by Prometheus
A light silver mist wafted along the stone ceiling, dancing across a glaze of liquid mercury. Wisping to and fro in dynamic patterns, the mist made no indication that it minded the granite arch stretching twelve miles up. It paid very little attention to the archaic craftsmanship of gold and amethyst lining each rough-cut block with symmetrical precision. It did not pause as it was forced to curl haphazardly down and across the epic support columns of Martian clay. It simply lingered, complacent in its existence as a gaseous compound of water and oxygen, drifting agreeably with the chilly, random draft.
Then, gradually, the mist began to slow down. Curling and pulsating in one spot, it ignored the breeze. It ignored inertia, gravity, and atmospheric demands. And, after a brief moment, it simply stopped. The non-solid mist holding a solid state, it paused in what could almost be equated with a salute as it sensed something -- someone -- approaching.
Slowly, light echoing footsteps began to sound from one of the crimson marble bridges running below. The bridge stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions. Fifty feet thick, the exquisite stone held firm in its eternal stature, the various cracks of entropy decorating the sixteen-foot surface area. The massive walls, running off and along either side, sparkled at certain angles, torches of white flame that had been burning for six thousand years flickering in perfect unison.
The footsteps became just a hint louder as bare feet met the cold stone with a quick pace. Long gray robes, draped loosely over a tight, vanilla tunic, rustled with muted snaps as long legs carried a tall, slender frame. The open, honest face of a young man, holding eyes older than they should have been, met a smooth, bald head, light playing on and off the tan cranium as the pace demanded. Hands hidden by the folds of wide, gaping sleeves held their firm clasp behind his back.
And, as he passed by miles below, the mist finally began to move along the ceiling on its own accord, once again agreeing with the physical state of the universe.
Nature sighed as Turkish Stringfellow made his way.
Below, in what could almost be an endless chasm, millions of similar bridges stretched across from multiple angles, as did ones above his current path. Each one interconnecting with the massive walls in their own way, low mumbles and echoes of conversations could be heard drifting up along the great expanse.
Turkish, however, remained fixated on his path, striding with determination. He found no pause nor acknowledgement, driven silently along his quick stride. The few random disciples he encountered, identical in their blood-red, neo-Buddhist robes, merely bowed slightly at his passage, mumbling the word Prophet with reverence. Stringfellow never broke his pace, his eyes narrowed with focus. His expression, however, bore a hint of something else: irritation.
As the bridge coiled around the circular expanse, Turkish immediately took a sharp right, turning on his heels. A branching pathway leading deep into the walls spread along for a few meters, ending in a wide, semicircular opening. Enormous stone slabs sat in the opening, arranged infamously similar to what archaeologists theorized Stonehenge must have looked like when first constructed. In the middle of this stone construct -- these Gates as they were called -- stood a slender, female twenty-something. Her blonde curls, hinting with thin streaks of dyed purple, orange, and blue, hung loosely concealing smart eyes and pouty lips. Flecks of light bounced off her silver nose-ring, glinting also along the hoop eyebrow ring that sat above her right eye. Blue jeans, a tight black T-shirt that read Porn Star on the front, and a rhythmic smacking of gum made up the rebellious ensemble known as...
"Z..." he spoke quickly, with a stern silence.
Z stood there, hands on her hips, her eyes lazily looking toward the ground. "Ah got 'er," she replied with similar silence, her thick Cockney riding every syllable. "'Ere she comes..."
Turkish released his hands from their casual grip, folding his arms against his chest. Instantly, Z threw her own arms open, a thunderclap of turbulence erupting in a muffled boom. Simultaneously, a bluish-white disc of spatial distortion flared, spiraling open between the pair.
And the auburn beauty named Lady Victoria Jane Greystoke -- dusty, bruised, with just the edge of blood along her temple -- stepped gracefully out of the wormhole as it resealed behind her.
"I told you not to engage them," Turkish spoke with a curt precision, staring with stern emotion at the woman before him.
