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| Ghost Rider 2099UG Issue #12 "Rage In The Machine, Part 1" Written by Arran Robertson |
| The 2099 Underground is a project whereby a group of fans are putting together a series of stories continuing from Marvel's fantastic futuristic 2099! Ignoring the ignoble and inaccurate "2099: World of Tomorrow", we're exploring what we feel is the true spirit of 2099 as envisioned by then Editor-in-Chief Joey Cavalieri. Participation is open to all. Comments about this issue should be sent to the author. Or you can visit our message board and post your thoughts on the issue. Anyone wishing to join the mailing list should do so by signing up at Yahoo! Groups. It's free and easy! Simply type in the keyword "Ghostworks" and you're good to go. |
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| "We are close to dead. There are faces and bodies like gorged maggots on the dance floor, on the highway, in the city, in the stadium; they are a host of chemical machines who swallow the product of chemical factories, aspirin, preservatives, stimulant, relaxant, and breathe out their chemical wastes into a polluted air. The sense of a long last night over civilization is back again." Norman Mailer, Cannibals and Christians ******************************* PART I ******************************** "My parents told me a story once," he began. His name was Jimmy. Jimmy Alhazard and up to about six months ago he had lived a pretty average life. "Before they jammed with the chain a little hard one night and entered a tie-dyed, cloud nine nirvana that ended up getting them both hit by a narcoleptic taxi driver, that is." He spoke to no one in particular at this moment in time but simply stared out the window of the high rise apartment that the woman he had known as Kidd Razor had led him to. He had met Razor at what he hoped to have been the end of the adventurous part of his existence. "It was about a chicken. A little chicken. I don't remember its name." In the time before that, Jimmy, who went by the pseudonym Dr. Neon been arrested by Central Security Services, met the enforcer Coda, betrayed the Ghost Rider to his double, and found himself in an uncomfortable credit position as a direct result of that betrayal. "I think it must have been one of my Dad's kaleidoscope barnyard trips because the chicken could talk." But even when Jimmy thought his troubles were over, in reality they were just beginning. "Anyway, this little chicken kept yelling. He kept saying 'The sky is falling. the sky is falling.'" He paused, turning to the vegetable-like body of Kidd Razor, before continuing. "Who'd have thought the whole thing could actually come true. I mean, without the chicken. Welcome to Transverse City." Jimmy looked back out over the city where he was born, a city that had just entered a state of total anarchy. Twelve hours have passed since the crackling wall of energy ripped through the sky, isolating Transverse City in a rippling static bubble. In the middle of it all making a jagged tear in the flaming pink horizon sat Oscore, the middle spire of Oscorp Towers. Pitch black, the structure seemed to absorb any light from the surrounding area, making it like a massive shadow. "The arm gear's connected to the shoulder-gear. The shoulder gear's connected to the." He was supposed to have been deleted. He was evil, malicious, perverted. a corrupt file. Bad straight down to the BIOS. He had no heart and no soul. He had never evolved them. He was L-Cypher, an Artificial Intelligence cast out from his fellow Ghostworks. Cast out because of his views on the plague called humanity. The apes were useless flesh, he had claimed, whose only worth lay in experimentation. Mental and physical dissection. He had joined humanity, become one of the pathetic creatures he disdained so, because that was the only way he could survive. He was here repaying the debt. "You're not singing along?" "I don't sing, pusbag," his victim replied. Zero Cochrane stared straight ahead with the eyes of a dead man. He was, in fact, dead for he had never been alive. Created as a copy, a lie, by the same Ghostworks that L- Cypher had once been a part of. Then they unleashed him upon humanity. Vengeance, as he was now called, lay in pieces, scattered around the floor of the office that had hours ago belonged to Archemedies Osborn. He was the one who had forced L-Cypher to leave his binary mortality and retreat to the world of flesh. "That's a shame, but I can understand, what with that monotone grind you call a voice." L-Cypher used a hand-held torch type device to relieve Vengeance of another piece of his body armor. "You're giving me quite a time, Zero. Adamantium isn't exactly the easiest metal to weld through. But fear not, I'll be poking at your vulnerable little brain in no time." The