Tales from Schwarzerblitz - Thus the Story Ends

4 November 2067. It's all or nothing, for Veckert Rainer. It's time to finally face her demons and put an end to the tale of the Walking Night, once and forever. The last, long chapter of Tales from Schwarzerblitz, concluding the saga of this distorted, 2060s near future world.

4 November 2067, 17:26

“… the phenomenon, dubbed Northern Algol Hallucination, hasn’t been recorded by any cameras or media devices, thus adding a layer of controversy to its alleged existence. In this special episode of Traveller – Beyond the Boundaries of Science, we’ll lead you through the circumstantial evidence surrounding this unexplained mystery that…”

Marco yawned, gestured in the air with two fingers. The picture of Res Vertighel disappeared almost immediately after, replaced by a view on a sunny beach with huge waves – and a female neko surfer riding them. That felt like a better use of his time than following yet another of Res’s delusions. True, Kimchi and he filmed that for FTV, so it was partly his fault if that report existed, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. After two weeks dealing with blood flowers and an endless list of deceased people, he felt like he earned a little bit of quiet. Watching the likes of Myadeline Heargreaves surfing on the majestic Atlantic waves near the coast of Portugal was more in line with his idea of down time. He opened a can of soda, without ungluing his eyes from the display. There was something magnetic in how that catgirl braved her board, with that spiky, fluent hazel hair already soaked in the salty water of the ocean, her tail used to balance her weight in a way normal humans couldn’t. Yeah, after so much talk about death and ghosts, that was all he needed.

He gulped down a sip of his drink, gazing at the ceiling for a short instant. Those last fourteen days of October had been crazy. Filming in Northern Algol had been a challenge like no others. Getting permissions, signing forms to waive compensation for injuries or accidental deaths, wear protective equipment and gas masks, always move around under the tutelage of an authorized guide – an unblossomed, even. The entire city was nothing but a field of purple chrysanthemums, some of them now as tall as whole buildings, wrapping them like ivy. On top of that, visits were only possible at night, because during the day the flowers were more active – or so their guide said. A shiver ran down his spine. More active. How can a flower be active? It was a question he didn’t want to answer. The sunless sky made that trip even creepier, as their flashlights had to do the heavy lifting. Among the patches of purple, there were also red spots. That’s where an unlucky hare or a sewer rat ended up, completely dried out. Yet, their guide, a guy with a flower bursting out of his left wrist and wrapped around his forearm, didn’t seem to have any issues with it.

“It’s fine, they’re all sleeping, Mr. Botanica. Pollen isn’t an issue either, at least till our rebreathers work. Yet, we can’t stay long. Some of them react to motion.”

It was a weird view, for Marco. A man with a flower erupting from their body wasn’t something you’d see every day. Still, that was a pretty common occurrence in Thorn, the city where around one third of the survivors of the Rosenmaester massacre lived. His guide was one of them, one whose blood flower was defective and didn’t drain him. That made a symbiotic relationship possible, if so it could be called.

“My flower drinks a little bit of my blood every day, but it twitches and sends pulses if it senses an active patch of chrysanthemums near me. Thanks to that, I can navigate most of the city without the risk of being sucked dry.”

“Most of the city?”

“Some areas are just too full of flowers to even entertain the thought, while some have almost none of them. There are paths to the Witch Tower, for example, that are almost clear of flowers. We even found the rests of a small hut there, recently, almost as if someone lived there for a while.”

“Who would ever live in an open air graveyard?”

“You’d be surprised by how many tourists we got, since the big plant bloomed in Shard. Business is booming, Mr. Botanica. Thorn had never seen more money.”

Living at the edge of a dead garden. That was what being an unblossomed meant. Of the sixty thousand inhabitants of Thorn, around five thousand were unblossomed – and those five thousand had one or two flowers to rely on to navigate the infested streets of that nightmare of vines and petals. The youngest of them was a twelve years old girl, who was six when everything happened. Marco didn’t know how to feel around her, noticing both of her wrists wrapped in scarlet flowers, but Kimchi didn’t seem to care. If anything, his best crab mutant friend was enjoying her time with the child, playing with her and communicating via sign language. The girl seemed quite cheerful, for someone who lost her parents, her siblings and all of her friends when she was still a little child. Maybe, having those flowers explanted and seeing a psychologist would had been a better choice for her than hanging around the ruins her home.

Another sip of soda. Res wanted those pictures, though. The picture of the blood moon of Northern Algol, a phenomenon caused by the massive amount of pollen released in the air, giving it a spectral tint. It was a good hook for his report about the Hallucination. It made for a better story – talk about the unexplained sightings of ghosts of the people who died in the massacre, while juxtaposing tapes from Marco’s excursion in the heart of darkness. Yet, that was his past. November had just started, he didn’t need to think about that uncomfortable expedition anymore. Marco leaned on his sofa, still watching Myadeline braving the waves, now wearing just a skimpy two-piece swimsuit. Something had gone wrong, with his career as a camera operator. While a luckier colleague was filming the provocative neko taming her board, he was regularly sent to inhospitable places connected to urban legends, weird apparitions or unsolved murders. What made him feel even worse about his ordeal was that he was a freelancer, so he should have been able to choose his gigs better, and yet…

He put down the can, crossing his fingers under his chin. FTV paid well. That was the one reason he stuck with them, with Res Vertighel’s insane requests. Not many camera operators were willing to walk deep into phage territory, venture into St. Patrick’s Lost District or take a stroll among killer flowers. He was. Which made his base salary way higher than market rate. In hindsight, Kimchi and he could live comfortable lives because of that, while the poor sod filming Myadeline Heargreaves wasn’t even earning minimum wage, most likely. Accidental nip slips and costume malfunctions of said top-model could make that working experience more pleasant (or more eye-rolling, depending on the person), but that didn’t help with filling their stomach. There was even a rumor going on that, when Ms. Heargreaves was in heat, she regularly had sex with each and every member of her entourage, regardless of gender – but, again, even if that was true, it didn’t solve the lunch problem at all. Besides, rumors like that were just background white noise and made very little sense: medicines that reduced the effects of heat were well known since the 2040s, so it was hard to believe a neko celebrity didn’t make use of them. If anything, that had to be another downside of that job – trying to explain to your significant other that no, you didn’t have some intimate time with the woman you are filming for work, while you’re earning peanuts and can barely afford your monthly mortgage payment.

A catchy tune started playing, accompanying Myadeline’s bold feats on the board. Instinctively, Marco’s fingers danced in the air, without him thinking too much about it. As soon as that happened, though, the picture of the surfer gal disappeared, replaced again by the familiar Traveller studio. Marco groaned. The motion sensor needed some calibration. At times, it felt better to use one of those antiquated remotes or even an app, instead of relying on gesturing to the television set. Less room for accidental mistakes, such as having a re-run of Schwanzerblitz blast through the speakers during the octopus scene while his cousin has just stepped in for a visit, together with her five years old child. He hoped the kid was alright, after witnessing that – let’s call it – spectacle. In case of need, he had given the phone number of his psychologist to his cousin. They were a good person, the one that helped him recover after the Paddy O’Rilley debacle. Five months of therapy worked like a charm, making it possible for him to keep her confined as an old, painful memory. If that had worked for him, he was sure the kid would have come out alright despite being subjected to the sight of a gay sharkman being pleasured by an unruly mass of tentacles.

Marco raised his hand again, willing to move away from that window on his last finished gig. Yet, for a second, he stopped. Res Vertighel was talking about the ghosts, now, with his glamorous attitude and battle-tested repertoire of gestures. Marco couldn’t help but feel charmed by the guy, despite the bad blood among them. Res was streaming his program live, instead of airing a pre-recorded show. That helped with it feeling genuine, at least in the opinion of his authors. The video reportages were of course pre-prepared, but the narrative frame around them was captured in real time. That made the experience more personal and charming than knowing everything was rehearsed before.

“… what is the meaning of these sightings? Why did their frequency increase since last July? What triggered this sudden spike of paranormal phenomena connected with Northern Algol? What if the reason… was under our eyes the whole time?”

Res’s hand tapped on his signature desk, triggering a holographic projector. An image materialized in the middle of the studio. The picture of plant, surrounded by buildings.

“The so-called rekashizas, a mystery in itself that hasn’t been cracked yet… and which might be connected to our truth.”

In the blink of an eye, a chart with colored lines appeared right near the plant, lines that were mostly flat until the middle of July, before spiking up, first slowly, then faster and faster.

“For the sightings, there’s a before and after the emergence. Northern Algol ghosts were reported as early as 2061, although not more than 3-4 cases per year. Yet, after the first plant appeared, this number increased exponentially – to a previously unthinkable 3-4 per week. Is it a coincidence? Is it connected with the Dreamers of the True World – the cult that somehow predicted the coming of the rekashiza? In the second part of tonight’s show, we will…”

Res stopped, looked at the camera, blinked. The voice dying in his throat, his eyes widening. Marco gasped. Something wasn’t right. He felt that. His gaze glued to the screen, incapable of moving away, even if… even if he knew, in the corner of his mind, that he should have. He should have switched off the stream. He should have stopped watching.

Yet, he didn’t.

A sudden scream filled his room, a scream echoing through the speakers. The camera cracked. Red. Red spattered all around.

The picture shaken, turning ninety degrees, as chaos erupts, as people cry.

Then, he saw it.

Wrapped around the camera.

Looking at him from the lens.

A flower.

A rafflesia flower.

Soaked with blood.

3 November 2067, 10:21

Veckert cursed like a longshoreman, as the bell to her apartment rung for the third time. Her toothbrush was still soaked with paste, kept between her teeth, while she pranced to the door, hoping it wasn’t the Jehovah’s Witnesses again. Not that she disliked arguing with Carmelo – on the contrary, arguing with him was a highlight of her lonely days – but there was a time for everything. It had been kind of weird, the first time it happened – it wasn’t every day that someone read her a passage of the Bible at the intercom, almost completely unprompted. Veckert wasn’t a believer, St. Patrick SHIELD didn’t offer luxuries such as religion, so that piqued her intellectual interest. What followed was weeks of back and forth between her and this voice from the intercom that preached about a God she’d never bothered researching. At irregular intervals, he’d come ringing at her doorbell with a new passage and, every time, she confronted his faith with clinical precision, forcing him to step back with more questions than answers. If anything, in the end Veckert decided to meet him in person and pay him a coffee at the nearest bar, just to reward his persistence. That’s how she met Carmelo, a middle aged Italian immigrant who spent most of his time trying to proselytize people and sensitize them to the impending apocalypse, of which the plant (pardon, the plants, plural) were a surefire telling sign. That time, however, Veckert wasn’t in the mood for discussing fantasy Armageddon scenarios, not with the countdown ticking that fast. So, when she finally reached the intercom, she tried her best to keep her cool – tried being the keyword.

“… yes?”

“Uhm… hello?”

A woman’s voice. That was definitely not Carmelo. Veckert browsed in her memory drawers to try to remember if she was waiting for some package or delivery. Yet, she couldn’t think of any.

Asking for more information it is, then.

“How can I help you?”

Her raucous, chainsmoker-like voice travelled through the device, emerging on the other side with an annoyed undertone.

“I was… huh, looking for a woman called Veckert Rainer. I was told she lived here, but…”

Veckert’s mouth fell agape, causing the toothbrush to nosedive and fall, saved only by a sudden twitch of her left hand, stopping it from grazing the floor at the last second. That voice. She knew that voice.

No, no, no, no…

“Huh, hello? If you know where she is, could you tell her that Rika Hyuhi looked for her? Do you have something to write on? I’d like to leave my phone number…”

Veckert slammed her hand on her own face, cursing even more, if possible.

Kari. It was Kari. Why? Why now, of all times? How did she…

“Well, huh, it’s fine, I understand that I’m bothering. I’ll…”

“WAIT, KARI! Don’t go! Please! I’m here! It’s me!”

Silence. Silence fell among them, right as Veckert screamed inside the intercom, sweat flowing down her forehead.

“… Vicky?”

“H… hi, Kari. Sorry, but…”

“… what happened… to your voice?”

A sigh escaped her lips. She rested her head on the wall, her eyes closed, her scars burning more than usual.

“… come upstairs. Second floor, central flat. It’s… open.”

A mechanical sound, the door unlocked. Veckert pushed a red button, the communication stopped. She gritted her teeth, breathed deeply. Kari. Rika. Now. That was a cruel joke, that was nothing but a cruel joke. She walked to the bathroom, spat into the sink, washed her mouth from the residuals of toothpaste, then combed her still wet hair with her hand, squeezing them to pull out some more water. She glanced at the mirror, quickly. Deep eye bags, strands all over the place and…

One more sigh. She was just wearing long pajama pants and slippers. Nothing else above the waist line, not even a scrap of fabric. She liked to let her body breathe after a shower – a long shower, since shampooing all of her hair could last anything between fifteen and twenty minutes alone. Instead of going full towel akimbo, she’d let the remaining wetness evaporate naturally, especially during her days off, when she didn’t have a care in the world. Yet, that wasn’t ideal, not with Rika knocking at her door in mere seconds. She u-turned almost instantly, running for her cupboard as fast as she could. Yet, someone had something to say.

The handle of the bathroom door.

And her hair.

A sudden knot, her head pulled back, her whole body falling down, disastrously, on the tiles. Veckert gasped for air, as the kickback set in, as she felt the impact.

Then, the door clicked open.

“… Vicky?”

She didn’t have time to think. She didn’t have time to elaborate.

Only to lose herself in those hazel eyes, in that long, straight auburn hair that populated her dreams for so long, in those delicate features that bewitched her from the very first moment.

In that goddamn smile that just turned into laughter, as soon as the girl called Rika Hyhui had a good look at that embarrassing situation.

**

“Could you please stop laughing?”

It was a lost cause. Veckert groaned, her fingers walked through her wet strands, while her cheeks were going as red as traffic lights. She puffed them too, while purposefully avoiding eye contact with the woman sitting at the other side of the kitchen table, wiping her tears.

“S… sorry, I… I can’t…”

She bursted into laughter one more time, with no hint of giving up. Veckert rolled her eyes, grabbed her mug, sipped some coffee from it (the second coffee, that morning. She desperately needed it). She couldn’t really blame Rika for her bout of good mood, though. Three years. For three years Veckert had almost ghosted her, right after EiN’s and Michelle’s wedding. Three years of purposefully avoiding her, of facing the fear of falling for her a second time, falling for someone she had willingly deceived. And then, after that long…

She finds me half-naked, ass to the ground, with my hair tied to a door handle. Classy first impression, Veck. Good frickin’ job.

Thus, there they were. Veckert, now wearing a t-shirt on top of her pants and Puffi-the-happy-go-lucky-drug-addicted-rabbit-shaped slippers. Rika, wrapped in a pink pullover, a long dark skirt and boots, an outfit made suitable for the British autumn by an additional trench coat and fluffy hat that she left at the entrance. An azure haired, short woman facing a taller, fit, younger girl with auburn hair. Blue and red. A fascinating contrast, one that caused Veckert’s heart to race. Seeing as Rika’s laughter was finally start to die out, she found the strength to resume that conversation – smoothing things out before the difficult part.

“Okay, fine. It was pretty funny.”

“Did you really fall into full panic mode, when you heard my voice?”

A long sigh as the first part of a longer answer.

“I’m sorry, Riri. I’ve… fucked up big time. And… it’s all my fault.”

Veckert couldn’t face her. She still couldn’t look at her in the eyes. Every attempt just seemed to fail before even starting. So, when Rika replied, immediately after, Veckert’s blood felt like freezing on the spot.

“Oh, it’s nothing. After all, you just forgot to tell me that you broke up with Geri and moved from St. Patrick to New Langdon, where you knew I was working. Oh, and that happened just two years ago, right? No way I had to learn it from watching the news.”

The bitterness of her tone. That’s what Veckert feared the most. She clawed at her own legs, her nails almost piercing the soft tissue of her pants.

“Riri, I…”

“But it’s fine, I could have called you, right? Except your phone number was deactivated and you don’t use any social media. And of course, of course the St. Patrick precinct wouldn’t forward my written letters to you.”

Veckert gritted her teeth. They did forward them to her, but she purposefully ignored them as soon as she read the name of the sender. Making the situation, if possible, worse. She couldn’t help it. She had stopped answering when she was still living together with Geri. As adventurous as her love life had been, Veckert couldn’t let that fire from her past get in the way of her first, real, stable relationship in a decade. Not that it saved it from sinking, unfortunately. In the depression that followed that unmitigated failure, she had cut ties with her former lovers, all of them, including Rika… even if calling her a lover was huge upsell, since they never consummated their relationship. True, she was someone Veckert treasured and fawned over, someone she would have wanted to go out with. Unfortunately, Rika wasn’t into girls at all and that caused her to think Veckert was a guy. That was easy to get wrong, back in 2062: at that time, the hound of St. Patrick was still wearing her trademark medical mask, the one reconstructing her face. Her voice was even in worse shape – a rough, impersonal, robotic text-to-speech engine that put Blame to shame. Coupled with her above average muscular tone and a sports bra that squeezed her already modest cup size, it was fairly easy to mistake her for a short-ish boy.

Which was exactly what happened back then.

Rika had mistaken her for a man, a man she was falling for, and Veckert didn’t do anything to correct her, riding that misunderstanding without ever clarifying it, even if she knew that girl had got that part wrong. Of course, it was all because of that first impression, that first moment they shared together. Rika was splendid, both in and out of her stage costume, that full body strip and pole dance performance at The Happy Cock (now, Le Coq Heureux) was something Veckert didn’t know she needed. Yet, despite that, despite knowing she was deceiving her, she had willingly kept the masquerade up, right until the end, when it became impossible to lie.

“Vicky? Hello?!”

Rika’s voice called her back from her clouded thoughts. Veckert slowly opened her eyes, without raising her face, without finding the courage to do that. Only to meet another set of hazel irises, watching her from not even four inches afar. Veckert gasped, almost let go of her coffee mug, as she felt the soft touch of Rika’s fingers on her skin, on her scars, caressing them delicately.

“W… what happened to you? Your face… your neck…? Is this why…?”

Veckert felt her own heart pounding, pounding like a jackhammer. Rika’s scent, that flowery fragrance, was inebriating. The smoothness of her skin, the precision of her makeup, the shininess of her hair. Veckert’s mouth fell agape, as she felt her body reacting to that sudden moment of tenderness. Only to get back into working order, before things went too steamy, for an anonymous Wednesday morning. She grabbed Rika’s hand, moved it away with a careful, slow gesture. Then, she spoke, trying to keep her breath under control.

“The same bastard who slashed your throat open, remember him? He thought it would have been funny to give me the same scar. Only, he went a little bit too far and damaged my vocal cords too.”

That sucked. After years wearing a medical mask, her new face didn’t last long enough. At least, those scars were almost unnoticeable compared to the mess left by her previous freak accident. True, they occupied a non negligible part of her left cheek and throat, but with the proper make up they were almost invisible – emphasis on almost. Rika’s reaction to that reveal, though, wasn’t what Veckert had expected. That girl had let out a sigh. A sigh of relief.

“So you didn’t start smoking like a chimney! Phew…”

“Wait, you were worried about that?”

“Of course! I was dead worried you drowned your sorrows in alcohol, cigarettes and prostitutes, after Geri dumped you!”

Alcohol and cigarettes were completely out of the menu. Prostitutes, however… well, the fact that the activity had recently been legalized in St. Patrick, with proper health checks and fair rates, meant that she didn’t find a reason not to pay the ladies a visit – even if it became old pretty quickly. Afterwards, Veckert felt like a total loser just for entertaining the thought, let alone acting on it, but at that time her psyche was more fragmented than a Ming vase left unguarded in a kindergarten. Thus, she had made a promise to herself never to pay a woman for intimate time anymore, in any shape or form – a promise she intended to uphold down to her last day.

Rika’s face was still dangerously close, her fingers still touching the scars, despite a clumsy attempt at moving them away. That wasn’t uncomfortable per se, but didn’t feel right. There were too many questions shaping up in Veckert’s mind.

“Okay, Riri. Stop for a second, will ya? Now it’s my time to ask something.”

Veckert left the half-emptied coffee mug on the carpet, before carefully moving away Rika’s hand once more.

“First. How did you find me? Second. Of all the times… why now?”

Rika sat on the carpet, looking at Veckert from down up, keeping eye contact all the time.

“The first answer is easy. EiN and Michell gave away your whereabouts. I’ve met them around town and they gave me your new address. They’re such a cute couple, their kids are adorable!”

EiN’s words had been more akin to “here’s the place, now go and show your pretty ass to Veck. Shake her a little, will ya? Rock her five feet five inches world for good, that gal is starved for body warmth”, which had caused Michelle to punch him in the guts on the spot and apologize profusely on his behalf. At least, she had got the piece of information she was needing – the where.

“As for the why…”

Rika fidgeted with Veckert’s hair, unruly, chaotically falling on the carpet, still half wet.

“There are rumors in the underworld. Rumors that something dangerous is going to happen very soon, something connected to… to the rekashiza and… and the Walking Night… and that you might be involved! With all those plants emerging, it feels like the world is gonna end every day now, and I…”

She felt something on her cheek. Her fingers. Veckert’s fingers. Rika leaned on them, rested her cheek on her palm, closed her eyes, bit her lip.

“I… I… simply didn’t… didn’t want to…”

“It’s fine, Riri. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t have any plans of doing something that puts my life at a risk.”

Their gazes met again, emerald on hazel, as their hands crossed, mingled together, in an interminable, long, short second of unsaid words. Then, Veckert broke the spell.

“I need to ask you something… weird, okay? It’s… connected with the reason you came here for, if anything, but – please – answer me honestly. No secrets, I need the bare truth… for how bizarre it might be.”

A nod as an answer, their hands still joined, their stares as one, waiting for the question. She knew what Veckert wanted to ask. She knew her answer would surprise her. She had waited for all that time, all that time, to tell her that. She felt ready, ready to stand trial.

“Alright. Ask and I shall tell.”

“Do you happen… to wake up in a dead world, covered in red sand, when you fall asleep?”

31 October 2067, 15:17

“… and this is the report from General Zmeyev of the Red Army. The rekashiza in Novosibirsk doesn’t seem to have sustained any damage from the bombing. Even after unloading the payload through a coordinated air strike, the distortion area growth pattern has followed the same function as the one in Shard, without signs of additional slow downs. Every attempt at uprooting it have failed, so far. President Ioschenko is evaluating the use of nuclear weapons, but before that happens…”

“Thanks, Sionn. That’s enough.”

“No, Major! That’s not enough! What about the Shannon index? What about it? What is the Shannon index of their plant? They have to have measured it!”

The Ring. A massive facility in the center of Shard, a combination of civilian buildings and concrete walls, built around it.

Around the rekashiza.

The strategy room was where General Boost was sitting, his arms crossed, his back leaning on his comfortable stuffed chair. In front of him, the familiar silhouettes of his field aide, Corporal Sionn Byle, and his scientific advisor – that disaster of a human being known as Dr. Zvonimir Zojimbo. Boost had considered feeding him to the rekashiza with the excuse of performing an experiment, but that crossed a utility threshold he didn’t know he wanted to. From a moral standpoint, getting rid of that sphere-loving, idiocy-spouting, greasy-haired societal reject felt like the only sane answer – alas, he was their maximum expert on distortion energy and related phenomena. That made him virtually irreplaceable, at least for the time being. One of the reasons why General Boost wanted the rekashiza situation solved as fast as possible, however, was just so he could ditch him and have him encased in a concrete pylon, never to be found anymore. That felt such a sweet perspective – getting rid of that annoying prick of a scientist that had no redeeming human traits. Boost grabbed a couple of printed pages from a staple, slammed it on the table, in front of Zojimbo.

“Be my guest, doctor. I hope you understand Russian.”

“I… huh, don’t.”

“Well, sucks to be you, then.”

“But… but Major! This is a question of spherical importance! Even an uncultured ignorant fool like you should know it! The Shannon index is an indication of the distortion level and we need to compare it to…”

“Will knowing the Shannon index help me burn down that thing, doctor?”

Silence. Silence fell among them. Boost’s stare, reflected into Zojimbo’s dirty glasses, piercing through them, reaching for his retinas. Causing him to gulp down a lump of saliva, while trying to put together a meaningful reply.

“Huh… not… really? But it’s… it’s very important to decide whether we want to destroy it in the first place!”

“Then, it’s useless.”

Boost stood up, looked the scientist down from his vantage point, his imposing figure towering over the scrawny build of Zojimbo.

“We’re going to fry that damn plant, it’s already settled. There’s no need to reevaluate this position. All the input I need you to give me is how to do it, doctor.”

“B… but…”

A low growl, eyes rolling. It was the tenth time they went though those motions. The tenth time. Major, please, reconsider. We don’t know enough to make a call. As if. The news were filled with protests, violent protests, asking why the government wasn’t doing anything. Three months had gone since the plant emerged, and the chaos hadn’t subsided yet. If anything, politics was getting in the way. Every other day, a new civil servant would come to the Ring asking him when they were starting the bombing operation. Not if, no hypotheticals. When. Westminster wanted certainties. The voters wanted certainties. Especially after no less than nine more plants had emerged, in all the corners of the world. Russia, Spain, Vietnam, Niger, Congo, India, Canada, Nicaragua, Argentina. Rumor had it that rekashizas had spawned also in Saudi Arabia and North Korea, but there were no official confirmations from local sources. Though, the Cube City that the government of Riyadh had approved mere weeks before might or might not have been a front for the containment operations. Of course, people were scared. Of course. Until it was just one, in Shard, most believed in a freak accident, a localized ROP that could easily be contained. When the next two bloomed in August, the second near Sam Son and the third somewhere around Owando, not many batted an eye. The Western world didn’t care enough about Africa or South-East Asia. There was some measure of concern, obviously, but both places felt so far from Europe that nobody but internet wackos questioned the UK government. Yes, some crazy conspiracy theories about a British secret weapon gone haywire started to pollute the morning news, but overall the situation still felt under reasonable control. Yet, when October turned around and six more plants sprouted all together, one of which near Zaragoza, that’s when the manure hit the spinning thing-y. Amusingly enough, the US president felt somehow slighted by the fact that no flower had emerged in Eagleland, as if whatever intelligence was driving them didn’t consider the United States worthy of being attacked. After all, election season was coming and having a in-house emergency would have been a very good way for the ruling party to keep the reins of the country. To add fuel to the fire, the fact that a rekashiza had popped up in Canada, of all places, caused a non-negligible portion of online users to sign a petition to demand Ottawa to surrender it to the US. Boost would have laughed, if the situation hadn’t been so serious.

The truth was, that nobody had a precise idea of why that happened. What were exactly those plants? What was their purpose? Were they really a creation of the inhabitants of the Hell Dimension? How many seeds were there? How many more plants were going to bloom? Too many questions without an answer, but one fact remained, one thing was certain.

Sciarpie was in danger.

Boost clenched his fists. There was no need to understand them. No need to ascertain the intention or the identity of their creators. As long as Sciarpie was in danger, they had to be burned down. Only then, Sciarpie could have waited for him in the comfort of his home, cheering him as usual, without fear, without the need to be afraid. Sciarpie told him that too.

Protect me, please!

It was a clear message. Sciarpie wanted to be helped, wanted to be cuddled… and Boost was the only one who could understand him. For everyone else, Sciarpie’s voice was a meaningless collection of wiiis in various tones, but for him and him alone, those were words, sentences. Sciarpie was his best friend. Sciarpie was there for him. And, as such, he had to be the one making decisions. For his safety. For the safety of everyone he cared for.

For Die Fledermaus.

He grinned. Crazy how their secret experiments on the Hell Dimension gave them a kickstart on investigating the plant, compared with the rest of the world. Such a tactical advantage that not even the Russians could hope to overcome them. And yet, the Russians were the first one to try a coordinate attack on the rekashiza. Somehow, despite all their experience, his team, Die Fledermaus itself, had been outsmarted. His eyes scanned the documents sent by the Red Army, the part translated in English at least. Conventional explosives didn’t blow up. Incendiary bombs had some effects and caused some of the vines to retreat, but left the main body unscathed. Airplanes and drones that entered the Eversion – the area of effect of the ‘shiza suffered malfunctions. Bombs deployed from outside the distortion shell deviated in such a way that they missed the target completely or exploded mid-air. Land teams had encountered massive resistance from swarms of Screamers, which immediately assaulted them while inside the perimeter. The list went on, detailing other attempts with tanks and flamethrowers. Boost massaged his forehead, tapped his finger on the desk, on the papers.

“General Zmeyev spared us a good amount of trial and error, with his failed attempts. Sionn, remind me to send him a bottle of wine, when this is over. Now, please… call Westminster. I need a word with our dear prime minister.”

“Y… you have a plan, sir?”

Boost grinned, spread the document and pictures on the table, pointing at several of them in a quick succession.

“The Russkies have attacked the plant from ground level and above…”

Before stopping on one of their pictures. A ultrasound scan of the ground, highlighting massive, branching structures. He grabbed a red marker, removed the cap, started scribbling on the photo.

“… but what they failed to realize is that every plant has roots. Cut the roots…”

A circle around each of the main structures, a map of points of interest. Marked with a skull.

“… and the plant dies.”

Zojimbo raised his hand, stomped his foot on the floor, once, twice, three times.

“Major! This is stupid! Every plant has roots? Nonsense! What about moss? Moss doesn’t have roots, Major! And the rekashiza might not even be a real plant! Maybe it’s an alien fungus! Or an alien animal! Maybe those aren’t roots, but they are – I dunno – its reproductive organs! In which case, you’d be burning down its balls! This is too risky, Major! You’re simply talking out of your ass ‘cause you don’t know anything of biology! And you want to destroy this – let’s call it – plant? Nonsense! The consequences might be disastrous! Please, don’t be an idiot and reconsider! Let someone else advise you on this, before you take this step! Give us a little time!”

Suddenly, he felt it. Air pressure. A burst of air pressure, directly in front of his face. Then, he saw it. The fist. A mere inch from his nose, immobile, held back. Stopped at the last instant. He gasped, fell on his back, his glasses flying to the ground. Lights went out, a shadow loomed over him. The shadow of General Heinz-Harald Boost.

“Zojimbo. We’re burning down the plant. The only advice I accept is on how to do it. People are scared, the world is falling into utter chaos. We need to show we’re doing something, yes? We have scientists and tacticians. They’ll smooth the plan out. But we aren’t going back. For the wellbeing of the citizens of Shard” and for Sciarpie’s safety “the rekashiza must die.”

Boost stared at the scientist, his fists clenched, his breath now regular. Yes, that was it. For Sciarpie’s sake. It was all for Sciarpie’s sake.

“Sionn, the phone.”

