreate everything but the intangible concept of atmosphere.
The last time Velo was in New York City, which was recent enough, the atmosphere was that of a country -- hell, maybe a world -- on the brink. Something was bubbling over and waiting to happen, and although Velo was not sure of what, he could feel it. He did not feel it here.
"So who's the magician?" Velo asked to anyone who could be listening. After a moment's hesitation, he unleashed all his power on the block that he stood on. "Whoever's out here, come and fucking get me!"