Blood. 20 dollar bills. A haze of gun smoke. His best friend smiling the way killers do.

This was the whole scene, but Reggie Evans could only see it in fragmented, distorted little pieces. The color black still held dominion over his field of vision, existing in small shadow-like pools, censoring the things he didn’t want to see.

Chief among them, the corpse of a man named Earl.

“$180.00,” Devon Lane said, flipping through the roll of 20s again.

“What?” Reggie asked, still catatonic, unsure of how his lips had even moved.

“That was in the register,” Devon muttered. “Couldn’t find the safe.”

“$180.00,” Reggie replied as his muscles thawed out. He moved his right arm slowly to his hair. Something pressed against his finger. Something sticky, warm. Something that had been alive moments earlier.

It was a piece of Earl’s ear. It was a wake up call.

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Victoria inhaled a deep breath, which she made a conscious effort to enjoy.  ‘From Superheroine to Corpse in ninety days,’ that was the headline that kept crossing her mind as she struggled with her arm to not go completely numb from blood loss.

Get up…  You stupid… wannabe hero…get the hell up… now!

Victoria’s world did laps around her brain as she struggled to rise to her feet.  The blood she was salivating from her normally full plush lips was creating a puddle that leaked onto her crimson stained manicured fingers.

That’s bright Vic, get up again… so he can keep knocking you down.

Talking to herself may have been a result of the concussion, but right now it was the only thing keeping her conscious, and there was no telling how long that luxury was going to last.

She could hear his footsteps as he walked towards her.  His calm soothing breaths.  She was almost envious.  How could he still be so calm after such a fight?  Her answer was simple.  She’d been playing punching bag for the last ten minutes or so.

His warm breath hit her face as he crouched down beside her, the look in his eyes eerily similar to that of a viper right before it moves in for its kill.  His clean-cut exterior revealed a twisted, but glowing smile.  The kind you see from a rapist after he’s found innocent due to lack of evidence. The kind of look that makes you know this wasn’t his first time.

Mysteria struggled to shake the cobwebs out of her head.  Before she could even attempt to develop another plot for round two she needed to be sure the man she was swinging at was the right target and not just a double as a result of the head trauma she was desperately trying to fight off.

The maniacal man stroked her hair.  His hands were dry.  She could feel him digging his nails into the scalp.  Even that felt like torture right now.

“You see my lady… This is why you never send a woman to do a man’s job,” he said to her as he pressed his fingers harder against her scalp.  Once again, he rose to his feet and pressed one of his limbs against her head.  Only this time it wasn’t his hand.

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Lundunaborg was so vast it had its own top-level internet domain. In ancient Icelandic, its name meant Fort London and it was under this name that the Viking sagas had recorded the ancient Romano-Saxon city-state of London itself.

The modern Lundunaborg lay at coordinates 51°53′40″N, 1°28′57″E, approximately six miles off the coast of Suffolk and spent most of its operational life beneath the icy cold waves of the English Channel, surfacing only when there was significant threat to the sovereignty of the nation to which it belonged.

Like the city from which it gained its name, Lundunaborg had seven distinct gates by which the fortress could be entered and, like the inspirational design of those forgotten London gates, Lundunaborg housed its criminals in the cramped quarters above each arch.

It was the advent of Lundunaborg that had paved the way for the construction of Moonbase Churchill; its towering spires rising up through the waves during the few documented occasions upon which it had surfaced, proving inspirational enough to win public support and government funding for the renewed British space effort.

Following the closure of Screwtape Downs in late 2003, a move that had been expected by many after the escape of the rogue agent, Charles Winters during the previous year, many of the most dangerous prisoners had been moved into accommodation within the gates of Lundunaborg.

It was then, with perhaps a bittersweet note that Lundonaborg’s most significant resident should also have become its most notable prisoner.

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An explosion of light in the cold emptiness above the world below. The entire surface of the planet awash in alien iridescence, thousands left temporarily blind and disoriented from the Administrative ranks to the lowliest Tradejack apprentice. It took mere microts for the order to be given before a flotilla of Imperial Gunships were sent to investigate.

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Reggie Evans had spent his entire life falling; through cracks, through people’s hands, through ideas and concepts. He was well-adjusted to the freedom of it, to the rush of air stinging his eyes, to the far-away voices floating in the opposite direction. The kid understood gravity better than some of the world’s best physicists. They could study it for years, hack away at its aspects and velocities and ratios, but he was the only person on the planet that could know it so intimately. It hadn’t let go since the doctor dropped him on day one.

