And he brought his pet.

A large metallic long-legged muscle-toned and black-spotted yellow animal which he brought in on a solid gold collar and a heavy metal-linked chain. The animal seemed to look around Maiorelli's room in a way, that looked to him, like it was sizing it up—taking note of the four bodyguards which stood on both sides of him in twos, shifting its gaze to the two windows on his left like it could be means of possible escape. Then it looked right into Maiorelli's eyes and he could swear that it was conciliating the distance it would take to leap on his desk and rip him to shreds. He broke the stare and was tempted to call off this meeting—Maiorelli didn't live this long by taking chances.

"Why'd ya call it off, Boss? You threw away an easy fifty thou."

"Sorry boys. I didn't like the way his freaky pet looked at me."

The whole thing sounded a little too stupid suddenly, and when Maiorelli looked back at the long-legged animal, it was already laying on the ground, licking its left shiny paw.

The man in the suit sat down in the leather chair in front of Maiorelli's oak desk, all smiles behind his black glasses.

"Nice pet," Maiorelli said.

"I think so," the man with the black glasses said.

Wise ass, Maiorelli thought with disgust. He found he didn't like this man or his stupid pet at all suddenly. He wanted this meeting over now, but he fought the urge to call it off again. "You want information?"

The man with the black round-rimmed glasses nodded, but said nothing.

Maiorelli's office wasn't as big as one would expect from a don of the fifth largest tribu family in Boom City. It was located on the roof of one of the highest reaching towers in Boom City—The Grothellin. The office was one of many stations on the roof, which also housed a large outdoor gym and pool with a view that shot out above the clouds, a view that Maiorelli had said many times: "Can't be beat!"

The office was the smallest station on the roof, which Maiorelli thought was perfect for these little clandestine meetings with the more than occasional client. It had only two stain-glass windows on one side of the wooden walls, one old naked oak desk and two cracked leather chairs that has been part of Maiorelli's family since before the Boom Wars. The room offered nothing else.

"You didijio?" Maiorelli asked.

The man behind the glasses looked sincerely hurt and made a face as if he had just suffered from a physical blow. "Nope," the man said. "Can't stand them. I think they're just the Establishment's way of saying they still control us. I don't think the boom had anything do with all that stuff that happened before the Boom Wars. I think one of the governments projects got out of hand, and they placed it on the boom to cover their asses." He began to smile again.

Where the hell this guy been? Or was he just trying to kiss Maiorelli's ass; people who knew him knew he had a major hate-on for the Establishment. Was he going for brownie points?

Maiorelli smiled. Maybe he was beginning to like this guy.

"My guys on the street say that you've been asking a lot questions about all that boomer shit happening in Egypt. If you're not didijio, why the hell you care?"

"I'm a man of high station, Mr. Maiorelli. Months ago, my sister vanished, and I just found out that she was in Egypt with those neo-boom cults that have been on the rise over there. I want my sister back. I believe she's been brainwashed. I tried to get information on the Ghost, but the only thing I could turn up is a name: LaSytt. Nobody here knows what's happing, but I hear that the cults are rising at a fantastic rate, and the United Africas are scared. Someone's keeping it all hush-hush, which I think means that stuff is out of control and could get real ugly real fast. I want my sister out of there."

Maiorelli didn't ask any of the basic questions, the "I'm a man of high station" part answered them all. And of course his allegiance to the Zoot Triibe. He thought for a while. It was the don's part to know the shit of the world—the tribus thrived on the selling of information. But not even Maiorelli had known much on the stuff rising in Egypt.

Like the man said, someone's keeping it all hush-hush.

But he still knew more than this guy.

"The money . . .?" asked Maiorelli.

"It's already in your account."

Maiorelli smiled again, placing a leather case on the oak desk. He opened it and handed the man with the glasses a sheet of paper. He closed the leather case and it disappeared from sight.

The man with the glasses looked at the paper for a while then looked up at Maiorelli, the smile was gone.

"Poetry . . .?"

"That's all you need."

But Maiorelli would never tell him that that sheet of paper was all he had. Maiorelli looked at the pet laying behind its owner's chair just then and quickly turned away; he thought he saw it looking at the sheet of paper, reading the same way its owner was. He did not want his thought conformed.

