The other two were female. Imagery stood on her hunches, with her long black hair tied up in the traditional Indian fashion: a long braid that ended at her thighs. Black war paint was drawn over her face, under both eyes that went out to form into sickles. Her eyebrows had been shaven off, and her eyes were pure white. She wore no top; only a trench and black latex skin-tight caprie pants leaving her feet bare. Imagery was a light-bender, able to make forms out of thin air by bending the colors of the Prism. The cold didn't affect her either.

The other female was Balance. An eighteen year old with a clean shaven head and blond eyebrows of the Skinhead Triibe. She was born with two vocal vertebrates which, with the tinkerings of the House of Boom City, gave her the gift of ultra sonics. With her voice, she could screw up or shatter someone's equilibrium from seven feet away. She was born deaf. And unlike the other two, the cold got to her just as much as it got to Truu, hiding in her trench and baggy's for warmth that will never come.

And the fourth member and leader of the raid group was Truu's surrogate father and mentor, Quross. He fought in the Boom Wars and the Neo Boom Wars then became one of the first to become didijio. He was one out of a handful to know of Truu's secret. He stood a tall 6'3", his thin but muscular frame fought against the bitter cold and was winning. His eyes, eyes which had seen the horrors of the world but as long given up its struggles to find the said peace behind it, watched the boom den with a stone-like interest, like a gargoyle hunched upon a church, laughing at his perfect camouflage—openness. You know its up there, watching you, studying you. Claws, fangs, wings outstretched—its full arsenal open to view. You know its going to attack, but you'll never know when. You dare not blink, you don't move. And it waits. Then it lets the fear set in. It watches as you began to jump at shadows, and that's its sign. It attacks when the shadows starts to turn against you—when whispers become the enemy—it attacks with its fangs and claws. But it won't kill you. It lets you live. It knows that the fear is far greater than the death. The fear and the waiting and the openness . . .

"Now," Quross said in a voice so low that Truu doubted hearing it. But the others didn't need to hear him. They all could tell by Quross's shift in posture that this could be the last moment of peace any one of them would ever have again.


--
And she waits on a rooftop overlooking him overlooking the boom den. So close to him, she is. So close that she could drown in his scent if she let herself. Her heart begins to thump at an incredible pace, knowing that at anytime feelings could overcome her. And she couldn't let that happen, not when the Plan is so close within her grasp, not when she is so close to having him again. Only you could do this to me, she thinks. Only you. It was torture watching him like this. She had to leave. Go now, she thought, go now if the Plan still means anything to you. Her metallic black wings fluttered and she took to the night.

Yes, the Plan means everything . . .


---
Truu felt the wind hit him like a fist as he jumped off the roof. Viking was the first to jump and Truu took off right after him. Viking was falling fast, then the fog took him and the only thing Truu could hear was the rush of air and the winning pitch of Viking's fall below him. All around him was fog. The only way Truu knew he was falling was because of the wind. Then Viking hit the den like a bomb unseen with a thunderous, violent sound.

The fog began to clear, and Truu's eyes became wide with fear. He could see the gapping hole Viking left in the roof, could see the broken pieces of wood and metal bent upwards and all around like stakes meant for his heart.

You've got the wrong monster, he thought. The roof was coming up too quickly for him to spin into the hole—it wouldn't have worked anyway. There were just as many broken pieces of wood and metal facing inward than there were facing up. The nicest thing that could happen was that he'll spin through the hole and only slice his back wide open so he'll bleed to death later. It was better than the alternatives. But not by much.

Then Quross shot out of the fog besides him like a god-send, his trench whipping. His eyes were aflame with the boom, his arms outstretched behind him. They too became aflamed with the boom. His descent was faster than Truu's and he ended up ahead of him. Quross let the boom reach incredible levels within him till it danced throughout his body. Strands of quantum energy filtered aimlessly around him. The roof was right in front of him. He wipped his arms around in front of him letting the boom energy flow to his hands. The quantum strands jumped to his hands causing the last of the energy to rest in one spot.

Never condense the boom in one spot. You must let it flow throughout you. To condense it will only invite violent release . . .

"SHA-MEA-TOU!"

Truu shielded his face from the incredible release of raw power. Light penetrated the fog just like the stars penetrated the inky night. He heard the energy hit the roof ripping it asunder, then felt the missile pieces of wood and metal brake through his skin like the shrapnel from an exploding grenade. He began to spin out of control. He felt his hands grasping the air in hopes to stop his lost fall, then he felt the shrapnel hit his unshielded face. He started to scream then.

He didn't stop till he hit the ground.


----
The first thing Viking saw as he crashed through the roof was the unpredictable faces of thirty or more boomers. The boom den was a big shed with no furnishings—no beds, no tables—nothing. Viking saw the fear in the boomers who could still move. Most couldn't. The symptoms—or the Diminution, as it is called—of a boomer was one of the first things a didijio in training learnt, and here, Viking saw every one: the lack of furniture is an early symptom. Boomers become obsessed with space—they must have all the room they could possibly have and in most cases, they becomes extremely claustrophobic. Long term boom users usually stop eating and simply rot away where they lay. Half the boomers in the den were in this state.