"They started it, Turkish," Greystoke replied, running tiny sprigs of wood and grass from her tasseled hair. "If it had not been for Cicciotto, and those bloody eyes of his..."
"Your orders were to observe, Boy. You should have extracted yourself the moment you were detected," Stringfellow replied, remaining unmoved in his stance and stare.
"Oh, do un-clench, would you, Stringfellow?" she retorted with an upper-class snap of an accent, striking yellow eyes rolling with impatience. "No harm was done. And don't call me by that daft nickname! Just because my father thought it a humorous pun, didn't stop that fool Burroughs from getting it completely backward..."
"That's men for ya, luv," Z said with a nod, folding her arms.
"Z..." Turkish sighed, cutting his eyes at the young woman.
"How very astute, Z. Men, indeed," Greystoke said, grinning. "However, that marvelous Daniel Hearn..."
"Ooh! You mean, the cute one... with the--"
"--eyes, yes," Greystoke completed. "And those lips... oh, dear..."
"Ladies..." Turkish tried to interrupt.
"Fuck you!" Z exclaimed with an excited smile. "You kissed 'im?!"
"Does the Queen like cake?" she responded with a wry smirk.
"Bloody 'ell, you wicked tart!" Z laughed. "Ah fucking 'ate you!"
"Ladies, please..." Turkish began again, his tone a bit louder. Then he suddenly paused, looking away.
Greystoke and Z immediately sensed the change in his mood, both falling silent, staring at him. "Turkish?" Z asked, slowly walking up next to him.
Greystoke's senses lit up as she tried to find Turkish's source of distraction.
"Turk... whot is it?" Z asked again, beginning to look worried.
"Bloody trouble, I would bet," Greystoke mumbled, her eyes darting to and fro.
Turkish remained silent for a moment, dazed off in his own awareness. And when Turkish became distracted, Z and Greystoke knew something was very wrong.
The torches lining the wall began flickering with urgency.
"Do you..." he began finally. "...do you... feel that...?"
Greystoke opened her mouth to question him, when suddenly the ground trembled slightly.
All three locked eyes with each other for the briefest of seconds. Immediately, the deep tolling of ancient bells began to thunder throughout the structure.
"Wot tha 'ell?" Z whispered.
Before either woman could question him, Turkish was sprinting down the pathway as fast as he could run. He flipped his left sleeve inside out, revealing a small, circular mirror embroidered in the material.
"Alice, where's Scion?" he spoke toward the mirror, never breaking stride.
The mirror replied in a quiet female voice:
the scion walks
the coastal path
Turkish's mad dash led him out of the long alcove back onto the main bridge. But his pace did not pause as he ran straight across the bridge, leaping off with a single bound.
His robes flailed and snapped against the wind as his frame plummeted in a freefall. Random voices, rushing with excitement, blurred in and out of his range as he sailed past each bridge level. He fell for a good solid minute and a half. And just as it seemed his descent would never end, a lone bridge, identical to the rest, raced up to meet him.
His feet landed sharply with a clap of rising dust but without apparent harm, as he immediately broke into another run. The deep, clanging bass of the tolling bells continued to rumble throughout the temple as the bridge melted into a wide granite staircase. Leaping the stairs, Turkish's feet ran along ancient Egyptian rugs, spreading out into an open vista on the main floor.
A sea of red robes pulsated throughout the main foyer as a scramble of disciples muttered and chattered in raw dialects to each other, each on his or her assigned task of readiness. Turkish bolted through the side hallway leading out into the southern courtyard. Rushing past sculpted trees and rock gardens made of precious gems, he effortlessly leaped over the thick, ivy-encrusted, twelve-foot wall separating the courtyard from the rocky cliffside.