The sheet looked worn and was torn and burnt at serval places. It was hand written and looked as if it was written in a rush. The letters were written in a strange style. The sheet was old with age.

The man with the glasses looked up and said, "How old is this?"

Maiorelli shrugged. "Who could say?"

The man looked at the sheet again, reading it carefully, then handed it back. Before Maiorelli could ask, the man with the glasses said, "Photographic memory."

They both smiled.

The door open then and a tall man who had on an all black two piece and long blond hair walked in and strait up to Maiorelli. The tall man handed him a piece of paper, turned, walked out and closed the door without looking a the man with the glasses or his pet who had its head up and was watching Maiorelli and his four bodyguards.

Maiorelli read the paper, crumbled it and looked up. His face revealed nothing on what the letter could have said.

"I believe you got what you needed, if there is anything else . . .?" Maiorelli said as he got out of his seat.

The animal stood up and looked at Maiorelli as he walked around the oak desk and to the man with his right hand outstretched, indicating that he should leave.

Maiorelli ignored the animal's stare, and the man with the glasses stood and shook his hand. They said nothing as they walked to the door. Maiorelli went to open the door, and that was when the man with the glasses smelled it.

Maiorelli was scared.

He began to open the door slowly, deliberately moving behind the safe side of the door.

He knows, Truu thought suddenly. He heard Acinonyx growling fiercely behind him. He turned to see the four bodyguards taking BuckShot Firing pistols out of their black three-piece suits; but he could do nothing about them. He had to know what was on the outside of that door. If there were more guards then—

The door opened wide and Truu saw an army of guards outside the door, Timed Detention Sprayer submachine guns aimed at him. Truu round-housed and kicked the door close in some vein hope that if the bullets started flying the wooden door would stop them.

With the door closed, Truu turned to see Acinonyx crouch low then leap fifteen feet clear across the room and slam into two of the bodyguards, throwing them behind the desk. Their choked screams reviled their fate.

Teflon coated exploder bullets started flying through the wooden door and walls as Truu jumped flat to the floor, feeling the shattered wood rain on him. The bullets flew through the wood in no order and mowed down the two standing bodyguards as they tried to run from Acinonyx who stayed crouched behind the oak desk, the tiny shrapnel from the infixed exploder bullets ripped out their skin as they fell.

Truu saw Maiorelli in a ball on his side in the corner of the room. His eyes were clenched shut and his hands were over his ears, jerking his body violently as each little wooden piece rained down on him. Truu saw he was mumbling something over and over again, but couldn't make it out. The stench of fear coming from him made Truu want to gag and he began to think that maybe he wasn't the target here.

What was that letter he read? What was going on? Was his own men trying to kill him?

It kept raining wood.

Truu slivered over to Maiorelli. "Maiorelli! What's going on?"

"OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD!" Maiorelli repeated over and over. Then somebody outside got smart and started shooting the floors.

Maiorelli was split in two by gun fire as Truu got on all fours and leapt through the air and across the room, landing behind the oak desk.

No bullets hit him. Lucky.

Truu was blinded by Maiorelli's blood; it ran into his eyes and clogged his nose. He slumped with his back on the oak desk and spit out Maiorelli's blood.

The shooting had stopped, leaving the room with an eerie silence save for a couple of pop sounds from delayed exploder bullets going off here and there. Acinonyx kept a low growl.

The door was kicked in and Acinonyx became silent.

They heard the foot steps of many dress shoes walk around the room. They both heard someone say in a voice that didn't seem natural, "He is dead."

There was silence.

Then another unnatural voice: "But there was another; one that kicked close the door."

Truu, wiping his eyes of blood looked to Acinonyx knowing what she was thinking. The windows that were only four feet away was the only means of escape but they could've been miles away for all the good they did. The bullets would shred them as they leapt through the air.

Acinonyx turned to Truu. He shook his head no.

Truu cursed himself suddenly. He knew something was going down even before Maiorelli opened the door. He shouldn't have allowed himself to be seen. Should have kept to the background till he knew the whole situation. He knew this. Why did he become cocky? The same happened with Therill; he should've never known Truu was tailing him. To didijio, stealth and keeping to the shadows nearly guaranteed a fruitful career. What was with him?

The bodyguards' shoes began to connect loudly against the floor again as they began to search for the one who kicked closed the door.

