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----April 1963. Dazed. Unable to focus. I feel a chill, my spine tingles. Pressure. A gradual ever-increasing staccato pain, unbearable, oppressive, nausea. Instinctually I sense bleeding, they are cutting me. I don't understand why. My penis is alive with tremors of searing pain. I gag on saliva and cough. There is a loud noise high and shrill scaring me. It is so close it might be coming out of me as if the feelings were an escaping cacophony. Choking and screaming, they transport me to a warm place. It is familiar, somehow. I feel safer. The scary noises stop and I feel...I feel...

"Like I've got a headache," Dennis Li thinks to himself sitting in a pneumatic coach, trodes dangling from his forehead. As the time dialysis fades from his awareness, he is struck by the marvel that he is the first man to travel back through time and experience his birth.

"Dennis! Dennis, can you hear me? Are you still under? Are you okay?" Olivia Kitterage hovers over the black bulk of the NT Tracker. Her associate Dennis Li has taken the largest and most comprehensive dose of Ptah, and has interfaced with the newly perfected Neutrino Tracker feedback loop. In theory, if all had gone well, Dennis would have taken a trip backwards through time, attached to a neutrino through a quasi-hypnotic drug and a complex biofeedback loop. But had all gone well?

"Olivia. Give me that light analgesic, I've got a splitting headache." Dennis watches as Olivia rushes over with a pill and a glass of water. He gladly accepts both. He can tell by the anxious look in her eyes that she desperately wanted to know what had happened.

"It worked! It really worked--I went all the way back. Jesus, the last thing I can remember they were cutting my foreskin off," they both laugh.

"It was really fucking painful! But Olivia, the rest of it was indescribable. I don't know how to say it but it was...there's a load that's been lifted off my shoulders. I feel vindicated, absolved of something I really can't pinpoint, something that's been weighting me down all my life." Dennis Li exaltedly stammers this discourse as Olivia looks on with complete amazement.

"It really worked! It did! Oh Dennis, I'm so happy I could almost kiss you," and she does. Dennis gets out of the couch. They both hurry over to the workstation. On one monitor is a 3-D facsimile of the neutrino track through space-time. On the opposing monitor is a bar graph time table of Dennis' body functions. Dennis points to the first screen, "Here, this is where the NT gets a strong negative time vector. If you notice here, there's a small delay between the track and the engagement of the feedback loop. So the actual experience starts here, at this point, when I'm five minutes into the experiment. I'll tell you 'Liv, Ptah worked flawlessly. I had complete control over real time and subjective time, with no distortion or paradox."

"You know, this is it--we finally have a working model. I think after a few weeks we could go public with our findings," Olivia says.

"`Liv, I can't tell you what this could mean to everybody...the psycho-therapeutical applications...the spiritual nature of it all is indescribable."

"Dennis?"

"Yes?"

"I hope we're doing the right thing. This is a pretty vast, untouched field. I hope the mass consciousness is ready for this, ready to take responsibility for their lives."

"I don't know. Years of the consumer gestalt, rampant political apathy, has made what we once knew unrecognizable. There's a lot of sadness in me, like I wish I wasn't born."

"Stop that Dennis, where would I be without you. I love you."

"I love you, too," Dennis says. "But still the sadness is there." For what he didn't tell her was that back in the womb there is a glimpse of a cosmogogic consciousness that is intoxicating in its purity, ethereal, far-reaching. Yet as Dennis sits there, he can foresee the pain that will follow this happy day. He knows that any race that denies an intrinsic destiny as sublime and natural as the fading glimpse he holds to even now, is a malevolent cancer infecting all and sundry. The dark tide of the multinationals will fight to keep Ptah from the public and most likely from themselves. For Dennis does not fear death, only this pale familiar we call life. And that ain't corporate dogma, babe.

Tess thinks quietly to herself ----

"Somehow I feel comfortable on Baisson Street. Tourists crowd the avenues and alleyways and the hawkers shout out their age-old litany of need and consumption. The French Quarter reminds me of the Ginza, the stores packed close together but the smells are different. The vowels are drawn out, long and sleepy not sharp and staccato like my old home in Japan. I like America. I wish I could remember more of my childhood here. I have so few memories that are truly my own that I cherish reflective moments like these. I suppose everyone would love to go back in time and relive their childhood.