As his feet met the warm stone of the cliffside, he paused, his purple-hued eyes squinting. But it was not the ever-setting sun to the east that made him squint. Nor was it the breathtaking view of the white sandy shoreline stretching into the horizon on either side. Neither was it the rolling, crystal-blue freshwater ocean that met the beach with frothy waves. It was not even the gathering of sorcerers and priests led by the elder known as Scion that had begun to line the edge of the shore.
In essence, what did make Turkish squint, what did make him nervous -- what did indeed cause the need for the warning bells to sound and for the ground to tremble ever so slightly -- was the fact that, out on the horizon of the ocean, a seeming wall of prismatic color and light was moving forward with an intense speed.
Straight for the land called Haven.
"Well, it's like being so drunk that you black out," Mick Harrison said between a mouthful of fish sticks. "It's not amnesia, I know... but, damn if it doesn't feel like it when I switch back in strange places."
Phil Smith nodded, swallowing a bite. Sitting in the break room unit of the cafeteria, he stared across the table at Mick, who was leaning back with his chair balanced against the third-story window. The ceiling fan creaked with every revolution of its blades, lending itself to the mood of the rolling gray sky. "So, do I whine about it a lot?" he asked with a hint of introspection.
Mick's eyes lulled off for a moment, then quickly back up with a confused expression. "Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever heard you even talk about it..." he replied honestly, "...around me, anyway."
Phil nodded again, staring off in thought.
Mick watched him with an almost amused look, half a fish stick hanging out of his mouth. "Baw geb too hoo?"
Phil's attention jerked back. "What?"
Mick swallowed the fish stick. "Bell get to you?" he asked again.
"No..." Phil stated flatly.
Mick stared with a neutral expression.
"Well... a little..." Phil said again, his face beginning to contort a bit.
Mick cocked an eyebrow.
"Okay, fine!" Phil finally burst out. "He got to me, okay? That pompous... arrogant... obnoxious..."
"Bastard?" Mick offered.
"Yeah!!" Phil exclaimed. "That bastard!"
"Phil..." Mick began, eyes wide, "...Dirk Bell is a bastard, you know? I mean, that's why everyone calls him the Bastard. Cause he is. A bastard. That's where that comes from..."
"I know, I know," Phil sighed, folding his arms.
"So, why let him get to you?" Mick munched down on another fish stick.
"I don't know..." he responded, grimacing. "It's just... you try to reach out to someone... get to know them..."
"Phil, Dirk -- you know, the guy I previously mentioned as simultaneously being, and being called, a bastard? -- Dirk doesn't want to be 'reached out to.' He's not a big fan of people. That's just his nature."
"Then why is he involved in a professional group setting?" Phil asked. "Why have a job working with and around others, if you don't like groups?"
Mick chomped on his food, staring intensely at Phil for a moment. "Why are you here?" he finally asked, having swallowed.
"What?"
"Why are you here?" he repeated. "Why do you have this... job?"
Phil shrugged, his face thoughtful. "Honestly..." he sighed, "...I guess I just... have nowhere else to go..."
Mick nodded. "Yeah... yeah..." He paused. "Exactly."
"What?" Phil asked, not following his train of thought.
"You called what Dirk -- what everyone else here, including yourself -- does on a day-to-day basis, a 'job'..."
"So?"
"Is it a job?" he asked in return. "Is that why we're here? The paycheck?"
Phil squirmed a bit.
"We never buy anything that isn't comp'd by the company..." continued Mick.
"Yeah..."
"Guys like Montag -- what does he need the paycheck for, anyway?" Mick asked, nibbling on the edge of a fish stick. "He already has a company."
"True." Phil shrugged.
"Hell, you have money yourself, right?"
"Eh..." Phil furrowed his brow. "...it's more had than have, really."
"Okay. And what did you do with your money?"
Phil thought for a moment. "Well, I shipped the cars here, for one thing."
"Right." Mick nodded, a strand of black hair falling down in front of his eyes. "You 'gave back' to this team."
"Okay, I'm not following you." Phil nodded again.