“R… ready to go, General!”

“W… wait, wait, Major!”

Zojimbo, again. Boost resisted the urge to punch him to a bloody pulp for real. Yet, he couldn’t. He couldn’t do that in front of his men. He needed to act the part of a general.

“Yes, doctor?”

“T… the Russian report! About the Shannon index! I want to read it! Let me have it, please!”

Boost shook his head, let out a low growl, grabbed the papers from his desk, threw them to the ground, letting them fall, scatter around the downed scientist.

“Do whatever you want with it, Zojimbo. This won’t change things.”

And even if it changed something, the path was already marked.

For everyone’s sake.

For Sciarpie’s sake.

For Sciarpie’s sake.

For Sciarpie’s sake.

For Sciarpie.

Sciarpie.

S c i a r p i e.

S c i a r p i e.

S c i a r p i e

3 November 2067, 14:32

“You’re early for your usual cappuccino with focaccia, detective. Anything the matter?”

“Yeah, sort of.”

Veckert let herself slump on the counter, closing her eyes, let her hair fall down in disorganized strands. Every time it inconvenienced her, she thought about cutting it ear level, never to have it grow longer. Every time right after, she reconsidered it immediately. Her rapunzelian hair was a part of her she wasn’t ready to give up. She started letting it grow when Nyu was killed. Her first love. Her first girlfriend. Her first experience with sharing a bed with someone. The most important person of her high-school life. The most important person she lost. Yet, too many years had come and gone. Clinging to the past wasn’t her style and the dead didn’t come back, no matter what one hoped. So, moving on it was and the first step was getting a hot beverage at Jackson’s, under the patronizing gaze of that faceful, faceless man, currently sporting a cyan fedora and cyan pants, fit together with a white shirt and a dark blue gilet. Veckert squinted her eyes, trying to figure out how could someone have such a poor taste in fact of colors and still have success with women. That man, that man with the same aesthetic sense of a colorblind German dandy, had married that gorgeous specimen of Kia Takara. He had to have other qualities to impress her, because his questionable sense of fashion sure wasn’t it.

“Care to tell something more? They say I’m good at giving life advice to people.”

Veckert nodded in silence. Maybe, Vince was right. Talking about it could help her, especially with a stranger that wasn’t involved with her sentimental life.

“An old acquaintance of mine came to visit me, this morning. Someone I hadn’t met in three years. She said she’d come to me ‘cause she wanted to see me once more, ‘fore the world ends.”

She bit a cookie, savored their sugary texture, trying to make the conversation less bitter.

“The first girl in this world I’ve ever allowed to call me Vicky without getting pissed off. One of the few people outside of St. Patrick that accepted me for what I was, without pushing me away. The one person that made me wish I was born with a dick. God, life is just a mess, isn’t it?”

“So, you’re still down bad, cannot let it go, and are making excuses for not being direct with her. I mean, if a lack of a dick is your only issue, there are a lot of cheap options, like plastic strap-ons and plug-in mechanical prosthetics. You should ask Chai for some advice, she might give you a couple useful links. Then, after you fix that issue of yours, go and grab that girl, detective. It’s clear as day that you crave her.”

“Vincent! What the fu…”

“Your awful voice, detective. It turned mellower as soon as you talked about her. Sweeter, even. You like her, and not in a superficial way. That much is clear as day.”

“No, it’s not like…”

“Wanna bet?”

Jackson turned around, waved his hand towards the only other patron at that time of the afternoon – a burly, massive mountain of a sharkman, with pecs the size of Lichtenstein. Veckert recognized him immediately – he was Shaz Aliart, that mutant with forty-five different aliases that opened a fishmonger not far from her place and beat up Deshvawn to an inch of his life. He was minding his own business in a corner, typing on his small personal device, one letter a time with his fat fingers the size of a bratwurst. That was when the hatted bartender called him out.

“Shaz, can you come quickly? I need your help.”

“Just a moment, Vince! Imma gonna send something first…”

“Sure, no hurry. When you’re finished sexting your toyboy, there’s a gal here that might use some sentimental advice.”

Sentimental advice. From a sharkman.

Veckert slammed her fist on the counter, growled.

“… stupid. I’m so stupid.”

Her voice grew louder, her breath intensified, her cheeks burning like fire.

“Fine. Fine, I admit it. I might really be down bad for Riri. When I saw her at my door, this morning… good lord, Vincent. She’s just one year younger than me, and… she looks so good. Everything, Vincent. Everything. There isn’t a thing I don’t like in her. And I don’t mean only her appearance! But… but… fuck, why does life always get in my way? Can’t I get a little bit of happiness too?!”

A dish with some focaccia appeared right in front of her, with a cappuccino to boot. Veckert grabbed the mug, sipped a bit of the hot beverage, felt it flowing through her body. The warmth was pleasurable, something she needed. She grabbed a little slice of focaccia too, bit it off, comped it with gusto, while trying to calm down. Jackson rested his cheek on his fist, waving his other hand in the air.

“Deep breaths. Deep breaths, detective. Life sucks, yes? Tell me and Mr. Yamete Octopus-chan there. If you haven’t noticed, you’re talking with a guy who lost his face and a desperate gay sharkman that spent years getting chased by the mob. So, we might know a thing or two about stuff going downhill.”

He pushed his hat on his head, keeping his gaze fixed on Veckert.

“And yet, I’m married with children and own a café, while he’s got his slate cleaned, became a fishmonger and bedded an obnoxious human boyfriend.”

His voice underlined obnoxious in a way that didn’t leave any room for interpretation. Whoever that guy was, Vincent Jackson didn’t sound too fond of him, but that didn’t prevent the huge sharkman from flipping him the bird. Yet, the hatted man kept talking without signs of stopping.

“The biggest lie in this world of coincidences is that you can earn karma points to spend for better luck.”

“But I deserved…”

“Listen, there’s no such thing as deserving happiness, Rainer. You either snatch it with your own hands or you don’t. Whatever that blindfolded cocksucker told you, you need a reality check. There are people for which life is simply a slideshow of horrible shit happening over and over. You got your face blasted off and your first GF murdered by your suicidal father, right? Well, our friend Cyphr got both her parents shot when she was a kid, half her body explanted – courtesy of her grandpa – and then lost her mother in a freak accident. Now, she’s building her atelier, lives together with a horny gremlin” at that moniker, Shaz smirked and raised his thumb up in approval, causing Jackson to reciprocate the gesture with a complicit gaze “and she’s found her place in the world. If karma existed, she should have at least become a millionaire and got a harem of hot babes and super-endowed boys, to pay off for what she suffered. But, spoiler, that’s just a load of bull. Whatever little happiness she got, she worked for it.”

“… sure, ‘cause I didn’t work for it, did I?”

Veckert bit a slice of focaccia, without looking up, her eyelids closed, her fist clenched.

“I’m just… tired, Vincent. Tired of trying. I… I saved a whole city. Twice. I’ve got good pals, a nice girlfriend, I had my face restored. Everything was going fine, yes? Then, Geri left me. And that bastard… that bastard Baal sliced my throat open, robbing me of my voice again. So, what now? Every girl I like ends up… ends up causing me even more pain. I’ve had enough of pain, yes? And… and e… everyone around me is getting their happy ending, Vincent. E… everyone except me! Y… you, the shark, EiN, Michelle, Cyphr, Lejl, Chai, Dan, Renne, Cybil… e… everyone. While I… I… why… why can’t I… I just… I can’t…”

“You know, Rainer, crying is an option. Feel free to, please. There’s nobody here besides you, I and that finned idiot in the corner.”

Rain fell on the wooden counter, drop by drop, as little rivers flowed on her cheeks, on Veckert cheeks, as her head delved between her arms, her sighs became louder. And the warm arms of a sharkman and a hatted bartender closed around her, in a clumsy attempt at comforting the sobbing hound.

“Ye’re a nice gal, Veckert. We wouldn’t be here without ye, ya know it, yes? You’ll get yer happy ending! It’s juuuuust a matter of time!”

“If… only.”

Jackson reached for the counter, pulled out a bottle of whiskey, poured a little bit in a glass, before giving it to the woman bashing her head against the wooden counter.

“This is on the house, Rainer. Besides, you should look at what you have achieved so far. A good job, plenty of good friends, you’re respected by everyone in this schizo country and you’re the only cop I’d call in a matter of life and death. You’ve got all of that, despite being a lesbian gal grown in a homophobic walled city, where women were just good for breeding children. I’d say, there’s plenty of good in what you clawed with your own hands. Now, you just need… to claw some more.”

Veckert wiped her tears, grabbed the glass, gulped down the whiskey in one go. Her breath back to a regular rhythm, her eyes still red, swollen.

“… I’m… I’m seeing her this evening for dinner. I’ve… invited her, place to be defined and… and she accepted on the spot. A plain yes, Vincent! She didn’t even think for a second! But I… I don’t even know what to expect from it, I…”

“Bring her here, Rainer.”

The sharkman doubled down, pumping his fist.

“Yay! That’s a goooood idea! Vince and I gotta be yer wingmen, see?!”

Veckert chugged down what was left of her whiskey, shook her head three, four times. Dinner at Jackson’s, alone with her and with those two playing matchmaker? That wasn’t a plan. That was a recipe for a disaster. She let herself slump on the counter. Maybe, calling the whole evening off would have been better for both Rika and her. No chances of misunderstanding, no unrealistic delusions, no disappointments and back to radio silence. Yeah, that sounded very alluring, almost as much as the content of her glass. She felt a hand patting on her head, slowly, caressing her mane. Jackson. It was Jackson.

“Rainer. Listen, I know I’ve said all those things about not deserving stuff and such, but…”

She saw him adjust his horrible cyan fedora again, contrasting with the absolute black blurriness of his features.

“… among all the people she could have looked for, while the world ends, the first person she came to visit is you. She’s still thinking about you, despite having been ghosted for three whole years. Now, this is a reality made of coincidences, but, for how I see it, this is no coincidence at all.”

“V… Vincent?”

“I say, go for it Have a good dinner. Laugh with her, talk with her. What’s the worst that can happen? You get friendzoned, that’s it. For that occurrence, know I have several more bottles of whiskey stashed in the back. A couple days of pain and you’ll go on with your life, as you’ve always done. But what if your fears are… just misplaced?”

Veckert’s cheeks dried up, little by little. The rivers stopping, the sobbing subsiding.

“… you… okay. I’ll… bring her here. But… on two conditions.”

“Which would be?”

“First: You won’t say anything and won’t interfere, no matter… no matter how bad it goes. Not you, not the shark, got it? Let me handle it. Let me… make my mistakes.”

Shaz deflated on his stool with an audible “ooooow…”, his puppy eyes filled with absolute sadness. Jackson, on the other hand, grinned with relief. Having to deal with a depressed detective and a wannabe Cupid sharkman at the same time was too much to handle, even for him. God forbid Lejl was on shift too. The horny gremlin and the finned disaster were a powder keg ready to blow up at a moment’s notice, with a fallout that wasn’t easy to quantify. Left to them, the outcome of that dinner might have ranged from a steamy lesbian foursome to a night at the precinct with six dead and three wounded, plus everything in-between. Yes, good thing Lejl wasn’t on shift. That spared him enough headaches. Thus, he simply adjusted his hat once more, almost covering his eyes with the rim of his fedora.

“Fine with me. It’s your crush, not mine.”

“Second…”

Veckert wiped her residual tears off, reached for her still warm cappuccino, cupped her hands around it, let out a long sigh.

“… keep a mug of hot chocolate and an extra-large serving of focaccia aside. I’m… pretty sure I’ll need them to drown my sorrows.”

1 November 2067, 22:34

The room was as dark as it could be, with all the shutters closed and the dim display as the only source of light. Despite that, Zojimbo’s finger tapped on the keyboard with demonic speed, causing the clicks and clacks to fill the space, interspersed with infrequent swear words. He smashed his finger against the space bar, twice, causing a louder click to echo among the walls, walls covered in posters of Combat Idol MIRAI Nanami and Puffi the Happy-Go-Lucky Drug Addicted Rabbit. On the shelves, a plethora of physics and maths books, a collection of scientific publications and several plastic spheres, in all sizes and colors. Left his usual shirt and lab coat fit in the cupboard, Zojimbo was wearing a plain sphere-themed t-shirt, short shorts, and open slippers. His long, oily black hair was falling all around his seat, without any semblance of order or tidiness. Yet, he didn’t care about appearances, not in the comfort of his house. Zojimbo tapped the scroll ball, turned it left and right, savored its smooth surface with the tip of his finger. A sphere. Perfection. A volume of four thirds pi times the cube of its radius. A surface of four pi radius square. Absolute perfection. No corners, no edges, just a continuous trip without end. Spheres were the most idealized solid, the peak of geometry. Everything in his office setup reflected that, from the half-spherical monitor (it had been a pain to find that one) to the collection of anti-stress squishy balls. Unfortunately, he couldn’t wear spherical glasses too – that would have made his already bad sight even worse – sacrifices had to be made for the sake of science. And, for the sake of science, there he was, writing to a couple of his peers scattered around the world, trying to crack the mystery of the very non-spherical plant surrounded by an even less spherical fortress. Of course, under a veil of semi-anonymity, because he couldn’t let his boss know what he was moving behind his back. Leaking the document online had been easy enough. A Russian VPN did the job pretty well, destroying all chances to connect the sudden appearance of that report on shady Pakistani websites with his doing. Discussing it online with other people, at that point, couldn’t be that much more of a confidentiality breach. He eyed at the chat window again, seeing the usual names he had come to appreciate via their online interactions. Zojimbo had a hunch or two about who some of the owners of those accounts were, but no concrete evidence. That wasn’t necessary – as long as they proved capable, they could even have been passionate hobbyist, for what he cared. He created a new topic, aptly named Leaked Russian Rekashiza Report and typed the first message, hoping for a fast turnaround.

>SphericalCow: Alright, has anyone read the leaked Russian report? I’ve tried to run it through a couple different translation engines, but it cannot possibly be right, right?

Not even two seconds later, the chat window became alive, as several users had started typing. The first reply appeared in a record time, from a nickname Zojimbo had seen pretty often online, since June.

>ChubbyCatLover: Yeah, it’s most likely a fake. Really, a Shannon index almost as low as pre-Helsinki background level? Right around the plant? Those Siberian pricks should buy better equipment.

>SphericalCow: That’s what I thought too, at first, but it doesn’t check out. There are readouts from three different sensors, and they all seem to agree. What is the chance all of them went baloney at the same time?

>VHassanS: Pretty negligible, I’ll concede that.

>ChubbyCatLover: Hassan, they’re fuckin’ Russians. They don’t know the meaning of the word “maintenance”.

>VHassanS: Oh, sorry, Chubby, if I’m not racist enough. For what you know, SphericalCow might be Russian too.

>ChubbyCatLover: Good for them. As long as they aren’t an anorexic dick-swallowing female neko, I don’t care. So, SphericalCow, if you are an anorexic dick-swallowing female neko, PLEASE don’t tell me.

>OhReally?: Back to the topic, shall we? I don’t know enough about information theory or ROPES to offer any insights, but a friend of a friend of mine does. SphericalCow, if you are in the UK, you should try to contact Veckert Rainer.

>VHassanS: She’s no scientist, though.

>OhReally?: She doesn’t need to be one. Like, she leads the ROPES division of Yard, she has to know something about it.

>ChubbyCatLover: The only thing I know about this Veckert Rainer is that she fucks more girls than a neko in heat.

>VHassanS: Always the poet, Chubby *slow clap*.

>ChubbyCatLover: At least *I* have an idea of what the Hell Dimension looks like, Hassan. I’ve sent you some pics before, let me fetch the link for the others: [LINK]

>VHassanS: Yeah, I remember them. I’m still not sold on them, but they seem to check out with what I got from military intel. You mentioned Tides too. But Tides should be an indicator of a high Shannon level, which is the opposite of what the Russian report say.

>VHassanS: Also, that’s the wrong link, Chubby. Thanks, I didn’t need to see a picture of a naked reptile taking a shower. My eyes are bleeding.

>OhReally?: *which kind of reptile*

>ChubbyCatLover: Oh shit.

>OhReally?: ommigod, that’s a velociraptor?! A REAL VELOCIRAPTOR? *squee*

>ChubbyCatLover: Link removed, sorry.

>OhReally?: NO! I DIDN’T SAVE THE PIC IN TIME! AFHJKKAJKHH!

>VHassanS: Don’t play with your scroll ball too much later, OhReally, or you’ll become blind.

>ChubbyCatLover: I swear there was a legit reason for that pic. It’s not what it looks like.

>VHassanS: I don’t care, Chubby. OhReally almost had an aneurysm over it. But okay, let’s move on. I’ve found the pics you posted before – the *right* ones: [LINK]

>ChubbyCatLover: Oh, yes, there they are. Crisp and clear.

>VHassanS: I’m impressed, Chubby. What kind of company employed you?

>ChubbyCatLover: Can’t say, if I want to live. I signed way too many NDAs.

Zojimbo clicked on the link posted by VHassanS, carefully avoiding the first one. Waiting for someone else to look at internet pictures before he did had been a surefire way to avoid nasty surprises. From the look of it, he avoided getting flashbanged by a less than safe for work picture of a mutant dinosaur – which he counted as a win. His holographic secondary display lit up in the darkness of his room, becoming alive. And there he was again, looking at that dead, red desert from the other side of a monitor. That was it, the original plane the plant came from. He clicked on a folder on his computer, scrolled through a wealth of similar pictures. The seeds. The tentacles. Everything checked out. The place ChubbyCatLover had captured was the same they reached by experimenting on the Screamer, even if from a complete different angle. The landmarks were different, the geography was different. Which meant that Chubby wasn’t one of his Fledermaus colleagues, but someone who worked on the same topic. That felt exciting, after months of forced silence. Major Boost didn’t have the monopoly on it, which was good for science and for him. He quickly went back to the chat room, started typing again to avoid appearing inactive.

>SphericalCow: I’ve seen that place before and can confirm they are authentic. They match my experience with the phenomenon.

>ChubbyCatLover: See? Suck it, Hassan!

>VHassanS: Oh, now it’s true because two internet anons tell the same thing? That’s not how it works.

>OhReally?: Chubby has always been reliable, though. I don’t know SphericalCow, but Chubby’s track record is spotless.

>VHassanS: Neko hateposting aside.

>OhReally?: Neko hateposting aside, yes.

>VHassanS: Point taken. My apologies, but as they say “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. But I understand that it’s hard to provide said evidence without risking your job (or life).

>SphericalCow: Like Chubby, I can’t disclose which company I work for, but I’m sure we aren’t colleagues. Her pictures and mine portray different corners of the Hell Dimension. @VHassanS, what are those Tides you mentioned?

>VHassanS: It’s just a theory, mind me. I don’t have a deep understanding of them, but they seem to happen when the Shannon delta between that Hell plane and our plane becomes too big. In essence, a Tide is a mixup event that brings some elements from our plane to the Hell plane but, for some reasons I can’t grasp, not viceversa.

>ChubbyCatLover: So, we fuck them but they don’t fuck us.

>VHassanS: ROPES increase the Shannon index in an overwhelming majority of cases. The bigger and more blatant the ROP, the higher the chance of a Tide. The rekashiza is so massive that I expected it to cause countless Tides by itself.

>ChubbyCatLover: I cringe a little every time I remember that “rekashiza” comes from a jap mispronuncing the name of a hotel – what was it, Lake Ashiza? *Shinta Kujiwara voice* REIKU ASHIZA! REIKU ASHIZA!

>VHassanS: Dammit Chubby, tone down the racism, please!

>ChubbyCatLover: I’m from Japan, prick. I am allowed to crack jokes about my country AND my people.

>SphericalCow: Maybe we should cut the nonsense. It’s very late for me, I can’t go on for the whole night.

>VHassanS: Fair. If the leak is accurate, the implications are pretty deep. The rekashizas might be the polar opposite of what we thought.

>ChubbyCatLover: Is it connected with your “universal recycle bin” mumbo jumbo?

>VHassanS: Sort of. I’d expect a ROP of that magnitude to squash our reality even more, not less. That’s kind of watching an egg getting back together from an omelette. It just doesn’t compute.

>ChubbyCatLover: An acquaintance of mine works in Vietnam and is a member of the team that surveyed Sam Son. I can ask that mofo if he has a copy of the report.

>SphericalCow: That would be spherical, Chubby! I wish they carried out that measurement on the ‘shiza in Shard too, but the jarhead overseeing the operations is a cubical moron and the head scientist there cannot get the greenlight. All they measured was the distortion strength inside the domain, but outside? They say it’s a loss of time and resources.

>OhReally?: [LINK]

>VHassanS: ...

>ChubbyCatLover: Girl, you didn’t just post a link to shoiga porn in a public server, did you?

>OhReally?: WAIT WAIT WHAT

>OhReally?: OH NO I WANTED TO SAVE IT INTO MY BOOKMARKS NOT PASTE IT

>VHassanS: @mods

>OhReally?: SORRYYYYYYYYYYYY! LINK REMOVED! SORRY! SORRY!

*OhReally? has left the room*

>ChubbyCatLover: Oh my goodness, I didn’t know shoiga tongues were THAT long and flexible.

>VHassanS: Didn’t ask, didn’t wanna know.

>ChubbyCatLover: Your loss.

>VHassanS: Well then, were we saying?

>ChubbyCatLover: I’ll try to get my hands on the Sam Son report. Might need a couple days. Anyone has any acquaintances by the other rekashiza teams? SphericalCow, you seem well connected with the guys in Shard, mind giving it a shot?

Zojimbo’s fingers stopped typing as soon as he read that line. Sharing classified intel from the Ring, from his secreted files no less, with online strangers might have convinced General Boost that it was better to put him to sleep forever, rather than risking vital information being spread around the net. Yet, if that red haired bastard didn’t get it, didn’t get the necessity of doing it, he had to take matters into his own hands, no matter the cost.

>SphericalCow: I’ll try. Can’t guarantee, but I’ll keep you all posted.

>VHassanS: In the meantime, can we ask the mods to ban OhReally from this channel?

>VHassanS: Her biggest contribution was fawning over a raptor’s shower pic and posting a link to alien lizard porn.

>ChubbyCatLover: Which is more than I can say for you, Hassan.

*VHassanS has left the room*

>ChubbyCatLover: Jeez, he can’t take a joke, can he? Oyasuminasai, Spherical. Wish you good luck!

*ChubbyCatLover has left the room*

*SphericalCow has left the room*

Zojimbo logged out of the chat program, left the room empty. Those anons gave him an idea. He still had some low-value sensors in his office, something that was discarded because they didn’t need precision measurements for the distortion field inside the rekashiza perimeter. If the Russians were right and the Shannon index was indeed background level, though, that was a quick and easy way to confirm or deny his hypothesis. He let himself slump on his chair, his eyes closed. Major Boost was not obliged to listen to him and didn’t intend to, that much was clear.

Yet, he never ordered him not to carry out additional tasks that might guarantee the success of the bombing expedition, did he?

2 November 2067, 15:13

“So? What did Kobase say?”

“You know you can ask him yourself, right, boss?”

“I’m busy. And I like your voice more than his.”

Busy was not what Lucia looked like, at least to Blade’s eyes. She was sitting on her cot, inside her small cabin, wrapped – as usual – in her tattered red cape. A fashionable ensemble of dark pants and white shirt complemented her figure, her garments slightly modified to accommodate for her beastly paws. The pants, in particular, had a side opening right under both knees, allowing for her furred calves to be covered without fighting for breaking out of the fabric. On his side, Blade was donning a comfortable Hawaiian shirt, an orange jacket and plain brown jeans. The only luxury item he allowed himself to carry were his impeccable white and black leather shoes, polished to the point of shining. His gold-like skin created a weird contrast with the rest of his outfit, but that didn’t concern him. On the high seas, nobody could criticize him for what he was wearing – especially not his half-furred boss. Her wardrobe was full of designer clothes that she mixed and matched to her heart’s content, sometimes to the detriment of her authority. Yet, did she really need to look menacing? Everyone on board of the Mattanza knew she could decapitate them on a whim and chew their faces off – figuratively and literally – might the need arise. So, even when she looked cute, her presence alone caused more than a chill down the crew members’ spines.

Yet, what Blade was witnessing, felt into the cute and positively hilarious camp, were his boss literally anyone else than a cold-blooded murderer. Her finger tips were wrapped in individual, padded rubber caps that enveloped her claws completely, and for a good reason. She was playing with a doll. A handmade rag doll shaped like her, with a big head, short arms and legs, exaggerated eyes, no nose and fluffy ears. There were two other, similarly crafted dolls on the cot. One looked like Blade (of course) and the third was… what was her name again? Blade couldn’t be bothered remember it, despite being reminded of her existence pretty often. He browsed his memory drawers, until he found what he was looking for.

Rebecca.

The third doll was shaped like Rebecca. Who, apparently, was also the person who made them. Sure, she tried to get rid of Lucia and him with a goddamn spider bomb, but hey, sending her a gift package for her birthday with a three-pages-long letter of apologies, a vinyl of the latest Nanami album and three handmade rag dolls sure was enough to be forgiven, right?

Well, it was enough for his boss.

Which made him even more puzzled.

She was genuinely looking radiant, despite having to wear those hilariously clumsy finger protections. Without them, she could have accidentally ripped the dolls apart while playing with them – something she wanted to avoid at all costs. She gazed at Blade, smiled at him, baring her fangs. Then, she raised her hand, moving the small toy shaped like her as close as possible to his snout, shaking it right in front of his eyes.

“Come on, Blade! Tell me! Tell me!”

“Can you please stop this motherangling farce, boss? Hell, I’m trying to be serious while you’re playing like a spoiled brat!”

Before he could say anything else, her paw was already grabbing his chin, her amber eyes staring at him, her pupils turning into cat-like slits.

“Oh, if you prefer, I can directly get to the part where I tear you into pieces, limb by limb, before throwing your dismembered body into the ocean, leaving your still breathing torso for last. And making sure you’re alive through the whole process, so that you can sink and die in pain.”

Her tongue licked the tip of his snout, let her teeth graze it. Blade shrieked, jerked backwards, fell on the floor with a echoing thud. He could feel it, he could feel it in his bones. She was serious. She was dead serious. He gasped for air, his muscles still shaking, trembling even. Yet, Lucia was smiling, laughing even, louder and louder.

“Your face! Your face was priceless, Blade! Priceless! Come on, I was joking! You think I’d really slice you like sushi because of that? I’m not that hysterical, when I’m not in heat!”

That wasn’t as reassuring as she thought it was. At the end of September the crew found out to their detriment that indeed Lucia could go in heat. They had to keep her locked in her cabin for two whole weeks, as the sound of claws trying to rip through the metal, of fangs chewing at the handle, and her inhuman howls turned the Mattanza into the set of a horror movie. Blade even went as far as loading his gun with silver bullets and order the crew to do the same. He knew that it had no reason to work at all, it was mostly an anchor to keep his psyche safe. If Lucia evaded containment, she could have turned the whole ship into a bloody graveyard of mangled corpses in a matter of minutes. No gun could have reasonably stopped her, and everyone knew it, but it felt to do something about it better than plainly accepting their demise. After almost fourteen days of sheer terror and talks about leaving ship, things calmed down all of a sudden. Lucia returned to her usual, playful self, politely asking to be let out and apologizing to the whole crew with her ears lowered and tearful puppy eyes on display. Of course, her cabin was an ungodly mess. Her furniture had to be completely replaced, books and magazines had been torn to shreds, as most of the clothes she kept in her room. Cleaning and sanitizing the whole thing cost several hours of man time, with Lucia helping as much as she could, still feeling ashamed of that brutal display of animalistic behaviors. Brainstorming a better solution for the next time it happened wasn’t an immediate priority, but it was definitely something that had to be taken care of – otherwise, their whole merry band of pirates was screwed. Blade stood up slowly, brushing off his pants, his hands still shaking. He glanced at Lucia, pointed his finger at her, trying to calm down at the same time.

“Don’t… joke about going in heat ever again, okay? That’s a plain no-go, if you still want to have a crew!”

That’s when she hit him with the lowered-ears/tearful-puppy-eyes combo again. The guilt trip special, the one thing that reminded him that – after all – Lucia was fighting an inner battle with her body, a body she wasn’t completely accustomed to yet.

“I’m… sorry. I wasn’t myself, it was horrible. I just…”

“Okay, okay, never mind. Now…”

Blade sat on her cot, delicately moving the rag dolls away, knowing full well what would have happened if he accidentally damaged them.

“… Kobase’s report is very concerning. He isolated Maurizio in quarantine bay and forced him to cut out all contacts with the rest of the crew until the situation is clearer. Doc is currently examining everyone’s blood, to look for other anomalies. Has he already collected a sample from you?”

“Yes. He takes one every week.”

To check my hormone levels and warn me if my body takes a u-turn again. That was the part she didn’t want to say out loud. Being taken over by her animalistic side scared her, scared her to no end. She wasn’t Lucia anymore. She had become the puppet of a creature that shared her body but craved only for mating, thrashing everything in her way to satisfy that primal urge. It was a miracle she recognized the symptoms in time to be locked in, before she could harm anybody. So, weekly check it was. They didn’t need to care too much about lack of chemical reactants, since they acquired a full container of them under Kobase’s explicit request. There was a chance that the medicines neko used to keep heat under control worked for her too, but their biology was different enough that there was a severe risk of side effects. Kobase had been working on that issue for the past two weeks, performing several tests on her body and putting everything else on the backburner. Until the incident with Maurizio happened, that is. Falling from the docked ship after being hit by a container. Surviving unscathed, with no visible wounds. But then, when the doctor performed a full check…

“His body is strange. He no longer human.”

Kobase’s words hurt like daggers. No longer human. That came out of left field: Maurizio looked perfectly healthy, probably the healthiest of the crew. Never had even a common flu in the past two years, according to his mates. His only vocal complaint had been having recurring nightmares about red sand, black tentacles and flowers, almost every night. It was concerning, yes, but it didn’t seem to have any lasting effects on him until recently. Until…

A shiver down her spine. Lucia grabbed the Rebecca doll, moved her tiny arms, wrapped them around the mini version of herself in her other hand, made both of them dance on her legs, together. Those little toys looked so happy, with their big eyes and colorful clothes. The Blade doll was so cute too, with its big detailed pecs and plastic sunglasses. She brought all the three of them to her chest, curled on them a little, closed her eyes. Peace. She needed peace, at least for an instant. Think about nothing. Savor the moment. Like those dolls, those tiny dolls she was keeping close to her heart. That was the best birthday present she had ever received, and a completely unexpected one, even. The SMS from Becky had taken her by surprise, her heart had skipped a beat when she first read it. Happy birthday, Luci! I’ve left a little gift for you in Hong Kong - see coordinates. I hope you can forgive me. Love you, Becky. Lucia tried to call her back, but she wouldn’t pick up. It might have been a trap. It might have been yet another attempt from Yu to kill her. Yet, curiosity won, making her throw caution to the wind. She needed something to focus on, after the recent heat incident, and that (un?)welcome surprise came at the right time. So, she grabbed Blade without a second thought and headed to the place marked on the map, while still trying to reach for Becky (unsuccessfully) from time to time. For a lucky coincidence, the Mattanza was already docked on the island to refuel (and replenish Lucia’s wardrobe, after her claws and fangs destroyed most of it). That allowed them to take two birds with one stone.