"This emotion passes quickly for instinctually I sense an unnatural rhythm on the street."

Tess sees ----

"Dark glasses, probably hard-wired to some targeting matrix, ultrasound. He's walking perpendicular across the street, people reflexively moving out of his way. A garbage truck drives by, I sprint and catch hold of it. It carries me some 40 feet before it stops from where I was standing. The doorway erupts in a shower of glass. People scatter but no one seems to scream, the street is dead quiet.

"I climb the ladder on the side of the truck and gain the vantage point. I unsling my fletcher. Keeping low to the roof of the truck, certain that he's scanning for movement, with my thumb I arm the S&W mini-grenade launcher. Timing is of the utmost--I fire a light incendiary to the far side of the street. As it detonates I spring up. An orange plume of smoke drifts lazily in the warm air. Distracted by the explosion my would-be assassin is no longer facing me. I shoot to maim across the legs. He spins, falling, laying a wide arc of fire, unknowing in his agony. I fire a second short burst disabling his gun hand. I want to keep him alive--this was supposed to be a routine pick-up, and I don't like being hit for no reason.

"I jump from the truck to the hood of a car to the ground. Putting my fletcher against his blood-stained face I ask very clearly `What's the fucking deal? You a cowboy or something? Are you one of Sanchez's men, what's with the hit... C'mon, who sent you?' In a voice tight with pain he says, `Baja...three weeks ago...you killed my family. I'm gonna fuckin' kill you, bitch!' I don't smile often but the humor was inescapable. I put a single needle through his throat, and I get up to leave just as I hear the first shrill note of a siren.

"Now rounding the corner past a gawking horde I see Sanchez's car slide up to the curb. He says to me, `Get in.' I throw myself inside and put my gun up to his stomach. `Is that your goon back there lying in the street?' He says to me, `No way baby. Strictly business. Thought you might need a ride.' `Thanks.' I dearm and reholster the fletcher. I trust Sanchez. I think that guy meant what he said, just some crazy spic merc from the Baja campaign, looking for revenge."

Tess listens later, alone at the beach ----

"The ocean always soothes me. I think, but I'm not sure, that my father used to take me there. I don't remember what I miss but I know I'm missing something. When I wake up suddenly at night it's not shell shock or nerves--it seems to me I am experiencing some event long ago, very familiar in its sadness. But now as I sit alone, it eludes me and maybe that's why I am a killer.

"It's times like these that I miss sex. Twenty-three year old assassins aren't so eligible. I'll meet a guy and everything will be going fine until he feels the calluses around my wrists from the combat exo, or maybe he notices the sockets from the implants, or it's none of these, something subtler, the way I carry myself, always silent, deadly, efficient.

"I didn't realize my dad was a mercenary until I was sixteen, when I watched him and my mother erased in a spray of shotgun fire, the mercury pellets exploding on impact. My father's best friend, Hiro took care of me, we lived outside of Kyoto--he taught me to meditate, he taught me soothing martial arts, but he also left me with my father's legacy, a black book of operatives and contacts and the lone fletcher I carry with me today.

"I miss my father and I don't know if he'd want me to be doing this but sometimes I feel this is the only way I can stay close to him."

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Olivia drives away from Cal-Tech, the smog veritably blocking out the sun. Evening catches up with her before she arrives at Steve's duplex in Burbank. Steve is just getting out of his car when she pulls into the driveway. He waits for her and then helps Olivia with her bags.

"You almost beat me here. Did you take the freeway?" he asks.

"Yep. Figured it might be okay on a Saturday. You always take a chance, though, nowadays."

"You were lucky."

"Let's go inside. I picked up some goodies from the hydroponics lab. We can eat that."

"Alright."

Olivia's press conference is 16 hours away. She is very anxious and has good reason to be so. She and Steve spent the better part of the day briefing the top brass at Cal-Tech, enduring more skepticism and second-guessing than anyone should. Dennis was expected but he was sick, and that was quite likely the principle factor why she was so misunderstood during the first several hours that morning. They were so demanding. But Olivia prevailed, eventually.