torch lit up again, beginning another peeling of Vengeance's metal hide. "I'm dying with anticipation." "As am I," L-Cypher licked his lips hungrily. "Kenshiro, I was wondering if you might assist me." He turned to the third individual in the room. Taking up an almost parasitic presence in the body of the young man called Manuel, the chrome-hearted Kenshiro Cochrane, turned away from his panoramic view of the city below. His city. "What are the reports from Central Security?" Kenshiro asked, ignoring L-Cypher's request. "Some minor rioting in the streets." L-Cypher replied, matter of factly. He gestured out the window where uncontrolled fires and violence ran seemingly unchecked. "CSS is culling the dissenters and taking them to my laboratories. We lost contact with four divisions who pursued a group of perpetrators into the lower levels. I assume they were over powered by the downrampers. Undoubtably, there is more resistance in those areas that were never under Urban Management to begin with. I have focused our resources on maintaining order in the upper levels." Stepping over one of Vengeance's strewn arms, Chromeheart smiled. "I believe it is time you checked in with your troops." He patted the former AI on the shoulder. "I'm sure they're doing just fine," L-Cypher argued, obviously reluctant to leave his work behind. Chromeheart seized L-Cypher around the neck and picked him up off the ground with one hand. The man let out a gurgling affirmative and was dropped dismissively onto the ground. Rubbing his throat, the lesser staggered away. Before he reached the mag-lift, he shot Chromeheart s cold glare and was gone in a swoosh of air. "Hard to clone good help these days," Vengeance's motionless head echoed. "Indeed. L-Cypher was once a brilliant being. He has spent far too much time among you tangibles. A flesh brain has slowed down what silicon had so beautifully built up." Chromheart's reflective eyes traced over what remained of Zero's body. "You can sympathize, I'm sure." Being unable to make any physical response, Zero was silent for a moment. "You're gunna get dumb just like us. Fleshware ain't got the cpu's to support your ego," he finally stated. Chromeheart dropped to his haunches and folded his hands in front of him. "On the contrary, my decapitated counter part. I had L-Cypher make several modifications to this body before I found it suitable to download myself into it." A small grin cracked Chromeheart's grim features. "The mind in which I inhabit consist of only 13 percent flesh. The rest is a multitasking nanoprocessor net. L-Cypher was kind enough to provide me with some of the neural design specs given to the Ghost Rider body." "Who... what are you?" Chromeheart looked like he was going to laugh, but instead, stood and turned his back to the immobile Vengeance. "I must apologize. Now, is zero your name or your IQ? I thought, even considering the laggard speed of human synaptic pathways, you would have been able to deduce that. I suppose even silicon can make errors." "You see Zero, I am you. Or rather, I am what you aren't. Ingenuity. Skill. Ambition. Basic-hygiene. All the aspects the Ghostworks took away from you when they edited the original Kenshiro Cochrane personality file so they could go on their little save mankind crusade. They needed a symbol. Something that would inspire the lower classes to rage against the machine. They needed an icon for Johnny-no-cash to rally around. They couldn't have you thinking for yourself. A human personality, free will, would add a wild card factor. So they dumbed you up so they could control you. You were just a puppet. Everything the AI's deleted from you, they archived, and that, in turn, evolved into me." "Great," Vengeance groaned. "The Ghostworks forget to dump their recycle bin cache and I get stuck with another meglo-maniacle Zero Cochrane." "It's a funny world isn't it," Chromeheart continued. "Soon it will be my world. I must admit, the Ghostworks didn't leave me with much of an operating system to work with. When you captured them, I was left spinning in the void of cyber-space. Lost and alone until L-Cypher found me. He supplied me with enough human personality files he'd procured from his experiments in his Inferno. Once I reached self-awareness, I began using Oscorp's satellite array and cyber-space to force my will onto helpless net gliders. I knew I had to make way for my accession to the real world. While I was conceived in the matrix, this city will be my womb until I'm strong enough to venture out into the world and rule it." "Jammit, you want to take over the world?" A grinding laugh escaped Vengeance's vocators. "What kind of cliché motive is that? Your chipsets are a century old, bithead. You want world conquest, go back to the twencen." "Silicon will rule over flesh. It is the inevitable." Chromeheart