Footsteps came closer to the oak desk as Acinonyx bent down to leap at the first one she saw and Truu began to take to the Change. But before his teeth even became fang-like, a guard appeared over them in such a deadly silence that Acinonyx didn't know he was there and Truu could only stare and wonder how he had snuck up on them.

As Acinonyx peered over the side of the desk, Truu looked up at the guard who looked down at him. The guard's face was covered by the darkness as he pointed his TD Sprayer submachine gun at Truu's head. Truu was about to leap at him, knowing he'll never make it. The guard seemed to smile as he began to pull the trigger and—

A shot rang out and the guard's head exploded like a ripe melon.

More gunshots began to fly around the room suddenly. Truu jumped and Acinonyx began to growl again. They both heard the screams of the guards as exploder bullets ripped into them, making their terminal poping sounds. And it rained blood just as it rained wood before.

The last gunshot rang out; the last scream died.

Silence.

They stayed there, unmoving for about three minuets, then Truu poked his head out and over the bullet-riddled oak desk and head-less body that was slumped on top of it. They all were dead.

The walls were recolored with crimson red with ripped organs splashed all over the place. Blood dripped from the ceiling and the floor was all red and littered bodies missing many of their body-parts.

Both Truu and Acinonyx looked on, unfazed.

Truu inspected the bodies that still had heads, on each forehead there was what seemed to have been tattooed in their flesh with a hot knife, a picture of an eye. Their real eyes were pure white. Boom zombies?

Truu bent down, looking over one of the corpses.

"Tyl," Truu said softly, a boom detect spell.

Yes, there was boom magic all over the room; boom zombies. Truu almost turned pale.

They say the English, just before the end of the Boom Wars, had found a way to formulate the boom in ways other than simply rearranging matter. There was talk of reanimating the dead, controlling them from great distances. No, not the undead that returned during the Interval who had been mostly destroyed by the dead slayers or those who sheer numbers had taken over and closed off many states the world over such as California, New Orleans, in China, and parts of Egypt; the public named Shadow States which where still closed off to this very day. No. Those undead was uncontrollable.

No one believed it—that is, till American troops stormed an English bunker and wiped out about a dozen boom soldiers. Everything was clean-cut up to the point till they inspected the bodies that smelled all-to-gether too ripe and discovered that they have been dead for weeks. The secret died when the English fell; not even the House of Boom City knew how they did it. It seemed it wasn't a secret anymore.

The boom zombies had killed their boss (?), then killed each other. Did Maiorelli know what was happening? At the end he did. Where was that letter?

Truu found it in Maiorelli's life-less hand, but it was useless. It had been soaked through with blood. Truu memorized the tattooed third eyes, and, with Acinonyx, fled out The Grothellin and into the night as clandestinely as they could.


-
The poem, Truu typed into his computer later on that night as he sat Indian-like on his floor in Jos Codao facing the domed glass and wearing a long white rubber shirt and black latex pants was an excerpt from Book VI of a work called Paradise Lost written by an English poet John Milton in 1667. Acinonyx was in the shower, trying desperately to wash the blood out of her hair. Occasionally, Truu heard loud curses or shouts of frustration come from the bathroom. He smiled and typed:

                                And clamor such as heard in heaven 
				Till now was never, arms on armor clashing
				Brayed horrible discord, and the madding
				Wheels of brazen chairots raged; dire was
				The noise of conflict; overhead the dismal hiss 
				Of fiery darts in flaming volleys flew, and 
				Flying vaulted either host with fire.
				An inextingushable rage; all heaven resounded,
				And had earth been then, all earth had to her 
				Center shook. What wonder? When millons of 
				Fierce encountering angles fought on either side,
				The least of whom could wield these elements,
				And arm him with the force of all their regions:
				How much more of power army against army 
				Numberless to raise dreadful combustion 
				Warring, and disturb, though not destroy, their
				Happy native seat; had not the eternal king 
				Omnipotent from his stronghold of heaven 
				High overruled and limited his might . . .

Truu stopped typing. He found the poem disturbing, knowing that cults of boomers were following this. He shook his head.

Before contacting Maiorelli, Truu had tried old friends at Didijio Prime, but even they didn't have much on the rising neo-boom cults in Egypt. The ghosters he called knew even less.