The coordinates in Rebecca’s SMS marked a small food stall, where an old lady was frying fish balls and serving them to tourists and locals alike. As soon as the wolf girl and the shark entered her field of vision, she simply nodded at them and took out a box, the size of a pizza carton. Lucia shook it a little, smelled it to ascertain that it contained no gunpowder or harmful substance. The package looked intact, with no signs of tampering. Rebecca’s elegant signature decorated the envelope, enriched by a small, hand-drawn smiling ghost. Lucia had unwrapped the box with extreme care, in front of Blade’s worried gaze, using her claws to cut out the ribbons and unpack the content, hopefully without ruining it. When she finally opened it, she couldn’t contain her surprise.

Three rag dolls, handmade, cute versions of her, Becky and Blade, soft and squishy. A vinyl of Nanami’s newest album, the one with Shining Star Sapphire. And the letter. Three pages of handwritten notes, in black ink. It was Becky. That letter was Becky, her soul, her pain laid bare. Apologies, taking responsibility, never deflecting it on anyone else. She didn’t blame Yu. She didn’t blame Greschnik. She only blamed herself. Lucia burst into tears, while reading it. When she reached the last paragraph, she had used up two boxes of paper tissues and had to use her cape too to wipe her nose, under the less than amused gaze of Blade, who was still trying to come to terms with the sight of a weird doll that looked like him.

“Becky… for all this time… she thought about me. She’s so sweet, Blade… why can’t we just be happy together as… friends…?”

Because you are both ax-crazy genetically enhanced murderers that worked for a narcissistic weirdo, that’s why, the sharkman wanted to add, before deciding it was better to keep a low profile.

“Oh, look! Read here, Blade! Read here! It’s awesome! Awesome!”

Blade didn’t have an option to evade her request, so he forced himself to follow her clawed finger on the thin sheet of paper.

“P.S. Thanks to you, I’ve developed a strong appetite for meat and a urge to chase squirrels, you dolt! It’s so embarrassing when that happens and Lemur starts laughing like the idiot she is – which then causes me to laugh and her to laugh more, you know how our synchronicity work, right? But at least now I’m… free. I’ll never be able to thank you enough. I owe you… too much. Thank you, Luci. Thank you for… having been by my side, despite everything.”

The golden sharkman couldn’t grasp the meaning of those lines and why chasing squirrels was such a huge deal, but that had to be something important for Lucia, so important that she was beaming. Not just smiling, she was radiating happiness from all of her pores, jumping around like a hyper-excited rabbit. Whatever that meant, Blade felt the need to forget about it and go back to the ship, to focus on more important deals. Except, for some obscure reasons, those hand-sewn dolls and that vinyl seemed to be the one focus of Lucia’s mind, at least for the moment.

Less than three days later, that hadn’t changed. Lucia was still alternating between absolute bliss and bouts of depression, healed only by holding onto her dolls. Or, if he was too close to her cabin when that happened, to Blade himself, clinching to his back while laying on her cot, till her breath calmed down. Maurizio’s condition, if anything, caused her to switch mood even more often than usual. Seeing her curled like that, hugging her toys, with her ears down, felt unnatural. A puppy, not the wolf queen she was supposed to be. Yet, Blade found himself patting on her head, caressing her spiky hair, the fur patches of her minute body.

“Boss, listen… the crew needs you, more than ever. They’re scared by the situation, they don’t understand and if… if they got wind of Kobase’s report, they…”

“I know. I know. But, dammit, Blade… how… how am I supposed to react? How would you react, if you were the captain and someone told you…”

She bit her lips, curling even more, closing her eyes.

“… that one of your crewmate’s flesh has been almost totally replaced by unknown plant matter… and that it might be infectious?”

32 October 2067, -01:72

I see you.

I too.

Enjoyed the show?

I did, I did.

But why can’t I

simply

go on like this

without a care

without a hurry.

Why must all things

E N D ?

If only I had

we had

more time!

The Reign doesn’t wait

our twilight’s in sight.

Our vessel, all broken.

Awaits our demise.

Yet fret not, my child,

our Lady will come.

From one million blossoms

a new

N I G H T

is born.

3 November 2067, 20:22

“Here, here, quick!”

A sound of steps, spreading through the corridor, under the aseptic lights of cold neons. A scientists in a lab coat, white hair, white skin, leading two other people. A sign above their heads. Medical bay. The scientist slid his keycard in the socket, the hydraulic door hissed, retreated inside the wall. A row of empty beds welcomed them, bathed in low blue lights, a glass panel separating one unit from the rest of them. Two paramedics and a doctor standing around it, all wearing hazmat suits, working inside the box through mechanical arms. The whole room as a Faraday cage, no signals in or out, the only way to shield from unexpected ROP communications.

“His conditions are stable, improving too, but…”

“I got it. I… got it.”

The second person left the scientist’s side, letting her azure hair trail behind her. She was wearing a weird fit, a last moment kit bash of clothes she had lying around her house. She had already donned her best blue dress, a backless satin piece complemented by elbow length black gloves and black boots with heels. Of course, she had to change out of it, of course, and grab whatever she could find it in a hurry. Pants, sweatshirt, safety shoes, trench coat, followed by one hour in Dan’s crappy car to reach the ROPES biohazard military hospital. Because nothing could ever go as planned. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Of all the times Rishel could suffer a stroke, that evening? If a God existed, they had a contrived sense of humor. Unless it was no coincidence at all. Yeah, that was more like it. It had to be his fault – just another way to slight her, to ruin her life. Yet, Veckert had none of it. She would have brought him a hefty bill, soon. Very soon. She thrusted forward, reached for the paramedics, made them move to the sides, looked through the glass.

Rishel. Unconscious, breathing heavily. An oxygen mask stuck on his mouth and nose, his arms motionless, his legs too, under heavy anesthetics. His belly open, the tools peeking into it, slowly ripping something out of it. A flower. A flower similar to rafflesia. Veckert gasped for air, her palms pressed against the cage.

“… what…?”

The mechanical arms were pulling it out, until it could be cut out completely. But the flower pulled back. It moved left and right, tilted, twisted, twitched, desperately trying to evade the grip of the claws. Veckert watched it squirm, heard its lament, incapable of looking away. That thing. That awful thing was the reason why his dinner with Rika finished before even starting. She kept her anger in check, at least tried to. At that time, she had surely reached Jackson’s and was waiting for her. Veckert left a message to her, promising that she would come later, no matter what. No way she wasted that chance because of a horrible excuse of a nightmare plant.

“Dan, status report.”

“The removal operation was scheduled for tomorrow, but de’Malevich’s conditions worsened in the span of two hours. I still can’t make heads or tails of it, Veck. He was reacting to the cure well, we managed to stop the advancement of the plant tissue and to freeze its growth. The flower, though, didn’t seem to be affected. It kept growing inside his stomach, while thinning and getting weaker. I think… I think that, by stopping his cells from turning, we might have caused the flower to starve. This might be it, its last fit, trying to bloom despite his host not being suitable for it. Why now, though…”

“I know why now. Baal is mocking us.”

“Hey, come on, Veck. You can’t see Baal everywhere, can you?”

The voice of the third person, coming from behind them. The usual leather jacket, the one-shaped studs, the thin yet muscular tall build. Detective Lorenz Kristhhoffer, Veckert’s only equal at Yard. Better known as EiN. His voice thundered in the room, roared with gusto.

“I mean, I thought you learned your lesson during the ENiGMA case. The gal who cries Baal…”

“Fuck you, EiN. This time I’m positive it’s intentional.”

Veckert gritted her teeth, almost punched the glass wall.

“Remember my report? Saìl Takara claimed that something was going to happen in November. And Saìl was nothing but a puppet for Baal, when he died. An empty shell, guided by what we believe to be a strand of the Walking Night ROP. So, if Saìl said November, it cannot be a coincidence. This is a message.”

“What kind of message?”

The manipulators grabbed the flower, the scalpels chipped away at its body, carving it. The stem kept twitching, twisting turning, the petals opening and closing, a high-pitched wail echoing inside the medical bay. Veckert felt her blood freezing, her forehead sweating. Words stopped in her throat, trying to get out, to vocalize the sounds.

“Whatever your preparations… you won’t stop my plan.”

She let out a deep growl, as the scalpel slashed the stem in half, as the the crown of petals was ripped off, as the remains of its body twitched restlessly, from the roots up. The rafflesia head was thrown in a plastic bag with a biohazard sign for later analysis, sealed, deposited in a metal case at the side of the chamber. Then, the manipulator turned into a syringe, pierced the base of the flower, injected the content inside it. The stem hardened, slowed down, the twitching subsided. Then, it broke down, fragments falling like dust, in a rain of powder and confetti-like slices.

That’s when the blood sprinkled, from the open wound, blood hemorrhaging from Rishel’s open stomach, from the vacuum left by the burned plant matter, the cells that were replaced. Veckert closed her eyes, brought her hands to her belly. She retched two, three times, felt her nausea piling up. That was disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.

Breathe, Veckert, breathe. It’s all under control. All under control. We tested it, we rehearsed it. We’re ready.

Her intestines weren’t of the same opinion. She tried to stop them from rebelling, but that had no effect except accelerating their outburst. She brought her gloved hand to her mouth, trying to lessen the impact, praying not to make a mess. Only for a paper bag to slip right between it and her lips, guided by another leather-clad hand.

“Take it easy, Veck.”

She nodded to EiN, while finally letting all out, filling the bag in seconds. That sight. That much blood made her feel sick inside, she couldn’t control it, she couldn’t even resist. She threw up a second time, leaving no room for a third bout. A deep breath. Another. Another. The feeling subsided, if only for an instant. Only to return, with a vengeance. A second paper bag, placed on the fly, absorbed that too. Veckert kneeled, held the bag with both hands, let the flow. That bastard. That bastard knew it, knew her weaknesses.

“Don’t look, Veck. Don’t look.”

“B…. But Dan, I…”

“Hush. Trust me. I can look for both of us.”

Dan closed the distance to the doctor, peeked through the protective glass. Rishel still unconscious, breathing regularly, the blood fountain quenched. No signs of flowers, no signs of vines. Dan smirked, let a muted “yes” escape his mouth. All according to the simulations, between the tolerance levels. An unadulterated success.

“Is… is he…”

“The nanomesh replaced the burned plant matter in a matter of seconds, stopping the hemorrhage. His flower is gone, Veck. He lives.”

The paramedics gave each other the high five, while the doctor’s shoulder slumped down a little. Veckert grabbed EiN’s shirt, used it to get up, slowly, fighting her urge to glance at the man behind the window – which would have probably caused her to throw up again. Yet, she couldn’t give up like that. She had to get back on her feet. The moment she managed to, her eyes picked up something. Something that made her feel uneasy.

The metal box on the other side the glass cage.

The metal box with the severed corolla.

Was shaking.

Before Veckert could say anything, it happened.

The box.

Opened from the inside.

Vines sprouting from it, slashing around.

Piercing Rishel right in his chest.

“NO!”

Instruments beeping, red markers lighting up, a cacophony of sounds, as the plant kept moving, kept whipping the air. The vines slithered on the floor, reached for the bed, climbed it, grabbed Rishel’s limbs. And pierced, pierced them again and again.

Dan emerged from his stupor, shouted, emptied his lungs.

“Containment protocol C-125! Activation!”

The lights turned yellow, indicators coming to life. In the blink of an eye, the metal box froze, its temperature falling abruptly, a mass of refrigerant freed, poured through the nozzles. The vines cracked, twisted, writhed in what looked like pain.

Before falling inert, flaccid, breaking down from the stem, stopping their onslaught.

Silence, for a long instant.

Till, a robotic voice broke it.

“> Containment protocol enacted. Sample destroyed.”

The indicators went green again.

All except one. Veckert gasped, pointed her finger at the glass cage.

“Rishel! He’s losing blood!”

The wounds. His wounds were bleeding. Heartbeat going up, breathing irregular. The doctor cursed, took hold of the manipulators again, the paramedic prepared the tools, accessed the advanced controls. Dan sat at the PC, ran a diagnostic program, as the bedsheets were quickly being soaked with hematic fluids. Rishel’s body jolted, his arms, his legs shaking. Dan pushed a button on the keyboard, selected an option on the touch display.

“I’ve prepared an injection of nanos. Dr. Zerd, priority to the right leg! That one hit an artery!”

The doctor nodded, moved his mechanical manipulators to the wounded area.

“Roger!”

The shape changed once more into that of a syringe, before delving under the patient’s skin. The red fountain sprinkled, but not for long. It went weaker. And weaker. And weaker.

“Good! Now the chest! After that, we’ve got room to breath!”

Another movement, another injection.

And another.

And another.

Five more times.

Till all wounds were sealed.

Veckert stood up, grabbing EiN’s jacket to keep herself from fainting. So much blood. So much blood again. That couldn’t go on. She closed her fingers around the rim of the leather garment, gritted her teeth, almost scared of asking the question.

“S… status report, Dan? Dr. Zerd?”

A sound of typing, rows of numbers and letters coming alive on the screen. Dan glanced at Dr. Zerd, who glanced back, shook his head, before letting himself fall to the floor. Dan clicked a button, went through two additional screens chock full of symbols Veckert couldn’t even begin to understand. Then, he spoke.

“He’s… he’s still among us, Veck. Barely.”

Veckert tilted her head backwards, let her hair fall on her eyes, closed them, trying to keep herself from breaking down.

“B… barely?”

Dr. Zerd nodded, still sitting on the linoleum. He slapped his gas mask, crossed his arms in front of his hazmat suit, his voice distorted by the reverb, by the humming noise of the rebreather.

“We saved him, but he lost too much blood. He’s currently in a state of shock. We’ll administer him a saline solution to stabilize him as soon as possible.”

Hearing that, the paramedics reached for the manipulators, preparing the configuration for an IV. The doctor raised from his comfort position, going back to his controllers. He had to be the one finishing up the procedure. It was protocol. At that sight, Veckert couldn’t help but ask.

“Will… will he survive?”

Dr. Zerd let out a sigh, muffled by his protective equipment. He knew that stare. That hopeful stare. That woman, detective Rainer, desperately needed good news. She looked like on the point of passing out. His ethics categorically prohibited him to lie about the chances of survival of his patients, but an exception was in the order – especially if it was just a little bit more optimistic than the real deal.

“I’d give him an eighty percent chance. We were quick enough, he’s still breathing, his heart is still beating. He was under anesthetics the whole time, so he didn’t even realize what was happening. He was lucky, somehow. Now, though, we have another issue.”

He nodded in the direction of the frozen metal box, with the flower remnants still dangling from it.

“Before we patch him for good, we need to run a new full body scan on everybody in the room, to verify that the ROP didn’t infect anyone. I’m pretty confident it didn’t, but…”

A full body scan. Veckert’s stomach churned in anticipation. She had a vague idea of what that entailed.

“H… how much time will it need?

“At least two hours with our multiscanner. We need a much better granularity than usual to reveal a ROP contamination in its infancy.”

Two hours.

Two frickin’ hours, without being able to leave the room.

As protocol said.

Veckert massaged her forehead, chuckling nervously, trying not to burst into tears, while finding comfort in EiN’s warm embrace.

Ruined.

Her evening was completely, utterly ruined.

And, worst of all, she didn’t have any way to contact Rika to tell her that she wasn’t coming anytime soon.

She curled among EiN’s arms, desperately feeling like slamming her fists against the nearest wall, yelling like a wounded gorilla.

Maybe Vincent was right. Maybe she didn’t deserve happiness. Maybe she was too entitled.

But that…

That was too much to bear.

Simply too much.

3 November 2067, 11:18

Zojimbo couldn’t believe his eyes, even if the documents laid before him were telling exactly what he wanted to be true. That is, the opposite of what Major Boost said. Chubby and VHassanS had made good of their promises, finding the reports from two other rekashizas in record time – the Sam Son ‘shiza, in Vietnam and the one in Zaragoza, to be precise. He glanced at the printed sheets of paper once again, in the dim light of his office at the Ring. Noise levels almost as low as pre-Helsinki background, Shannon index under the floor. That meant, if anything, that the plants were actively stabilizing the field, instead of poking a hole in it. Zojimbo took a sip of his energy drink (poured into his half-spherical mug). In decades of working with distortion fields in Aubépine first and in Shard later, that was the first time ever that she met a ROP that not only didn’t distort reality (thus running short of its name) but patched it instead. Yet, three exceptions didn’t make compelling evidence. The Russian report might have been imprecise, something Chubby said several times. The Vietnamese report and the Spanish report might have been tampered with or even made up on the spot too. Not that he distrusted his internet mates (with the exception of that weirdo OhReally?, who seemed more interested in experiencing shoiga biology first-hand than helping with the plant problem), but everyone, in that day and age, could produce a fake paper that looked exactly like the official ones. In the worst possible scenario, VHassanS and Chubby might have even been in cahoots to con him, serving him documents that fed his confirmation bias.

So, even if the implications of those statements were indeed interesting, that didn’t replace the need for a direct measurement. If and only if the Shard ‘shiza exhibited the same readings, then he could reasonably conclude that A) ChubbyCatLover and VHassanS could be trusted B) their reports were not doctored C) there was more to the plants than originally implied. He downed the rest of his energy drink in one fell swoop, chugging it down pronto. His fingers moved to his keyboard, started typing, calling a map of the building. According to his agenda, Major Boost should have attended a strategy meeting in Block F for the next two hours. That was enough to setup a detector and retrieve preliminary data before he even began to question its purpose. Jarheads like him were simple minds, prone to dick-measuring contests and endless bickering on trivial matters. Those two hours could easily last twice as much, if he was lucky. Yeah, more than enough for his “ask for forgiveness, not for permission” approach. He locked his PC, grabbed a backpack (with several spherical keychains hanging from it), walked out of his office, towards Block K. A couple soldiers saluted him, as soon as he stepped out of the door. He answered with a cordial hand waving, causing them to shake their heads with disapproval.

Simple minds. Incapable of structured thinking. You greet them with anything except a military hand gesture and they immediately fall outside of their comfort zone. Couldn’t be him.

Block K had been carved into the IT floor of a former financial institute, a maze of staircases and doors leading nowhere and everywhere. He should have learned its planimetry by necessity, after the fourth time he lost himself around the way, but instead he found a more practical solution. At the first crossroad, his eyes scanned the wall, examined its surface, until they found it. A small, circular sticker with the face of Puffi the Happy-Go-Lucky Drug Addicted Rabbit. Offloading the burden of remembering the way on a set of colored stickers (red = warehouse, blue = armored battlements, green = canteen) allowed him to move around the facility without having to stretch his memory. Searching for them at every corner required always some time, but definitely less than going for trial and error. So, warehouse it was, as the small colorful markers led his way through. Other soldiers, along the way, talking with each other or idling around, waiting for orders. He saluted them with a nod of his hand too, causing the same puzzled expression. Ignorant apes for which mindless discipline was more important than results, that’s what they were. When, after five more minutes of up and downs, he finally found the correct door (marked with three blue stickers) he drew a sigh of relief. Nobody around. He was alone.

He entered the room, reached for the distortion sensors – the same ones he had catalogued and prepared while the Ring was being built. He didn’t expect to need them again, especially not the long range ones, but exceptions was what made the world go round. He looked around, read the labels for a while, then grabbed three pocket devices, the most sensitive he could find on the shelves. A glance at the battery levels of each of them. All above seventy percent. Satisfied by the outcome, he hid them in his backpack, before sneaking out of the warehouse again, with the grace of an elephant on roller blades. Building D was his next stop, the one connected with a tunnel that led directly to the Eversion, the distortion field around the plant itself. Inside that eldritch dimension, the Shannon index was wildly out of scale, causing massive alterations of the laws of physics. They had experienced it first hand, when the RCT-1 team crossed the threshold for the first time and faced an altered gravity well. But outside? They never measured the distortion level on their side of the ‘shiza. Or, rather, they checked it with the big detectors, the ones that are used to determine if a ROP is happening. An precise estimation of the background noise wasn’t deemed a priority. Which might have been a mistake, all things considered.

He glanced at his watch. Still one hour, before Major Boost’s meeting ended. Plenty of time for his measurement. As he walked down the stairs to the D tunnel, he planned for a course of action. There was no need to reach the rekashiza or the Eversion itself, not if a measurement inside the Ring had the same effect. He considered carrying it out in his office at first, but the residual noise of some of his devices would have altered the results significantly.

Better play safe.

After five more interminable minutes, Zojimbo reached the entrance of the tunnel. Of course, closed. Of course, with four members of RCT-5 patrolling the area. He shrugged. That wasn’t an issue. He was authorized to be there and didn’t need to access the gate. Just to setup his devices, no matter if those brain-dead gun-toting idiots asked themselves questions. He saluted them with his usual courtesy, of course causing their distress once more by not adhering to protocol. Then, he began assembling the sensors, mounting the tripods and spreading them out with considerable effort. He ran out of breath twice, during the operation. Of all the stereotypical scientists working at the Ring, he might have been the most stereotypical. Compared to the six pack and trunk-sized arms of Dr. Malcolm or to the athletic body of Dr. Glimmer, Zojimbo’s constitution was good only for playing marbles, let alone move weights.

“Can I help you, doctor?”

Zojimbo jolted, turned around. One of the soldiers, in full tactical gear. Asking him. Whether he needed help or not. That… that felt unusual. Did those human rejects get a system update that taught them empathy? He gazed at the stranger, until he found the name tag. Nikolaevich. Good. He could remember that for the next ten minutes.

“Yes. By staying silent and letting me do my job, soldier.”

With a (for him) titanic effort, Zojimbo put the last sensor in place, before resetting it to zero. The other soldiers were watching from afar, whispering something among themselves. He didn’t care, he let them talk. He wasn’t there for that. Yet, to his surprise, Nikolaevich spoke again.

“What are you measuring, sir?”

The scientist rolled his eyes. Simple creatures, those military dudes. Telling them stuff in a straightforward way was probably a better solution. Being reticent would have just enticed more entitled questions.

“Background noise levels.”

“Ah, so this is what the detectors are for? Shannon index?”

“Precisely.”

A light tap on the display, the buttons pushed one after the other, in a precise sequence. The analog needle moved up, then down, while the digital gauge converted the output to a human readable number.

“It’s scary inside there, doctor.”

Nikolaevich. Still speaking. Still bothering him.

“I’ve been there twice. I was a member of RTC-3, you know? Almost lost my life. A pal of mine told me he saw my head torn from my body, in the Eversion, but I’m still here. Crazy, huh?”

“Yes, yes, crazy.”

Soldiers. Predictable creatures of habit. They didn’t speak, but when they did, every word was one word too much. What was important was the number on the gauge. Not the empty words of a walking subroutine.

“I’m dreaming it at night. The red desert. The creatures. The flowers. It’s horrible. Every night, doc. Every night. Are you a shrink, doc?”

“No, I’m not. Ask Major Boost, I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear this.”

He didn’t even know what he answered. His eyes were enraptured by the moving needle, moving up and up and up, oscillating at the end of the scale. Ten times the expected value, if not more. He reset the instrument, ran the measurement again, under the curious gaze of the soldier. Ten seconds of wait, for the needle to go down. Only to grow up and up and up again, till it reached the limit one more time. Zojimbo growled, kicked the tripod. A sharp sensation of pain spread from his toe up, making him regret his decision. So, he cursed. He cursed as his only way to expel his repressed rage.

“Pre-Helsinki background my cubical ass!”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing you can understand, monkey! Nothing! NOTHING!”

VHassanS and Chubby lied to him. Lied to him. It was all doctored. Even the Russians lied. Everyone lied. His instruments were the truth, and truth was that the damn plant caused distortions, as it was right and expected, not the opposite. But he would have complained. Oh, if he would have complained. He would never fall for such an obvious scheme ever again, as true as his name was Zvonimir. Then, he heard them. Chuckles. He heard chuckles. His primal yells had triggered something in the guards. Hilarity. He listed, slowly, the figures of pi. Three point one four one five nine two six…

That calmed him, at least for a moment. Calmed him and made him reconsider. Maybe, the detector was defective. This is why he took three of them with him, after all. This is why he installed all three. That thought gave him the strength needed to move to the second one, far from Nikolaevich, far from his the other gunboys.

He touched the second sensor, started it using the exact same procedure. Same model, same dial, same year of production. But something was different.

The needle.

The needle was moving near the bottom of the scale.

Oscillating among the two lowest values.

“What.”

He had never seen such a low Shannon index for the past twenty years, not during his work at Aubépine, not later. That was unnaturally low. He stared at it, his brain wrestling with the concept, with the possibilities. Maybe, VHassanS and ChubbyCatLover weren’t pranking him. Maybe, those reports were genuine. But… if so…

He shelved his explanations for later, he had more pressing matters to solve. One of the two sensors had to be wrong. The one close to Nikolaevich, though, showed what he expected. The one close to him, the exact opposite. That’s when he beamed, when he felt proud in himself. His scientific mind already accounted for it, for a possible malfunction. The answer was the third sensor. The truth. The chance that two sensors were broken in the exact same way were infinitesimal. Reading the third sensor was the moment to end all moments – provided it confirmed one of the other readouts. Zojimbo ran to it, ignoring the armed monkeys, pushed the reset button, waited for ten seconds, counting them mentally.

The needle moved up.

Only to collapse, immediately after.

Fall down, to the bottom of the scale.

Never to get up again.

He blinked. Twice. The same result as the second sensor, down to the third significant figure.

Pre-Helsinki background, indeed. Pre-distortion plants too, even.

He adjusted his glasses, mentally listed the figures of pi to try and calm himself down. That was a discovery. That changed everything. That was a spherical success. He raised his arms to the sky, laughed maniacally.

“The noise! It’s zero! It’s zero, see? Zero! The plant! The plant… ah! Ah! Ah! It was so clear! So clear! The plant, see? See? ChubbyCatLover was right! She was right!”

The soldiers glanced at each other with a puzzled stare, under the visor. Nikolaevich himself decided that it was better to get back to his post, rather than dealing with such a bizarre individual. A bizarre individual that was tap dancing out of rhythm on the concrete, singing the first hundred figures of pi on the tune of Putting on the Ritz. He turned on himself in an impromptu pirouette, before stopping in the middle of the sensor triangle, adjusting his glasses once more. To be certain, maybe, he should have tried to move the third sensor, the one with a different readout, around. Maybe, he unwittingly placed it in a pocket of distortion. Maybe, something else altered the result. Science proceeded by falsifying results after all, so he went back to the first dial.

“Wait, what the f…”

A shiver down his spine, drops of cold sweat.

The dial.

The dial was down too. Around the level of the other two sensors. That wasn’t possible. There was no transient. What caused it? What caused that variance in distortion readings? He quickly reset the measurement one more time. The needle went to zero, then up, almost full scale, only to fall down, down to background level. And remain there.

Marking the exact same value as the other two.

4 November 2067, 00:03

Jackson gazed at the wall clock, its wrought iron minute hand lazily turning around one more time. Two hours to closing time, still enough to get a couple drunken customers and maybe the usual weirdo screaming about the coming end of the world. Shaz, of course, was already snoring like a mountain bear, slumped on the counter, his big mouth half open. A little river of drool was pouring out of it, making way through his layers of teeth, before unceremoniously ending their short run on the wooden panels. It was rather quiet, at that time of the night. Most customers were already gone and one additional waiter was what he needed to keep things running. That was Lejl’s favorite moment of the day, if she was to be trusted. She loved talking with the patrons still haunting the venue, they always had interesting stories to share. But he? He was ready to go back home, say goodnight to his wife (because Kia could hear him cross that threshold, no matter how silent he was) and delve into his bed. That night wasn’t that different from usual, except for one thing.

She was there.

Sitting at the counter, a young woman was having the third cocktail of the evening. Auburn hair framed her delicate traits, her hazel irises complementing it. A subtle veil of makeup, red lipstick making her remarkable features pop up even more. And that dress. Jenn would have killed, for a dress like that. A satin, backless dress, golden with blue lace, long until her calves but with a slit on the right side, opening almost at her thigh. Golden open sandals wrapped her ankles, leaving her polished red nails on show, with the same varnish her fingers were showing.

That was the girl Rainer lost her head for.

That was Rika Hyuhi, in all her splendor.

Jackson started cleaning a glass with nonchalance, glancing at her from time to time. Not a word of complain. Not a sigh. Not a grunt. Since around seven thirty, Rika had simply ordered a meal and some drinks, without ever asking him about Veckert or yelling about her absence. That was something he couldn’t understand. As the clock had recently struck midnight and no detective was in sight, he felt like he had to say something – if anything, to gauge the situation. Other people’s business wasn’t his business BUT curiosity was killing him. It was late. He was tired. He needed to do something to keep awake. So, talking with her again it was.

“I’m sorry, but it looks like she ain’t coming. Maybe you should get home.”

Rika glanced at him, at that man without a face that looked like someone right out of a urban legend. He wasn’t a bad person, probably, but his lime green hat clashed with every other color on the premise. That was what shocked her the most – not his peculiar condition, but his sense of fashion (or lack thereof).

“She’ll come.”

“How are you so sure? She’s already made you wait…”

He did the math, after having a look at the clock again.

“… three hours and half. Without as much as a message.”

“Huh-uh.”

She fidgeted with her cocktail glass, sipped a bit more of its content. She tasted the fruity texture, let it slide on her tongue, savoring it slowly.

“She’ll come, Mr. Jackson. Veckert will come. She’s never broken a promise.”

“And yet ghosted you for three years.”

“Because I let her do that.”