"Our favorite bastard -- what does he spend his paycheck on?" Mick queried, casually offering a stick to Phil.
Phil put his hand up, shaking his head a bit. "I don't know... dance lessons?"
"Ammunition!" Mick stated forcefully. "Think about it! How many rounds of ammo has he gone through while working here? Much more than he arrived with, to be sure."
Phil thought on this a moment. "So... what exactly are you getting at, Mick?"
Mick sat back, sucking on the edge of a fish stick like a lollipop. "Simple, my dear Watson," he began in a mock Brit accent. "No one -- Grimm, Tayden, Bell, Danny, Velo, me -- no one... actually uses the money that they make from being here. And if they do, it's put to bettering the team or our capabilities. No one in this group seems to actually need the money. And even when they do need something, the company supplies it for them."
"Okay... and..." Phil agreed.
"AND..." Mick held a finger up, as if an epiphany were about to literally tear through the ceiling, "...that means... it's much more than just... a job! It means that we are all here, doing this -- well, whatever you want to call it -- for reasons more than monetary profit. Maybe it's because, deep down, we all know that we have nowhere else to go."
Phil stared at him thoughtfully.
"And maybe, just maybe, we aren't doing this because we have to. Maybe... maybe we're doing these jobs because we want to... because it's the right thing to do."
Phil continued to stare at him for a brief moment. "But... what's the right thing?" Phil began. "I mean, if one truth is subjective to someone else's perspective, then how can we really know what the right thing is?"
Mick stared back for a moment, his finger still raised from his epiphany. "Who am I, fucking Socrates?! Just be impressed already with what I've told you!"
Phil immediately burst into a loud applause, chuckling as Mick stood up, taking a bow to the imaginary crowd. "Bravo, Mick! Brilliant!" Phil stated, still clapping. "Positively insightful!"
"Huerta hasn't got shit on me," Mick replied, still bowing.
Laughter broke through the kitchen unit, neither man noticing as Dirk Bell made his way out across the back gravel lot three stories below.
A cooling breeze tossed the tip end of his Kevlar trench coat, the weight of the artillery lining the inside seams keeping it mainly domed around his frame like a pliable body shield. The trees just outside the main fence line tossed and swayed to the rhythm of the rolling gray clouds. The gravel, most of it imported from La Perdita's main quarry, crunched and spread under his hard-booted heels. Tipping the front of the black fedora down a bit, balancing it against the breeze, Dirk's eyes scanned the perimeter of the forest that separated the factory from the main road.
Someone was watching the place. And had been for some time. Somewhere out in the forest. And the reason he knew this was simple. Because he had been watching the watcher.
He had noticed the pair of eyes -- a man -- peeking from just along the visible line of trees about an hour ago. And Dirk had, in return, watched him. Staring at the intruder from the third-story window, Bell had made notes of his patterns, his movements. He had studied the voyeur while being studied himself. Of course, Phil's constant attempts at conversation had distracted him briefly, long enough for the intruder to slip back into the forest. Given no other option, Bell had decided to make his move.
Getting rid of Phil was easy. Walking downstairs and grabbing his coat and gear was just as easy. But tracking an unknown possible assailant through the forest was -- well, for the man named Dirk Bell -- easy still.
A few hundred feet into the woodline, where the foliage grew in dense underbrush, cushioning the shaded canopy, a man sat propped against a tree. His legs spread lazily out, he hummed parts of a Steppenwolf song to himself quietly, his attention fixed on the book spread open in his hands. Graceful fingers perused the edges of each page as silver pupils, peering from behind tiny, wire-rimmed spectacles, studied the text. Silver-white hair, shaved almost to his scalp, complimented an open, honest twenty-six-year-old face. Drab-green khaki shorts, cut below the knee, sat loosely. A simple white T-shirt reading Got Tao? stretched across a slightly broader-than-average chest. And, wrapped in a brown leather wrist-strap, a small, circular mirror sat on the inside of his right wrist.
