by T5 and The Eurostar
Edulcore Cicciotto:
The man standing outside has his face hidden in shadow -- an impossible thing since he has no hat. He wears a dark, soot-gray suit with polished black shoes and a walking stick with a chromium tip that seems to emit a small green light.
And just as soon as he had appeared, he disappears by walking upward toward the clouds at an extreme velocity.
I see something flickering outside the window and open it. A green piece of paper was stuck there, and I reach for it. There are some words on it:
"I'll be watching you."
Hmmm... A friend or foe? Does he have anything to do with current murder of the Hoods leader? And before I utter a word of blasphemy, I must find out who committed this crime within this sacred house.
A knock on the door. I carefully approach it and ask, "Who is it?"
"It's me... Ameristar. Can we talk?"
"Hi Jackie," I say to the newly entered woman. "Do you know anything about a gray-suited guy with a walking stick creeping on walls like a geek?"
Ameristar looks at me, totally lost.
"Never mind," I assure her. "How can I help you?"
"What about the Cloaks you just met?" she asks.
Hmmm. What now? Must I tell her everything, or just something? Why had she joined the MBL, in the first place? She hasn't yet revealed it. She used the Hurricane to fit in, and now no one will ask her anything, just like they did with Priest, or the angel.
"He wanted to ask me if I was the killer. As if I would have told if I was," I say, smiling.
"Are you the killer?" she asks, colder than I have ever seen her.
"How can you think I...?" I begin, but then I stop when I see her lip corners turning up in a smile that soon becomes a plain laugh.
"Joking, Ed!"
I am not in the mood for jokes.
"So he just wanted to ask it?"
"Basically, yes. He said that the Hood killed was trying to arrange for my death, while another faction wants me to join them. Same for the Cloaks, with a man called Aurochs that wants to kill me. But he, too, is the minority among the Futurists."
"Aurochs is an ugly beast. He has fought the MBL. Twice. When you were away."
"Ah. I didn't know. How was it?"
"I don't know for sure. You should ask Myrddin. He monitors the MBL, not me."
"Meerr... what?"
"Myrddin. The old man. Crasher's dad. You know, the Neanderthal."
"Ah. I didn't know his name. You said... Myrddin? That's one of the names of Merlin, right?"
"Right. He was Merlin. The historical Merlin. He was an archbishop."
"Tell me more."
She frowns. "Not now, not here. There will be time for stories. Now we have to solve this mystery before midnight, or World War Three will begin."
"What?"
"This place is special, Ed. Here is the only place where Hoods and Cloaks meet without each one trying to kill the other. We must find the killer before the truce that reigns here isn't revoked. If not, the planning summit won't take place, and the Hoods and Futurists will each go down their own road, seeking the best ends for each without any care for the world. And what will happen to Nadia's world will happen here."
"Nadia's world?" I whisper. It's the third time in less than an hour that I've heard this story.
"The parallel universe from which Nadia came was destroyed after she arrived via a quantum vortex in our reality. In that reality, just as Myrddin witnessed before leaving the place, the Hoods were on a rampage. There they managed to build a radio-beacon to the stars, located in Afghanistan, to finally -- after all the millennia -- communicate the position of Earth to the rest of their alien race: reptilian aliens. When the invading forces arrived on Earth, the Cloaks had no other choice than to unleash all the forces of the underworld. Nadia was working to avoid that, but after she was taken from that universe, all went wrong. Science and magic collided, and Myrddin was helpless. That universe simply disappeared."
"The Myrddin you are referring to is the Myrddin of THAT universe, right?"
"No. There is only one Myrddin. He is able to travel across dimensions. He is involved in fighting the Hoods and the Futurists in any universe where they exist."
This is incredible. Too much to take, even after all I've seen in the past year. I turn to the window, looking at the distant sea. "Where do we start?"
Jackie seems distracted.
"Where do we start our investigation, Scully?" I repeat, jokingly.
"From the butler, as always," she responds.
"Demeter? But the Futurist said she is the only one that has absolutely no reason to perform the killing."
Jackie raises her left eyebrow. "Well, that's yet to be seen!"
Deep space:
Captain Ekorre gathered his team inside the small cruiser and left the mothership without any fuss.
Time was of the essence, literally. If those neutrino emissions from this place were interpreted right, the rogue prisoners could be anywhere, anywhen.
The gas clouds of the planet enveloped them as they descended toward the source of the emissions, and ever so slowly they came closer to destiny -- a destiny that would save two worlds and the reality as we know it.
Not knowing of this responsibility, Captain Ekorre told his crew to be ready for anything -- anything except the sight that met them farther down in the murky clouds.
An immense artifact hovered impossibly without breaking up not far from the surface. It looked like a rusty steel globe as big as a small planet itself, with a shell of revolving rings that turned around it like a gyroscopic dynamo.
The readings were confirmed. It was this artifact that was the source of the emissions.
As they came closer to it, a beam shot out and the cruiser seemed to turn itself inside out. And with a schwoop, the cruiser was gone. The mothership couldn't find any trace whatsoever of any wreckage or body parts.
But with great panic and fear, they saw the immense artifact suddenly move toward them. And it spoke -- not through the communications system, but it seemed like the voice was everywhere.
"I... am... awake... I... am... hungry..."
The mothership did its best to fly away from there, but it was reduced to a cloud of gas, which was inhaled into a small hatch of the artifact.
"I... need... more..."