As he tumbled and tossed downward, somersaulting toward the latest in a 17-year string of plane crashes, he noticed something different. This time there was a bottom. Not a metaphorical one, not the famed “end of the line” he’d been warned about by parents and schoolteachers for years, but a beige, dust-covered tile floor.

There were 20 seconds between his frame and a certainly fatal impact. 20 seconds to consider how the priorities in his life had shuffled. Yesterday, his mind had been wrapped around finances, how he would pull together enough scratch to get Christina a birthday present. Today, the primary topic of discussion was the hereafter. Forgiveness. The myriad things he’d been told not to do in Sunday school and the very real possibility that tossing that list in a trash can at age 9 had earned him a balmy final resting place.

Flailing allowed him one final rotation, a chance to look up and see something radiant, white and pure. It sure as hell wasn’t heaven. That beam was coming from someone’s hands, someone old who had been saying things Reggie should have listened to. As usual, Reggie had chosen to listen too little, too late.

5, maybe 7 seconds to go. The light was fading and the assassin had moved on, opting not to watch what was sure to be a sickening impact. He wasn’t going to spin again. Gravity had better things to do. He would end his days ass backwards, just as he’d started them.

Impact.

The floor was as solid as it looked. The tile fractured. So did Reggie’s ribs. The silver dust took flight upon collision, rising like a cloud of spores. Reggie gasped and swallowed the choking residue, coughing and sputtering like an old muffler. His back went numb. He started to gag. Blood rimmed his lips, because you have to bleed when you die. It’s less climactic otherwise.

He wasn’t sure if he was rolling around in pain or if the pounding of gavels in his head was just making him dizzy. Gravity had abandoned him, severing their unspoken bond. The floor, the ceiling and everything in between had joined. His equilibrium was a nightmare.

Someone pulled the plug and his eyes stopped working. Things went from red to gray to sepia-toned, but not black. His sight just went away, as if it had never been there. He hadn’t seen this coming and now he certainly wouldn’t see how it ended.

Most people don’t expect to die when they get up in the morning, but that’s because they’re in no rush to get there. Reggie was different. He didn’t walk or run to his final destination. He drove, in a gas-guzzling four-door truck, built for comfort and speed. He was bobbing his head to a mix of Public Enemy and Rage against the Machine, spouting off choruses that never really meant anything to him. Nothing really did. If something seemed aimless, he was all for it. He kicked down doors, but never left them open for anyone to follow. His life had been a high-octane pursuit. Nobody had led the way, and even worse, nobody had cared enough to chase.

The injuries were taking their toll, but they were taking their damn time doing it. It figured. He’d broken the speed limit for 17 years. He could idle for the last 17 minutes. Why hurry? He hadn’t expected to die that day.

But he sure as hell hadn’t expected to kill anyone either.

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“This is all very interesting, Mister Castle,” said the four-star general. He was a West Point man, Army for twenty-seven years. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs for the past year. But he still didn’t have a damn clue what the man before him was showing to him after
a quick ten minute virtual presentation in the privacy of Castle’s office. “But I fail to see how your solutions stack up to what the Seven provide.”

“Provide-ED,” said Nicholas, with emphasis on the past tense ending. “We’ve seen what happened to that group. They were the best we had, when they were created. I’m showing you something better.”

“Not yet you haven’t.”

“I’m sure we could discuss the pros and cons of the Seven, General. And I can confidently predict that you would support them because of their military backgrounds and government training, but I would counter with a much more solid argument. You see,
there’s nothing like competition to produce the best things. Food, technology, toys…it all goes together. After all, the competition for military contracts is very fierce, although no pilot wants to think of his plane as being built by the lowest bidder, much less the infantryman and his rifle, or the gunner and his tank.”

The general shifted in his leather chair. “Go on.”

“So I offer you something that those in the military and the government love to hear, General. What I have to offer you will not cost you more than the Seven. It will not cost you more than the B-2 bomber program or a new Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. It will cost
you in legitimate building contracts and subsidized federal insurance as outlined in my prospectus.” Castle waved a hand to the leather-covered folder at the General’s left elbow. The only ornamentation was an embossed kite shield, crenellated at the top, enclosing a capital letter C. “So, General, what do you have to lose by listening and looking at just a
few more things?”

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Melbourne, Australia // Earth #746387 // 2002

Lisa Wilson curled up in her large bed and hugged one of her pillows. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to block out all of the sounds that she could hear from her bedroom - the traffic outside, the television, and the sound of the shower as her boyfriend prepared for work in the ensuite which shared a wall with her bedhead.