Viking crashed into the floor, shrugging of the dust which fell from the roof. "Didijio Prime. Drop to the floor, now! All your lives has been forfeited!" the giant shouted. Then he heard the sha-mea-tou, saw the blinding light, and heard the roof shatter. Then everything went to hell.


-----
The smell of defecation, urination, the rot of unwashed bodies and decaying corpses woke him. He felt soaked with sweat and blood as he laid flat on his back. The rot hit him again and he vomited in spasmic movements discharging the low contents of his stomach with blood. It shot out like a fountain then washed over his face and trekked down his bloodied red chin. He began to choke on it suddenly, and he instinctively got on his side and spewed the rest of it out. After he got control of his movements again, Truu looked down on his body and saw a series of tears in his uniform and open cuts throughout his body—each one bleeding like a stuck pig. He felt the ripped blooded skin of his chin, but the rest of his face seemed okay. He tried to get up but found he had no strength. He tried again, outstretching his arm for better leverage when he touched the foot of a naked body which laid in a pile of his own filth. Dead pale skin covered by weeks of filth and huge sores hung on bone as his stomach was was hunched inward and you could see his ribcage through his flesh. Flies buzzed in and out of his gapping mouth and his eyes simply stared at Truu, his pupils completely dilated.

Then they blinked.

Truu jumped back, letting the adrenaline rush power him. He frantically looked around, but all he saw was decaying bodies all around him. Some began to move towards him, slithering on the ground, clawing their way to him inch by inch and leaving trails of filth behind them. Their mouths opened with bugs and flies falling out and onto the ground, running frantically with the sudden movement of their hosts. Truu couldn't move anymore, couldn't take it any longer. He vomited again. He saw some of the boomers start vomiting dead worms and unhatched eggs that had been laid in their mouths. He wanted to scream, but the first boomer slithered on top of him covering his mouth as bugs fell and ran on his face. He felt the other boomers crawl on him now. And they were incredibly strong. The rot was unbearable as they started to slither on top of each other, crushing Truu with their collective weight.

Then he heard the sounds of bodies being smashed on walls, felt the weight being lifted from him, then saw Viking throwing the boomers three in each one of his massive hands, smashing them against the floor. He took the last boomer off of Truu, a female who started clawing at the air, but Viking slammed her and her bones broke easily.

"H-have . . . to-o . . . get out of . . . here . . ." Truu mumbled as Viking lifted him off the ground.

"Don't worry my friend, Quross says that this whole place hast to come down." Viking put Truu on his back and began to run through the den, kicking and smashing downed boomers as he passed.

Outside, Truu sucked in the air of the Dump. But he was still too close to the den, the rot was still strong. Viking set him down as he looked around and saw Quross and Balance staring at the den as he locked his arms around his legs. The quantum strands danced around their bodies. There was no Imagery.

"Imagery . . ." Truu said, looking around to see if he'd missed her.

"She's gone my friend," Viking said. "The boomers crushed her and ripped her in two."

"SHA-MEA-TOU!" Quross and Balance shouted together as the energy leapt from their outstretched hands.

"TOW-SHULL!" Viking screamed as a blue barrier surrounded the four didijios just as the den exploded in an eruption of green flame and fire, lighting up the whole street. Fiery debris fell and bounced all around the barrier as Truu wished for his strength back.

"You look like crap!" Quross said walking towards him.

"Thanks. I feel like it and smell like it now too."

Quross took his hand and lifted Truu's chin so that he could see it better in the light. "That's never going to heal right, you'd do better just to grow a beard."

"Thanks."

"You okay?" Quross asked when he found that Truu was shaking uncontrollably as he sat on the damp street. Sweat and blood fell from his scared face and his eyes seemed unfocused, darting from place to place. His cuts were still open and Quross began to worry about infection. He knew that Truu's body healed at an incredible rate, that his immune system was very strong—the strongest he'd ever seen. But he had never seen Truu in this bad of shape before. It began to scare him. "Come on, we better get you looked at."

But Truu didn't hear him, the darkness had claimed him long before Quross could finish his words.


------
Nothing seemed real to him anymore. He knew at some point he was laying on his back. The slight vibrations of movement giving him ideas on where he was and where he was heading. Quross must've called in a sled, he thought, but then couldn't really remember who Quross was. He felt his body burning with heat and pesperation. He could hear voices in far off places calling him, telling him things that made no sense—the voices seemed so far away. He tried to reach out for them, but nothing worked—or maybe he just didn't remember how to work anything. There was so many things he couldn't remember anymore. He was losing himself in himself—drowning in the black inky fog that dragged him farther and farther down. Why didn't the others see this, why didn't they help? Why didn't they make the heat go away?