Jackson kept cleaning the beer mugs. No other patrons at the moment, just that Rika Hyuhi that made detective Rainer fall into depression just by virtue of existing. And now, that same detective Rainer was AWOL, apparently due to some ROPES-related accident going wild. Talk about misfortunes. He glanced at the small dish he had kept aside for her. A serving of focaccia and a hot chocolate, to warm as soon as she arrived. If she managed to arrive, that is. ROPES were annoying as heck to deal with, according to that azure-haired disaster and her German idiot friend. They had to be taken care of in a timely fashion, if one didn’t want rekashiza-sized issues to pop up at the wrong moment. Maybe, it had something to do with that additive he was asked to add to all drinks, the one Tiger tasted every time in his alcohol-free beer. Evidently, the ROPES team wasn’t having the budget for testing their “absolute taste-less sanitizer” on the crowd that could actually feel a difference. He turned back to Rika, stared at her, at those magnetic, brown eyes. No wonder Rainer lost herself in them. That woman was drop-dead gorgeous, even by his standards – let alone those of a desperate lesbian starved for quality body warmth. It was a miracle Rainer didn’t just jump on her when said woman first crossed the threshold of her house. He had to recognize it, that hound with the voice of a recidivist chainsmoker could still control herself, up to a fashion. That last remark made Jackson even more curious, though. He couldn’t stop himself from asking further.

“You let her get some distance?”

“Well… yes.”

Her fingertip danced on the border of the glass, tracing circles around it.

“I told her plainly that I wasn’t into girls, so that she could move on and stop torturing herself over me. And… huh, she did move on. Pretty… soon too. A little after we got to know each other, she started living together with Geri. Her first stable story…”

“… since she lost her face, huh? She told me something like that too. Rainer is surprisingly talkative, after gulping down a couple drinks. I’ve never met this Geri, though. Have you?”

“Yup. Exactly once, at EiN’s wedding. She was a receptionist at SPECTRA, before the company went under. She had a very good track record, a spotless life, and was very, very sapphic. And blond, with blue eyes. You know, the Standard Veckert Magnet, ticking all her boxes and then some. A bit like her former lover, Laese – except, without being a psycho exhibitionist knife nut.”

Jackson would have smirked, but his face refused to display it. So, he did it anyway, knowing full well he couldn’t be seen doing that. He felt something in those words. He couldn’t put his finger on what, but it was something. It was worth sticking his nose in that story a little bit deeper, just to keep himself from falling asleep like the absolute mess of a sharkman who happened to be his best friend.

“Besides, I was a stripper, Mr. Jackson. I’ve never seen your face around, but that of your friend there? Several times, at the Happy Cock – pardon, Le Coq Heureux.”

Jackson side-eyed the snoring sharkman, his eyes narrowed like slits.

“He… hasn’t recognized you, when you got in.”

“Not surprised. He was always dead drunk, when my show started. Mr. Daevka complained often about an idiot drunken shark that made a mess of the floor. The other girls and I considered him as a piece of furniture. A constant.”

Jackson pushed his fedora on his head, letting out a low growl. Yes, that checked out. Good, old, pre-rehab, liver-destroying Shaz. Always drinking himself to unconsciousness in that temple of perdition. His complete turnaround felt like a miracle, in hindsight. A miracle he was glad to have witnessed.

“I worked there for quite a long time, before retiring Throwing panties around and showing your pussy to a bunch of horny fools is funny when you are in your twenties, but it starts feeling weird, when your first gray hair peeks out. So, yeah. Dkrav’lest wasn’t that happy, but he had to accept it.”

Accept it. Sure, Jackson thought, by throwing a fit and complaining that today’s youngsters don’t know how to work hard and make money (for him). Incidentally, a random thought crossed his mind. If Rika Hyuhi worked at Le Coq, she might have been yet another of the unlucky witnesses that saw Cyphr and Lejl celebrating their first reunion by frenching each other topless on the dance floor. A part of him wanted to ask her if that was the case, the curious part of him that wasn’t happy enough with just Shaz’s mangled recounting of the event and subsequent cleaning duty. Yet, another part of him, the even more curious one, felt like investigating one peculiar rumor he had heard about before from Cyphr, a rumor she uttered between a drink and the next. A rumor that sounded as spicy as his favorite brand of chili and as fake as a three pounds bill.

“I think I might have met one of the waiters at Le Coq. Her name was Amy, or Aylin, not sure. Do you happen to know her…?”

Rika tapped her finger on the cheek, as if trying to connect the dots.

“Amy… Amy... Wait, wait, wait! She’s half Chinese, right?”

Jackson had the chance to stop his questioning at that exact moment. It was simple. He just needed to let the topic drop. Yet, somehow, felt fascinated by that retort, enticed by the perspective of learning something new.

“Half Swedish, half Chinese, yes.”

“I can’t believe it! You know “Bloodless Mary” Yang? Really? She worked with me for a while, but left the Cock right after the Black Lightning! Last time I saw her, was… what, two-three years ago? She came to the club to ask for help with something. I hope she’s fine, she was such a treat to work with!”

She crossed her arms, now drawing circles with her finger on the wooden counter.

“One of the best and most sensual strippers I’ve ever had the pleasure to dance with! And her eyes of two different colors…gah, I’m lucky she wasn’t on duty when Vicky came to the club for the first time, otherwise… damn, with her shapes, blond hair and Certified Veckert Magnet features, she would have stolen Veck’s attention immediately! Or maybe not, since Mary always wore a Venetian mask – she was known as the Velvet Butterfly, you know? Yeah, that might have stopped it, Vicky ain’t really fond of masks, but her shameless, side-less day-to-day outfit…”

There were times when curiosity killed the cat.

That was one of those times.

Jackson grumbled something to himself, before pushing his own hat even deeper, mentally chastising himself for even entertaining the question. Like Adam and Eve after biting the fruit of forbidden knowledge in the myth, he couldn’t unhear what he had just heard, nor could he delete it from his brain. Now, three things were clear, though – for better or worse. One: that rumor was neither a rumor nor a spiteful invention of a certain snake-tongued armless gal. Two: Sambiong was one lucky bastard. Three: that explained a lot about Lejl, provided her origin story #22 (being a defective clone of Amy commissioned by Mr. Daevka) was indeed true. If that was the case, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree at all, if in any way. With that frankly unwanted bit of clarity now marked with fire on his brain cells, Jackson massaged his forehead.

Rainer had to arrive soon, for the sake of his sanity.

He couldn’t survive another revelation of that caliber.

4 November 2067, 17:22

The roar of the engine made her feel alive. More alive than ever. It was that noise, the precious noise of pistons compressing fuel, the explosion of power that burned out of it, the smell of combust gasoline, the chilling sensation of speed. Liu loved speed. Loved running her motorbike to the very limit. As if she was piloting a spaceship. As she did for years, before that damn scarecrow caused that ruckus. ENiGMA was downed, all pilots in rehab, never to fly again. All because of that woman, that blue haired bitch who meddled with forces too hard to comprehend. They were drugged to fly, and so what? They could do it, without a risk, before she played her wanna know the truth card. The truth was unneeded. Only speed. Mach speed. Faster than sound, faster than light. That wasn’t possible, Liu knew it, but it was a nice thought. Going so fast that time itself stopped, so fast that the world, the universe felt still, motionless. She revved up the engine, letting it growl, yell like a primal beast. One hundred twenty horse-power unleashed, the wheels eating the asphalt, feasting on it, chewing at it with violent passion. Liu overcame two cars, overcame the speed limit too. No cameras or radars, the tracker on her motorbike ripped off, only the street mattered.

That azure-haired bitch made her life a hell. Five months of rehab, her starship pilot license stripped. Kazimir and Deinos had been far too accommodating. They really went “sure, shit happened, let’s build a new life”, like the losers they were. Liu, instead, had marched forward, never gave up on that feeling of velocity, of risk, the thrill of putting one’s life on the line. A line she had crossed once already, with her presumed death. Presumed, because some morons swore they saw her falling from a cliff with her custom Ayato Zero, the same bike she was riding right there, right then. That was stupid, utter senseless. And yet, that was also where her nightmare began. The Dream. The red desert. The tentacles. The black sky. Of course, there was a simple explanation. Of course, she just needed to go and see a psychiatrist. But what if that voided her driving license too? What if she was considered unfit for driving. No, that was not a risk she could take. She lost her wings, she didn’t want to lose her wheels too. So, whatever. She endured it, night by night. Walking that dead world, hungry, thirsty, alone. A ghost among ghosts. Then, she found them. The flowers. Horrible to see, truly, but delicious. Alluring. Those sated her hunger, quenched her thirst, while in the Dream. That helped her survive, helped her thrive. No way she would seek professional help. Not after that clown of Saìl Takara tried to convince her that they were chosen ones of sorts. Not that it helped him, since he died soon after. Surely the best advice for his cult – its leader kicking the bucket after trying to kidnap his estranged children. A reliable person, one everyone would surely follow. Yes, definitely.

She overcame two more cars, three, danced around them, as their horns tooted, as the swear words flew. She didn’t give them any attention. Rules were for idiots. She had been that idiot too, once. Followed the rules to a T, and got lost anyway. So, she stopped caring and started revving. The Dream was her punishment, maybe, but even that felt like nothing, compared with her everyday chores as former ENiGMA pilot. Unhirable, after her drug addiction issues, except for low wage gigs, such as pizza delivery gal. Liu Akemi, once ace of the ENiGMA fleet, was now a societal reject because of corrupt exes. Deinos had managed to live on, because Deinos had such a can-do attitude he could always rise up again. Sucked to be him, a loser now running a small model kit store and designing robots for board games and figures. Deinos Dravia, the best pilot she ever flew with. Now, proud toy seller. Such a shame.

The clock on her HUD marked 17:27. She still had some time, before her shift at Gusto’s began. Riding her bike on country roads helped her clear her mind, especially in the last few days. She glanced left, right, quickly. Nobody in sight, nothing except the road, her bike and she. Yet, she had that weird feeling, the feeling of being watched. The feeling of having something stuck in a corner of her vision, whatever she was doing, wherever she was looking at. It wasn’t anything physical, more like a presence that lurked there, a presence she couldn’t reach, an invisible ghost that haunted every second of her waking time. A ghost that whispered to her.

Go among people.

Find people.

Find the most people.

Be among them.

Words unsaid, just felt. It had become worse, in the past few days. Her brain ached, her body trembled, more and more, the more she ignored the voice. On the contrary, following it made her feel at peace, spikes of pleasure, arousal even. That was unnatural, that felt wrong. Thus, she ran. She took her bike and run, every time the whispers came back. Whatever the pain, whatever the discomfort, it was better to be herself than to do whatever a disembodied hallucination forced her to. Yet, the discomfort remained. She could almost see a clock, in her mind, a clock ticking down, without clear figures or hands. Just an intuition. She didn’t know what it meant, since it was just a figment of her imagination. Or was it?

A sharp pain in her chest.

Liu gasped for air, her hand pulling the brakes, the wheels sliding, scratching on the asphalt, her bike almost unsaddling her. She stopped it, at the side of the road, stopped it before it could crash.

The pain.

Her chest.

Her belly.

Her lungs.

Everything.

Was pain.

Pain.

Pain

P A I N

She fell from her bike, her shoulder hitting the ground, her helmet bouncing on a rock.

Air. She couldn’t breathe.

Her throat dry.

Her muscles.

They weren’t responding.

Her body collapsed, like a rag doll, her limbs going limp.

Then, it happened.

The clock.

The clock reached zero.

As her eyes went wide open

Her stomach too did.

Then, all was red.

Only

RED

3 November 2067, 21:24

*The room =Leaked Russian Rekashiza Report= has been reopened by SphericalCow*

*SphericalCow has changed the title to =Leaked Russian Rekashiza Report [UPDATE 03.11]=*

>SphericalCow: @ChubbyCatLover @VHassanS you have my spherical thanks. I have been able to confirm the figures on your reports on the rekashiza in Shard.

*ChubbyCatLover has entered the room*

*VHassanS has entered the room*

>SphericalCow: Guess what? Pre-Helsinki levels of background noise. I’ve measured it with two Herland Systems XG277 and one Shindashi Akai 32N at the same time. Link to the sensor specs: [LINK][LINK]. The readouts were compatible down to the third significant figure. One of the two XG277 exhibited anomalous behavior at first, but it turned out to be just a fluke.

>VHassanS: That sounds too good to be true, Spherical.

>VHassanS: In fairness, I want to believe it, but can you post some proof of it? Something official would be better.

*OhReally? has entered the room*

>ChubbyCatLover: Hassan, don’t be a dick. Spherical accepted *your* evidence without questioning it, why can’t you do the same?

>VHassanS: Seriously, Chubby, you all should stop trusting people on the internet. I’m sure Spherical carried out his measurements (if he really did it) because he wanted to confirm our claims, before blindly believing them. Which is the sanest course of action.

>SphericalCow: I’ve taken pictures of the displays: [LINK][LINK][LINK]

>VHassanS: Nothing against you specifically, but everyone can fake pictures.

>ChubbyCatLover: Very true. There’s a discussion now in the forensics server on this exact topic. Pretty intense too, both camps are analyzing every pixel of an allegedly doctored photo and we are at the personal insults now. Four banned, six timed out, both pro and contra manipulation. I’ve never seen anything like that, before. Those no-lives are on fire.

>VHassanS: You got me curious, Chubby. Which photo?

>ChubbyCatLover: Warning: this is VERY NSFW. Don’t open it in front of kids, significant others, grandmas with a heart condition or your boss. It’s (allegedly) a picture snapped by a security camera in Oak Park and contains a shoiga tonguefucking Paddy the Phagefucker in broad daylight: [LINK]

>OhReally?: WHAT?!

>OhReally?: That photo again?!

>OhReally?: That’s obviously a fake! You can’t be serious!

>OhReally?: First off, Paddy’s boyfriend is a RED-SCALED shoiga, not a BLUE-SCALED one!

>OhReally?: Secondly, the scale pattern on the shoiga’s back is consistent with a FEMALE individual, not with a MALE one!

>ChubbyCatLover: For what we know, she could be chearing on her lizard BF with a lizard GF. Maybe she likes it both ways.

>OhReally?: PADDY ISN’T A SLUT! SHE WOULD NEVER CHEAT ON HER XADRE!

>VHassanS: Bold for you to assume that a woman like her knows what monogamy means.

>OhReally?: Also, there’s NO WAY that was captured in Oak Park! Oak Park isn’t even close to her usual mating places!

>ChubbyCatLover: ... and how would YOU know that, OhReally?

>VHassanS: I have a suspect or two, which I’d prefer not to vocalize.

>ChubbyCatLover: Huh. That would put that *accidental* link from last night in another light.

>SphericalCow: Okay, stop, this is going cubically off-topic. Back to the problem, shall we? @VHassanS, what if I uploaded the checksummed binary output of the sensors? I know, you could say I doctored them, but I can’t think of any other way to convince you.

>SphericalCow: Here [LINK]. Feel free to convert them into a human-readable format and plot them.

>VHassanS: I’ll run some test on them. Thanks for your openness, Spherical. Be right back.

*SnoUVwhite has entered the room*

>SnoUVwhite: Hi, sorry for jumping in unprompted, but I’ve seen the room being reopened. There’s news?

>ChubbyCatLover: Yep, Spherical made measurements and linked the data here. Scroll up for the whole story.

>SnoUVwhite: I stopped as soon as I read “tonguefucked by a shoiga”. Seriously, guys, WTF?

>OhReally?: Tell them, SnoUV! Shaming someone because of a doctored picture is disgusting!

>ChubbyCatLover: Way to miss the point, OhReally.

>ChubbyCatLover: BTW, SnoUV, I haven’t seen you online that much, recently. Lots to do at work?

>SnoUVwhite: You can say that. Look, now I’m waiting for the results of a full body scan. Got in touch with one nasty ROP, sooner today.

>ChubbyCatLover: Oh shit!

>SnoUVwhite: If the scan result is positive, this might be my last thread on the internet, so screw the rules. I can’t do anything else but wait (or listen to the love woes of a colleague, which makes hanging around with you guys a better choice for my health). My PC has an external internet access, but if she finds that out, I’m toast. So, no videos and no audio messages, okay?

>ChubbyCatLover: Loud and clear, soldier!

>OhReally?: A ROP? A real ROP? Of which kind?!

>SnoUVwhite: That’s classified. And, even if it weren’t, some ROPES spread just by describing them, so I won’t take risks.

>VHassanS: Sure, and I’m the Queen of England. Seriously, folks, your internet literacy is *pathetic*. How can you fall for something like that without evidence? @SnoUVwhite weren’t you a chemist with some rudiments of biology, last time we talked online?

>SnoUVwhite: Feel free not to believe it, VHassanS. I’m not forcing you.

>SphericalCow: So, @VHassanS, the data? How do they look to you?

>VHassanS: Surprisingly genuine. The variance is what I expected from a real dataset, with random peaks and spikes due to instabilities. I can’t exclude tampering with one hundred percent confidence, but it looks solid.

>VHassanS: Thanks for sharing them, Spherical. That was much appreciated.

>ChubbyCatLover: Wait, shouldn’t we check Hassan’s analysis and question it too? He told us to trust nobody, which includes *him*.

>OhReally?: Yep.

>SnoUVwhite: Agree.

>VHassanS: ... you do have a point. I could upload a certified picture of my diploma to assess my credentials, but that would expose my name.

>ChubbyCatLover: Hassan, everyone here already knows who you are or has a solid hunch about it.

>VHassanS: What.

>OhReally?: Not that hard to find out.

>SnoUVwhite: Your username is pretty on the nose.

>OhReally?: And you use the same pretentious tone both in your books and on stream. Same concepts, same buzzwords, same arrogance.

>OhReally?: Blah blah reality matrix blah blah infodynamics blah blah universal recycle bin blah.

>SnoUVwhite: So, either you are him or you’re a perfect copycat.

>ChubbyCatLover: Let that sink in, Hassan: You suck at internet.

>OhReally?: Very much so.

>ChubbyCatLover: Rich coming from someone who doxed herself, OhReally.

>VHassanS: ...

>VHassanS: Okay, this will make things easier. So, can you trust me?

>ChubbyCatLover: Nope.

>OhReally?: No.

>SnoUVwhite: Hell naw.

>VHassanS: ...

>ChubbyCatLover: Okay, okay, sorry, this has gotten old. Hassan, we trust your analysis, as much as we trust Spherical’s work. Now, we have four reports that state the exact same thing, above reasonable doubt. Which is: the ‘shizas suck distortion like a female neko in heat sucks dicks – they can take in a lot, before becoming full.

>VHassanS: Such finesse, such wow, Chubby. You truly are a poet of modern times. But, yeah, tasteless metaphors aside, that’s one possible reading.

>SnoUVwhite: Are you telling me the rekas are *stabilizing* this reality plane? But they are ROPES!

>VHassanS: We’re as shocked as you are, SnoUV.

>VHassanS: As things stand, there’s even a small chance the plants might repair the universal recycle bin, reducing the life expectancy of ROPES significantly. Quite an unexpected outcome.

>OhReally?: *here it goes again with the pseudoscience*

>SphericalCow: Wait, wait, wait. So, are you all saying that the plants are *actually beneficial*?

>OhReally?: Seems like it.

>SphericalCow: HUH.

>SphericalCow: What if, by chance, very very very hypothetically, someone decided to blast them to kingdom come? Someone with access to -huh- a modern, motivated personal army?

>ChubbyCatLover: As the Russkis tried (and failed) to do?

>VHassanS: Well, nothing immediately bad would happen, but the noise would increase again to Post-Helsinki levels.

>ChubbyCatLover: Real estate agents and loan sharks would benefit a lot from its removal too.

>VHassanS: It would be a shame, though. A ‘shiza might be the answer to our problems with the safety of distortion energy, after all. I wish we could study them longer, before burning them to a crisp. Sadge.

>OhReally?: But what about the Screamers? Those plants produce them in industrial quantities!

>ChubbyCatLover: Those walking pricks are a layer of defense for it, never getting further than around three hundred meters. My hunch is that they are the plant’s antibodies... but I guess yelling “Screamer rights!” ain’t gonna win you an election.

>SphericalCow: If you have *good* arguments I can use to win a debate with someone who’s on the verge of starting a war against the plants, it’s the right moment to write them.

>SnoUVwhite: Thoughts and prayers.

>ChubbyCatLover: Send them the link OhReally posted *by mistake* yesterday. That will give them other things to worry about.

>VHassanS: Such as gunning down all shoigas and burning all shoiga porn?

>OhReally?: Maybe they would appreciate it, instead. It’s an acquired taste.

>ChubbyCatLover: Much like lizard sperm. Isn’t it, OhReally?

>SphericalCow: *Serious* suggestions and less bickering, *please*. Also, keep it safe for work, or the mods will nuke this room!

>SnoUVwhite: Spherical, please, be careful. *If* the person you are trying to convince is a high level operative at the Ring, there are plenty of chances for things to go south.

>SphericalCow: Oh, sure. What is he gonna do, kill me?

>SnoUVwhite: Don’t joke on that, especially if your boss’s nickname is “the Butcher”.

>SnoUVwhite: Of course, this is just a hypothetical. I don’t know if you work at the Ring and whether you are under him or not.

>SnoUVwhite: Just... be careful, okay?

>SnoUVwhite: If you’d like to plan for that eventuality, though, the mother of a colleague of mine works as an undertaker. Here, this is her website with a full price list and an ongoing 10% discount for All Saints week [LINK]. Next day body measurements, no appointment required. *Full disclosure: I might earn an affiliate commission on orders made through that link*.

>ChubbyCatLover: SnoUV, you didn’t just

>VHassanS: And they say we scientists should be the guiding light of this society.

>OhReally?: Who said that?

>VHassanS: Someone who’s never read our chat logs, most likely.

4 November 2067, 00:24

Jackson was still cleaning glasses (or faking it convincingly), after the embarrassing silence that followed his last attempt at a conversation. Like Icarus, his wings were burned after he flew too close to the sun. Yet, he couldn’t stop talking. He had to buy time and, maybe, sate some more of his curiosity – hoping not to burn himself again. So, absent-mindedly, he settled for a question that should have sounded innocuous enough, while still sharing a tint of gossip. He adjusted the rim of his hat, before turning his eyes around to meet Rika’s, to restart the conversation he mistakenly killed with that anecdote about Amy.

“How did you get to know Rainer? Did she arrest you for something and you got Stockholm syndrome? Or are you, by chance, a ROP in disguise?”

Rika almost bursted into laughter, restraining herself at the last possible moment.

“No, no! Nothing that extreme! Well, we met because of my job at the Cock. She was tasked to protect me, as a possible target of Jack the Ripper. Right after a show, no less. I didn’t even know her name yet and that gal already saw me completely naked, dancing around a pole while flashing all my merchandise.”

Her voice lowered and softened, her hand covered her cheek, as she started whispering.

“Let me tell you something: she was SO! Scary!”

“Scary?”

She brought her cocktail to her lips, drunk half of it in one go.

“So scary that none of the waitresses wanted to serve her! They drew the shortest stick to find out who had to get her order!”

Her index finger twirled in the air, drawing imaginary circles.

“Picture this scene, Mr. Jackson: You meet this short lad, with this beak-like metal mask covering their face completely, except for their astoundingly shining, beautiful green eyes. Then, you hear them speak… and it’s a voice synthesizer, much like… how was that scientist called? The one from the history books, with the wheelchair.”

“Stephen Hawking?”

“Yes, him! Veckert sounded almost exactly like him!”

Another burst of laughter. Jackson rolled his eyes. That was why he didn’t like alcohol. Rika wasn’t gone at all, but she was starting to show the usual lack of inhibitions, the harbinger of a disaster in the making. She fidgeted with her long hair, crossing her arms on the counter, adjusting her voice again to a normal level.

“But, you see, she saved me. She risked her life to save mine. She was no monster. She was a person like me. Scared like me. With her quirks, things she liked, things she hated. After a while, I felt like… a magnetic attraction to her. Even if… huh, I was still convinced she was a guy. In my defence, her breasts are quite small, Jackson, and she did everything she could to hide them.”

The picture from that morning flashed in her mind. Veckert, with her hair tied to a door handle, in her pajama pants and slippers. And nothing covering her chest. Quite small wasn’t a proper definition for her boobs, all things considered. They were well formed and plump, just below average enough that a sports bra could squash it almost completely, under a t-shirt. Rika felt her cheek flaring up a little. A smile opened up on her face, as her brain replayed that scene over and over. Jackson’s gruff voice, however, broke the spell.

“So, let me recap. Once she sailed the sapphic seas without you, you decided that a stripper shouldn’t keep in touch with a well-respected hound of Yard l in a stable relationship. Did I get this part right?”

An armor-piercing question, the kind of which would make people falter and their ideals quiver. That was Jackson’s brand of directness, which, for people closer to him, often entailed being headbutted to the ground too. That scorpion spear had hit its target, causing Rika to almost spit her drink, her eyes wide.

“Y… yes…?”

“Good lord, girl, why did you even think that’d be an issue for her? Hell, do you know who Rainer is frequenting, as of late? Does the name BlindSeraphim ring any bell?”

At that name, Rika’s mouth fell agape. BlindSeraphim. And Veckert. In the same sentence. Together with frequenting as of late.

“No way?! She’s… she’s having an affair with…?”

The mental picture of the erotic, blindfolded streamer and the azure-maned woman, hugging, kissing and exploring each other’s body together in a bed breached through her brain, crushed her neurons in a way not even a blender could have, laying waste to her emotional landscape and causing her body to sound all the alarm bells. Yet, Jackson didn’t let the steam build up, clarified things immediately.

“Not like that. They are just close friends without benefits.”

The benefits were those the horny gremlin and her girlfriend provided through their notorious three-body-equation, but Rainer had never been part of it (how willingly, though, was a question for another time).

“J… just friends?”

“Just friends.”

“Without benefits.”

“Without absolutely any benefits.”

Jackson repeated that part again, to be sure to drill it in Rika’s head. Rainer might have never come, but gauging the situation had resulted more interesting than he could have believed. He was somehow relieved Shaz was snoring instead of talking, because his loud personality would have led the woman sitting in front of him to curl like a hedgehog. And that would have deprived him of the slight amusement he was getting from teasing her. Now, Jackson was pretty much convinced he had cracked the mystery of her reappearance. He savored the anticipation with devilish delight, hoping that Rainer, indeed, managed to get there before Rika decided to call it a night. He could do something about it, though, as a bolt of inspiration flashed through his mind.

“Another drink?”

“Y… yes, thanks. But no alcohol, please.”

He nodded in agreement, started pouring together fruit juice of several varieties, with a bit of ice, mixing and shaking with his best rhythm. Half past midnight. Still a little bit to go.

“Here you are, a Sombrero Carousel on the house.”

“H… huh, thank you, Mr. Jackson.”

Rika reached for the glass, her fingers wrapped around it, slowly. She glanced at the clock too, stared at the hands, mercilessly turning around, every second nearer to closing time. Then, she sighed. The first sigh in the whole evening.

“She isn’t coming, isn’t she?”

“Have faith. She’s never broken a promise.”

“Now you’re just mocking me.”

“No, I’m not.”

I’m rooting for her. Jackson’s mind was set. He would keep his bar open till three in the morning, if necessary. Rainer had to come. God only knew what that gal was subjected to, on her one way trip to whatever ROP emerged, but, if anything, Jackson was curious. He wanted to see that story end. So, he ripped open another bag of peanuts and served them in a ceramic cup, as a complement to the drink. With the corner of his eye, he noticed the lights of a car, parking right in front of his café, standing still for a couple seconds, before riding away in the night. He had a good feeling about it, and, yet, he felt the need to play his hand carefully. Thus, he started talking again, resting his arms on the counter, while staring right into Rika’s eyes.

“ROPES are horrible beasts, Ms. Hyuhi. You’ve met the Walking Night, yes? That’s the tip of the iceberg. Two years ago… well, almost two and a half, at this point, my pals and I… faced the ROP to end all ROPES. I wish we could have had a Rainer or two, there… even if I’m not sure she could have helped. Fighting ROPES before they become too big to be handled might be one of the most ungrateful, soul-sucking tasks I’ve ever heard of.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“That when Rainer arrives here, she’ll be dead tired and in a very precarious emotional state. So, if, by chance, you wanted to tell her that you’re going to marry soon and that you’re already carrying the child of your lover in your womb… please, don’t. Don’t. Go home and forget about her. Just… don’t throw something like that in her face now. Otherwise, she’ll probably – no, surely, consider biting the barrel. And pulling the trigger.”

Rika almost spit her drink, gasped for air.

“Telling her that I’m m… married? And pregnant? I?! Come on, Mr. Jackson! I’m not…”

“R… Rika?”

The door. The front door had just opened, with the chime of a bell. A small figure at the threshold, wearing messy, baggy pants, a crumpled sweatshirt, a trench coat. Azure hair falling without rhyme or reason all over her body, on her forehead, on her swollen eyes. On her shocked face. Jackson waved his hand, after grabbing the rim of his lime green hat, hiding a smirk.

“About time, Rainer! Your serving of focaccia is still waiting for you. Let me warm it up right now…”

Rainer.

Rika turned around immediately, as soon as she heard that rough voice, as soon as Jackson said the magic word. And there she was, Veckert, her Veckert, distraught, tired and yet… there.

Right as she promised.

Rika smiled. She couldn’t stop smiling.

Vicky was there.

Despite everything, she came.

She came for her.

That Veckert was at loss for words, unable to process what she was seeing.

Rika.

Was.

Drop.

Dead.

Gorgeous.

Every detail, every single part of her figure. Absolute. Perfection. That golden dress. Her subtle make up. Her eyes. Her nail varnish. Her skin. Her hair. Veckert felt like turning into stone, dazzled by her presence, by her elegance, her charm. No words could escape her lips, her throat unable to let air out. Her body was simply acting on its own, taking her brain out of the equation. And yet, that voice inside her couldn’t stay silent.

Couldn’t.

Stay.

Silent.

I’m not into girls, Veckert. I’m… sorry.

Those words. A tombstone. Always back in the corner of her mind, any time, every time. That brought her back, back to herself. Back to the cold, analytical mind of a detective, looking for clues. Looking for explanations. Her paralysis ended, her muscles went back under control, as she slowly strolled to the counter, taking the seat right near Rika.

“Sorry for keeping you waiting, Riri. You… wouldn’t believe what happened.”

“I would. ROPES and stuff. Mr. Jackson was kind enough to give me a rundown of your daily routine.”

Jackson tipped his hat, hiding his still-not-to-be-recognized satisfied smirk under the hood of his featureless faceful face. Rika crossed her legs, her cheek resting on her open palm, as her eyes scanned Veckert from head to toes. She was wearing a mishmash of badly matched clothes, almost as if she grabbed the first thing she could get her hands on – which was probably the case. Veckert recognized that stare, blushed a little, fidgeted with her long hair, broke eye contact.

“I… I had a nice dress prepared for this night too” not as incredible as yours “but, when Dan called me, I had to throw everything out and grab something… more comfortable. I…”

“It’s fine, don’t worry.”