Olivia explained the girth of their project. From day one, when they set up the laboratory in her basement, and took the failed Neutrino Tracker home from Cal-Tech, knowing Dennis had an interest in tinkering with such things. To the day they received a real number from the machine, and hypothesized the far-reaching applications it would eventually bring to fruition. To the day Dennis dreamt the correlation between the human mind and the Neutrino path. To the day Ptah was born and the day Ptah came to them and laid to rest at their feet His gift of Time. And finally, to the day Dennis journeyed apprehensively, but purposefully, back to the moment she was conceived of egg and sperm, enraptured of emotion, and cleansed of her soul's longing for truth.

The biologists, the physicists and the chemists were not impressed by her emotions predominant in the colloquy. They were mesmerized by the science. They would leave the ramifications it brought to the consciousness of mankind to the politicians and the fanatics and the common, dying masses. Olivia saw this rift develop like a disgusting, bloody monster that she was not able to actualize or to pin down. But the rift-monster was there, in some cold void, and people she couldn't see were just then, beginning to pull it tentacle by tentacle into a new reality, where it began to rend and tear the world apart.

Dennis' experience was not transcendental. It was not, in itself, wholly enlightening or illuminating. It was simply an experience and a small bit of truth. There were many colors and sounds and visions. It was birth. The men and women sitting around the oval, oak table at Cal-Tech had many ideas and applications for the experience. Olivia explained that Ptah would be available to experiment with further... but she would not unveil the absolute gift of Ptah.

So Dennis says, "I'll cook." While he prepared the meal, Olivia relaxed on the couch in the living room and read a Hardy Boys adventure she had fetched from the bookcase. The book is very old, worn ragged probably more from time rather than use.

Supper is ready and they sit at the kitchen table with white wine and summer squash and eggplant parmesan. Steve, like his peers, is astonished by Olivia's work, yet unlike them excited that she has uncovered something all people might gather together by. He is enthusiastic they can miniaturize the NT to bring Ptah to everyone. He wants to try this but does not want to push that issue so soon. He says, "Do you think you'll be able to keep Ptah to yourself? With something as big as this the Government and multinationals will be pressuring you hard."

"For a while," Olivia says.

"If you give them the drug, it shouldn't take them too long to figure out the formula."

"Long enough, I think. At least until I'm dead and buried. I've destroyed everything. The lab is cleared out save for the NT3 and a hidden supply. Initially, I'll charge a premium to pay for my patent lawyers; after I'm gone, it will belong to Dennis."

"I'm thinking, this will really scare the Pro-lifers. No matter what the actual experience is like, they won't want to take a chance that it contests what they say about the fetus being a person. Come to think of it, this will piss a lot of people off."

"I've thought of that. But it's better to let everything progress slowly. Maybe I'm selfish. Who knows, maybe they'll make an atrocity out of my work, but not while I'm alive they won't."

"You've really thought this through," Steve says.

"I've had time to think. More than likely, it'll be the religious factions that'll be doing most of the screaming. I've already got an attorney to protect me from that," she says.

"I'd watch my back, though" he warns.

"You made a killer dish tonight," she says.

"Do you think they'll be able to ever track forward in time, to see the future?" Steve asks.

"We weren't at all successful, but I'm sure they will some day. Apparently, the entropic nature of the universe allows very few neutrinos to have a true, positive t-vector. You'd need a much more sensitive mechanism than our NT3 to track one. It's a completely different fish to fry."

At the Press Conference, Dennis is still recovering from the 48-hour bug he caught, but is able to feed answers directly to Olivia from a remote backstage. He decided to remain as anonymous as possible. The journalists show promise throughout the show as they holler and praise the discovery. They ask layman questions, fighting over their turn. It is too early for them to make political asides and formulations.

After twenty minutes of questioning, one damned soul asks, "When will we have Ptah for ourselves?" And Olivia, having gone over her answer many times, replies, "Not in any foreseeable future. It will be decided by my me, the FDA and my attorneys when you will have it." The Press got understandably upset that something this exciting would be withheld. The conference ended untimely, in chaos.

Steve kept busy afterwards giving out false personal information to the all-questing journalists. "Olivia lives here...yeah I know her...I don't really know how old she is...I think she's on staff at the University...she does this...she loves that... and so on." Dennis and Olivia slip figuratively out the back.

"Want to watch the news?" Dennis asks her.