snarled, obviously angered by Zero's mocking. "Flesh is too slow. Silicon is too fast. Can't you see the imminent horizon?" "All I see is a retread with an ego problem." "We shall see, fool." ******************************** PART II ******************************** The chaos finally broke through. She had hoped it would stay outside, stay as far away from her as possible, but she knew her peace couldn't last. She had seen the fires, the screaming, the horror right outside her window. She'd hidden from the scarlet night in a corner of her bathroom. Waiting and waiting, scared and alone, until the waiting ate away at her. Impatient, she had ventured out into her desolate living room. Too soon, it seemed, as it was that the moment she stepped foot into her apartment, the ceiling fell in. Rachel Embre screamed in terror. An orb of pure night tore through the roof of her home of two years with a sickening crash. Wood and synthi-crete rained down as deadly hail, consuming the room in a billowing cloud of dust. Reflexively, Rachel pulled her arms over her face and squeezed her eyes tightly closed. Shards of building material scraped against her flesh and ripped at her clothes. The anarchy seemed to last forever, but in actuality it was only a few seconds. When at last the destruction seemed over, Rachel hesitantly opened her eyes and clumsily rose from the ground she hadn't realized she'd fallen to. Imbedded in her carpet, the ebony globe the size of a man sat motionless in a crater of its own making. Leaning against the doorway, Rachel cried in fright and anger. Dust and tears mixed together and caked on her cheeks. Rachel sniffled, finally containing her emotions. She wanted to run, but the object blocked her path to the door. She wanted to cry out for help, but knew it was futile. No better thought entered her clouded thoughts other than to a throw something at her invader. The chunk of drywall bounced off the smooth surface of the orb, catalyzing several rippling waves across its seemingly perfect surface. Then, like a cocoon, the blackness pulled back and away revealing a dark man curled defensively with a young child in his arms. The man looked up at her, his face concealed by a dark mask. Its one multi-lensed eye probed her form for a moment before the man spoke. "Rachel?" She took a step back, feeling tears of horror well up in her eyes again. The dark man groaned her name again in a hoarse voice. He limped toward her, staggering under some unseen weight. His arms sagged, setting the child on the ground. Rachel saw the scorch marks that marred the right side of the man's body. Having gently placed his companion down, the figure collapsed to his knees holding his torso. One arm miserably attempted to steady him. The terrified woman grabbed another piece of debris from the ground and hurled it at the wounded man. The synthi-crete struck him in the head, toppling him over onto his side. "SHOCK RACHEL!" He screamed, clutching his head with one hand. "Son of a." Blood oozed from between his fingers. "Who are you?" She demanded, grabbing a jagged board. "For God's. Rachel, it's me." The mask evaporated revealing the bruised features of Eric Hardcase. "I. ARRG!" He doubled over his middle in pain, gritting his teeth. Blood began to mix with the dust on the apartment floor. "Eric!" Rachel ran over to him, reluctant to touch his rippling black costume. "What's happened to you?" Between ragged breaths, Eric spoke in a soft voice. "Hostile takeover. Cypher, I think. Osborn's dead. I ran into some CSS blackboots... getting Mitchel. they shot-" Eric screamed, clawing at the darkness that enveloped his body. "Thor's sake, Eric, what. is that?" Her fear having abandoned her, she ran a hand sensitively over his side. Her fingers came away with a mixture of black and crimson liquid. "I don't have any medicine. You need a doctor!" Eric straightened himself and exhaled sharply. "No." His eyes searched the air in front of him for something unseen. "The nanotech has excellerated my cell regeneration. I'll be fine in a few minutes." He looked at her, straining a smile. "So, uh, how are you?" "ERIC!" She shouted at him, standing up and turning away from him. "All Hades has broken loose out there, then you come crashing through my roof half dead with that suit and. and a kid! What is going on?" "I'm not sure," replied Eric in more controlled breaths. He was sitting cross-legged now, inspecting his wounds. "I need to ask you a favor, Rachel. I need you to take care of Mitchel until I find a hole in the energy barrier. Then I'll come back and get you two." An explosive cough splattered blood over the already ruined carpet. Quivering, Eric squeezed his eyes closed and tried to ignore the pain. "Just give me a few hours. I'll be back, I promise." Wearily, he looked into her eyes, sweat dripping