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On nerve severed dead hands and clawed hind feet, the shadowed-cloaked Beast ran through
(Falling, Falling down)
(to Hell)
(a woman with a blade-haired chin sat at its
table, eating its steak)
("will you take the case mr. truu?" an old woman dressed as a prison guard
had asked him, but the horrorable nine-foot Beast who sat at the table couldn't understand
the words and ripped her face off)
("kill me truu don't let me
Fall," quross said as he laid back against his bare wall, naked and urinating on himself)
(the Beast ripped his face off too)
The streets became narrow, the buildings begain to bend over it as it ran. Laughing, laughing.
("not good enough, truu," quross's fleshless face said sadly, all red muscle and sinew,
his unprotected bare eyes moved around and around)
(around and around)
(the Beast leapt across the table, tearing out the throat of the one that ate
its steak)
("not good enough," quross said again)
(the Beast ripped at his bare arms, tearing them free)
(blood washed colored the walls)
(dripping down to mingle with the drying puddle of urine
between quross's legs)
("not good enough")
(the Beast tore away)
The boy had tried to kill him.
--
Ms. Lodging sat at the table, and unlike her companion, Ms. Ward, did not tounch her steak. Truu and Acinonyx looked at her, waiting for her to tell them the details of the case.
---
Quross knew the first time he locked onto the boy's eyes as he and his unit raided and ran through the boom den that he was trouble.
The boy crouched into a defence position, wearing nothing but a soiled pair of underwear, eyeing Quross steadily through a dirty face.
They circled each other, both no more than two armlengths away from each other, they circled each other as if uncertain of who was the predator and who was the prey as all around them boomers screamed in pain and didijios stumped.
Quross sensed the boys agitation, his need to help his fellow boomers, for he was the only one of the few boomers who wasn't in the finale stages of the Diminution, but the boy knew he dared not turn his back on his enemy.
The boy screamed, his eyes turning red. "You'll not take away my family!"
Quross cursed himself for his slowness, for the red eyes, even if for the fraction of time it took him to get his guard back up.
Strands of quantum energy wraped around the boy, his hands shot to the ground, his palms opened wide and screaming, "Tilk tul tinlh—SHATTER GROUND!"
Energy was discharged from the boy's hand, seeping into the ground, braking open tiles and earth as it wormed its way to Quross at great speed.
By trained reflex, Quross leapt back, shielding his eyes and face as the ground exploded underneth him, sending him crashing through the weak wall behind him and out rolling in the dark puddled streets of the Dump.
----
"We were financing a very important archeology dig for Egyptian antiquities," Ms. Lodging said with pride. "The second joint operation with the Represented States and United Africas since opening their doors again to the Establishment. Needless to say that the relationship between the two powers are shaky at best and joint operations are extremely fragile, the United Africas had made it painfully clear that any such scandal or incident with these joints, they would close their doors again.
"Two weeks ago, we received our last transmission from our goup there."
Ms. Lodging bent down, picking up an aged transvidplayer. She opened up the slick black all oval case to reveal a half-screen, half-keyboard unit. She pressed a key.
"Due to the fierce ion storms raging in the Libyan Desert set off by the fallen deep space satellite last year, visual transmission is impossible. The voice you are about to hear is that of my granddaughter and head archeologist of the joint operation, Honor Norins."
The message began to play, a static filled fraught voice sang out the unit's special filtering speakers; without them, the transmission would be inaudible. There was shouts and screams in the backround. Ms. Ward lifted her face to listen awhile before countinuing with her steak.
"Oh God, OH GOD!" Honor Norins cried hysterically through the speakers, "Home Soil, Home Soil, oh God in Heaven! we found something! Half the group is dead, killed, tortured to death. My God, Ralem! They ripped out his tongue!
"They're coming! boomers! Oh Jesus, it the fucking end of the world, you hear me Home Soil? You hear me?"
"This is Home Soil," a clear voice said on the recording. "Repeat, this is Home Soil. Distant Soil, what have you found?"