"Not too badly. I suppose we should, though. This is our moment."

"Let's go to your place."

"Okay."

They take the car out into the mess called the Harbor Freeway. Olivia puts in an old Meters disc.

"I didn't know you still listened to that stuff."

"Once in a while. You can put on something else if you want--they're in the compartment under your seat."

Dennis swings the seat around and releases the box mixed with a cluttered library of discs. He chooses a Vivaldi concerto they have enjoyed together before. It's a fair bandage of vibrancy against the bondage of traffic death.

Olivia says, "How do you feel now?"

"Now that it's over? Refreshed. I'm not sure what I'd do except escape somewhere where I can tinker at will with the machine. Steve had a good point about looking forward--I wouldn't experiment with it myself because I'm not interested in knowing--but I'm sure there will be some interested parties."

"We should keep in touch by modem. I'm moving out as soon as I'm sure there's no one following me. We can use the Cal-Tech private mainframe line until something better comes up."

They finally reach their exit and listen solely to violins playing as the computer drives them the rest of the way home. Apparently the network news bureaus took great interest in the event; they were priming up for a special bulletin at the top of the hour.

The Sony said, "Our top story today concerns a new scientific discovery. A lone scientist, Miss Olivia Kitterage held a press conference earlier today at Cal Tech in Pasadena. Years of work in her home laboratory has yielded the latest accomplishment in practical physics and psycho-biochemistry.

"According to confirmed reports, she solely developed what is known to the scientific community as a Neutrino Induction Radioscope, or Neutrino Tracker. Miss Kitterage brought insight and devotion to what was a canceled project at Cal-Tech and worked to bring it to become what it is today: an extremely sensitive machine capable of detecting neutrino counts and their paths through space.

"The Neutrino Tracker has proved that neutrinos, sub-atomic particles of great volume in our universe, can also have temporal vectors. Miss Kitterage, a biochemist, did not stop there. She developed a drug that melds the mind, through current bio-feedback technology, to the path of the neutrino. She has named this drug, Ptah.

"Half of one percent of all neutrinos have proven to contain negative time vectors. What this means is that Miss Kitterage has combined her drug and her machine to give the user a veritable conscious journey into the past. We were told at the conference that it is possible to re-experience childhood, birth, and even conception of the human fetus, with the full faculty of adult perception.

"We will have more later as two experts will be in our studio to discuss further possibilities this new technology may offer.

"In other news..."

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I arrived at home at 2300 and checked my mail. There were two items on the hard disc. I read the first one. It was from Hiro, an invitation to his son's funeral. He had been sick with cancer. The surgeons tried everything, even micro- mechanical biopsy remotes. But somehow the cancer alluded them, teasing them with false leads.

It will be nice to see Hiro again, and talk of my father and the past. The second item was business, a code message encased in a virus. I hate that shit--sure download a fucking virus on my PC, luckily all incoming data is shielded from my system by a buffer. The virus identified itself as hostile text protection. Within the syntax was a coded operative number, I looked up the appropriate access coded and petitioned for read only privileges.

The virus accepted and allowed me access to the text.

Shit, point-five for some crazy old bag out in L.A. I saw something about that Ptah in the news but I didn't give it much credence. Too fantastic, traveling back to the moment of conception. I usually don't turn down anything from that Yokohama OPP., probably Nakashki Corp. But wasting some old bag for a hippie trippie acid trip, I don't know. Maybe do a quick recon in L.A., check it out, then give them an answer. Buzz down there in the tactical, run a low density config shallow and fast under the nets. Drop in for a look see, then send them a wire, yea or nay.

L.A. is beautiful at night, the ocean a mere four meters below me, the tactical using the ground-effect to boost it's already overzealous ram jet. This Kitterage character lives out in the valley, no way to fly in without registering with the nets.

Might try going up one of the canyons that got destroyed during the quake. The tactical doesn't leave much of a profile but too much to go flying around like a pleasure craft. Topanga's well deserted nowadays, a little tight, but what the fuck. I vector a low level approach and head in. Vision enhancement on optimum, the canyons glow an angry infra-red.

Out and over into a blaze of lights that is the San Fernando valley. Tight against the foothills silent blindingly fast, ETA five minutes.