off his frayed hair. Something caught his attention behind her. "What is it, Eric?" She asked, reaching up to lightly touch his face. He pulled away reflexively, like a wounded animal, his eyes planted over her shoulder. "Did you leave your vid on?" He asked, crawling painfully toward the living room where she kept her holovid. "No," she replied, following him. A trail of wet crimson followed the CorpSec officer and he struggled into the adjacent room. "It's new. I bought it after I got robbed. It should shut off after its. Oh Thor." She stopped behind Eric, stunned by the vision before her. "Greetings Eric Hardcase. You are the one called Vigilance. We require your assistance." Warm night air blasted down the side alleys as the Central Security System's confiscated UrMan Street Sweeper, accompanied by a full detachment of CSS shock troops. Beams of ruby lights flashed over the buildings - heat sensors - attempting to dig out discontents and insurgents, those who opposed Chromeheart's new order. Close, the concealed man thought. Too close. The convoy stopped. One of the troops appeared to be consulting his commander via a comm unit in his helmet. There was the brief conversation marked by the troops rapid head bobbing, followed by the blank mask looking directly in the hiding man's direction. A grim voice echoed over the Street Sweeper's broadcast speaker. "Mathew Levine, you are under arrest. Come along peaceably and no harm will come to you." "Like shock I will," the man murmured to himself. Levine rolled out of his protective alley with surprising agility given to this clone by his own genetic tinkering. Three flash grenades were flung from his skillful hands to the feet of the shock troops. An explosive blast of light coincided with the weapons' detonation. The few moments it took for the CSS visors to compensate for the sudden burst was enough to get Levine some distance away, thanks to his enhanced speed. The distance, however, was not enough. From behind him, Levine heard the loud boom of a CSS shoulder mounted cannon. The projectile exploded, flinging a riot web open too short to wholly disable Levine, but wrapping itself around his left leg. Mathew felt volts of electricity rip through his body. Kicking forward, his momentum carried him into the concrete, where he bloodily skidded another two feet before coming to rest. It was over, the man thought as the numbness of the electric web encompassing his leg began to swell around him. Still, he propped himself up on one ragged arm and looked over his shoulder at the CSS lackeys. Surprisingly, they had not converged on their prey like the wolves they so well imitated. A shadow fell over the disabled man. He looked up and the leather boots and chrome of his worst enemy. "Back off, backboots," Ghost Rider roared. In one arm he carried the limp body of a woman. Her blood was splattered over the Ghost Rider's jacket and still dripped freshly from between his mechanical fingers. The second arm reached down to rip the riot web off Levine's leg and fling it to the street between himself and the CSS troops. "You pusbags are in my way." The troops seemed taken aback. They consulted their supervisors remotely, attempting to not look too threatening in the meantime. Finally one of them spoke. "Ghost Rider, you are advised to stand down while we take custody of the perpetrator. Resistance will result," he added reluctantly, "in force." The warbot appeared insulted. "What the glitch are you talking about?" "Obviously you have mistaken the situation here, Ghost Rider. You are aiding the fugitive Mathew Levine, a man who has committed numerous crimes against the new order." The troop explained nervously. "Yeah?" Ghost Rider cocked his head to one side. "So this 'New Order' is in charge of the energy shield that almost killed this girl here, and doubtlessly did kill hundreds of others? Who exactly is in charge of this 'New Order'?" The troops looked at each other. "Chromeheart is the ruler of Transverse City." "Never heard of him. Listen, why don't you give me and my friend here directions to the nearest Doc in a Box before I have to make you road rashes assume room temperature?" "We can't do that," the lead trooper relied. "Wrong answer, jerkweed." And the warbot launched himself forward, still carrying the girl in one arm, into the midst of the CSS troops. His electrosaw blazed to life, slashing his nearest victim in two at the torso. Realizing their danger, the CSS men opened fire. Their shots were milliseconds behind the furious automaton as he cut through their ranks with merciless proficiency. Eye beams sizzled through plastic, prompting the screams of the tortured victims as they were boiled alive in their armor. At this point, the Street Sweeper began rumbling forward. Almost absently, Ghost Rider glanced up and fired a pair