Of all the noise, the television was the hardest to ignore - Australian Angels was on, and Lisa loved its heart-warming premise - but it was her boyfriend’s movement that held her attention. Shane Curtis was a fireman; by all accounts, an exceptionally good fireman - and in the years that Lisa had known him there had never been a summer in which he wasn’t called away to fight some sort of massive flame-related threat.

Usually, it was a bushfire on the border; but this year, they seemed relatively under control - still, that didn’t stop her worrying every morning, as he got ready for work, that he may not come home that night. So she tried to block out the sounds he made, so she didn’t have to think about what he was doing or what he might be going to do.

Lisa’s brother, Nico, was also a fireman, but she found she never worried as much about him. She guessed at one stage that it was because of their familial relationship - their many years spent bickering as children. She had chosen to make Shane a part of her life, and she wanted to keep him close. Things were different with Nico. He was her brother, but he wasn’t hers - and he had always been there, until five years earlier when he had moved to Pacific City -

The same Pacific City that filled the television screen, the subject of an urgent news broadcast interrupting Australian Angels Read the rest of this entry »

Sheila had heard her mother’s over-dramatic screams in the past. Spoilt, shrill, nigh-inhuman screeches that were normally directed at the various passengers of Celia Torrance’s carousel of romance. Dirtbag boyfriends or fuck buddies who, more often than not, would either embarrass her publicly or invariably be caught stealing from the Torrance household in some manner.

Paul being the latest and longest lasting rider was neither a deadbeat or social oaf thus Sheila could assume one of two things:

1. Her mother’s legs have been spreading while Paul is gone at work

or

2. Celia was about to die.

Sheila assuming the latter, but almost hoping for the former, buried her face into her pillow and ventured back into sleep.

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In what is commonly referred to as the ‘Enigma Vestibule‘ by the Apothecary Company, a massive room filled with dark-haired adolescents toil over vats filled with various solutions and meticulously sculpt and shape various material on spartan work benches. Others stand, stone still as they grind gritty materials with a porcelain crucible in one hand and make minute movements with their silver pistils with the other.

Every so often a quiet sob would cause the entire room of young women to lament and wail the names of their beloved friends and partners. Their very tears mixing into the liquids and powders of their trade. A klaxon sounded after one such fit, and with such a quickness most of them dove to the cold floor, save for two.

Both sported an eye patch, covering opposite deformities, one missing the left and the other missing the right ocular orb. Their eye patches nothing more than a small swatch of leather with a matching black thong to hold it to their skull. In rushed a handful of armored dragoons. Each helmeted minion carrying not rifles as their infantry counterparts sport but rather a single long slip of parchment bearing a striking sigil with a brief script scrawled beneath it in curiously, scarlet ink.

Each of their green eyes watched as the soldiers formed a semi-circle before them.

“8695554 and 287421 cease all unsanctioned activity at once,” the middle dragoon commanded, the parchment held stiffly between the fingers of her gloved hand.

The girls grinned dual empty smiles, devoid of teeth.

The unit stepped back in unison, holding true to their semi-circular formation, although one at the far end gagged at the sight.

“I warn you once more 869554 and 287421,” the officer’s voice squeaked out the designations with a once lost girlish tone.

The two bowed deeply and a quiet pop echoed in the silence.

“Ghastly,” said the dragoon that gagged.

The girls snapped up to attention and removed their eye patches to bare their eyeless sockets defiantly at their oppressors.

A dragoon shuddered, briefly, “I’m gonna hurl, 771284.”

the two eyeballs rolled about on the floor, weaving their way to within inches of the feet of the dragoon officer. The outer surface seemed to harden, and then crack, little green licks of flame poking out of the growing openings in the once eye-like casing.

“YOU - WERE- WARNED!”

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Smoke curled upwards from his tensed muscles, his ram headdress burning as his shoulders twitched and relaxed, his body straightening and unfolding from around the crouched form of his mistress. In the last moments before Azuel’s self-destruction he had just managed to free himself from the fallen angel’s deathly grasp in time to launch forwards and shield his mistress from the blast, absorbing the fire and brimstone that had rained down upon his back.

Now, in the aftermath of the explosion, the sand turned black beneath him and pocked with flowers of tiny flame, Millennium Man Ram Strength Immortal was at his lowest ebb. He dropped to his knees, his chest heaving and his eyes wild, sweat and blood pouring down his face. Surely now they had proved their superiority over the stubborn peoples of Earth #746387, surely now they could return safe in the knowledge that they were the supreme power on all worlds?

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