I leave the tactical in a field about a quarter of a click from the house; it sits deep in redundancy programs scanning for any possible perimeter intrusions. Five minutes later I've got the house in my field scopes. Movement to the left, single male no apparent weapons keeping low in the sagebrush. There's someone in the window of the house, looks like a woman, yes it's Kitterage.

Lock and load the fletcher just in case. Bring down the ultra-vi on the combat shades, range and amp rogue for ident. His figure comes out in sharp contrast against the range gradients. Yes he is armed, looks like an old thirty-odd six with a silencer.

Terrific, some fucking nut going to waste the old bag and blow my money. Don't have a shot either, have to reposition. Moving fast now, weaving through the dry sassperilla. Never taking my eyes off him, I see him raise the gun and shoot. Glass explodes on the table, a near miss, then another. I see Olivia falter in the jagged window. She slumps to her knees. Rounding an aged oak my foot snaps a dry twig. He turns, gun in hand. I fire, the hi-ex tips taking huge chunks of his flesh, one in mid torso sends a mass of entrails steaming some feet away.

Shit, just what I need. Running back to the tactical, I power up and execute a low level vector for the coast. Balls out shooting for the deck I can't help but think, "What a fucking pain in the ass."

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Olivia falls down on her good leg, clutching the seared thigh, screaming in surprise and agony. A long, piercing gasp escapes her throat as sweat runs into the flesh wound. She crawls to the table and lifts herself to reach the telephone, dialing 911. She sits back down and wraps a dishtowel around the thigh though there is very little bleeding. Olivia does not move, in shock for several minutes mixed with thoughts of mortality, murder and disbelief. The paramedics break down the front door and cut open the trouser revealing the would while feeding Olivia oxygen.

Olivia can see the livid laceration some six inches long, perhaps half an inch at its deepest. Outside the hills are suddenly illuminated by the police aerial response. Two armored TAC officers barge into the kitchen. Olivia watches with malaise as the paramedics evacuate the wound and seal it with a plastic antibiotic. She is hoisted onto a stretcher and carried out to the street amongst an agitated police escort.

The world is dreamlike through the effects of the analgesic they gave her and she hears a male voice say, "We found a body on the hillside, perimeter secured. It's pretty badly chewed up." Before the warm sedate place of unconsciousness envelopes her, Olivia thinks to herself, "This changes everything."

"Glad I finally got through to you," Olivia says from the hospital phone.

"I heard, of course," Dennis replies, truly sympathetic. "I've arranged travel back to the states but thought I'd talk to you before I left."

"Good. I'm not myself. I don't think you should come back just yet--in my paranoia I told the Press about your involvement. Your name is all over the papers this morning, Dennis...Dennis, I didn't want to be hunted."

"This is a fucking mess," Dennis says. He is obviously distraught. Neither says anything for some time.

"Dennis, they found who shot me, the dead guy in back of my house," Olivia finally says. "He belonged to a militant faction of the pro-life movement...just like Steve and I were worried about. The police still don't know who killed him. They suspect there was someone else there. A professional."

"We should just give them the formula before both of us get killed. They'll stop at nothing to get it," Dennis says.

"No. Not yet. It's obvious they're not ready for it," she says. "I'm really sorry about all of this. Honestly, I think I was so scared that I was the only target, I felt so alone. I just wanted them to go after someone else.

"Don't forgive me. I don't even forgive myself. In a couple days I'll be out of here and I'll make it up to you somehow."

"Olivia, I'm not going to stay here any longer, it's too dangerous now. I'll get in touch with you through the University--we can still trust Steve," Dennis says.

"I understand."

"I love you," he says.

"I love you, too."

Later that afternoon Olivia is released and escorted outside by two security men. They lift her into the waiting taxi past the newsmen. As the yellow cab pulls away from the curb, Olivia accidentally rolls up the window on a microphone. The taxi driver is oblivious to the shouts of the frantic technician as his equipment is dragged some distance down the street until the jack unplugs. Olivia smirks. Even though it was an innocent mistake she still derives pleasure from tormenting the insensitive Press.

"Hey, where did that come from?" the cabby yells back, seeing the microphone in Olivia's hand.

"It's a souvenir."