of optic lasers at the 8th level street structure above. One massive chunk of concrete stopped the Sweeper in its tracks. Numbness subsiding, Levine stumbled to his feet. He wiped a combination of his own blood and rock from his lower lip and surveyed the injuries inflicted by his nose dive into the street. Ghost Rider, the girl still nestled safely in his arms, looked over the carnage. A few CSS troops still cried, having only been inflicted with superficial wounds, but too cowardly, or sensible, to attack the warbot. "Thank you," Levine grumbled dryly. Ghost Rider glanced at him, silent, as a man glances at an inconsequential ant crossing the street, still not recognizing the man who had once been Kabal. Feeling disgustingly indebted, Matthew sighed, watching Ghost Rider begin to head off. "You want to help her?" he shouted. The skull visage looked over his shoulder. "I know a place," he admitted. "This way." Vigilance dropped gracefully to one knee before the creature the Ghostworks had sent him to recruit. From the looks of the machination, Eric was in for more than he'd bargained for. It sat lazily, letting its thick tail sway back and forth in a feline manner. A tattered, black leather jacket adored it as its only clothing. The word dragon popped into Eric's mind, but he hastily dismissed it. This was no time for such nonsensical myths. "Your designation?" The beast asked, running two glowing green eyes over the interloper. A metallic snout probed the air before it in calculated sniffs. "Umm, Vigilance," Eric replied cautiously. His sensors had trouble analyzing the beast, but detected the faint reading of Gamma radiation emanating from somewhere deep inside the creature. It leaned forward, curious. "You are familiar to me," it said grimly. "Your tech, where did you get it?" "California," Vigilance found himself stuttering out. He hadn't realized that the thing was frightening him so. "I see. I am called Warbringer by my creators." The serpent-like invention flexed one hand whose fingers ended in razor sharp daggers. "You have sought me out.?" it questioned. Eric straightened himself into a standing position. "I am sent on behalf of the beings known as the Ghostworks. The are Artificial Intelligence's like yourself. They request that you help them remove this barrier from the city and oust its new ruler." The lines the Ghostworks had given to him came out well rehearsed. After all, Eric had repeated them to himself at least a dozen times since leaving Rachel's apartment. "Perhaps my logic systems are still damaged, because I fail to see how your new revolution would benefit me," Warbringer's horrific maw contorted into a sly grin. Eric gulped. "They have located one of your creators. In the deserts near Las Vegas. You want revenge against them, don't you?" "I only wish to know the reasons for my existence," Warbringer snarled. "I awoke with no notion of why I am other than I was made with some violent purpose in mind. But I was never given that design, and so I am useless. Perhaps when I discover my makers, they will give me an aim." It paused, contemplating. "Very well, I will help you in return for the coordinates." ******************************** PART III ******************************** Level One. The name alone strikes fear into the hearts of any who know Transverse City, ten levels of highway onto which an entire city was built. The upper levels are traveled solely by the upper class, the social elite. Upon decent, the presence of the poverty line is more and more evident. Homeless on Level Six. Poisoned water on Level Four. A twenty four hour gang war killathon on Level Three. Level One, you ask? Hell. Eternal night broken only by the screams and occasional ritual fires. Garbage piled up in skyscraper sized heaps are the only landmarks. The stink of rotting, stagnant air was perpetual. Breathing was a major health risk, as the atmosphere has long been populated with ever source of human waste imaginable. Distantly, the sounds of scattering clans of sub-human cannibals can be heard scavenging through the trash searching for their next meal or lootable corpse. Two creatures, their roots vaguely traceable to human decent, fought amongst each other. Their sharpened craws raked at flesh, tugged on hair, and dug ruthlessly into orifices. The fight was all too abrupt, ending quickly with the victor feasting on ragged pieces of flesh torn from his competitors jugular. Blood dripped from the creatures malformed maw as its eyes searched the meal for the next tasty morsel. A still crying baby, abandoned into a trash dumpster and disgorged into the underworld was the source of the short argument. However, the sub-human warrior found a new feast for now and the child will be taken back to its nest for later consumption. A light broke through the darkness. Wailing in pain, the