"They're here, outside right now, those fucking bastard boomers! Fuck you! You'll never get the Jacob's Ladder you fucked bastards! Cat in the Hat!"
Honor Norins began to laugh madly as footsteps and voices to distant for the filtering speakers to make out sounded. There was a discharge of power heard and the mad laughing Norins screamed, a horrible soul screeching scream of pain, ending the transmission.
The transvidplayer shut down, and Ms. Lodging closed the case. "'Cat in the Hat' means that this Jacob's Ladder is here in Boom City. Somewhere. Our sensors picked up a Satellite Teleportation Effect Processor beamed here the night before we received this transmission. Though because of the ion storm, the S.T.E.P. was thrown off key and landed somewhere in Boom City, nobody knows where. Somehow this got out and there is a shadow party after this Jacob's Ladder also. We have no data on its modifactions, no idea what it is or what it looks like.
"The ion storm, of course, messed up the S.T.E.P. recorders.
"Will you take the case Mr. Truu?"
"Yes."
(the Beast that sat across the table ripped out her throat as well)
The Didijio Primers S.T.E.P.ed out and beside Quross who gave the okay for his unit to blow the den sky high.
But the boy with the red eyes survived.
The boy survived and tracked down Quross to his high-rise apartment in Jos Codao, dagger in hand to kill him for the killing of his "family."
And the boy has skill, Quross thought as he cluched his shredded arm, looking down at the limp and bloodied body with a broken arm, breathing slowly and wearing nothing but his smelly soiled underwear.
("not good enough! if you love me, truu, you won't let me Fall")
("i do love you," truu said standing beside the ugly looking Beast who
waited to rip the limbless quross laying in front of it "that is why
i won't let the Beast hurt you any more")
("fuck you, truu, i'm already dying from the inside
"look at me! i'm Falling damn it! it's what happens to all didijios sooner or
later, we Fall, we Fall")
(the Beast stood its ground)
Truu looked up, taking note of the edge thet seeped into his father's voice. "What?" he asked, taking off his all black didijio training gear.
"It's called Falling," he said leaning with a shoulder against the lockers in the sweat smelling training room in the headquarters of Didijio Prime. "It's when the boom becomes stronger than the soldier trained to fight it. It may take a little longer for the boom to take us than it does boomers, but in the end, we are not that different from them, unless you're special. If your strong enough, you can beat the boom and find the said peace behind it all."
("damn it, do it! let the Beast go! kill me, truu!")
Quross looked into the wide shocked eyes of his adopted son. "Are you strong enough, Truu? Will you find that said peace?"
"Yes, Father," Truu said, getting up to stand by his father's side. "I will! With us together, we will find that said peace. I won't let you Fall!" He grabbed his fathers hands, holding them tight. "By the Shadow of the Sickel Moon, we will find that said peace together!"
They both smiled, confident in each other's strength.
("kill me! damn it! don't you see truu? i wasn't
strong enough, i didn't believe! i
lost faith in the Said Peace long ago
"but i know you won't truu! not with that little girl so dependent on you
to hold her tight and keep her safe! you will find it in each
other! now let me die while i'm still me!")
(truu turned to the Beast, its muzzle snapping open and shut,
waiting to attack)
(truu took the Beast from around the neck, snapping it easly)
(the Beast fell dead as truu walked over to his father, taking
hold of his neck)
("i love you father, i am sorry i have no more tears to shed")
(truu snapped
his
father's neck)
"Truu!" Acinonyx cried, running to his side. She grabbed hold of him and set him upright against the wall. Truu's eyes darted from place to place, seeing nothing.
"I won't let you Fall, Truu." She hugged him tightly as if trying to make him feel her love for him by sheer force. "By the Shadow of the Sickel Moon, I won't let you Fall!" she said through tears. "Damn you, come back to me Truu, help me!"
(truu stood over his father's dead body "i will fight it father, for you i will find the Said Peace!") (little acinonyx cried in the distance, bringing truu home)
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