By some genetically ingrained instinctual drive in all cabbies, the ride was short and uneventful. Her front door had a yellow crime zone sticker draped across it. Olivia enters the living room, a mood of foreboding hangs over the house. She goes straight downstairs into the lab and locks the door behind her. Everything is as she left it. Olivia reclines in the chair, obtrusive thoughts ruminating through her head. On impulse Olivia stands, walks to the hiding place of Ptah, reaches into the hole through the bookcase, hits the small lever that opens the trap door where the safe resides. She takes the drug out. She assembles the trodes and interfaces them with the machine, which now hums to life.

A double beep confirms the go-status. Olivia takes the capsule and swallows, waits a couple minutes. The NT finds a negative track and her consciousness hitches a ride backwards in time.

----May 1958. Olivia's left foot hits the white-washed step and it creeks, like it always has, or had. The pervasive smell of liver and onions waifs through the dirty screen door. Step by step over the weathered oriental, she enters deeper into the past--present. Her mother's faded cotton dress hangs just below her knees, the frying pan sizzles and pops, fresh cornbread is cooling on the counter. Cosmo, the fat old cat, lies in a patch of sunlight on the checkered kitchen floor. "Mom?"..."Olivia, is that you?"

----September 1945. Hollywood. Riding the Red Car past the Chinese Theater, the sun is blazing overhead. It is a hot day. Most of the men are carrying jackets slung over their shoulders, fedoras tilted against the sun. Sitting on my father's lap I look over and see my mother and my cousin James. James would be cute if he wasn't such a brat, I think. Right now a long, black Packard pulls along side us, my mom exclaims, "Isn't that Marlena Deitrich?" The car passes us by as we come to our stop. The Roosevelt is huge, our room is huge. I cannot stand still from the excitement. My dad tells James to keep an eye on me as they go do something. He's a year older than me but we're about the same size. James says, "You wanna wrastle?"..."Nah, you don't play fair--" I can't even finish my sentence because he pounces on top of me. I am spinning to get an upper hand and, yuck, my ear is wet. "Euooooooo, why'd you do that!"..."I don't know."..."You're not trying to kiss me, are you?"..."Everybody else does it, you chicken?"..."I'm not chicken."..."Okay, kiss me then, I dare ya'."...I freeze. Maryellen kissed her boyfriend...Maryellen does everything before I do. "Okay James, get up." His lips are warm and wet and slimy. His breath smells like cinnamon. His tongue! ..."Owww, you bit me!"..."Good!"

----August 1941. Blue, red, nothing. I'm playing with a ball with holes in it. I touch it. Many times I touch it, different ways. I throw it. Where is the ball? I try to stand up but I can't. My legs hurt somewhat. Mommy comes over and smiles at me and gives me the ball. Red, blue, nothing. I throw it. Mommy says, "Thank's Olivia!" I laugh as loud as I can, and shout, and throw my arms up into the air. Daddy is saying something to Mommy, but I can barely hear. She leaves with the ball...rectangular-red-chewy-wet. I throw it as hard as I can. I am scared, lonely, hungry, and hungry. I cry so loud it frightens me. I cry even louder. Mommy doesn't come, mommy doesn't come mommy doesn't come. I cry even louder. My chest hurts. I taste my salty tears. I sneeze and cough. I cry even louder. Mommy comes and gives me the ball, but I don't seem to see it. I cry. Mommy leaves and comes back. She looks very beautiful and white, black, orange and she smells good. She offers me a bottle of juice. I say, "Ba ba," and shut up. I suck on the juice.

----Conception, October 1939. Vast. Meniscus pressures hold my being within. Without is a world of swelling tides and eddies of life-giving nutrients. Driven by purpose a rainbow-hued cloud of silt envelopes me. The blessed intruder enters. I instruct the mitochondrion to send strength to my outer wall. Before there was nothing and now there is nothing plus. I am struck dumbfounded by the first nanosecond of history; where there was nothing there is now a past. I have purpose.

Falling, rising, laughing the past and present fused within the intricacies which bind me to this analog of being. The hot sweet tannic brightness is piercingly loud. Now a brilliant starscape of sound and within the sound there is movement and I dance.