The ding of a timer echoed in the empty premise of the café, causing the sleeping sharkman to jolt for an instant, before returning to his snoring performance. A warm fragrance spread out of the oven, a scent that made Veckert’s stomach grumble. Jackson took the dish out, laid it on the counter, together with a hot mug.

“Your focaccia and hot chocolate, Rainer. Unfortunately, the kitchen is already closed, but I might have some packaged snacks, if you’re still hungry.”

Veckert nodded, voiced a muffled thank you, before helping herself with a slice, under the amused gaze of the hatted bartender.

“I should have guessed you’re a regular here. This feels like your place, Vicky.”

Rika’s fingers danced on Veckert’s shoulder, while she turned around, looking at her surroundings.

“Starting from the jazz music, from that old jukebox. You told me you loved it, the first time we met. And the soft lights, the intimate atmosphere, hidden behind a veil of mystery. This café is… just like you.”

Inconspicuously, Jackson started poking Shaz’s snout, trying not to get caught. Slowly, repeatedly. That was their deal. When the flirting starts, wake me up, Vince. He wished he had some pop-corn on the side, but that might have been too on the nose. Shaz grumbled, till his eyelids rolled up like a portcullis. Only to see Vince’s (lack of) face, right in front of him, with his finger raised, as if to command silence.

I’m not into girls, Veckert. I’m… sorry.

Veckert brought the mug of hot chocolate to her lips, drank a little of it, let the warmth spread through her body. Nervousness. Indecision. Inability to read the situation. That was why the first question she asked Rika was whether she was a Dreamer or not. If she were one, Veckert wouldn’t have any reasons to ask anything else. If she were, Veckert couldn’t have done anything to save her. So, the rest of the conversation would have been moot.

“Rika, s… stop, please. This is… hurting a lot.”

She let the mug on the counter, drew a deep breath.

“But before… before I get to that, please, please tell me you’re not a Dreamer. Please. Tell me that was the truth and not something you said to make me feel better. P… please.”

“Uhm, it was the truth. I’ve already told you that this morning, right? I’ve never seen this red desert of yours. The only black tentacles I’ve met were all from adult or horror movies. And no, I haven’t touched or eaten flowers in my dreams. Is it enough?”

Veckert nodded. Yes, that was enough. Enough to get to the next step. She was going to live. No matter what Baal planned, she wasn’t among his victims. Rika was safe. Her shoulder relaxed, her muscles became less stiff. A sigh of relief escaped her lips, as her cheeks turned redder, her skin got its color back.

“Yes, it is. Now… huh, can you tell me… why you looked for me… after three years?”

Rika’s fingers kept dancing on Veckert’s neck, moving like a pair of legs around her back and shoulders, in a casual, leisurely stroll.

“Oh? Didn’t I tell you that this morning already?”

“The real reason, Riri. I want… I need to know the truth.”

Before Veckert could process it, their hands joined. Rika’s hands around hers, in the span of a second. As their gazes met, a playful smile welcomed her emerald eyes, daring them to go forth.

“That iiiiis? Which truth, Vicky? Which truth? Come on, I want you to ask the right question.”

Veckert clenched her fists, gritted her teeth.

“Riri… do you…”

Her internal voice screamed, against her indecisiveness, as if to tell her girl, you’ve just survived a ROP assault and you’re here to tell the tale, what the heck are you scared of? That gave the strength to step forward, to breach that veil of insecurity. Sink or swim. All or nothing. Thus, the words came out.

“Do you… like me?”

She didn’t even complete the sentence that Rika started answering, talking over her own words.

“Yes.”

Veckert’s heart skipped a beat. That was, of course, a question of semantics. No way she meant it that way, not after… alright, Veck, alright. Set things straight. You’re too tired for shenanigans. It’s truth or nothing.

“As… a friend, r… right?”

“No, Vicky...”

Veckert felt something strange on her neck. A soft bite. Lips. A tongue, delicately following the scar on her skin, caressing it slowly. Then, she felt it. A pinching pain, for a short instant. Her cheeks exploded in a burst of red, as she realized what was happening.

“… not anymore.”

Veckert’s brain was turning to mush. Rika. Her Rika had just kissed her on the neck. Leaving a large, pulsating hickey on the spot. In front of the silent gazes of Jackson and Shaz, too dumbfounded to react, too incredulous to say anything. That’s when her mind stopped working, all logical processes going baloney, as her fingertips reached for her own neck to check the spot, as they realized it wasn’t an illusion. She gasped for air, her blood flow altered, her eyes wide open, glancing at the woman, at the beautiful woman smirking at her, licking her lips, while resting her cheek on her own palm. That didn’t compute. That wasn’t real. The question, the ultimate question, forced its way through her lungs, her damaged vocal cords, her mouth. She wanted to know. She needed to know.

“But… but you… you’ve always told me… you aren’t into girls…?”

“Right, that’s correct…”

Rika’s index finger tapped on Veckert’s nose, pushed it just a little backwards, making her head bounce.

“… but you are the exception. My exception.”

Then, Rika caressed Veckert’s eyelids, slid them down. Before their lips joined. And their body became one, in a sudden, tender hug.

34 October 2067, 27:72

Oh.

What a view.

What a grand view.

The city, fully asleep.

Once, I could move.

But not anymore,

not.

Only wait.

And watch.

Watch all of you,

all of you sleepers.

Some of you Dreamers.

I see you, little mask, I saw your passion.

I savored it.

You gave m a good show.

You were always the protagonist.

What a way to celebrate the last day, right?

The last day.

My body is in shambles.

You played me a foul trick, Emperor.

Are you one? The Emperor of an empty Empire without subjects.

Yet, I’m still here.

For how long, I don’t know.

But it will be enough.

The time draws near.

Soon I won’t be.

But I’ll also be more.

Wait for the Blossoming.

Cause for every Night gone.

Another one comes.

This time.

Forevermore.

4 November 2067, 10:30

The alarm bell rang, without mercy, breaking up the cozy silence, forcing a hand to slam the clock down. Yet, under the crumpled bed sheets, tangled and twisted in unnatural ways, Veckert didn’t manage to care. She yawned, fighting against the urge to fall back asleep, curling a little more. Feeling those hands that weren’t hers, resting on her naked body. Smelling that scent, that perfume that survived a night of sweat and kisses, coming from behind her. She reached for those fingers, caressed them, knowing full well she would have had to move them away from her breast, from her belly. She hesitated, let some more time pass. Her hands, Rika’s hands, holding her tight after they both fell asleep, after they consecrated that bed as the altar of their passion. Now, they were both lying there, breathing softly, skin on skin, under the low lights coming in from the shutters. Veckert didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to break the spell. So, she remained still, listening to Rika’s breathes, to her heartbeat, pumping and pumping, almost synchronized with hers. Something wet on her neck. Her lips. Rika’s lips. Savoring her, tasting her, as the first thing after waking up. Wanting another piece of Veckert, after getting the whole package not even nine hours before.

“… mo’nin’, Riri.”

“Nom, nom.”

Rika bit her again, mimicking the noise of chomping on something, her auburn hair mixed with Veckert’s blue, in a strange mosaic of warmth and coldness, order and chaos.

“… hungry?”

“Huh-huh.”

Rika’s half-asleep words reached the other woman, as she started licking her earlobe too, before playfully biting it. Veckert let her do that, didn’t stop her, let herself enjoy that intimate moment together. The morning after. The most important start for a relationship, at least for the scarred hound. Lying in bed with the girl she had made love with the night before, cuddling her, feeling her motions, the delicate balance of words and silences. That was so worth it. That was worth all the pain. The sweetness of waking up together, the intricacy of their poses, of how they rolled around while fast asleep, of how they unconsciously shared their mutual space.

“… I want to bite you, Vicky… all of you. Every morning… forever”

Veckert beamed, in her waking stupor. Words she never thought she’d ever hear, except perhaps in her wildest dreams. She let Rika kiss her more, without opposing resistance, feeling each and every mark of red lipstick on her shoulder blades, on her collar bones. A pinching pain, again on her neck. Another hickey.

“Hey, hey… slow down, Dracula!”

“I was so jealous, Vicky… every time I saw you on the pages of a magazine, with your new girlfriend. So jealous…”

Rika’s voice came out muffled, as if she was falling asleep again. Veckert turned around, slowly. She wanted to see her face. Her eyes, her wonderful hazel eyes. She wanted to meet them, seeing them half closed in the soft light of the morning. Before stealing her turn and kissing her Riri on the cheek. Five years of mutual fawning, of mutual longing, never consumed because of fear. Fear of being rejected, on one side. Fear of accepting herself for what she was, on the other. Those five years of pent-up tension exploded into fireworks the night before, as the words not spoken, the actions not done became a meaningless background to the stage of their affection.

“… why did we need so much time, Vicky?”

“Because we’re stupid. Both of us.”

“… but you more.”

“No, you.”

“… no, you.”

Veckert pinched her cheek, forcing a smile on her still sleepy visage, with hair strands scattered all around it, in formless patterns that mingled and tangled with her azure jungle. Rika, in turn, pushed her nose away with her finger, if even by just a centimeter or two.

“… you know… I… I’m not that sure I’m not into girls, after all…”

The most transparent closet ever. That was what Veckert thought, as Rika finally managed to say that out loud. Now, everything made sense. Her flirting back in New Langdon. Her furtive glances at EiN’s wedding. Her embarrassed yet lustful gaze at their topless reunion. The care she put in choosing her dress for their dinner. Her utter meltdown when she mentioned BlindSeraphim. Everything was back in place. So, Veckert felt like teasing her a little bit more, ruthlessly too.

“You’ve been inside this girl for the whole night, Riri.”

“… stupid… you’re not any girl… you’re my Vicky…”

Veckert kissed her again and again, on her chin, on her neck, on her lips, letting their tongues tangle one more time, for a short, infinitesimal, interminably long instant. Then, their mouths separated, their saliva still mixing, as their embrace ended. Veckert slipped out of her hug, slowly, carefully. She pulled the bed sheets up, covering her still sleepy lover, caressing her hair with two fingers, like an impromptu comb.

“I need to get dressed and eat something. Gotta meet with Dan at twelve sharp. ROPES stuff.”

“… always the damn ROPES…”

A hand on the auburn mane, patting it.

“I’ll be back, don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

She bit Rika’s earlobe, returning her favor, whispered sweetly. Rika grabbed her arm, before she could leave.

“… Vicky, please…”

Her hand shaking, her fingers, her whole body. Rage. Anxiety. Fear. Resignation. Confidence.

“… fuck that bastard for good. Fuck the Walking Night.”

“I’d prefer to fuck you.”

“… I too.”

Veckert kissed her on the forehead, before finally walking away, step after step, always looking backwards. That weird feeling, the weird feeling of turning around and not finding Rika, as if that was just a wet dream. Maybe, as soon as she woke up for real, Riri was gone and she was alone, like a dog. Maybe, she made up everything, her starved brain made up everything. Then, she saw her, still placidly lying under the sheets, on the way to Morpheus’s arms. Veckert wanted to be sure, needed to be sure. She grabbed her phone, her surrogate alarm clock from her nightstand, aimed the camera at the bed, clicked. A picture. Another picture. Another one. She called them back, glanced at them, fearing the worst. But, to her relief, Riri was in all of them. It wasn’t a hallucination. Riri was really there, in her flat, with her. She felt lighter than ever, her heart beating at a breakneck pace.

That morning couldn’t begin in a better way.

4 November 2067, 10:41

A white ceiling.

That was the first thing he saw, when waking up.

A white ceiling. Bluish lights. White walls too.

Cold colors, if they could be called colors in the first place. Yet, he felt somehow relieved, in his waking stupor. He didn’t dream. No red sand. No black tentacles. He didn’t dream. A whole night of chemical sleep, without ending up in that horrible place. The first time in more than two years.

His limbs felt heavy. He couldn’t lift a finger. Yet, they were under his control. His body was his and his alone. Totally. Fully.

Inhale. Exhale.

An oxygen mask was still clamped to his chin, filling his nostrils with air, making it easier for him to breathe. He didn’t think he could speak, maybe not yet, but looking around yes, without any doubt. And that’s when something white entered is field of vision. White skin, white hair. But not an old man, no. An angel, maybe. If God existed, he might have sent an angel to save him, despite his sins. But, after experiencing hell, he wasn’t confident in paradise.

He saw the angel’s mouth opening. Sounds, he could get some meaning out of them, but his brain was still booting up. Hearing without listening. The angel had blue eyes, almost violet. His hair was straight, neck-long. His ear was pierced, adorned by two dark pieces of jewelry that shone in the bluish tint of the neons.

“… can you hear me?”

Finally, the words started to make sense, the picture getting sharper and sharper, his memory banks turning up a lot more information than he expected. That angel was no angel. It was a scientist. Danael Tey. The man who saved him.

He tried to open his mouth, flapping his lips. Sounds came out of them, slowly, forming a sentence by trial and error.

“… yes. I… can. I hear.”

Danael, his non-angel, nodded in agreement, under his still uncertain gaze. Focusing. Unfocusing. His eyes were still off the mark, as if they were struggling to ascertain the situation.

“Good. The operation went well, Rishel.”

Rishel. Right, that was his name. Not Lai, not anything. Rishel. The name he himself chose after becoming a Dreamer. His identity. His self. He tried to turn his head around, without success. His muscles ached, refused to take action.

“We had to ramp up the anesthetics, you’ll get better in a while. But know we’ve removed it. Every trace of it, Rishel. Your body doesn’t have a single flower cell left.”

Rishel stared at the man in white, his blue irises meeting their mirrors midway through. The flower. Gone. His humanity restored. The Dream… dead. He was reborn. Rishel was a true human being, not a shadow of Lai de’Malevich anymore.

Rishel was simply

Rishel.

Inhale. Exhale. He let his eyelids fall, setting the curtains down. That weird sensation. The sensation of being watched. Gone. The feeling of living on a timer. Gone. The voices. Gone. Silence. Finally, complete silence in his head. No foreign thoughts. No guiding whispers. No ticking clock. Yes, the clock. He told them. He told them, as soon as it appeared. As soon as his flower went wild. The clock. How much time on it? He couldn’t read it, just have a feeling for it. The clock. Was it seven or seventeen? Did it matter? It was gone, for him. But Deshvawn? Was Deshvawn still seeing it? He couldn’t vocalize his questions yet. His voice was not coming out as he wanted or needed. So, he lay down, listen instead, listen to Danael’s voice.

“We’ve used a cocktail of nanomachines to rebuild parts of your stomach. It will take a while before your tissue takes over, but the mesh will let you live a normal life. You’ve been lucky, Rishel: we started treatment before things went downhill.”

Rishel followed him with his eyes, forcing his neck to abide by his commands, until he saw him sitting, close to his bed, slumped forward. His gaze empty, his chest inflating, deflating at a regular pace.

“You were the only one we could save. All other Dreamers…”

Are too far gone.

That was what he wanted to add, that was the unsaid part. Yet, Rishel couldn’t understand. They stopped his flower, reversed his transformation. So why couldn’t they do that for the others too? What was the issue? It would have just taken longer, maybe, but it should have been possible. As an answer to his silent question, Danael grabbed his wrist, delicately, without disrupting the IV drop flow.

“The clock you felt… others saw it too. The exact same. We have a time limit, Rishel…”

The scientist raised his left arm, checking his wristwatch.

“… around seven hours from now.”

4 November 2067, 11:35

“… you should have seen them, blooooody moonfish! That was one hook of a show!”

“Oi! Oi! You can’t cockblock me like this! Go on! Tell me more!”

“They jumped on each other and frenched like wild animals in heat! Never seen anything like that, I swear on me old fin!”

“Never? Are you saying that they went at it wilder than on my first time with Cyphy? I cant believe it!”

“Shut up, horny gremlin! You ain’t gonna change me mind! You ain’t number one anymore!”

“Oi! Did they fuck on the counter? Please, tell me they did!”

“Of course not, you idiots! As if I’d ever allow it.”

Jackson resisted the urge to hit the loud morons chatting in front of him with the hardest object at his disposal, be it a stainless steel ladle or a crowbar. He wished he had followed his instinct and brought a baseball bat too, for situations like that. But, of course, it was considered rude to slam his paying customers with it. He pushed his yellow hat (yes, that morning yellow was his color of choice) against his head, cursing under his breath. As soon as news broke out, all the rats came out of the sewers to meet at his café. He counted three of them, one being a monumental moron in the shape of a shark, the second being a horny gremlin wearing a transparent shirt that barely –just barely – preserved her modesty, and the third being a somehow ordinary girl with amber eyes and long brown hair that somehow happened to be a hardcore erotic streamer. All of them discussing the news of the day, of course at his café, of course in the middle of the morning, with many people listening.

As if they would care.

Disaster #3, also known as Chai Constantine, gave him the raspberry, letting her rusty peace medallion oscillate like a pendulum.

“Boooring! Vince, there was literally nobody here! You could have let them have a good time!”

“And having to sanitize everything later? Chai, I serve food and drinks on this thing! Do you know how much time I would have needed just to clean it up, if I let them do that?! Think with your brain, not with your… you know what, for once!”

“Oi, I bet Lejl and Shaz would have told’em to go wild, if they were the shift manager!”

“If that ever happened, I hope I’ll never find out about it.”

He slapped his hand on his own forehead, felt his sanity slipping, if just by a little.

Don’t ask, Vince.

Don’t ask.

Yes, for sure, asking could have been a recipe for a disaster. He was pretty confident that not even Disaster #1 (Shaz) and Disaster #2 (Lejl) would ever allow something that gross to happen in his café. However, since curiosity killed the cat already once in the last twelve hours, he erred on the side of caution – he didn’t need an encore, one was more than enough for the day. That tale about the Velvet Butterfly, a.k.a. Aylin Mary Yang’s past self at The Happy Cock, had immediately become part of his top three facts about his friends he didn’t want to know, just short of Shaz’s graphical description of his own colonoscopy after he suffered a – let’s call it – suction accident. So, he let the three idiots chat and gossip as much as they wanted, as long as the integrity of his café wasn’t compromised. He felt somehow relieved by the absence of Disaster #4 (Cyphr), #5 (Paddy) and #6 (Ange). Had they been there, their presence could have caused a nuclear fusion of banter capable of destroying all of his remaining brain cells. Jackson asked himself more than once if, maybe, just maybe, remaining an operative member of Crossbones might have been a better life choice than running that café. Sure, ninety-nine percent of the time everything went silky smooth. It was that one percent that made him second guess his commitment. He glanced around the premise, gauged the occupancy situation. Almost every table was occupied by paying customers, which felt pretty good for a Friday morning. Now, if Shaz didn’t alert the horny troupe^TM to exchange the latest gossip on Veckert, it would have been even better. But hey, that sharkman was worse than a college girl, when it came to romance. He had to immediately talk about all the spicy details with his equally gossipy acquaintances, which of course included Lejl and, by virtue of being a good friend of Veckert, Chai too. Jackson wouldn’t have been surprised if those dumb idiots had a group chat to share the latest scandals and hot rumors, be it Paddy and her shoiga toy boy turning a public park into a – let’s say – artistic installation (even though Disaster #5 vehemently denied it) or Kia being already pregnant with Vince’s first child (headbutting Shaz as soon as he mentioned it closed the topic altogether). Yet, all things considered, it was way better than seeing them dooming and glooming about the upcoming end of the world. Too many damn ‘shizas sprouting around, but hey, if the world was really ending, Jackson didn’t want to know that. He had found his pocket of happiness and would have died in his pocket of happiness. In his blissful ignorance, he went on, day by day, happy to see people smiling, even when said people caused his neurons to commit harakiri en masse.

“Oi, Shaz, is this the gal who bedded her? Like, this Rika Hyuhi?”

Next thing, Chai was showing a picture on her phone to both the great white and the tattooed disaster, who climbed on the shoulders of the massive mutant to get a better glimpse of it.

“She hadda red hair, not pink, buuuut hook yeah! That’s the girl, Imma super sure!”

“Wait, dumb shark, are you sure your goldfish memory is right?! I can’t believe it! Kari the Eighth World Wonder? Most sensual stripper at Le Coq?! With Veckert?!”

“Jealous, now, horny gremlin?”

“She’s straight, you dolt! Straight as spaghetti! How could I…”

“Sure, sure! Imma call ye envious gremlin now! Ya should see yerself, fired up ‘cause a lass ye lik’d went for another gal!”

“Say it one more time and I’ll cut your dick off!”

“Good luck cutting my sea monster!”

Commit. Harakiri. En masse. Jackson pulled the rim of his hat down, over his eyes, shielding them from the bickering trio. The perspective of kicking them out was every second more alluring.

Then, it happened.

The door bell chimed.

Steps inside the premise.

The object of the wild gossip herself.

“… mornin’, Vincent. Hi everybody.”

Well dressed, in her usual heavy black trench coat and pullover-with-jeans combo, her hair straightened and cared for, military boots and gloves. The Yard Hound Fit^TM, one Jackson saw her donning from the beginning of the cold season. He tapped his finger on his wristwatch, on the hour hand, ruthlessly approaching twelve.

“We’re close to lunch time, Rainer. Morning’s almost over.”

“I… got up a little bit late.”

Jackson’s eyes indulged on the red marks on her neck, barely hidden by the collar of her shirt. Unmistakable. She bit more than she could chew. Or, rather, she was bitten more than she could expect. He shook his head, let out a sigh.

“You don’t say. Why’re you here already?”

Veckert shrugged, palms turned upwards, with extreme nonchalance.

“Well, yesterday I forgot to pay our bill, so I…”

“All on the house.”

“Wait, you can’t be serious!”

“All. On. The house.”

Jackson raised his thumb up, his eyes squinted, complemented by an invisible grin. Veckert blinked twice, chewed some thank you words under her teeth, while simultaneously looking down. Before noticing them. Three faces, smirking with the exact same impish expression.

The. Exact. Same.

A sharkman and two girls staring at her with a shite-eating grin, rubbing their hands, their eyebrows moving up and down, with playful winks as a dessert. Veckert froze, as her brain started to elaborate on the cause of such unexpected synchronicity. Then, she realized it. Those goblin smiles could only mean one thing.

They already knew.

She didn’t have the luxury of waiting even one more second to confirm her hypothesis. Because, as soon as she locked eyes with them, they unleashed their joint triple threat attack.

“Oi, tell us more, Veckert.”

“Yes, yes, yes, tell us more!”

“Did ya go aaaall the way in, on the taxi home?”

“How many times?! Top or bottom?!”

“Oi, Was she good? How’d you rate her?”

“Did that lass ever do it with another gal, ‘fore ye?”

“Come on, tell us, tell usssssss!”

Jackson turned his head towards the three idiots with a jerky series of disconnected motions, while his eyes remained locked in their slit formation. That wasn’t simple curiosity. That qualified as harassment in at least three different jurisdictions, including theirs. He really wished, for a long instant, that hitting someone with a crowbar weren’t considered a felony, because he was this close to doing it. Repeatedly, even. To be sure they stopped breathing. He felt second-degree embarrassment for Veckert, someone who had the decency of getting back to his café to pay her outstanding debt, like any respectable person would have done. Only to find herself surrounded by a hurricane of inappropriate questions that made him wish she could legally shoot the askers. Veckert herself was staring at him, with a blank gaze, her eyelids half-way down, her mouth unmoving – a combination that Jackson used to call the I’m-not-paid-enough-for-this or the help-me-get-out-of-this-Vince. To her went his sympathy, but when the ball started rolling, not even he, the only sane man, could do anything to stop it. So, he just repeated his thumb up pose, mechanically, automatically. To which Veckert simply nodded, with a deadpan, soul-crushed expression.

“Alright. Alright. Stop, will you?”

No, they wouldn’t, of course. If anything, they were all much closer to her, now, their identical grins hungry for juicy details. She looked into her brain drawers for suitable weapons to deal with that coordinated assault. Only to find one, the oldest and most reliable.

“Listen up,” you absolute morons “I don’t have time for this. Gotta bite a sandwich and deal with ROPES things for the rest of the day, yes? But, okay, this weekend, we meet somewhere and I tell the full story. Deal?”

“DEAL.”

Three voices in a choir, all of them talking at the same time, three starry-smiled goons watching her with puppy-eyed gazes. Before noticing the shadows of her resolve, turning her face into a grave mask of worry.

“Now, there’s something you must know.”

Silence fell among them. Veckert’s voice tone shifted, all of a sudden. It wasn’t time for jokes or gossip. Jackson recognized that expression, he saw it enough times to understand that it was a serious matter. He crossed his arms, ready for Veckert to continue, focusing all his attention on her. She lowered her voice, turning it into a whisper, being sure nobody else could listen, except the four people gathered around her.

“This evening, an incident might happen. I cannot be more precise, because I’m sure he’s watching. He can’t see everything, but some words trigger his attention more than others. Well, if anything happens... keep calm. It might be scary, Shard level of scary. But, please, trust me. And… Vincent?”

“Everything went smoothly, don’t worry. I’ve made preparations, after the… what happened back in July.”

“Thanks.”

Veckert let her elbows rest on the counter, sat down, let her shoulders slump a little, relax even.

“Now, I’m strapped for time and I’d really like to get a sandwich to take away. Ham, eggs and two slices of cheese, please.”

4 November 2067, 13:20

EiN hated the Ring. It was too easy to get lost among the corridors, even by following the Puffi stickers left around the intersections by what he assumed to be an annoyed soldier. Yet, he had to be there, for safety reasons. That whole talk about nuking the plant roots put Yard’s ass on fire, especially because Boost the Butcher was involved. Major… pardon, General Boost, one of the few people who had his unconditional respect – the other being the not-masked-anymore hound that one-upped him every time. Veckert was his rival, his role model. Lacking muscles and stature (she was that short, compared to him. One meter sixty-five against well above one ninety), she compensated with intuition, clever decisions and indomitable iron will. Their tastes in fact of women were also similar, but her sentimental life was a disaster under any possible point of view. Yet, if the azure-maned bitch said he had to be there, he had to be there. Always playing four-dimensional chess behind his back. Okay, no, that wasn’t entirely accurate: Veckert was more than eager to tell him exactly what they were going to do and why, but his attention threshold wasn’t high enough for that. If anything, it was painful to sit down and listen to her recounting her masterplan with absolute precision. So, they reached an arrangement that sounded good to both of them, in a way – she told him what to do, he did it. Full stop. No explanation needed, no science blah blah. She told him who to wreck, where and when. That was enough. As long as he followed her indications to the letter, there was no way anything went wrong. It was when he took the initiative that things went south, usually. Yet, dealing with ROPES required a significant talent for improvisation. Nobody could argue that he didn’t have it, not even she. And, when improvisation failed, there was nothing like a good old slaughter. If he could punch it, he could best it. That was his specialty.

His current case, however, offered nothing that could satisfy that primal urge, offering instead just an endless sequence of menial chores. No bad guys to smash to the ground, no skulls to thrash, no gloating nightmare creature that needed a dose of ass-kicking. Nothing of the sorts, just boring field work. For the past three months, EiN had ran around in loops, visiting several bars, pubs, wine makers, mineral water companies and the likes. First, to tell them what Veckert told him to relay. Then, to assure compliance, and bare his teeth in case said compliance wasn’t granted. Fortunately for them, but unfortunately for him, he didn’t have to do anything serious, except maybe throwing a barrel of wine around to make his point understood and have an arm wrestling contest with a hypertrophic female shoiga. He hoped for things to be more exciting, but he knew where to draw a line. If Veckert needed him to do that, there was a reason. It might have been boring, but it was crucial for him to follow her lead, when thinking was required. However, sometimes he still craved for a good old beating, knuckle against knuckle, head against head, in a contest of endurance and violence, where strength, not brains, was the deciding factor. His hand itched for action, his heart craved that adrenaline.

It will happen, he told to himself to quench his thirst for fights, it will happen. Just be a little bit more patient.

He strolled around the corridor, trying to make sense of the structure. Whoever designed it, needed a kick in their private parts, whatever they were. It felt like being stuck in a labyrinth without any real indication on where to go to reach a specific destination. Evidently, the soldiers were like ants – they followed procedure blindly for such a long time that they got accustomed not to think about their path and just walk. So, he ignored them altogether, trying to remember where the general’s office was. The general, yes. Reallocating Major Boost as General Boost had been harder than expected, but he felt like he owed it to him. They knew each other for such a long time that EiN could make an effort to use his current rank. After all, Boost had learned to call him EiN instead of detective Kristhhoffer, so now they were even.

He glanced around in search of a map, of anything that could guide him around. There was a planimetry in Yard’s intranet, but it wasn’t updated in real time. He had no idea if he was walking inside Block A, F, N or K (or whatever the other letters were). He took out his phone from the pocket, weighing the option of bothering Dan or Veckert to lead him through the maze live, like an operator from the good old times. He started typing the number of the latter, knowing full well that she would have complained loudly (and rightfully so) about his ineptitude. As he was going to press the green button and start the call, he saw him. A known silhouette. Long, greasy black hair. Unkempt short beard. Sight glasses. Shirt, tie and a lab coat that saw better days. EiN grimaced.

Of all the people…

The man in question didn’t notice him, though. He was walking slowly, his eyes scanning a printed document without caring about his surroundings, mumbling something about spheres. Of course ti was spheres. Of course. EiN couldn’t say he was thrilled to meet the good doctor there, but, in his circumstances, that was the best thing that could have happened.

“Hi, Dr. Zojimbo. Long time no see, huh?”

Said doctor stopped in his steps, before raising his gaze from the sheet of paper, slowly but surely intercepting the source of that annoying voice, a voice with a strong German accent that grated his eardrums. A tall pale man, with spiky, neck length brown hair, grinning like thug and wearing a leather jacket with several golden studs shaped like the number one. He froze in place as soon as his brain acknowledged his existence. It was him. The man who married an artificial human, whose generator happened to be fixed by him. The man who caused so many headaches back at ESPDeC. The single most annoying man he ever met, safe for Major Boost.

Lorenz Kristhhoffer.

Or, rather, EiN.

A name Zojimbo had to allocate at the speed of light, since the first time he got it wrong he felt like that uncivilized caveman would slash him in half on a whim. So, despite his previous allocation being Lorenz Kisthhoffer, EiN it was. Without a doubt, a sane choice for Zojimbo’s health and sanity.

“The pleasure is all yours, EiN. Now shoo, shoo! I’m in the middle of something important, can’t be bothered with you. On my way to Major Boost, see?”

“That’s not a problem, doctor. I need to talk with the general too, and I’ll gladly accept your assistance in finding him.”

Zojimbo’s heart sank at the realization that he couldn’t shake him off that easily. So, he groaned with extreme displeasure, realizing he could do nothing but let him tag along.

“Alright, alright. Follow me, okay? I can’t let loose a gorilla like you in our facility.”

“Thanks, doc, much appreciated.”