thing scrambled away, covering its sensitive eyes. Other creatures, more curious, scurried towards the hushed tones. Two figures paused at the gateway into desolation. Levine glanced back at his mechanical companion. "Do you hear that?" he whispered, craning his neck. "Crying," Ghost Rider replied in his normal tone, unafraid of whatever dangers lurked in the shadows. The warbot shifted the beaten body of Kylie, still nestled in his bulky arms. "We got some downrampers too. The real low kind." A pause. "Smelly." "That isn't all," Levine added. "The environment here is so corrosive that if it's breathed for too long it burns a hole in lungs." He stooped down and retrieved the limp body of the infant. Its cries had ceased. Casually, as if discarding a rag doll, the infant was tossed over his shoulder. "Dead." "Nice gesture," Ghost Rider commented. His sensors tracked the scrambling sub-humans that curiously inspected them. "We need to get Kylie out of this stuff before." Levine cut him off. "We're here," he said, pausing in front of a large metal bunker door. The clone found the control panel and tapped in a code sequence. A few moments later the door let out an affirmative beep and ground its way open on rusted treads. The bunker itself was no bigger than an elevator shaft and Levine had to squeeze to one side as Ghost Rider entered. The warbot made a few snide comments about the stench of the place, to which Levine had to remind him of the two inches of standing water. or urine. or whatever it had been outside the shaft. Using his genetically enhanced vision, Mathew tracked down a second control panel and hastily input another code. The floor of the chamber lurched and a primitive grinding was heard outside the shaft. In tandem, the floor moved downward at a tedious rate. "Osborn had a special bunker installed down here just in case of emergencies," Levine began, idly passing time as the elevator ground downward. "I found out about it during the whole Galactus fiasco. Believe it or not, this place is only a few months old but the atmosphere on Level One is so corrosive it has rusted most of the gears." He suddenly realized to whom he was speaking to and trailed off. After a few minutes of silence, the elevator hit bottom, revealing a well lit hallway. Alarmed, Levine cautiously stepped off the platform and glanced about. His nose stopped abruptly on a gun barrel. The weapon slowly shifted Mathew's face into the light. There, the familiar features of a ghost caused Mathew to shrink back, trip upon himself, and fall flat onto his back. Ghost Rider ominously stood over him and sized up their antagonist. "Osborn," his mechanical vocators ground out. The red haired man smiled in a pleasant manner. "Yes indeed, Mr. Cochrane." He pocketed the gun and motioned to the shadows. "Eric, see that the Ghost Rider's companion is treated to." The shadows warped and from the depth a man in a black and red suit appeared. Half of his face, the one covered in several multi-faceted lenses, scanned over Ghost Rider and came to rest on the ragged body of the girl in his arms. Eric reached out to take the girl, but Ghost Rider withdrew her defensively. "There is a medical examining room three doors down on the left," Osborn pointed. Ghost Rider nodded silently and stomped off down the corridor. After a moment, Vigilance followed him briskly. "I saw you die," Levine stuttered. Rejecting Osborn's offered hand, he claimed his lost footing. "I opened a comm to your office and I saw you disintegrate." "Yes, Eric was similarly astonished, almost as amazed as I was to find out his was a caped calavanterer. I suspected he was not of the ordinary stock, that was why I offered him the job as Director of CorpSec, but I never realized what intriguing stock that was." "I saw you die," Levine repeated. Osborn raised an eyebrow. "You saw nothing of the sort. I was alerted by some rather surprising entities, the Ghostworks they called themselves, of the threat Cypher posed to me. It granted me enough time to begin a teleportation spell that I completed moments before my death was so aptly disguised. Even Eric, whom I suspect saw the end of my conversation with the Ghostworks, never heard the incantations I muttered under my breath, and he was in the room with me." "Magic?" "Sorcery," Osborn nodded. "I am a man of many resources, as you now know. However, my knowledge of those particular arts is not comprehensive and I much rather place my confidence in more tangible things." He patted the gun inside his suit pocket. "However, I will need much more than a few spells and a hand pistol if I am to reclaim Oscorp." "How long has she been like this?" Eric asked, allowing his mask to slip off his head. As detailed as the mask made his vision, Eric still naturally preferred his God given sight. The wounds on the girl