I feel my shell harden. The cloud of protein slowly fades from any purpose. I am contained inside this impenetrable home yet I feel there is now too much of me to be one. I feel a tugging, a tearing relief but yet somehow fear. I gaze upon my mirror image. I taste my sister flesh that is not flesh, salt that is not the ocean and something undefinable, perhaps an aftertaste of consciousness. We are dancing around each other's awareness and we build a tension, a mutual need of purpose. In time I feel a schism and I watch in my mirror as the we becomes an us.

Once there was nothing and then there was past, and now the we has become the us. In this state of biological consciousness I sense the arcana of all of man's futilities, a society of cells, the checks and balances, there is grandeur and disaster, there is love and hate. Within and without me is the purpose and desire, and for all my simplicity of being, a linear extrapolation is eventually overwhelming. Even as I realize this, the knowledge is lost, for I divide again and my consciousness increases. Even at this eight-fold consciousness I am resigned to what I am,

I am.

Olivia Kitterage opens her eyes to see a woman dressed in blue jeans, cowboy boots, and an intricate leather jacket, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, her feet dangling off the laboratory table.

"Who are you?" Olivia asks, her voice somewhat groggy from the experience of Ptah.

"Went for a little trip, did we? Glad you're back, we need to talk. See, I'm a mercenary and chances are you're not going to walk out of this room alive. I'll be straight with you, you're straight with me. So where's the shit?" the girl says.

"There's none left. That was the last." I see the young lady pull out what appears to be a weapon. It emits a hissing, clicking noise. "I'm not afraid to die."

The girl says, "Shit howdy lady, glad to hear. Hope your friend Dennis feels the same way when I catch up with him--see ya later." She points the weapon at me. It makes the most imperceptible noise, almost cute-sounding. I feel a pinprick in my chest. The young girl gets up and walks to the door.

"I'll detonate remotely. I really don't like gory scenes," she says. The door slams and the world seems incredibly quiet and I truly don't fear death, having experienced life in its essence.

I feel the detonation, but then again, I feel nothing.

Once there was nothing--

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Well, the old bag took that standing up. But this puts me in a bind, I'll have to track this Dennis character, and what if he doesn't have the formula? Searched the lab when she was under, seemed she did the last dose. The Neutrino Tracker's not a problem, Nakashki can manufacture that. Brought along my laptop, booted up some heavy ice-breaker I got from my operative. There was a lethal feedback loop tied into the lab's computer, but the program split; while one half was busy being attacked, the other scored the core. It had been wiped clean, of course. A squid counter-measure searched for any traces left behind but background static obscured anything worthwhile.

Out the front to the rental car, pulling away I'm already thinking of the fastest track--got the country-code from a bug in the switch at the hospital. Oh-eight, Virgin Islands I think. Don't want to take the tactical--much too high profile. I'll catch a plane to the Islands as a tourist.

St. Croix quivers blue and green as glass as we descend. Called ahead of time to the Yokohama Opp. I'll have a local chop shop outfit me on the spot. I make a brief mental note of the things I'll need.

I think I'm allergic to Kevlar, every time I wear one of these things I start itching. I'm sitting on a beach-side cafe sipping a pina-colada. Back in my hotel room the PC's scanning the local credit net and the phone lines. I have a remote pager that will inform me when it picks up something. Some people might say this is easy work for half a million yen, but you try itching your twat through Kevlar armor. Finished with my drink, I go shopping, like any good tourist might. I buy a trinket, I buy a chain, as I'm admiring the snakes in the pet shop, my beeper goes off.

Back at the hotel I enter my password and scan the text.

Stupid motherfucker. Who in their right mind would use their credit card. I could have picked up his trail from my home in New Orleans. Then again, it could be a false lead, but that's something you'd expect from a professional--not these amateurs. The PC beeps again--this is ridiculous. He's running a tab at a local bar. If I didn't know better, I'd say this is a set-up.

Joystick Bar and Grill. This is the lead the PC gave me. Looks just like any bar on the fringes of an industrial park near the airport. I don't know, man, a little too suspicious. Power up implants.

Establish connection with the PC back in the rent-a-car by cellular modem behind my left ear. I boot up a tactical software that uses an ultrafine superconducting matrix woven into my forehead as a parabolic antennae. The matrix receives ultrasound bounced off the building with the fletcher's range-finder. I get an instant mass spectrograph of the structure.