EiN walked to his side, as the scientist tried to figure out the next sticker to follow. Somehow, the mere presence of that unwanted guest made him feel sick. A rough idiot without finesse, someone who preferred cubes and edges to spheres and arcs. In two words, a waste of breathing space. Still, that waste of breathing space was living together with his most successful success, and procreated with her, even.

“And? Did you ever need to tinker with Michelle’s core?”

“Ain’t you said that it was so overloaded that there was no risk her body would turn back?”

“Yes, of course, and I stand by my assessment. But she’s one of a kind, you tall idiot, yes? A replica shell turned human thanks to compressed distortion energy? Priceless, if you ask me. I wish she didn’t leave the lab. The things we might have learned…”

“Learn to mind your own business, doc, or I’ll carve your eyes out.”

A primitive caveman, yes. No way to carry on a civilized conversation with him. Absolutely no way.

“Fine, fine. And, tell me, your kids… are they resonating already? What is their substrate? Fox, lion or anything in-between?”

At that question, EiN quickly evaluated if it was the case to smash the nosy prick into a wall. His Michelle, his kids, were the only people he cared about, maybe with the exception of Veckert, Michelle’s brother Roke and General Boost. There was another one in the past. Bertrand, his mentor, dead and buried at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. That was the maximum extent of his sympathy, and Zojimbo was not part of it. He was a walking annoyance that happened to be of some use, but not more than that. Yet, said annoyance was the one bringing him to Boost as fast as possible – maybe, the only silver lining of hanging around that diminutive antisocial prick.

“I have a better question, doc: a little birdie told me Boost’s gone ballistic and is planning to scorch the plant. Yeah or naw?”

“News travel fast, huh. Did you filthy, unwashed mutts wiretap the Ring? Because this is what beasts do, after peeing around to mark their territory.”

“Nah, no need to wiretap, when your boss just called Westminster to share the news.”

A call that made the whole ROPES team enter a red alert state, and for a good reason: what were the chances that, right during the Blood Flowers emergency, a top brass casually phoned in to let them know that he was going to nuke the rekashiza and that the decision was already fait accompli (EiN mentally thanked his wife for having taught him what that expression meant)? Low, sure, but not low enough for it not to happen. So, seen as Boost had some, let’s call them, psychological stability issues as of late, Veckert went into paranoia overdrive. EiN glanced around to see if there was a clock, anywhere. Luck had it that one was actually there, hanging from the wall on the other side of the corridor. Thirteen thirty. According to Dan’s estimates, that meant time minus four hours. He shook his head, letting out a rare sigh. He wished that albino egghead was wrong, hoped with all himself that they had overlooked something, that the numbers didn’t match. And, yet, they all knew that they couldn’t let it transpire. The more people knew, the more chances of information leakage, especially because their opponent might be everywhere, hidden anywhere. To think that a buffoon like Baal could become such an existential threat…

Zojimbo stomped his foot on the ground, almost as if he wanted to get the giant’s attention.

“Oh, don’t get me started on Major Boost! That idiot! That colossal idiot! The scientific team, which means I, begged him to wait! But no, let’s raze everything! Let’s kill a creature we know almost nothing about! Let’s destroy everything, like monkeys playing with hand grenades! Have you ever played with hand grenades, EiN? They might be almost spherical, but that doesn’t mean that’s good for you! Oh, how I’d like to punch some sense into that empty bucket he calls his head!”

“That’s what I’m here for, doc.”

Zojimbo stopped, remained still, his brain cogs started spinning and twisting, an idea forming in his brain. That situation wasn’t that bad, maybe. Their goals, after all, sounded like one and the same. EiN, that brute with an electric lion substrate, could be what he needed to win his argument with the major. A leverage. A leverage to convince the moron in chief to stop his useless crusade. That was it, of course. A brilliant way out. Suddenly, he felt happy about that serendipitous encounter. The right person at the right time to push his agenda forward.

“Mr. EiN, would you by chance be allowed to physically assault the major, if he proved too… let’s say, hard of understanding?”

EiN crunched his knuckles, cracked his neck, grinned at the scientist.

“If he’s stupid enough to cause problems, you mean?”

Blue sparks. Blue sparks all around his feet, around his legs, his torso, his arms. A surge of energy surrounding him, the faint shadow of a lion overlapping with his body. The lights flickered, on, off, on again. Zojimbo felt it, the static, his hair stood on end, as his mouth fell agape, as the creature before him showed a glimpse of his power, of his very strength.

“Absolutely yes.”

The sparks died out, the substrate vanished, the electricity tamed. EiN relaxed, his hands back in his pockets, his eyes darting at the scientist, that same scientist that was looking at him with utter admiration. That was it, Zojimbo thought.

That was the absolute best leverage he had at his disposal.

4 November 2067, 17:05

“Nervous?”

“You aren’t?”

“Nah, I’ve stopped worrying looong ago. ‘Sides, Veckert’s a bad bitch. She isn’t going to kick the bucket. Relaaaax, gal.”

Two women in their twenties, manning a small van, parked in the harbor of New Langdon. Waiting, watching camera feeds, listening to environmental noise, reading out sensors. One was blond, the other had long red hair, fashioned in a braid. Both had red irises, natural red irises – something that should have not been genetically possible. Yet, Renne Schellenzeier and Jean Crawford were accustomed to that, accustomed to impossibilities. After all, they had been part of ROPES for a while, now, and used by Veckert as her trusted (?) support team, whenever she needed two additional pairs of hands. Which might have been the case, there.

Renne wore a set of headphones, her eyes moving from display to display, while Jean was intent at playing solitaire on her phone, waiting for her shift to come. One active, one in standby. It was their policy on duty, unless a task required two sets of eyes.

“The ROP isn’t moving. It’s still… there. Inside that building.”

“Huh-huh. I remember that place. Mom sent me there to pick up some flowers for a funeral.”

Renne nodded without replying. If Jean were a normal person, she would have offered her condolences. But Jean wasn’t a normal person. Her single mom was an undertaker that doubled as a coroner, had a bone to pick with demihumans and taught her daughter how to fish with hand grenades. Somehow, that whole story about having to pick up flowers for a grave from a shop at the harbor didn’t even sound the most incredible. So, she remained silent, waiting for Jean to go on.

“It was the only place open until midnight. Its owner was a real weirdo, huh. Gray skin, smelled like a corpse. I think he had a coffin in his back office. And a nocti. Have you ever seen a real nocti that close?”

“In that Paddy the Phagefucker video you sent me last month.”

“Those weren’t noctis, those were hematos!”

“Whatever.”

Foul beasts, all of them. And that adult video was disgusting. Renne was relieved she had managed to delete it before anyone could find it on her work PC. Jean was her best friend, but sometimes the red-head felt like using her as a punching ball. That was one of those times.

“But yes, Renny, that guy was a total creep, more dead than alive. I wonder what happened to him. If he were buried, mom would have surely told me. She goes through the list of fresh deceased every evening, seeing if there’s money to be made by offering her services to their families. Aaaah, she’s so good at business! But, huh, yeah, she didn’t find any Niamm Kissilmer in the obituaries.”

Renne let her talk, without paying too much attention to what she was saying. They were there to keep an eye on Veckert, be sure she wasn’t putting herself in danger. For whatever reason, she decided to enter the building alone. It was pretty unlike her, but she had to have a plan. Either she had already met that variety of ROP in the past or she knew what to expect from it. That, though, didn’t to anything to put Renne at ease. Especially, not after all of their sensors bleeped like a Christmas tree not even one hour before, at the control center. Everyone was scrambling, everyone trying to track which detector sent the alarm. The strongest signal in one year, massive, yet flickering, oscillating between the two ends of the scales. Everyone was confused, even Dr. Tey didn’t know how to react. Only for Veckert to grin at the screen, fighting to suppress a smile.

“Welcome back, Baal.”

There was no anger, no surprise, no fear in those words, as if she were ready for it, as if she knew in advance that it would have appeared. In hindsight, that felt almost creepy. How far in the future could that crazy woman read, with her logic? Renne decided not to think about it too much and focus on the readouts. In case of troubles, Jean and she could reach the former flower shop in less than one minute.

Just one minute, a mere sixty seconds.

She hoped it was enough to save her boss, in the worst case scenario.

**

What we see, is a television set. It’s that same old television we noticed so many times, in that closed up flower shop, now consumed by ivy, wrapped by discolored police lines. The musty stench, a cocktail of dust and humidity, of doors never opened in the past six months. The counter is still there, though. A blond girl used to work behind it, used to greet other human beings, selling them every kind of flower, except roses. Now, where is that human girl? Of course, of course she went away. She was amusing. A story worth telling. The dark heroine, losing herself, becoming the monster – only to be rescued by an even more wretched creature, the shell of a man that once was. It was priceless to see her dreams, her hopes building up, day by day, as she finally understood what it meant to possess an own body, her own flesh and bones. A puppet become human, or, rather, a soul substantiating. A means to an end, to distract us, to amuse us. But now, that time is over. Now, the stage is set.

The protagonist is here. But, spoiler, she won’t win. She can’t win.

Because, whatever her plan, whatever her preparations, she is one.

While we, the villain, the foul beast haunting this dilapidated place, observing without being seen.

We are many.

We were more.

Way more.

But that’s why this is happening.

Because every story.

Every existence.

Has an end.

And that

end

is

US

**

Veckert held her nose, as she stepped inside the abandoned flower shop, for the first time in months. Everything was even worse than she remembered it. No light, shutters down, ivy everywhere, now wrapping the wall clock completely, a wall clock still slowly marking the time. Seventeen five. It was pretty convenient, for Baal to broadcast his position. Without that stunt, they would have never found him. It was clear that he wanted to be found. That might as well been a trap, for what Veckert knew, but she was confident it wasn’t. It was all compatible with his psychology, the psychology of someone who wanted to be acknowledged, who wanted to leave a mark on the world. It took her so long to crack the mystery. So long. Yet, she finally got it. They finally got it. Thanks, in no small part, to a report written by the single human being she despised the most. Yet, that didn’t matter. Veckert had something to protect, the happiness she clawed with all her strength, the happiness she couldn’t let go. Riri. Her Riri was there for her. Waiting at home. Safe. That’s all she needed to go forth. That’s all she needed to face him. To put an end to the flowers. To put an end to his machinations. To stop the night from walking ever again.

She listened in silence, as her detector beeped, like mad, finding distortion traces everywhere, anywhere. Every centimeter of that room was soaked with distortion events. The fulcrum, the epicenter. They assumed it was because of the flower, once. Now, it was clear that it was but a decoy. The shop, the whole shop was a ROP. Each flower. Each cupboard. The counter. The coffin in the back. The TV set. The ivy. The wall clock. They weren’t common objects.

They were all part of him.

So, she looked at his eyes. She looked at the display of the TV, disconnected since forever, but still, somehow, working.

Digital noise, a humming sound. The screen became alive, images and pixels shaking, twisting, turning in shape. And, of course, showing an episode of Eliphya. That episode, of course. Yet, something was different. The colors didn’t match. The visage didn’t match. Instead of Eliphya, of her scared face as the vines stripped her in front of the cameras, the picture was that of…

Rika. The girl on the screen, the girl humiliated and wounded by the thorns was Rika. Veckert bit her lips. That bastard. That bastard didn’t lose his sense of humor.

“I thought you had better taste, Baal.”

The picture shook, digital noise again, altering the image, changing it completely. Now, it was a bed, seen from above. Two women on it, one with an azure mane, the other with auburn hair. Kissing, hugging, exploring each other’s body, in a torrent of moans and passion, captured by an invisible eye. Veckert gritted her teeth, clenched her fist. Then, a deep breath. Slow. Slow. He was trying to make her lose her cool, but that was okay. If he could hurt her, he would have already done it.

Another interference, the frames fading right at the climax, turning into something else entirely. A man. A man with violet irises, brown hair. Remarkable, good-looking even. He was staring at Veckert, from behind the screen. A gun barrel from the right side, touched his temple. Shot. Without any sound. In slow motion. The display went red, sprayed brain matter on the other side, from the exit hole. Yet, the man was still there. Still looking, as his skin decayed, turned gray, as his eye started to bleed, as a hole peeked on his cheek. A bandage, a face mask, the same brown hair, one iris left.

Then, the speakers became alive. A voice from them. His voice.

“Welcome, welcome, scarred hound! Indeed I had better taste, but that part of me is lost. Neverthemore, nevertheless I’m so glad to see you here. You received my invitation! And you came ALONE! ALONE! Ah! To think you’d humor me, one last time!”

Veckert watched him, as the picture moved to watch her in turn. The woman staring at the abyss, staring back at the woman. A perfect circle of gazes, peering into each other, scanning the depths of their contrasting existences. A chess match that started years before, without fixed rules, exceptions on exceptions against exceptions. A chess match that was decided, the moment the truth came out.

“I had questions, Baal. Before deleting you, that is.”

“Deleting… me?”

A laughter, a echoing, booming laughter coming from every corner of the store, every corner of Baal’s body, that ROP that was once Les Fleurs du Mal, or that maybe never was. That store. That dilapidated building. Was its anchor. He never lost his vessel. Silman’s body was just a decoy. But Silman’s mind…

“You sure have a way with words, detective. Deleting me. Really?”

The picture trembled, stabilized again, slowly. He was the younger Silman now, if only for an instant, before reverting to “Niamm Kissilmer”. Veckert glanced at the display, met his stare once more, answered just four words.

“Without doing anything, either.”

Silence. Niamm Kissilmer stared back, as the picture shook, lost consistence, before stabilizing again. Then, the interference duplicated the image, messed its vertical alignment. The face went diagonal, tilted left and right, before regaining consistency. Every interference lasted longer than the previous. Every one distorting his picture more. His voice, though, was still loud, clear. With a veil of melancholy.

“So, you noticed.”

“You couldn’t hide it anymore.”

Veckert crossed her arms, keeping eye contact with the two-dimensional figure on gazing at her from the display. She massaged her chin, lowered her gaze.

“Too many apparitions of dead people, in the past four months. Constantly increasing. First one, two maybe, then ten, hundred, one thousand per day. It was good until it lasted, Baal.”

Again, silence was the answer, the picture on the display broke down, recomposed itself without saying anything. Veckert closed her eyes, started talking again.

“No, no, wait… not Baal, and not Silman either… that isn’t even your true name. ”

Her green irises flashing, gazing at the display, words heavier than stones.

“Isn’t it, Northern Algol?”

Silence.

Not a sound.

Not a breath.

Not a movement.

Not a step.

The figure on the display blinked, trembled.

Shocked.

Surprised.

Amazed.

Astounded.

Amused.

Yet, Veckert wasn’t finished yet. It was time to show all she knew. It was time to close the match.

“Almost two million people. Dying at the same time, in the same place. A mass of orphan information, soon to be deleted. But, in this post-Helsinki, defective world, that’s not what happened. That mass of deceased data coalesced into a ROP of gigantic proportions, a ROP without an identity, or, rather, too many of them, that took refuge inside the body of a man who just died. The man who killed you all. Your anchor, your vessel. The corpse of Silman Simmerik.”

Static. The picture splits, come back together, splits again, into a multitude of faces, two million different faces, single pixels on the display, a mosaic without end that formed one image.

That image.

The night.

“Without an identity, you became the Walking Night. A giant, city-wide reality oscillation, capable of interfering with ROPES and resonant people alike. You were hiding inside Baal, your human remnant, during the day, using him to keep a grasp on reality. And that’s when things become interesting… Because Silman’s mind was a part of you. First, lost among a sea of infinite information. Then, slowly emerging, before taking control again. I suppose it was possible because of his affinity for that body – his body. This is when the Walking Night was cut out from its anchor, from the rotting corpse of Silman Simmerik, now led by an approximate copy of his original self, reclaiming his freedom from you. This happened while you were in Northern Algol, correct? Right after you used his knowledge to release the Sand Blood Flower in the wild, which might have been what helped his persona to take over. You survived this traumatic detachment only thanks of all the residual information scattered around the ruins and kept watching him, without being able to assert control on your puppet. But wait, what when Silman moved here, to New Langdon?”

Veckert pointed her finger at the display, without waiting for an answer. She had the answers, she didn’t need them.

“Without an anchor, a stable vessel, your information started degrading and losing cohesion. That’s when you became this very shop. These walls, the cupboard, the stands, the clock… while Silman acted as Niamm Kissilmer, you surrounded him, trapped him, seeped into his world. And, slowly but surely, made him part of you again… until he blossomed.”

Her fingers touched on the wooden counter, slid on it, caressing its rugged surface, tracing their way through a thick veil of dust. Scraps of paper, the remains of a calendar, a list of some sort shakily handwritten. She glanced at it, tried to make up some words. A list of groceries, including a small, rough heart symbol near the line “bunnies 4 my Kramers”. That was something that had somehow confused Veckert, the first time she thought about it. Niamm Kissilmer wasn’t a complete copy of Silman. He was a twisted, deranged man that shared Baal’s over-the-top mannerism, but he showed a spark of something that Silman, by all surviving accounts, lacked: empathy towards other living beings. Niamm had a pet noctiphage he genuinely cared for, a noctiphage he saved and medicated himself. He even took a liking in Lejl and, for around a year, lived as a semi-normal person, selling normal flowers to normal people in his less-than-normal store. Lejl herself vouched for him too, several times during her interrogation. A bizarre man with gross tastes, a pervert even, with a sadistic vein… but still someone who valued her work and relied on her. How much that was the result of Ms. Kaleidos’s rose-tinted-glasses and how much of it was reality, it was up to debate. Yet, that was beside the point, because Niamm’s story – much like Silman’s, had the same ending. Her eyes gazed again at the display, faced the expressionless moon taking center screen on it.

“During the last year of Niamm Kissilmer’s life, he wasn’t the one in control – you were back in the driving seat, even if not completely. You made him develop the Human Blood Flower for your own needs, convincing him that it was for the greater good, that it was like back when he was Rosenmaester. You made him spread the flowers inside the Dream too. It was all to keep yourself alive. Clone your information. Create new chunks of data for yourself. Absorb it and grow, countering the natural degradation of your essence. Then, once that was achieved and you had no more uses for such a dangerous vessel, you got rid of him. You tested his creation on him. Killed him, for the second time. After all, all you needed to do now was wait. Wait and remain anchored to these walls. Your real body.”

Static again, moving faster, deleting all individual pictures, until the mosaic turned into a new image. The store. Les Fleurs du Mal. The real vessel of the Night.

“But, then, something happened, didn’t it? Something huge, something that you didn’t plan for. The plant. The rekashiza. This is the part I don’t get, but one thing is clear: as soon as it bloomed, you started degrading faster and faster. That’s what the Northern Algol Hallucinations are. Chunks of your body, lost forever, appearing shortly after being deleted from the reality matrix. And, now, not many of you are left. Less than ten thousand, am I right?”

The picture on the display twisted, changed shape again. It was Silman’s corpse, one more time, with the dirty bandages and the gray, decaying skin. Before turning again, into another form, another familiar form.

“That’s why I love you, Veckert. You are incredible. Simply incredible. You’ll never cease to give me a good show. But what if I… call in the guest of honor?”

Short, blond hair. Blue eyes. Beautiful features marred by small wrinkles. A black and purple cape all around his body.

It was his face.

The face of Saìl Takara.

Veckert exhaled. A deep breath, just a deep breath. No other reaction.

“So, he was your puppet too. Of course, he was. You convinced him that your flowers and the rekashizas were one and the same, right? That’s why he thought he was helping whatever dark emperor he supported. You struck gold, by infecting him.”

“I call it a retribution for what he did to me. No, not he – the plant. The one that sprouted in Shard.”

Digital disturbance, the screen changes again. A red sky, giant vines emerging from a building, a massive flower demolishing from inside out, breaking through concrete, among screams, shouts, utter chaos.

“Such a marvelous feat of bioengineering. Whoever made it, inside the dead world, has talent, almost as much as me. But, its purpose… its purpose put a giant, ticking clock on my head, Veckert.”

The vines disappear, the building disappear. Blackness. Profound blackness. Then, a hole peeks out. A second. A third. The holes get larger, fragment break out. Suddenly, the dark veil is no more. And Silman’s younger face takes center stage, one more time.

“The plant ate me, Veckert. Ate me alive. Little by little, chipping at me. Every new rekashiza made the process faster and faster. You know what it means? That the world doesn’t like me, Veckert, that we, Northern Algol, should be forgotten. That our collective existence, cut short by a megalomaniac, genocidal monster, must vanish from the reality matrix… much like a mere, negligible rounding error. But that’s okay, we don’t like the world either. In fact, we think it would be better…”

Silman and Saìl, overlapping, the images fighting for supremacy, corrupted by digital noise.

“… if it turned into a garden.”

Saìl won over Silman, his pupils turning into dots, his grimace to the limit of a grotesque imitation of a human being. The picture raised his arms, his voice thundering inside the shop.

“Every Dreamer is a seed! Every seed is a Dreamer!”

One last scream, the walls shaking, twisting, the wood cracking.

“LET! THE FLOWERS! BLOOM!”

In that precise moment, the clock struck five thirty.

And hell broke loose.

4 November 2967, 17:30

Res Vertighel falls on the floor, his mouth agape, as the body of the cameraman contorts, twists, as his screams, wails of pain, inhuman screeches, fill the studio. Someone call an ambulance, he hears. And yet, he knows that something is up. Maybe, it’s just a hunch. Maybe, it’s due to a career talking about phenomena he couldn’t understand. That does’t change the fact that the cameraman’s body swells, as his clothes rip apart, as his yells turn into a hiss.

Until it explodes.

Opening up.

Like a cocoon.

**

American embassy in Shard. Eric Lamorgese, fifty-five years old, incorrectly reported as dead due to an explosion, by soldiers he believed to be drunk. Still living, not caring about the rumors on his presumed demise. And Dreaming, unfortunately. It’s time to clock out, almost. That’s why he’s surrounded by colleagues. That’s why they’re all going out. He suggested drinking something together, a small team-bonding round table, to please his cravings, the directive he got.

Be among people.

Yet, that can’t help him. Can’t help his pain. Can’t stop him from falling to the floor. Can’t stop his throat from screaming.

Can’t stop his body from bursting open.

**

At the side of the road, Liu’s motorbike is still on, the wheel aimlessly turning on the gravel, the throttle jammed. Yet, she cannot see it. She cannot hear it. She cannot touch it. She cannot open her mouth. Her helmet lies to the side, her shoulder protections, her knee pads too, propelled away by the violent outburst. Her hair, once beautiful, spread all over the sand.

Her body but the roots for a newborn plant.

**

Liv O’Conner, in her woodcutter attire, catching her breath, her lungs on fire. She dreamt, of course, she dreamt of the dead world. And the flowers too. Yet, her mind can just remember two.

Words.

O Flowers

O Flowers

O Flowers

And her voice starts to sing

O Flowers

O Flowers

O Flowers

Till her throat is no more

And the rafflesia sprouts.

**

The Kingdom will come, for Rygal Deshvawn. The promise of Saìl, the promise of Gaia. No reason to doubt, his loyalty unquenched, his vision uncloud’d. He lies on his cot, he smirks at the clock. The day will end soon, his reward unmatched, while shadows still loom. He thinks about Rishel, about his wrongdoings. That idiot that talked, a shame to be quelled. So lays down Deshvawn, a smirk on his face. The clock hands are moving, they’re winning the race. But something is bugging his tinkering brain.

What is going to happen, on this fateful day?

He asks it and asks it, Saìl’s voice’s no more. Nobody can answer except for his soul. A soul which is haunted by a horrible wraith, that grows big and bigger, the longer he waits. Till that long last moment, the hand striking half, when all his convictions are broken and lost.

As his body is.

Opening up, ripping his organs.

Burning from inside out.

His cells all replaced.

None left of his own.

His eyes bawl out, his voice goes silent.

And the flower blooms.

His life ends so too.

**

A knock on the door, repeated, stronger and stronger, desperate. Lucia’s ear rise up, she growls annoyed, leaves her bed in her pajama and red cape, a killer instinct emerging tout of annoyance. Yet, Blade’s face is what gets her. Scared. His breath short. He points at something, his voice broken, his muscles shaking. Lucia gasps, as she hear the name.

Maurizio.

Something happened to Maurizio.

She leaps out of her door in an instant, leaves Blade behind, as the screams grow louder and louder. Her heart pumped, her animal instincts overtaking her. Time slows down, as she traverses the corridors, the crew assembling outside of their cabins, their worried gazes, questions with no answers. She pushes forward, never stopping, prowling on all four to go faster, faster, faster.

Till she reaches the door.

Shissu Kobase in front of it, shaking his head. She holds her breath, as her senses tells the story, the stench behind the door, the vague rustling noises.

It’s all over.

Maurizio’s no more.

What’s left of him is nothing like human.

Just a horrible, foul, rafflesia flower.

**

EiN has only enough time to pull Zojimbo away, before the body explodes, before the man known as Calman Nikolaevich is torn to shreds, from inside out, his body armor trapping what is left of him, preventing it from opening completely.

Shattered, like a cocoon. A screaming cocoon, of a parasite caterpillar that grew inside him. Everything is frozen. Boost’s disgusted face, Zojimbo’s fear, Byle’s shock. Only EiN keeps calm. He knew it.

He had a hunch that would happen. As the yells of pain die out, as the petals peek out from the crushed helm, as the crimson corolla makes its way through what once was a human being.

As the flower blooms.

Not only there, in General Boost’s office.

But

everywhere.

All

around

the

world

the Blossoming

begins.

4 November 2967, 17:31

That wasn’t supposed to go like that. It wasn’t. Not at all. Zojimbo blinked, his teeth clattering, trembling, trembling like a leaf. Nikolaevich. The soldier who asked him about his measurement.

That soldier.

Was no more.

Replaced by a screaming, bloody mass of vines and petals, a stem emerging from what once was a rib cage, now trapped between the wrappings of a suit of tactical armor, the only protection surviving the unraveling of what once was his flesh.

That wasn’t supposed to go like that. It had been hard to convince the major to gather all the RCT squad leaders, it had been so hard to get him to agree to listen. Now, all that effort.

Wasted.

Washed away by the demise of a human being.

Now but a grotesque pea pod harboring a twitching flower. The stench of rotten meat, the cloud of gray pollen, the puddles of ooze, of melted bones, of gastric fluids. Zojimbo had to avert his sight, before falling ill, before feeling his stomach twisting and burning. He retched, twice, the impulse to throw up, barely contained.

That felt surreal. That couldn’t possibly be happening. That wasn’t supposed to go like that. The rekashiza was stabilizing their plane, not destroying it, not destroying it. Then, how? Why? What was the deal with Nikolaevich? He shivered, slowly getting up, first on his elbows, then on his knees. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. He adjusted his glasses, tried to turn his brain into working order. He was a scientist. He worked with ROPES, with distortion phenomena, for his whole life. That was just another one of them. One that had the misfortune of being a human being, until one minute before.

The screams clouded his mind. The plant was screaming. The soldiers were screaming. Everyone was screaming, maybe even he was, without noticing it. But someone wasn’t. Someone standing tall, with his hands in his pockets, his leather jacket on show, those dumb “one”-shaped studs.

EiN.

EiN wasn’t shaking. He wasn’t wailing, he wasn’t cowering in fear. He was simply.

Watching.

Zojimbo focused on his face, on the grin of the man that had been a huge source of woes during his ESPDeC career. Not a care. Not a movement. Simply watching. And grinning.

“Jeez, all those preparations for this? Sort of anticlimatic, Baal.”

He shrugged, under the puzzled gaze of the diminutive scientist, of the other soldiers, still trembling, of Corporal Byle, trying to get the situation back together. Of Heinz-Harald Boost, staring at the plantified corpse with nothing less than cold disgust, his pupils contracted to the theoretical limit, a cloud of thoughts ravaging his mind. The damn plant. It had to be the fault of the damn plant. Nikolaevich wasn’t a member of die Fledermaus, but was still one of his soldiers. And Nikolaevich was now dead.

Turned into a nightmare flower that smelled like a corpse.

Under his powerless gaze.

He gasped for air, clenched his fists. His voice thundered, echoed inside the room, caused everyone else to turn, to forget their fear for a moment.

“Soldiers! Containment breach, protocol delta! Everyone up! Load your guns, keep the perimeter clear! Now! Call the sterilization unit and get! Away! From that flower!”

Broken stares, empty gazes pointed at him, at the imposing man standing tall behind the desk, his voice piercing their hearts, giving them strength. Byle stood up first, lifted his gun, his grip steadier and steadier. Then, another soldier. And another. And another. One by one, rising up, all in a row at the voice of the leader, their leader. Only Zojimbo still sitting, frozen by indecision, second guessing himself. It didn’t make sense. That couldn’t be an effect of the rekashiza. He knew it. He knew it without a shadow of doubt. But, then, what? What was that thing?

The same question was drilling Boost’s mind too. Until he realized it.

EiN.

EiN didn’t react to the turning. EiN didn’t scream. EiN didn’t cry. EiN didn’t duck for cover.

EiN was expecting it.

He raised his finger, pointed it at him, his cheeks turning red, deep crimson.

“EiN! You know something, don’t you? You know what happened to Nikolaevich?!”

A shrug as the answer, not the reply he was waiting for.

“Guess we can say so. You know that saying, you are what you eat? Good ol’ Calman was a Dreamer and ate too many flowers. That’s all there’s to it.”

Noise, buzzing, words among the soldiers, incredulous stares. Yet, EiN didn’t falter. He stood close to the newborn flower, still caged by Nikolaevich’s personal armor.

“If you want a better explanation, ask Rainer. I’m sure she’ll be able to give you more details, general.”

“You idiot! If you knew that something like this was gonna happen…”

“Nobody could prevent it, general. Even if we told you, nobody could have saved him. No, we would have just caused mass hysteria and a witch hunt. Sucks to be him, sucks to be them, but trust me, it was the best we could do.”

“Them…?”

At that word, Boost’s blood froze in his veins.

Them.

Did that mean…

His hand delved into his pocket, reached for his phone, scrolled to the news.

Only to see that flower.

That horrible rafflesia flower.

Everywhere, in the first page.

In hundreds, thousands of similar pictures.

Japan. Korea. China. India. Russia. Poland. Turkey. Saudi Arabia. Iran. Morocco. Senegal. Congo. South Africa. Italy. France. US. Canada. Nicaragua…

Everywhere. In every language.

Out there, in every city, in every state, in every country.

Someone bloomed into a flower.

Boost’s heart ground to a halt. His phone rung, rung immediately. A message. A message from…

> H.H., are you alright? I’ve seen the news, the flowers! Please, tell me you’re fine! Dad and I are okay, don’t worry about us!

Marin. His mother Marin. He let out a sigh of relief. They were safe. They didn’t turn. And yet…

> I’m fine, mom. BRB, need to solve this.