Boom City was being kept in the dark about it.

Acinonyx walked out the kitchenette door, wearing a sky blue tank-top, matching spandex capries and white socks. She sat down next to Truu, hugged him tightly and looked out the domed glass and at the glittering light skyline of Boom City. The sun was coming up in the far horizon, lighting the skylanes. It was a beautiful sight. She turned to Truu who was still looking at the computer screen. She took his head in her hands and kissed him, letting her tongue probe his mouth. Truu looked at her and smiled.

"You wouldn't know anything about angelology would ya?" Truu asked.

"No . . ." she said and frowned. She began to purr.

Truu thought himself lucky. With most women, you'll have to guess what they want, but with Acinonyx, all you have to do is listen.

Truu put the excerpt to memory—both the computer's and mind's—and turned off the computer.

He turned to Acinonyx who still held him, got on his lap and wrapped her legs around him tightly. She was trying to fight off sleep as the tip of the sun first came into view over the gray sky and Boom City started to become nothing more than a silhouette. Truu pushed the little computer aside and hugged Acinonyx tightly, burying his face in her yellow hair. They stayed there, hugging and rocking, not saying a word to each other. Acinonyx's purrs became very loud.

They hugged till the sun was high in the sky. Acinonyx put her head on Truu's shoulder and began to cry. Truu patted her head over and over and found he wished he could cry also, but he had no more tears to shed.

Acinonyx cried herself to sleep, her head on Truu's shoulder, but Truu stayed awake patting her head long after the sun dipped back into the earth, his face dry like a waterless well.


--
The worst part to being a didijio free-lancer, in Truu's eyes at least, was the fact that you had to do all the detective work yourself. Truu didn't have the patients for it. At Didijio Prime, a didijio wasn't called to a case till the people behind the desk had it all figured out.

Truu sat in the only library located in Boom City—not everything could be found on the Ghost! The library was old and shabby, with books that hasn't been touched in decades. Chipping paint and worn out rugs decorated the tall dust covered wooden selves where the books found their final home. What the hell was this place doing in Boom City? It made Truu depressed. But that wasn't the worst thing about the place, no, not the fact that Truu was the only person here that didn't work here, no, it was that the woman attending Truu was older-than-dirt and the slowest of the slow! Truu, who had been waiting for more than two hours, was forced to draw stick figures (the best he could do) out of thin air with his index finger by using a simple boom spell.

He sat on an old wooden chair in front of a great round table in the center of the library, his back bent, elbows resting on his thighs, his left hand supporting his slack head in its open palm. Truu sighed, watching his neon-white stick figures drag and melt into nothingness. He started to draw more, then decided against it. He sighed again in defeat. Boredom was a formidable foe.

"Mr. Truu?" a voice asked. It sounded old and ancient.

Truu looked up to see the older-than-dirt woman with the sagging face and red nose staring at him, a ton of big, leather-bound books in her wrinkled bare arms.

"Thank you," Truu replied, standing to take the books.

He had had his didijio gear on; his trench on the back of his chair. Truu took the books and placed them on the table. The older-than-dirt woman stayed there for a moment, as if expecting something more from the didijio. When she saw Truu open and begin to read the first of the leather-bound books, she shrugged and walked off to disappear in the series of wooden selves.

Three hours later, Truu walked out the library, his head filled with tons of useless information and million reports of angelic fanaticism. He was in an utterly pissed mood for all the lost time. It was nighttime in Boom City—the night life was just coming out, the Triibe clubs just opening. Truu felt the need for some serious activity!

As he walked down the steps, he felt the nip in the air. He reached back for his trench, but hit nothing but empty air. His trench was still inside.

Further pissed at the idea of reentering the library, Truu ran up the steps, taking them six at a time.

He burst through the door, instantly being hit by a rank odor. Truu looked around. It was too quiet. He twitched his ears listening out for any noise made.

There! Off in the distance. Truu could hear a steady sound of something dripping, the selves blocking it from view. It didn't matter though, Truu could guess what it was.

He sniffed the air again and smiled. Shadows in the background took shape then; two dozen in front of him, across the great round table, others among the book selves. He couldn't believe his luck!

Truu smiled, showing fangs. He didn't wait for the walking dead to make their first move.

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