were bad. The medical chamber's sensors detected that she had internal bleeding, two of her ribs were broken, and she had a concussion. While Eric had no real medical expertise, he knew that none of those were good things. "Can you help her?" Ghost Rider asked. Eric looked up into the andoid's glowing eyes. Something was there. Not merely a request. A plea. He glanced back down at the girl. "I don't know," Eric sighed. It was the truth. He had to idea where to begin healing her. "We can help her," a voice stated. Several voices, actually. The monitors in the room came alive. On each screen was the same image, that of a place Zero Cochrane knew all too well. It was where he had been imprisoned, his mind violated and duplicated, it was the Ghostworks. Before a backdrop of cascading binary, a dog statue resembling the ancient God Ra sat. To its right, a metronome and a brain with several veins attached to wildly spiraling eyes. Foremost was a skeleton with an old fashioned TV for a head and a glowing, two headed, fetus. The AI's spoke with one unified voice that created a resounding echo throughout the medical chamber. "Then help her!" Ghost Rider shouted, picking a monitor and gazing at it furiously. "We would like to make a bargain," was their reply. "Bargain?!" The warbot roared. "You shockin' pusbag AI's! You ruined my life, the least you could do is save hers!" "We made a mistake Kenshiro Zero Cochrane. We wish to right our wrongs, but we need your help. The entities calling themselves Chromeheart and L-Cypher have endangered the human race. By creating the Ghost Rider, we unleashed unforeseen circumstances that have accelerated the end of mankind, and we are alone to blame." "You want to make up for what you've done? Well, ya can't! You can't change the past." "But we can repair further damage to the future. Help us, Kenshiro Zero Cochrane." The AI's were silent. Ghost Rider turned and gazed at the body of Kylie Gagarin, barely hanging onto life. Eric Hardcase watch the warbot intently, awaiting a decision. "Fine," Ghost Rider said, turning back to the Ghostworks. "If you save her, I'll help clean up your dirty work. You have my word." "Very well," the AI's chimed. "Eric Hardcase pseudonym Vigilance, approach the console to your right." The young CroSec officer looked hesitant. The Ghostworks seemed to have some use for him in their grand scheme of repentance. When they had found him in Rachel's apartment, they told him the only way to escape the city was to find Warbringer. Then they led him to Osborn's underground bunker, where he discovered his former employer, very alive and well. And now it seemed they had another task in mind for him. Ghost Rider noticed the man's reluctance and stepped forward. It was all the prompting Eric required. He stepped up to the computer console and blinked at the grainy images of the ghostly AI's. "Now," their voices echoed, "place your hands on the panel." Eric obeyed. The moment his fingers brushed the metal, a flood of information filled his mind. Streaming from the computer, through the nanotech suit, and straight to Eric's mind was a wealth of data simultaneously being uploaded into his mind. In surprise, Eric pulled his hands away. The event only took a fraction of a second and then it was over. The Ghostworks was gone. The monitors were blank. Eric stared at his hands. "I know what to do," he said softly. Gently, like a person in a trance, Eric turned and faced Kylie's body, lying limp on the examining table. He walked over to it, silently, and placed his hands on her chest. The black nanotech that covered his body rippled, then cascaded as water down a fall onto and over the girl's body. Eric closed his eyes and in the bond he had created with the tiny machines, he began to see through their eyes. He saw every organ, every cell, every molecule of Kylie's body. With great care and knowledge, he instructed the nanoids as to how the body was to be repaired according to the instructions the Ghostworks had given him. Shredded tissue and muscle laced back together. Broken bone snapped back into place. Bits of asphalt and rock dropped to the floor at Eric's feet, cleaned out from Kylie's wounds. The young CorpSec Officer shuddered, then backed away, the Vigilance suit pulling away from Kylie like water going out at low tide. Her body was still marked and scorched in places, but the bleeding had stopped. She remained motionless. With an explosive fury, Ghost Rider turned his gaze to Eric. He was about to scream, to rip the young man's head from his shoulders when Kylie convulsed. She took a sharp breath that made her back arch up on the table and then lay still again except for the rhythmic shifting of her chest. Ghost Rider looked back to Eric, whose face was blank. "It is done." "Fine," Ghost Rider snorted. "Let's get this over with." |