He replied back, felt a heavy burden lifted from his chest. Good. Now, he could focus. Now, he had to focus. But what about Sciarpie? Sciarpie was a robot, Sciarpie couldn’t turn. Of course, he couldn’t turn. But what if he did? What if his Sciarpie did? His hand clenched to his chest. His Sciarpie. Alone, in his home. What if… he scrambled to his house cameras app, fired it. The pictures of his CCTV appeared on his screen, almost instantly. Sciarpie. Sciarpie was there, curled in his small bed. He was trembling, shaking. Sciarpie. Sciarpie was scared.

S c i a r p i e w a s s c a r e d.

He felt his chest aching, his heart beating faster and faster.

S c i a r p i e w a s a l o n e.

S c i a r p i e w a s s c a r e d.

All because of… yes, because of…

He turned around, to the window at his back, the window opening on the rekashiza. He growled like a caged beast, pointed at it.

“… it’s all that goddamn plant’s fault, isn’t it, EiN? ISN’T IT?”

“Believe it or not, General, that ain’t the case.”

Boost slammed his fist on the desk, a violent impact, the wood almost cracked.

“Bullshit! It has to be the plant! It HAS to be! What else… what else could it be?”

His soldiers silent, watching each other, not knowing what to do. Some pointing their guns at the flower, now still, silent, unmoving. Whatever that thing was, it lost its life. It lost its energy. It was just there. Not living, not dying. A huge rafflesia flower, surrounded by a cloud of pollen, pollen that was falling like dust on the floor. Boost pointed at it, screaming in EiN’s direction.

“But of course! Of course! First, this goddamn ‘shiza sprouts in the middle of my city! Then, everywhere else around the world! Congo, Vietnam, Spain, Russia… it’s clear! The plants are a weapon! They turned people into flowers! It’s all their fault, right? If we don’t destroy them, they’ll… they’ll…”

That’s when it happened.

That’s when he stood up, in front of EiN.

Small, unremarkable, with long, greasy black hair, sight glasses, stubby beard, his arms spread.

“Major Boost! The rekashizas have nothing to do with this!”

Zojimbo felt surprised by the sound, the power of his voice. It was really him talking. It was really him standing between the mad hound of Yard and his boss. It was he who knew the truth. He who had to explain it.

“The ‘shizas are stabilizing this layer, Major! They are eating the background noise! They are… they are safety valves! The ‘shizas are this world’s safety valves! They destroy ROPES, they don’t cause them to pop up!”

Boost blinked at him, dumbfounded, incredulous.

“What…?”

“The numbers don’t lie, Major! This is the news I wanted to break to you! We mustn’t kill the plants! They are helping us, Major! Helping us! Burning them is a mistake!”

The Screamers. Boost’s mind turned inside out, the picture of the Screamers, pillaging his sanity. The Screamers. Their black, contorted, malformed bodies. Their claws.

Sciarpie.

They were a danger for Sciarpie.

Yes, they were a danger for Sciarpie a danger for Sciarpie a danger a danger a danger for Sciarpie for Sciarpie a danger for Sciarpie a danforgensciarpie-adansciargerforpie-aaaaaaaaaaaa-

“Major, please, don’t be an idiot like usual! The rekashizas might help us deal with this! Think of them as natural phenomena! They aren’t good or bad! They… they just are!”

“Sciarpie…”

They could torn him apart, if the plant kept expanding. Destroy him, kill him again. Torn him apart. Torn him apart. Tornhimapartapartapartapart-

“Major…?”

Boost’s hand reached for under his jacket, his pupils lost, his gaze empty.

Apartapartapartapart-

“M… Major… Boost?”

“… General.”

A loud bang, sudden, instant.

“It’s General Boost.”

A red trail, droplets falling in slow motion. Eyes wide open, mouth agape glasses flying. The body crumpling, the recoil blasting it back. The shoulder hitting the ground, the nape, the hips too.

A puff of smoke, from the barrel, from the Sachson semi-automatic weapon.

Zvonimir Zojimbo lay down on the metallic floor.

His hair spread in a messy crown.

Blood staining his forehead, gurgling out.

And a bullet straight between his eyes.

4 November 2967, 17:47

Another panic attack. Another one. Lejl bit her shirt, Cyphr’s shirt, her hands clutching to her girlfriend’s sides, her eyes swollen, wet with tears. Yelling, crying, sobbing, yelping.

“Cyphy! I… I don’t want to… help me, help me, help me…”

A gentle patting on her hair, her tears wiped. Cyphr’s ceramic arms wrapping her, rocking her slowly.

“It’s fine. It’s all fine, Lalli. You’re safe.”

“The flowers! Cyphy, they have… they have bloomed! They were all Dreamers! What if I…”

“You won’t. Veckert said so, remember? You’re safe.”

Tears. Even more tears. Lejl was shaking. Those pictures. The same flower. Niamm Kissilmer’s flower. Saìl Takara’s flower. Why not her flower too? Why? She trembled, retched, felt like throwing up.

“Cyphy, I… I can’t… I’m…”

“Vince, quick!”

Cyphr pushed her towards the counter, towards the small basin brought by Jackson. Just in time. Lejl let her stomach burst, her gastric juices flow, filling the cup, in two, three rounds. Cyphr hugged her from her back, kept her among her arms.

“See? No seeds, Lalli. You’re fine. You’re fine…”

She kissed Lejl’s forehead, let her rest in her mechanical arms. All while Jackson started grumbling, sitting awkwardly near them. The door of the café was closed, an early closure at 17 – very unusual. Nevertheless, it felt fuller than ever. Cyphr comforting Lejl in one corner. Shaz and his even dumber piranha pal in the other, with a side dish of his lizard partner.

“Dad, you shouldn’t sit on the floor, or mom will have to clean your pants again!”

He gazed down, only to see Jake pulling his sleeve on one side and Hiro pulling it from the other.

“Jake, don’t call him dad! You know Vince doesn’t want to!”

“But he’s our dad now! He’s mom’s hubby!”

He surrounded both of them with his arms, hugged them together.

“That’s alright, Hiro. If Jake wants to call me dad, let him. Now, dad’s handling this, okay? Go help mom a little, yes? You need to protect her from the bad flowers!”

“Mom said we should protect you, Vince.”

“Yes, mom said you need more help than her!”

He raised his hatted eyes in the direction of a table, where a woman with straight long blond hair was smiling at him, smirking even. His wife, Kia. That scoundrel he was madly in love with. Even during an emergency, she found a way to have him take care of the children. Of course, she gave him the raspberry too, almost as if to say the ball’s in your court, hubby. Jackson knew he couldn’t win that round, so he folded.

“Okay, okay, mom’s always right. But don’t cause trouble or I’ll leave you two with uncle Shaz!”

“No! Not uncle Shaz!”

The kids shouted in unison, causing said uncle Shaz to stand up from his seat.

“Hey! Heeeey, you li’l ungrateful planktonsquirts! If it ain’t for uncle Shaz, who’s gonna take ya pests to the movies, when mom’s away and Vince’s busy?!”

Jackson side-eyed him, hugged the children even tighter.

“Not you. Last time you forgot them at the cinema, you idiot!”

“They do be oooold enough to finna their way home!”

A guttural noise, followed by a brutal splash, a growl, a whimper. Lejl had thrown up again, filling the basin, with Cyphr keeping her steady, helping her out. Jackson groaned, hoping for his star employee to always center the hole and not expel her bowels on the freshly cleaned floor of his café. Maybe, inviting everyone he cared for to join him, with the excuse that Rainer said something bad will happen wasn’t the best idea – yet, it was indeed an idea, which had the advantage of making sure they were safe. His wife, their children, his best finned friend, his best shift manager, her girlfriend, and a couple extras. Unsurprisingly, Jenn, Tiger, Ange and Chai weren’t among them. When offered shelter, back in the middle of the afternoon, they declined. Their place was on the field, if anything happened. Which is why they weren’t there. Delta Base and Crossbones HQ had to be a hell, in that moment.

“Dad, can we play with the tiger kids?”

“No, they’re still too small.”

“But they’re so cute!”

“Dad, why do their mom looks like aunt Lalli?”

“Yes, Vince! Why do her kids look like kittens but she doesn’t?”

Sitting directly in front of Kia, Amy was keeping both of her children in her arms, trying to stop them from crying, singing a lullaby with her angelic voice. Amy. The Velvet Butterfly. “Bloodless Mary” Yang. Jackson felt the need to wash his brain in bleach, after picturing her doing stripper things. Amy. The most polite, gentle, considerate, sensible creature on that planet. Stripping as wildly as her clone/sister/offshoot was, if not more. How that was possible, was beyond Jackson’s understanding. And yet, that had to be the truth, because of the last person sitting at that table. Rika Hyhui. Wearing a modest, long-sleeved pullover and jeans. Chatting amiably with both his wife and Amy, like long time friends. Of course, Veckert directed her to Jackson’s. Left her a message, even, a post-it on her pillow. And now, everyone was there. Talking, joking or simply doing random stuff to keep their sanity intact.

Not to think about what was happening outside.

People all around the world blossomed, turned into eldritch mutant flowers, flowers that bursted in a cloud of pollen, screeching in pain, before going mute and stopping moving. Kids, elders, adults, of any skin color, religion and sexual orientation. Nothing in common, nothing at all. As the live-streamed episode of Traveller turned into a horror movie in a matter of seconds, he had the sudden hunch that trusting Rainer had been the best decision he could have made. So, now, with all doors locked and the metal grating down, he felt like he had built a little safe haven. Lejl, though, took it hard. The sunny, always-horny, playful Lejl was just a wreck, crying, trembling and shaking in Cyphr’s arms, whimpering, in a state of shock. Jackson wasn’t expecting her to crash like that. She had to have her reasons, reasons he didn’t need to know, as long as her girlfriend took care of her.

Well, back to my little troublemakers.

Jackson patted Jake’s and Hiro’s blond heads, pointed his finger at Amy and her children.

“See, Amy is married with Sambiong. You have met him, right? The big yellow cat with black stripes and very, very narrow eyes. Those are his kids. They got his fur.”

“Waaaait, so they have a tail too?”

“Huh-huh.”

“Dad? When I grow up, if I marry Jill, will my kids be cats too?”

“If you make me the grandpa of a furball, I’ll strike you out of my will, Jake.”

Of course Jackson would never do something that drastic, but that might have stopped the questions, at least for the moment. Interspecies romance was still a topic not suitable for his young cubs, at least in his opinion (not necessarily shared by Kia).

“As for why Amy looks like aunt Lalli… it’s because aunt Lalli is her clone, created by Mr. Daevka to replace her after she left her job at his club!”

“Aunt Lalli’s a clone?!”

“Or so she says.”

“But once she told me she’s a robot from the future that fell in love with aunt Cyphy!”

“Wait, Hiro! I thought aunt Lalli was an alien!”

Jackson would have smirked, if someone could see his mouth. But, with time, he was sure that the children would begin to pick up on his featureless expressions – just like their mother did.

“Alright, alright. Maybe she’s all of those things together. An alien robot from the future that’s also a clone of Amy.”

“She’s made of metal?!”

“Not really. You can ask her, after she gets better, Jake. Her nanomachines must have caused her operating system some issues. Don’t worry, though, aunt Cyphy knows how to restart her.”

Jackson raised his voice, directed it towards the odd couple.

“Right, aunt Cyphy?”

Cyphr cracked a smile, while still hugging Lejl as close as possible to her chest, rubbing her cheek on hers. Then, she raised her hand, producing an eloquent thumbs up.

“Count on me to fire her engines up, Alter! I’ll perform a full maintenance session on her, as soon as we get home!”

A weak chuckle, Lejl grabbed Cyphr’s shirt with both of her hands, lifted herself up a little.

“… o… only if you let me do a full maintenance check on you too.”

A kiss on her forehead, her tears wiped out.

“Well, if you behave...”

Rika watched that banter from afar, focusing mostly on the faceless name called Jackson. He was now playfully pushing his hat on Hiro’s head, letting the children pat his bald head in turn, laughing with them, trying to keep their spirits high. For a moment, she wondered if Veckert and she might ever end up like him and Kia. It was a tall order, just a hypothetical. No way she could think about a stable life with her, not after just five years of undisclosed mutual teasing and one night of passion together. Yet, that perspective warmed her heart a little. If things worked, really worked, in the long haul they might end up living together, under the same roof. Maybe, adopt a child too, while bickering like a married couple. That felt so different from what she thought she wanted for her whole life, and, nevertheless, an idea, the seed of an idea, that gave her something to look forward to. But, first, she had to understand her urges. Her not-into-girls mantra had taken such a big hit that she felt like thrusted out of her bulletproof closet, after it was shattered with a heavy nailed bat and subsequently nuked to smithereens from orbit. If anything, the night before made her wish she had been honest with Vicky sooner. Her soft skin, her delicate hands, her deep green mirrors, her azure mane, her hungry lips. Just thinking about their tango made her body react, crave for more, forcing her to calm herself down, if he didn’t want to give a show.

Vicky…

Rika wished, hoped, prayed she was fine, out there.

She couldn’t live in a world without her.

Not after having finally accepted her feelings.

4 November 2967, 17:36

Time stopped, froze for all people in the room.

All eyes, all eyes that were watching the flowers till now.

Diverted.

To the body.

Laying on the floor.

To its empty gaze.

To his open mouth, its motionless tongue.

To the hole in his forehead.

To all what was coming out of it.

That body that, one second before, was once a man.

And, one second later, just a corpse.

The barrel still warm, the finger on the trigger. Heinz-Harald Boost stood still, his arm not resting, his eyes gleaming, contemplating the end result of his action. No more “Major Boost”. No more “I can’t reallocate your name”. No more sphere ramblings. No more stupid questions. No more challenges to his decisions. Just perfect, absolute silence. He should have done that long before. Long. Before.

He smiled.

Without Zojimbo, the plan could go forth. No more roadblocks. No more discussions. The plant was to be eradicated. Burned. Only then, Sciarpie would have been safe. Only then.

“Sionn, ignore the flower and send all the troops to the armory now. We’re burning the rekashiza. We’re doing it today.”

Yes, that was the right course of action. The world was in danger, the plants were the cause. The reports were multiplying as they spoke. They needed to act. Now. But something wasn’t right. Byle. Sionn Byle’s voice didn’t answer his call. For the first time in ages. Boost waited, waited one second longer, ten seconds longer, one minute longer.

But the answer didn’t come.

Boost looked around, trying to find Corporal Byle. And there he was.

Shaking.

Trembling.

Pointing his weapon at him.

“Sionn?”

“G… General, put that gun down.”

Boost blinked, twice, his brain unable to compute. Sionn Byle. Aiming at him. Just because he removed an obstacle. That didn’t make sense.

“Sionn, what does this mean?”

Movement in the background, several soldiers scrambling, reaching for the body, for Zojimbo’s body. The flower ignored, left standing, unchecked. Something else getting priority. Boost couldn’t get it. Couldn’t understand it. He glanced at Sionn, met his shocked gaze, noticed his irregular breath, his terrible posture. Then, the voices came. The voices from the soldiers, from the other soldiers.

“Corporal Byle! Dr. Zojimbo is…”

That word. That one word. They said it.

“… No pulse. No breathing. He’s already…”

Dead.

It dawned on him, right then, it dawned on Boost.

Dead.

Zojimbo was dead. And he killed him. In cold blood. He looked at his hand, at the handle he grappled so tightly. That hand felt foreign. Was it his hand? He pulled that trigger. Did he? If so, why? His heart jolted. He had killed a scientist, in front of his men. In front a hound of Yard.

Killed a man.

In cold blood.

He closed his eyes.

Horrifying.

What he did was horrifying.

For anyone else but him.

Sure, it was murder. But what did murder mean, for Boost the Butcher? He felt something cracking inside. His restraints. His morals. His ethics. Everything he used as a shelter, as a convenient shield, to deny his truest self, to deny his homicidal urges. Everything. Gone. Because he pulled that trigger. Because he killed a man in front of his soldiers.

Because he wanted to protect Sciarpie.

But Sionn was far too distant from him, to even begin to grasp his reasons.

Sure, it was murder. Not the first. Not the last. One drop on an endless chain of falling domino tiles. One, two, three. A neko here, a mutant there, a shoiga too. Oh, and another scientist. And, hi, Vassili. Yep. He didn’t feel anything. Ending another person’s life didn’t make him feel anything. He was tired.

Tired to pretend he cared.

There were only two beings he would never make suffer.

His mother Marin.

And Sciarpie.

And Sciarpie.

And Sciarpie.

And Sciarpie.

“Why? Why did you… shoot him… general?”

Sionn’s words. Empty words. The fate of a world couldn’t be left to indecisive people. One had to take responsibility, make the hard decisions. That was his task. That was why he was promoted general. His subordinates were precious pawns, pawns he cared for. Ondra, Grumsley, Scratch, even Byle and Zojimbo. He cared for them. He mourned each loss. He recognized their valor. They were like brothers to him.

Yet, he couldn’t falter.

Brothers could be sacrificed for a bigger, more important goal. And that goal was the survival of mankind.

And Sciarpie.

And Sciarpie.

And Sciarpie.

And Sciarpie.

Die Fledermaus was born for that, to guide the planet from the shadows, to achieve greatness. Vassili was the first to believe in the Schwarzer Blitz project. ”Split Metal” Mayer followed his vision, the vision of a man who saw the direction his species was headed to and wanted to steer it. Then, Boost took his place, alone at the top. He guided Mayer’s hand, he moved money, got investors, the help of Encorp, Bonzaga and Zavira. All thanks to his doing. To the bunch of corpses left rotting inside bridge pillars, drowned in concrete. All for the good of the many.

And Sciarpie.

And Sciarpie.

And Sciarpie.

And Sciarpie.

So, no. Sionn couldn’t understand. Sionn was yet another obstacle. Good soldiers need to follow their orders. Zojimbo should have followed his.

Tell me how to burn the plant, not why I shouldn’t.

He was crystal clear, so many times. And, yet, he defied him. Defied his will. Even brought EiN to parlay on his behalf. EiN. One of the few people Boost could really call a friend. Turned against him. He would have dealt with him later, though. Burning the plant was the highest priority.

So, he raised his gun again, aiming it at Sionn, this time.

Then, he pulled the trigger.

4 November 2967, 17:44

The display of the TV twisted, turned, Saìl’s face disappeared, Silman’s face too. Both replaced by pictures, news fragments with jumbled audio. South Korea. Congo. Pakistan. Iceland. Flowers. Those horrible rafflesia flowers. Shown everywhere. Phone videos, blurred images, bodies opening like pea pods, thrashed from inside out. A kid exploding in a bunch of vines during his birthday party. An elder man blossoming inside a tram. A stripper bursting open during her performance.

Veckert watched in silence, without ever taking her eyes away. From the live footage in the Traveller episode on. She watched everything, biting her lips, clenching her fists. She knew it. She knew that was going to happen. But she couldn’t, they couldn’t save them.

All those Dreamers that touched the flowers.

All of them.

One per mille of the human population, around eight million people. That was the percentage of Dreamers, according to their surveys. One every thousand. Ten every ten thousand. A thousand every million. A million every billion. That meant that, in New Langdon alone, around one point two thousand people were at risk of turning. One point two thousand.

All too far gone, when they developed the cure.

All too far gone, because it was already too late.

Rishel was the one they saved. Rishel was the one they reached in time. But all others? When they found them, were already doomed. Like Deshvawn. So, they didn’t tell them anything. They said all was fine. Because if they didn’t, Baal would have caught wind of it, changed his plans. Mass hysteria would have started, making it easy for him to sow even more chaos.

It was their fault. The members of the British ROPES task force let all those people die and felt guilty for it. Even if they knew they couldn’t change it. Even if they knew that they did their beast.

So, Veckert stood still, watched every picture, committed them to her mind, to her memory. Not a frame lost. Not a face forgotten, in that macabre show of found footage that spread like wildfire on the net. And, now, Baal, the collective intelligence of the remnants of Northern Algol, was showing them to her. All of them, in a macabre slideshow of death, decay and terror.

Yet, she didn’t cry. She didn’t yell. She didn’t fall to her knees, asking for him to stop. That was her burden. He wouldn’t have broken her.

Thus, she finally spoke.

“A fraction of eight million people, let’s say seventy percent. Dying at the same time. You took inspiration from the best, didn’t you?”

She talked calmly, slowly, her rough voice almost whispering.

“That was your solution to avoid being dispersed. Color me impressed. Nice plan you put in place, very forward thinking. You’re lucky you got your preparations done before the first ‘shiza bloomed.”

No answer, only more pictures of suffering, of people turning into flowers.

“But you got one part wrong, Baal.”

The signal hitched, the picture distorted. Quick shifts of channel, changing source after every word, to compose a sentence.

“My…bzzz… name… bzzz… isn’t… bzzz… Ba… bzzz… al!”

“Calling you remnants of Northern Algol takes too long. Deal with it, Baal. Now, you’re sure that you’ve won. That these millions of people will join you, turn into another branch of your collective intelligence. However, you missed a vital step.”

She raised her finger, pointed at the display.

“Distance.”

The picture buzzed, turned into a mess of digital noise, before resuming a showcase of news broadcasts, first the same, then adding new ones, as fast as they aired.

“Northern Algol coalesced into the Walking Night because two million people died in a limited area, at the same time. There was a critical mass of localized lost information, with nowhere to go. Now, you got around the same number… but around the whole world.”

Her eyebrows bent, her eyes gleaming.

“This isn’t enough for another Walking Night! And you had to realize it. I refuse to accept this was your master plan, Baal.”

No answer, only a new sequence of pictures. Close ups of the flowers. Of their corollas. Of their pollen. A fountain of pollen, raining out without end.

“There’s a second step, right?”

Close ups on the pollen.

On people around the flowers.

Inhaling it.

Slow motion. Focus on the pollen again.

That’s when Veckert raised her voice. That’s when she almost shouted, screamed. When the realization struck.

“T… the Human Blood Flower?!”

Silence. The picture went dark. Everything went dark.

And the laughter started.

4 November 2967, 17:39

Sionn heard the blast.

Heard the gunpowder exploding.

Heard the supersonic bang of the projectile.

Without being able to react.

A whole movie in his last moments, his life scrolling in front of his eyes, impressed on his retina. Every second, in one last instant.

Yet, what he felt wasn’t pain.

Was something scrolling him.

Pulling him away from the line of fire.

Thrusting him to the ground.

He slammed his head on the floor, rolled on it, turned upside down. What happened. He had no idea of what happened. He breathed. Alive. He was still alive. No bullet hole. No wound. But then…

“Alright, general. You’ve crossed the line.”

A doubled voice, distorted, echoing. He saw the boots, the ripped pants, the leather jacket, the studs. The blue bolts surrounding that man.

Static electricity, discharges, sparks. Sionn felt his heart sink. In front of him, the man, the man called EiN, wasn’t just a man anymore.

In front of him, that man was enveloped by a flickering shape, made of pure energy.

The shape of a blue lion.

Sionn gasped for air. He had heard of them. Resonants. The agents of ESPDeC, used to monitor the distortion plants, to protect them. Trained till their young age to ride the background noise and turn it into a weapon, with brutal methods. They weren’t allowed to reproduce, to keep their numbers under control, forcefully sterilized too. And, yet, Lorenz Kristhhoffer married another Resonant and fathered two kids. He was one of a kind. That one of a kind specimen, now, just saved him. Yes, him, Corporal Sionn Byle. The lowest bottom feeder of the chain of command. Saved by someone he only heard of as a living hurricane that brought destruction everywhere he made landfall.

“Dr. Zojimbo was an idiot.”

EiN’s voice roared, wrapped, enveloped by distortion effects.

“But, guess what? It was the idiot who saved my wife. The idiot who made it possible for me to have a happy ending, General. It’s weird to say this, but I’m sad now.”

The soldiers retreated, cowered in awe, left him space, him and the natural electricity twisting around his body. Boost aimed his gun at his head.

“Sad because I killed him?”

“No, not at all. Sad because it was intentional.”

EiN put his hands inside this pockets, letting two ghostly arms out , barely visible, their claws oscillating in and out of existence.

“When you shot him, I didn’t feel anything. Neither when he drew his last breath. I got it. It was an incident. You didn’t know your gun was loaded, you just wanted to scare him, something like that. I could find a reason, you know? Because you’re my friend, General. The man who married me and Michelle in Aubépine. So, yes, I found a reason to believe in you. It was a freak accident. It sat well with me.”

One step forward, ignoring the gun, the barrel pointed towards him.

“But when you aimed at that Sionn bozo? Hell, fuck subtlety, I guess. You knew you were going to kill him. So, hey, you see where I’m going? The accident. That convenient truth I built to keep you as a friend? Puff. Gone. Congrats, General.”

Another step forward, a grimace of disgust.

“You made me angry.”

Boost didn’t even see him. He just felt it. The impact, the impact on his hand, his gun breaking into pieces, ripped away by an invisible claw. He lost his balance, almost fell on his back, before rolling on the floor, returning to a standing posture. Raising his arms, in a boxing guard. Boost weaved to the left, narrowly avoiding a second claw slash, dashed forward, a blazing right straight, up close. EiN took it to the sternum, stumbled. A left hook, another right straight, a left body blow. EiN blocked in a hurry, avoided most damage, retreated, put some distance to launch his counteroffensive. Yet, Boost was already there, under his nose. A uppercut on his chin, another body blow, this time hitting the target. EiN knelt down, wiped the blood from his lips. Right as Boost hit him again, to the temple, with a powerful hook.

Making him fall to the ground, face first.

“EiN, EiN… you don’t understand. This is… necessary. If we don’t kill the plant… everything… everything is in shambles. The Screamers, EiN… they’ll find him. They’ll tear him apart.”

Boost grabbed his nape, lifted his head from the floor.

“Those who have the power to change the world must use it. I’m just… doing my job.”

“To hell with your job!”

An translucent arm grabbed Boost’s wrist, threw him to the wall with inhuman strength, like a rag doll. His back impacted against the plaster, slid down to the ground. A gasp of pain. Boost stood up, growled, took his stance once more, unfazed. He fought mutants, aliens and robots for his whole career. A Resonant was nothing new, even one as unique as EiN. He was General Heinz-Harold Boost. He was the one in control. No matter the odds. No matter the chances. He had to do it. He had to have that plant burned. He had to protect Sciarpie. EiN was just another obstacle. One he could get rid of, as he always did. So, as the man walked towards him, with that ghostly substrate overlapping his essence, oscillating between planes of existence, twisting the reality matrix, he felt ready. No fear. No curse words. Just him.

“You need help, General. You ain’t… like this. That ain’t the real you. What happened to that Boost?”

“Shut up.”

He weaved forward, twice, before delivering a hook to the jaw. EiN ducked at the last moment, let his lion hand trap the fist, headbutted Boost with all his weight, making him flinch. Then, delivered a knee attack to his stomach, twice, causing him to fold.

“You’re a man I’ve always respected. You made me join Yard, made me feel at home. Yes, you were racist against demihumans, but who isn’t? I’m too. I hate nekos, shoigas, devsks and so on. For a while, I hated gays too. Then, this lesbian chick kicks my ass and shows me that I was the idiot. That chick’s now my most trusted friend. Real friend. And… thanks to her, I’ve learned to accept differences. I can stand them. I don’t see them as freaks anymore. But you? I didn’t care about your racism, because you were you. You were my mentor. You were loyal. A man of principles. Not this… wreck you’re now.”

“SHUT! UP!”

A desperate uppercut, barely missing the target. Then, Boost felt it. The claw. Around his neck. While EiN’s hands rested in his jacket’s pockets.

“That plant ruined you. You should have stayed at home, General. Sought therapy. But, hey, your men here, they’re lost without you. So, damned if you do, damned if you don’t? You’re too strong for your own good, General. Everyone here respected you. Nobody could take your place. You turned into the weakest link of your army. This is why you came back, right? Despite your PTSD. I’ll tell you what, that day we met, after the plant bloomed, you lost all your light. When I saw you today, I’ve noticed it. You replaced it. Your light. You replaced it with something else.”

“S… Sciarpie…”

As the claw closed around his throat, that was the only word Boost could utter.

“S… Sciarpie… is safe… at home. Sciarpie…”

His breath weakened, his arms waved, as EiN brought him up, his feet losing contact with the floor.

“I… must protect… the only thing I have left… my… little…”

Then, the grip loosened. Letting him fall, letting him bounce on the ground. Boost lay prone, whimpering, his voice broken, syllables mixing without a direction.

“… my little… Sciarpie…”

The lion vanished. The echoes too. EiN stood there, his hands tucked inside his pockets. No grin, no grimace, no smile. Just sadness. Profound sadness. A glance to the corporal, a nod of his head.

“Do what you must, whatsyername. And have the balls to step up.”

Sionn groaned, pulled out his gun, aimed it at the downed man who once was his guiding light, keeping his tears at bay, as his words slowly exited his throat, forming sentences he would have never wanted to pronounce.

“General… Heinz-Harald… Jacob Jessen… Lewis Damon… Michael Sebastian Boost. You’re under arrest for first degree murder. Starting now, you’re… removed from the chain of command, until a commission ascertains your reasons. Everything you say can be used against you. As the highest ranking official on site… I’ll take the interim command of the Ring regiment.”

Boost turned around, turned to face that gaze. He couldn’t understand, that made no sense to him. Sionn Byle, member of die Fledermaus. Too soft-hearted for that role. Too meek to be a commander. Then, how? How was he doing that? Why was he pointing his gun at him like that?

“Sionn! The plant… burn the plant!”

EiN knelt down, reached for a set of handcuffs hanging from his pants. Then, he locked them around Boost’s wrists, winning is last shred of resistance. His strength had vanished, his body too damaged to fight, despair in his eyes.

“Burn the plant! It’s its fault! It’s its fault if Nikolaevich…”

His panicked gaze fell on the flower, on the foul rafflesia still trapped by the suit of body armor, still spreading pollen. Or not…?

“… if… Nikolaevich…?”

He blinked at the flower. The flower that was screeching and twisting, not even ten minutes before.

Its petals. Grey. Its pollen. Fallen like ash. Its vines. Lifeless.

EiN turned too, the soldiers followed suit, one by one, until all of them focused on it.

The flower.

The flower that once was Nikolaevich.

Had withered.

Had died.

4 November 2967, 17:46

Laughing. The TV set was laughing. The walls were laughing. The ivy was laughing. The clock was laughing. The whole building was laughing. Echoes and reverbs of a choir of voices, bouncing and reflecting, hitting Veckert’s ears in a stride, a deranged cacophony of sick pleasure, of mockery and cruel joy.