He felt the same loneliness that he had felt so long ago, the loneliness felt before Didijio Prime, before . . . Quross? And with that loneliness was awakened the long dormant knowledge that no one cared for him. Not even Rude. And rage erupted within him, his defence against the loneliness sprouted as his hands became claw-like, though he couldn't see them. The word Change sprung in his mind suddenly, but then it had left just as quickly as it had came. Piercing pain accompanied the heat as he felt his body rake and turn in the inky fog as he clawed his way up, feeling things both hard edged and soft all around him, burying his claws deep within them only to have them fall away and crumble or become wet and slick. If only he could see.

He climbed upward and upward as his wall fell under him, screaming out as the fog tried its best to get him down again, by sudden movements, to its cries and pleads that came from the same far off place the voices did earlier on. But he laughed at its attempt. He began to see dull lights ahead of him, shifting from place to place, becoming bigger and bigger the more he climbed. He hit a wall that wouldn't crumble and wouldn't let him go on farther. He screamed and banged on it as the dull lights began to take shape—but not by much. When the banging didn't work, he began to claw at the wall, kicking madly till the wall gave with a satisfying crunch and he was hit by wind that knocked him off-balance. He felt himself falling again, like he stepped off an edge. The fog erupted with new smells and noises and the dull lights became blurred. He hit something wet and slick and felt himself sliding and rolling over himself till coming to a stop. He didn't move, letting the world come into focus; lights from lightpost over head glimmered in his eyes. He looked around, only moving his head as he saw words begin to match up with meanings: buildings; sidewalks; lights; streets—the Dump looks the same all over!

Things began to fit in his head. He began to remember things, people, and places. He remembered the boomers and the fall and heat and darkness—but that was already becoming more and more dreamlike. He knew he had Changed to his hybrid form—the wolf-huminiod—then thought of the wall he climbed that wasn't a wall at all. He looked down at his elongated arms and saw his metallic fur covered with blood.

Truu's heart began to pound in his chest. He used his arms to prop himself up and he stood on his hind legs unsteadily. His breath was coming out his long lupine muzzle in visible puffs. He let his arms rest at his sides and his clawed hands clenched as he lowered his head to look down the other side of the street. His ears twitched as his mane of black metallic hair stood on end instinctively, along with all the other hair on his body, becoming hard and just as razor sharp as swords. A gift from the Boxed House.

Down the street, a sleek white windowless sled laid on its side with its circle-shaped wings broken on each side of its tireless frame. It was no bigger than a hover boat which had a flat bottom with the front curving gradually upward till it reached the back then it sloped out and ended with back doors, giving the medical vehicle an aerodynamic slant which had less resistance to wind. Its back doors were several feet away from it, and inside, which was normally a compete and mobile med sect., was now nothing more than scrap. Truu could see that from were he stood. He began to move towards it, his razor sharp hair still on end, his muzzle curling up revealing gums and fangs that caught light too brightly to be natural. He could smell blood mixed with circuitry and he knew he would find nothing alive.

He got to the sled. Peering inside Truu saw smashed equipment and dented walls covered with blood which looked as if they had been clawed endlessly. Off in the corner laid two bodies in what remained of their med suits, ripped and clawed apart much the same way the walls were. Truu didn't know either of them—he would not blame himself for something done in a fever dream.

The hybrid Truu stepped back, sick of the smell of death for one night. He grabbed both sides of the sled and let his claws dig into them. He began to growl with exertion as he lifted the sled inches off the ground and set it up right. When he went to retrieve the doors, he saw the blood.

It was a perfectly round drop of blood. Truu knew it came from neither one of the dead meds. Bending down, his muzzle close to the drop of blood sniffing at it over and over, getting the conclusions long ago, just refusing to except them.

The blood belonged to one of his own. Homo animalia—or that's what the Boxed House clarified them as. He turned, walking on all fours like an ape and trekked farther down the street away from the sled.

About two blocks down, Truu found another perfectly round drop of blood.

For twelve blocks there was the blood—someone was playing games. Truu's walking had turned into a steady run; the fever gone completely from his body now. He didn't stop to sniff the blood anymore. He wasn't meant to. It was simply there to be followed. He ran down streets and turned down corners—his arms and legs working in harmony, as efficient as any machine.

The last drop of blood ended at the steps of an old desolated church. Truu walked up the steps and stood on his hind legs to look at the steel enforced doors which were meant to keep bums out. Truu used his arms to bash the door down, a door that hadn't been opened in seven years. Truu only had to slam it three times before the rotted frame gave in and crumbled. The door fell with a loud clang, sending clouds of dust and night crawlers scurering away from their homes which had been theirs undisturbed for years. Truu walked into the church on all fours. The smell of death was everywhere. He was instantly on hind legs again and his howls of pain cut the night. He dipped his head up and at the oval mural ceiling of the church. He lifted his arms wide and cried.

The deaths he smelled was his own.

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