Along his left hand and wrist, a silver metal matching the color of his eyes, as well as the two medium-hooped earrings adorning each ear, gleamed with a metallic-liquid sparkle. Coating from his wrist down along his first two fingers, it wrapped his hand in the form of what could only be a bowstring guard. And, though no bow of any kind seemed to be present, the evidence of this was twofold.
One, the metallic sheen of his wrist guard matched precisely with the gleam of the rectangular quiver made of the same metal strapped to his back and, in turn, the silver shafts lining the interior of the quiver.
And two, he was the Olympic gold medalist archer for 1969: Arthur "Artemis" Cross.
Flipping the pages of the book, Zen and the Art of Soap-making, Cross bit on his lower lip, often intensely glaring at the material. A gust of breeze rippled through the trees, the occasional leaf twirling by him. He lowered the book, taking a deep sigh as he glanced throughout his view of the forest.
"If a tree falls in a forest..." he began to himself with a quiet tone, pulling his glasses off, "...and no one is there to hear it..."
Dual clicks of metal sounded next to each temple.
"...does it still get shot?" a deeper voice chimed in from behind his tree.
The barrels of silver Magnums rested against both sides of his head. Cross never blinked, still staring off as if trying to think of something. "No... no, that's not how it goes..." He shook his head seriously.
The right gun disappeared from its position as Dirk Bell spun around the tree to face him, the other gun never moving from its perch. "Get up," Bell ordered evenly, now standing in front of Cross with both barrels leveled.
Artemis' back slowly began to slide up the tree from his sitting position, the metallic quiver scraping evidently along the bark, his hands held up in a defensive posture. "'Does it still get shot'?" he asked, his face a contorted grimace of confusion. "What does that mean, anyway? I mean, does it matter if the tree gets shot in the philosophical scheme of things? Why would you do that, anyway? Who wants to shoot a tree? Still get shot? That doesn't even rhyme, man..."
"Shut up," Bell ordered, all business.
"Easy!" Artemis said in a semi-hurt tone, his hands falling down by his side. "What are you getting rude for? You don't even know my name yet. 'Shut up.' Damn, man, my parents don't even talk to me like that."
"Shut up..." Dirk repeated, raising one barrel eye-level, "...or I'll drown you out by making a louder noise... understand?"
Artemis raised his hands again, staring at the barrel. "Okay, okay... take it easy, chief. No harm, no foul. Make love, not war, you know? We can talk about this... open discussion between two adults, man... make like the U.N. and all that."
"Who are you?" Bell asked very directly.
"Now, see?" he exhaled with a smile. "That's an excellent question. It moves things along, disperses information..."
He offered a sincere handshake toward Dirk's guns. "I'm Arthur Cross," he stated with a smile. "You can call me Artemis. My friends call me Arty, but you and I haven't known each other for that long. I'm sure we'll get there. Right now, though, a first-name basis seems polite enough... meets all the etiquettes, you know. Of course, to tell the truth, I just lied to you. Not about calling me Artemis -- no, you can do that. Or Cross. Although that seems a bit formal, if you really want to put it into context. But, no one really calls me Arty..."
Dirk's eyes narrowed as Artemis continued to babble incessantly.
"Sure, there were a few times when I tried to get everyone to call me that -- kind of like inventing a nickname for myself -- but mostly they just laughed. One even called me a dork -- can you believe that? She didn't mean it, though. She's a bit rough on the outside, but deep down there's a flower of gold in Z--"
A bluish-white spatial wormhole immediately boomed open behind him. Cross, hands still up, simply let himself fall backward into the waiting rift, one hand waving bye-bye.
By the time Bell's lightning fast fingers had squeezed the triggers, the disc had collapsed. The tree where Cross had rested, however, suffered a severe gunshot wound to its lower trunk.
The only sound was the holstering of his guns, the semi-fierce breeze that drifted throughout the forest, and the ringing in Bell's ears as his blood pressure began to rise.