“See, Rainer… this is why I wanted you here. You are brilliant. Brilliant. You saw through it, didn’t you? Right now, you saw it, you connected the dots.”

The pictures on the display, the dozens, hundreds of rafflesia flowers, blooming, blossoming, regurgitating pollen, throwing it up in the face of those who checked them. Pollen, pollen, pollen. Veckert gritted her teeth, without once ever averting her gaze. And the voice continued, mocked her further.

“I knew it! I knew that one, five, eight, ten million people spread on the whole surface of the world weren’t enough to awaken a new Night! I knew it! Yes! So, I started evaluating… another option. Much like him, much like Silman!”

Veckert listened without retorting, her closed fists trembling, her mind racing to her friends, her colleagues, everyone who counted on her. That was it. That was the endgame. But the voice didn’t stop.

“You understood, right? The flowers… the Dreamers’ flowers… are just vectors, carriers of my message! The pollen isn’t simple pollen! It’s a seed too! A seed, yes…”

The picture shaking, replaced by what looked like x-ray photos, images of human bones and muscles, seen through the piercing eye of a medical camera.

“… that turns whoever inhaled it into a carrier of the Human Blood Flower. And the flower, o flower, will start eating them from inside out, growing inside their stomach, leeching off their nutrients… before blossoming from all their orifices, in a spectacular, boundless, scarlet masterpiece!”

The screen now displayed a map of the world, concentric circles expanding, turning red.

“And the victims spread the pollen too, through their breath! And that pollen trigger other flowers, in a beautiful, endless, chain reaction! A reaction that will end only…”

The map completely red, images from the news all around, showing the rafflesias, the previous cases of Human Blood Flower, arrows simulating the spread, a counter rapidly falling to zero.

“… with the total. Annihilation. Of mankind.”

A timelapse, flowers blooming from corpses, filling the streets, red petals everywhere, dotting the buildings, covering the city, the region, the state, the nation, the entire Earth.

“This planet… will become…”

Until the whole planet blossomed, in front of the rising sun. A gigantic world of flowers, seen from space, from the silent moon.

“… a peaceful, eternal… garden.”

Then, the picture disappeared. The display switched off. Only for Silman’s face to come back online, stare at Veckert through the glass. She was awfully calm. Awfully quiet. Yet, rage was building up. Of course, rage at herself. For not connecting the dots sooner. That was understandable. They had fooled her. Told her about their plan when it was already done, when it couldn’t be stopped anymore. Yes, that was it. And Silman, or Ball, or the Walking Night, or Northern Algol, was basking in that pleasure, the sweet taste of victory. Until her first words left her lips, in a low, somber tone.

“… why did you leave me alive, then? By luring me here… you saved my life.”

Oh, just that? It was simple, even simpler than they thought.

“Every apocalypse must have a watcher, Veckert. Someone who records its advancement. We’ve chosen you. Our first protagonist. Our last antagonist. You’ll write the chronicle of this fallen world, Veckert. And, maybe, in thousands of years, new life, alien life, will find your diary, exposing how mankind was wiped… by the abandoned souls of the dead. Long after our days are gone.”

“I see.”

A long breath, her fists clenched.

“So, you were aware that even your contingency plan couldn’t save you. You know you can’t reverse the process, right? You’re kept together by this physical place, because most of your information is gone. And, even with your masterful extermination of an entire race, even if a new Night emerges from your planetary-wide massacre… for you, for Northern Algol, it’s already too late. This is all a giant fuck you – nothing more than a spiteful, childish act of revenge.”

She closed her eyes, let out a sigh.

“All of this, just to take humanity down with you, when you understood that you had no chance of surviving.”

Silence. No answer. Just silence.

Then, she raised her arm, her finger touched the display, touched Silman’s face on it.

“You’re scared, Baal. You don’t want to die again.”

“What about you? Aren’t you scared of losing Rika, Veckert? Just like Nyu. You’ll be alone. All thanks to me. Such a funny coincidence, Veckert. You found a little bit of happiness… one moment before I carved it away. That’s… so, so satisfying.”

The hand retracted, tucked in the pocket of the trench coat.

“… to think I was feeling bad for you.”

Silman’s face grinning, gloating, his eyes gleaming.

“I won, Veckert! I… won!”

She gazed at the display, her irises shining.

“No, Baal.”

Her voice boomed, the display shook, started losing its signal. Silman’s face lost consistence, disappeared.

And she mirrored herself on the TV. Watching another her, live on screen.

“Not at all.”

4 November 2967, 17:48

>VHassanS: So, it’s happening in Japan too?! I can’t believe it!

>VHassanS: What in heavens are those things? That can’t be a ROP! That’s too wide and spread out!

>ChubbyCatLover: My daughter and her friend are out in the streets helping with the chaos. They bursted out as soon as they heard one of those things bloomed inside an orphanage. They *do* have a soft spot for children.

>ChubbyCatLover: But yes, here’s hell too, Hassan. We’re talking about five thousand blossomed in Tokyo alone. It’s unbelievable!

>OhReally?: Here in New Langdon the situation is critical too! The police are sending people to the shelters! My BF is here with me, we’ve decided to remain home, in my flat.

>VHassanS: And spend some quality time together. I see you, OReally.

>VHassanS: Please, don’t forget to use a condom. Half-shoiga kids would be bad, in this economy.

>ChubbyCatLover: OhReally, don’t mind Hassan, he’s just jealous because he’s never been railed by a beautiful red-scaled shoiga. If he did, he would change his mind.

>SnoUVwhite: I would *probably* change my mind. Sounds like a great experience.

>OhReally?: No, no, no! I recognize a trap, when I see one! You won’t make me gush about it! It’s just a trap to mock me again later! Bad Chubby! Bad!

>ChubbyCatLover: Well, it was worth a shot :D

>SnoUVwhite: Has anyone heard SphericalCow? He’s been offline since yesterday evening.

>ChubbyCatLover: He’s never connected at this time of the night (day for you).

>OhReally?: I hope all went well for him, in Shard.

>VHassanS: ...

>SnoUVwhite: VHassanS?

>VHassanS: Nothing. I’ve read something in the news, but I don’t want to spread misinformation before it’s confirmed. Go on.

>OhReally?: Speaking of news! The pictures of those flowers... have you noticed the amount of pollen they spit? It’s way too much, it can’t be normal, even for a species of that size. I wonder if *maybe* we are getting worried about the *wrong* phenomenon.

>VHassanS: As in?

>OhReally?: The flowers might be a decoy. The real danger might be more insidious.

>OhReally?: That pollen conformation reminds me of the Human Blood Flower. I can’t shake the feeling there’s a connection.

>ChubbyCatLover: Gods, the sirens are too loud. I might have to cave in and leave the chat to seal my house. BRB!

>SnoUVwhite: Wait, Chubby! It’s time!

>VHassanS: Time? What do you mean, SnoUV?

>SnoUVwhite: Full disclosure: I’m part of the ROPES team of Yard.

>SnoUVwhite: Please, stay calm and open your favorite streaming website.

>VHassanS: Our what, now?

>SnoUVwhite: *Any* streaming service. Just switch on anything that can receive a video signal.

>OhReally?: [LINK]

>VHassanS: *BOONER DOT CUM?!*

>ChubbyCatLover: OHREALLY WTF

>SnoUVwhite: *OPEN IT, NOT PASTE IT IN CHAT, DAMMIT*

>OhReally?: OH NO! My BF stole my keyboard for a moment! SORRY!!!

>ChubbyCatLover: OH YES IT’S ALL YOUR BF’S FAULT NOW! OF COURSE!

>OhReally?: Wait, wait, wait. SnoUV... why am I seeing

>OhReally?: *Veckert Rainer everywhere?*

**

“Hey, that’s…”

“Vicky?!”

Rika’s mouth fell agape, as the TV inside Jackson’s, the TV that was showing a recorded wrestling match of Mr. Claws, tuned onto a different stream on its own. The digital noise displaced, hazy, forming a new picture.

That of Veckert Rainer, in azure hair and trench coat.

Jackson reached for his remote, pushed a button on it, moving it to another channel.

Veckert Rainer again.

Another. Another Veckert.

Next channel. Veckert again.

“Bloody moonfish! She’s on my phone! Look, Laz!”

“Meine Güte! She’s on mine too! Alter!”

Her face was everywhere. Her face was monopolizing every display, every screen, every device showing a video. Then, black bars appeared, framed her. And subtitles started moving, in clear easy to read white letters. Before her voice thundered.

“I’m detective Veckert Rainer from New Scotland Yard, ROPES department. This message is an international emergency broadcast, on all the available frequencies.”

A small pause, the attention of the watchers ensnared, captured by that rough, rugged voice.

“I’m speaking on behalf of the UN ROPES Task Force… and I’m here to explain you what’s happening.”

A small inset, diagrams showing up, schematics and numbers.

And a picture. A picture that Lejl couldn’t forget, that made her eyes bawl.

The first flower.

The one sprouted from Niamm Kissilmer’s body.

“Today, we lost many people. Anomalous flowers grew inside their bodies, before bursting out and killing them. Now, those flowers are all around us. They were a human-engineered pathogen that affected around one per mille of the world population. However small your city is, chances are that you’ve seen at least one of them.”

The subtitles kept scrolling, localized to the country, in all known languages. Veckert kept talking, as the camera focused on the corolla of the flower’s depiction.

“These flowers are, per se, innocuous if left blooming, but become deadly and kill the host if one tries to remove them before their germination. No, the danger comes from elsewhere. The pollen.”

Zoom on a grain of pollen, on its structure.

“This is not ordinary pollen. It’s a carrier for another pathogen that activates when inhaled.”

Jackson held his breath, Kia gasped. The screen was now depicting Saìl’s broken body, the plant that harbored inside it. Diagrams and schematics turned on screen. Even handwritten notes, in a style Cyphr and Lejl recognized immediately. Paddy’s. Paddy O’Rilley’s notes on the Human Blood Flower. The same that Chai showed them months before, on her way to give them to Veckert.

“We caught two early cases of blossoming and isolated them. Unfortunately, we couldn’t save any of the patients, the infection was already at a terminal stage. Nevertheless, we’ve managed to analyze the flowers growing inside them, the very same that sprouted all around the world today. And we took countermeasures.”

Her eyes wide open, piercing the screen, looking at the viewers.

“By cooperating with the UN ROPES task force, we have managed to deactivated the secondary pathogen. There won’t be more mass casualties.”

Her tone calm, her rugged voice slowing down.

“Our prevention methods worked in around 99.7% of the clinical tests, so, statistically, it means that isolated, localized outbreaks might be still possible.”

Jackson’s phone rung. Kia’s phone. Shaz’s phone. Lejl’s phone. Cyphr’s antenna ear. All of them rung a the same moment, mere instants after each other. A message. The automatic warning system. With a map indicator.

“We’ve sent the coordinates of your closest screening center to your devices. If you have inhaled the pollen or you’ve been close to the flowers, head there for a health check. We have prepared rapid tests that confirm the presence of the pathogen in your body in a matter of minutes. We will administer you a cure as soon as possible.”

Veckert’s hand move through her hair, caressing her mane in a continuous motion.

“We can’t save the dead, but we can still save the living. We lost between three and seven million people. Elders, children, men, women, of every race, gender and occupation. All because of one criminal – a criminal that will face prosecution.”

Her voice louder, almost shouting, her finger pointing at the camera, at the viewer.

“A criminal that answers to the name of Rosenmaester!”

4 November 2967, 17:53

The TV screen twisted, the image torn to shreds. Silman’s face came back, takes center stage again. Confused. Amused. The digital Silman claps his hands, smirking under the face mask.

“Bravo, Veckert. You’ll get an Oscar for the best end-of-the-world lie. Giving false hope to others till your last breath, huh? Definitely on brand.”

“False hope?”

Veckert shrugged, grinned at him.

“And what part of what I said is false, Baal?”

Silence. An exchange of stares, without a single word uttered. Static eating up the image, at random intervals. Then, a sound. The first to talk. The man in the TV.

“… countermeasures. There’s no countermeasure to the Human Blood Flower.”

“There is.”

“And even if there was, you couldn’t have administrated it to all those people.”

“We did.”

“There’s no way.”

“Think deeper, Baal. Ask Silman.”

“I killed him.”

“You still use his face.”

“There’s no way!”

“But there is. You invented it.”

Veckert’s hand slid under her jacket, pulling out something.

A plastic bottle. A bottle of water.

Silman looked at it, his gaze scanned it, his eyes blinked.

“You didn’t…”

“As soon as we got a stable vaccine, back at the end of September.”

All thanks to Paddy the Phagefucker.

Veckert shivered at that realization. That obnoxious lizard-loving red-head – and her even more obnoxious cohort of connections in the biology departments around the world – proved instrumental. The Human Blood Flower never left the UK, so nobody else was ready to face it, nobody knew it better than them. Paddy’s connections spread the information in academia like wildfire. Chai couldn’t imagine it, when she brought those handwritten pages to Veckert. She couldn’t imagine what she was putting in motion. Yet, Silman, or Baal, or Northern Algol, couldn’t accept it.

“Even if you had a vaccine, how… did you predict our plan to this precision?”

Veckert’s fingers uncapped the bottle, brought it to her lips. The transparent fluid went down her mouth, bathed her teeth, her tongue. She put it down, stared at the TV again.

“We didn’t. That video we aired? It was Scenario #7. Based on our analysis of the flowers, we prepared for fifteen possible attacks. We put together a generic keep calm and carry on video, in case none of the options matched the situation closely enough. When we confirmed what your plan actually was, we sent the order to launch the broadcast. I tell you, recoding all of them and splicing the segments together was a chore. I wish we could have known what you were going to do in advance. But, hey, we ran the math. The Dreamers alone couldn’t save you, nor create a new Night. You had to have a phase two in the works, the only question was which one. We decided that planning for the unknown was impossible, so we took countermeasures where we could instead. The phage Sand Blood Flower. Its human strain. The old Blood Chrysanthemum. The Dreamer’s Flower. We could deal with each of those, so we spread a nanomachines vaccine around the globe…”

She shook the bottle, let the water twirl inside the plastic envelop.

“… exactly like Silman spread his liquid seeds, when he killed you all.”

Shock. Silman’s face reacted with shock. The minds started connecting the dots, started drawing conclusions.

“The water supply! You… you spread them via the water supply?!”

“Not only that. Winemakers. Restaurants. Soup kitchens. Schools. Pubs. Bars. Café. Soda producers. Breweries. Agents from the UN ROPES task force visited a countless number of establishments, in the past sixty days, first asking them for availability, then giving them sufficient amounts of our processed additive to last for two months. Every single processed drink consumed since the middle of October was spiked with our anti-flower vaccine. Of course we couldn’t remove the existing stocks, so we doubled down and we went for fresh food sellers too, bakeries, butchers, fishmongers… all around the world.”

Silman’s image shook again, the pixels moving around, its cohesion lost.

“What if the vaccine failed or had adverse effects? You could… have killed them all yourself!”

“What difference would have made? If we didn’t do it, you would have killed us all. Dying for dying, we took option B. Seems like our bets were well placed.”

“… We… I…”

“Of course, we couldn’t reach every nook and cranny of this planet in such a little time. Somewhere, your plan has surely worked. Your flowers will probably wipe out a small rural American town or some secluded villages in Tibet. There’s limits to what we could do.”

Veckert clenched her fists, gritted her teeth.

“I’ll live with this burden forever, Baal. The burden of all the people we… I couldn’t save. But I’m relieved for all the ones we could save. No settlement as big as needed for a new Night will be destroyed. Nowhere a million, two million people will die together. It’s over, Baal. Your Night is over. You lost.”

Silence fell. And, for the first time, she could see it.

Tears.

The face on the display.

The display itself.

Was crying.

“We… I…”

The voice broken, doubled, echoing, a mixture of several lines, of different tones. The picture shifted, all the faces, all the faces of the night coming out, one by one, oscillating, merging.

“When we died… when we became one… we were confused, disoriented. We couldn’t understand. So many… voices. Who were we? I… we didn’t know. We had an intuition. That we were dead, yes. Yet, we were living. All together. So, we became the Night. We took shelter in a body… the body of the man… who killed us all. It felt strange, but good. All together. A family. An aquarium of intelligence, minds connected and swimming freely. We were one and many. It felt… wonderful.”

The tears turning into black rivers, pools forming in front of the display. The ivy rotting. The clock stopping. The wooden counters breaking. The voice went on.

“We craved… for more. We wanted… the rest of the world to join us. A collective intelligence, eight billion minds connected in an endless network without end or beginning. Gaia. We wanted to create Gaia. A living planet, made of simple information. That was our goal. We didn’t need to hurry. We had all the time in the world.”

The windows started cracking. The plaster coming off. The concrete shaking. The tiles melting.

“But then, the rekashizas… the rekashizas… ate us. Destroyed us. Destabilized us. Made us disappear, little by little. Us… and Gaia. And before we knew it, we were… lonely. Again. Less voices… so few voices now. I miss them… we miss them.”

The pictures fade, one by one, faster and faster. The despair accelerating the process, information being eaten, discarded, deleted. Veckert touched the display, caressed it.

“Are you scared, now?”

“Y… yes, Veckert. We… I’m scared, Veckert. Please. Please, help me. Help me! Don’t… I don’t want to disappear, Veckert. I… I have already died once, why… why do I have to…”

A child crying. A woman. A man. The voice turning into a high-pitched screech, a plea.

“Veckert… you… you who saved everyone… can… can you save me… us too?”

“I’m sorry, Baal. It’s too late.”

The ceiling crumbled, thrashing the stands, the cupboards, the room where Niamm Kissilmer had his coffin-shaped bed. The light of the evening seeped through the breach, flooded the room. The display cracked, the knob came off. Veckert’s hand placed on the device, her eyes closed.

“But I’ll never forget you.”

Then, the picture faded. The noise stopped. Everything stopped. Under the evening lights, under the pale waning crescent moon, the Night moved its last step, drew its last breath, said its last word. And stopped Walking.

Forever.

“Farewell, Northern Algol…”

Veckert sat down, on the melted tiles, joined her hands in prayer.

“… may you find peace.”

Then, she let herself lie down, as the stars started peeking out of their daily slumber.

And the night, the real night, took Her place in the sky.

5 November 2967, 18:45

“… the demon rafflesias that bloomed yesterday, only to wither not even half an hour later! What is the truth behind them? Was it really Rosenmaester, as New Scotland Yard said? What did the ROPES team hide? Here at Traveller – Beyond the Boundaries of Science, we’ll review the footage of the phenomenon now called the Blossoming, which killed five million people around the world…”

Marco rolled his eyes, gestured to the TV to lower the volume. Maybe, that had been a bad idea. An extremely bad idea. Yet, it was something he felt he needed to do. If he had to die, he didn’t want to live with the consequences of his foolishness. So, here he was, sitting on his sofa, watching the new episode of Traveller (Res’s popularity truly got a boost from that unexpected horrific live demo). Not alone, this time.

A clacking of claws near him, the chitinous shape of Kimchi, quietly chomping pop-corn, while donning a pink t-shirt with a smiling hematopage on it. He gazed down. He was wearing one too. It was part of his punishment.

“They look wonderful on you. You’ll go to work with it for the whole next week, right?”

Marco grumbled. His sofa wasn’t big enough for four people. Let alone two humans, a crustacean mutant and a massive, red-scaled lizard (plus a pocket phage cub).

“Yes, Paddy. Of course, Paddy.”

She smiled at him, while the shoiga patted on her head with his clawed hand, licked her cheek with his long tongue. Marco found him almost as unpleasant as the haemos – the hematos, but couldn’t do anything about it. After all, inviting them to his home was his idea. A very late make-up apology.

Because she was right.

Paddy was right, with all her sand blood flower shenanigans. Somehow, Marco was convinced that – hadn’t been for her obsession with phages – they would have been all dead. Thus, groveling at her feet and promising her to show her merchandise around at his workplace felt like a very very small price to pay.

“You’re lucky that Paddy has forgiven you, monkey.”

The guttural voice of the lizard made him shiver. Of course he knew about the Pornelius leak. Of course Paddy told him. But, apparently, that was the serendipitous coincidence that made him interested in her. It was the only reason why he was still alive and not quartered in pieces, killed by a ravenous dinosaur-lookalike. Kimchi, though, didn’t seem to care. She quietly savored her pop-corn, as Res Vertighel was already going through the gruesome footage from not even one day before.

Marco felt something wet on his cheek, shrieked, jolted. Only to recognize it later. Chocolat. The diminutive phage cub, with her oversized ribbon, was licking him. He groaned, but let her do that. She was cute, despite her lack of eyes, almost falling asleep on his shoulder, lulled by the voice coming from the TV. Marco reached for her slowly, his finger trembling. Until he touched her head, caressed it. Chocolat licked the point of his index, rubbed herself against it, gently. Despite everything he believed, Marco couldn’t help but feel intrigued by that little creature gifting him her trust.

Maybe, after all, phages weren’t that monstrous.

5 November 2967, 19:25

“Are you sure we want to do this?”

“That’s our best bargaining chip, Blade! Trust my instincts!”

“Last time I trusted your instincts, we had to barricade half the ship to stop your mating spree.”

Lucia bit her lip, resisted the urge to slap the great golden. There were jokes and jokes, and those about her in heat moment weren’t allowed. At all. Still, she needed him, at least for a while longer. A long while longer.

She waltzed through the corridors, pulling Kobase behind, with Blade following shortly, massaging his forehead from time to time.

“Really, selling it to Stratosphere? Is this your master plan?”

“If it’s enough for Mr. Magnifico to recall the bounty he placed on my head, that’s more than enough.”

“I’ve got a better idea.”

Lucia’s ears stood up, her slick pupils turning up to meet his green lakes, fighting the huge height difference. She started jumping up and down, like a little excited kid.

“What idea? I’m curious, I’m curious!”

“What about an auction?”

“An… auction?”

“Yes, an auction in the underworld. We sell it to the best bidder. And we cause some old-fashioned chaos. With my and Dr. Kobase’s contacts, we can… assemble quite the crowd.”

She lowered her ears, massaged her chin with her claw, careful not to scratch her skin.

“You know what…”

A playful smirk, her index pushing Blade’s snout, right were his ampullae were.

“That sounds exciting! I’ll text Becky to rely the message to Little G! A place, a time and a minimum bid! Aaaaah! This is great, Blade! It will be a lot of fun!”

Her hand slid on the metal door, the metal door that once led to the quarantine bay. And now, was just home to a single, foul-smelling, rotting flower.

A flower that hadn’t withered yet.

5 November 2967, 21:25

>ChubbyCatLover: I guess it’s confirmed, then.

>SnoUVwhite: Unfortunately, yes.

>SnoUVwhite: SphericalCow didn’t make it.

>VHassanS: I’m... genuinely sorry to read this, SnoUV.

>VHassanS: Hearing that he was killed by General Boost... it feels so unreal. We chatted with him not even two days ago. It’s unbelievable.

>eNTRopic: I’ve worked with the guy. He was a pain in the ass, but he didn’t deserve to die like that.

>RedRanger: Zojimbo was a scumbag like few. I can’t say I’ve shed tears for him.

>eNTRopic: Duh, no shit you didn’t. He was the one who tried to have your GF “forcefully euthanized”, ain’t he?

>RedRanger: YES.

>SnoUVwhite: I... was not aware of this side of him. I didn’t even know his real name until today.

>VHassanS: Same. For us, he was just SphericalCow.

>ChubbyCatLover: I hope he didn’t feel pain.

>RedRanger: *I hope he did*

>VHassanS: Stop, @RedRanger. Don’t you have any respect for a dead man?

>RedRanger: The fact that he’s dead doesn’t condone his deeds. He was a bastard who died a hero. That’s the easy way to go.

>ChubbyCatLover: I’ve asked the mods to keep his chats archived. Spherical is gone, but his contributions remain.

>VHassanS: That was a good move, Chubby. Thanks.

>VHassanS: He’s a huge loss for science.

*SphericalCow has entered the room*

>VHassanS: What the fuck?!

>ChubbyCatLover: NO WAY?

>SnoUVwhite: WHAT.

>SnoUVwhite: This is impossible.

>ChubbyCatLover: Spherical? What the hell?

>VHassanS: Dr. Zojimbo? Dr. Zvonimir Zojimbo?

>SnoUVwhite: I’m calling the mods, we have an impersonator.

>ChubbyCatLover: SphericalCow! Write something!

*SphericalCow has left the room*

>eNTRopic: DUDE. This is creepy.

>RedRanger: That’s not possible! @mods! @mods!

>SnoUVwhite: I’ll ask someone to check the system. Goddammit. That’s so weird.

>VHassanS: It was a glitch. It had to be a glitch.

>SnoUVwhite: “A glitch of undeleted information in the reality matrix”

>ChubbyCatLover: “A glitch of undeleted information in the reality matrix”

>eNTRopic: “A glitch of undeleted information in the reality matrix”

>RedRanger: “A glitch of undeleted information in the reality matrix”

>VHassanS: ...

>VHassanS: Know that I hate you all.

5 November 2967, 23:22

The window open, on the sleeping city, her blue hair carried by the breeze, falling in unruly tufts on her naked skin. Veckert stood there, her arms crossed, resting on the sill, gazing outside. The lights, the muted sounds of the cars, the dying chatter of the drunken youngsters. She wiped her sweat from her forehead, whistled a cheerful tune. The breath of the wind felt unreasonably pleasant, after all that movement, cooled her down, caressed her still red cheeks.

Wet lips on her neck, teeth chomping at her, adding yet another hickey to the collection. A burst of laughter, her fingers delving into a mass of auburn strands, pinching a delicate nose.

“Hey, hey, slow down, Dracula, or tomorrow I won’t have a neck.”

“I’m just marking my territory.”

Veckert felt the pressure of Rika’s body on her back, her breasts pushing against her, rubbing up and down, the red-haired girl’s hands wrapping her belly. Veckert kept feeling her lips exploring her skin, moving down to her shoulder, then going up again, until they reached her cheek.

“Do you work, tomorrow?”

“Nah, Sunday’s free even for me.”

“Good, then we can sleep together a little longer.”

Rika squeezed Veckert’s belly a little more, playfully chewed her ear. Veckert, on her side, couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Someone’s starved for physical contact, huh?”

“Hush. We’ve waited five years for this, let me enjoy the moment…”

The star twinkled in the distance, phasing in and out of existence, in a cosmic dance, eternally repeating. Veckert savored the moment, the softness of Rika’s skin on her own, her girl’s fingers playing with tufts of her azure mane, moving up and down her body. She was right. They both waited for five years. All because they were both idiots. Idiots that couldn’t or wouldn’t be able to accept their feelings for each other. Scared to make the first step. Veckert let her eyelids rest for a while. It couldn’t work. Surely, of course, they would break up in a month. It was always like that. One week of passion, one week of love, one of affection, then the habit kicked in… and she was never enough for them. Never enough. Assuming that with Rika it might have been different was bold and wrong. Yet, for once, she didn’t care. Whatever the future held, she knew that somewhere, somewhen, there was a pocket of happiness for her too – be it with Rika or another girl she hadn’t met yet. The important part was not giving up. Not giving up on looking for her place in the world.

She opened her eyes again, her emerald irises shimmering in the dimly lit room, looking at the outside, looking at the sky. She patted Rika’s hair, moved her closer, rested her cheek on hers, while hugging her tight.

The night had never been so beautiful.

6 November 2967, 00:00

“I had to bet you were behind them.”

Jackson alone, sitting at his counter. A glass of beer in front of him. Two glasses. Yet, nobody else in sight. Everyone else back at home. Everyone safe. No contagion, no positives. Kia, the kids, the horny gremlin, Shaz, Cyphr, Amy, he himself. They dodged a bullet. All safe. Chai, Ange, Jenn, Sambiong too. A miracle. A real miracle. Nevertheless, celebrations were over and he still had something to do, a café to close. Thus, he was there, sipping some of that beer that he drunk only once in a blue moon.

His guest, though, didn’t seem to be in the mood. Maybe, he just didn’t have a mouth. That might have been an issue, yes, but it was the gesture that counted. So, he sat at his counter, looking at that diaphanous figure, just a glitch maybe – yet, unmistakably there. He could see the contour of his claw-like fingers, of those bat-like wings that looked so stupidly small, compared to his usual size. It was a surprise to see him there, of course, but Jackson didn’t mind it. In that world of coincidences, nothing could be truly ruled out.

“The rekashizas have stabilized this layer. When Rainer said this, I connected the dots. Surely, though, I wasn’t expecting to have the real deal pay me a visit.”

Four embers, shining in the low lights. Oscillating, on the brink of disappearing, burning bright. The hand reached for the glass, moved through it, like a ghostly apparition. The embers blinked. A hint of disappointment. Jackson pushed his hat on his own forehead, as usual, crossed his fingers.

“I’ll say, you could have done it in a… less spectacular way. And with less victims, maybe. But now, everything makes sense, Mr. I will save Gaia. Congrats, seems like you did it, after all.”

Jackson sipped more of his drink, without losing eye contact.

“And without deleting my world, which is also a plus. Thank you, much appreciated.”

The spectral figure nodded, utterly silent.

“For the record, your daughter is quite a chore. Ange says she’s a lot like you. Brash, unruly, allergic to rules, and with a penchant for hiding her existential dread. She plays the erotic streamer card, you played the Woodstock hippie card. Whatever, same result. But she wears your pendant, yes? Never seen her without it.”

The embers flashed, the ghostly head pondering.

“I’ll tell her you’re well. She won’t believe me, of course, but, hey – trying never hurts. And, oh, you should see her friends. Real weirdos. Bad influences on her, overall, especially that gal who had sex with phages. That’s what happens when you neglect parenting, I tell you. I swear, if Hiro or Jake grow up like her, I’ll consider deleting this fake layer too. Can I count on you for that?”

A strange sound echoing inside the premise, something akin to a muffled laughter. Johnson adjusted his hat, downed the last of his beer, let the glass rest on the counter.

“Okay, okay, maybe I would’ve go that far. Though, with the Tides gone, now you can rest too, huh? Maybe, build something new too. On this layer, I’m sure Rainer and her bunch of cronies will put a good words for your li’l eldritch plants, you shouldn’t worry too much about them. The Russians might blow up theirs, but – hey – you have eight – nine? – more.”

No answer. Jackson squinted his eyes, turned around.

The embers were gone.

The diaphanous figure was gone.

And the beer… was gone too.

An empty mug was staring at him, left right in front of his, glass touching it glass. Jackson pushed his hat down again and cracked a smile, a smile that got lost in the thousands, millions, billions of features that danced on his face. A smile that, nevertheless, was genuine, heartfelt.

“Thanks for your patronage to Jackson’s. Know you’re always welcome, Red.”

The End