Immediately I note all the doors and windows are tungsten-reinforced storm shutters. From deep inside there was the low-mass resonance frequency of a fully autonomous combat-chassis AI. Shit, it probably already knows that I'm here.

Emergency default--all systems. Back-peddling through system commands. "Too late..." On the right-hand prompt of the combat shades the words glowed iridescent. But it seemed like he was closer, I could hear him in my head, perhaps sending messages direct to the cortex through the implants in my skull. I mouth the words, "Hi...howz it hangin'?" and he says, "What do you want here, Tess?"

I do not say anything.

He continues. "I've been aware of your presence here ever since I picked up your trace. Nakashki hardwired me a retainer to keep an eye on the operation."

"What, they've got a problem, they don't trust me?"

"Not at all, but things have gotten out of hand state-side. Dennis using his credit card lit up the boards--now every government agency and multinational have operatives as close as ten minutes away, speeding to this location."

"He's actually on the premises?"

"He is--it makes things that much easier. Enter now, through the north street entrance."

"I guess I don't have must choice," I say.

"No."

I've never seen someone so scared in all my life. Dennis cowers in the corner, the room is some twenty by ten meters with high ceilings. The AI glows an opalescent matte black. My hairs on the back of my neck stand on end from the stasis field that holds the AI hovering some feet off the ground.

"The room we are in is forty meters below the surface. There is a pneumatic tunnel that leads to the coast, one kilometer. If you give me the access code to the hydroplane I'll have it sent to meet you. Meanwhile, I'll be leading your pursuers away with a false trace. Once you're in the hydroplane away from the coast, it's up to you. Go now."

"What the fuck is going on?" Dennis says. I walk across the room and get real close so that he can hear everything I say. "Look, I'm going to say this once and I want to make it real clear. You're a real hot piece of merchandise. Every corporate merc is out for your ass, so if you don't come with me someone else will get you. See my boy behind me? My boss is paying his bills, he's our way out. Without him you ain't got a dog's chance. If you play this right Dennis, you'll be sitting real pretty," I reach into my pocket and pull out the Mitsu bank card. "See this--this is three million yen. You're the only one left that knows the formula and I'm here to relieve you of that burden."

"What do you mean? Is Olivia..."

"Yes, she's dead," I tell him.

"What if I don't tell you, what if I don't know?"

"Well, Miss Kitterage said you knew, and there's no way with modern technology that you couldn't be persuadedto tell.

"Enough wasting time. Give me the access code, Tess."

"Mojo backslash nine."

"Enter through the south wall. The hydroplane will be waiting, just south of the atoll on the breakwater side."

"Let's go Dennis," I command. He hesitates, thinks better of it, and follows mechanically. The tube car was actually a cargo container with no seating and no lighting. Elapsed time, a minute-twenty. We take the cargo elevator topside.

I do a quick scan of the perimeter. The atoll's about two hundred meters away and about a hundred in length. No sign of our transport yet. I push Dennis out in front of me and we start walking towards the breakwater.

Nearing the ascending strip of barren land, Dennis says, "Why should I consider giving the formula to you? Olivia's life work is what this formula is. You are an agent for a multinational that doesn't give a shit about anybody."

"Whatever," I reply.

"The Net at midnight is alive with artists aspiring to touch the potential of the drug. As you sell this, you destroy it0!

"Jesus, there's kids dying on the street from a methamphetamine so strong a decigram's a week's dose. They're so desperate for truth they'll take anything you shove down their throats."

"Shut up, Dennis," I say.

"You wouldn't happen to have any cyanide with you, would you?"

I whip around. I point the fletcher at his face. "This is better than cyanide, baby. That old cunt barely made a sound when I stuck one of these in her stomach. I could put one in either arm and detonate them one by one. Is that what you want?" Just to clarify my point I put six fletchettes in a vertical line in a tree growing near by, then detonate them in one second intervals. I spin quickly and shoot one in his cheek. I come up and grab hold of the end and twist. As he grimaces in pain, a thin trickle of blood runs down his face. I say real slowly, "Get the point, asshole?" and rip the fletchette out.

I turn around just in time to see the hydroplane coming around the atoll. I grab Dennis by the collar and hurry down towards the breakwater. We cleared the distance in no time. The water's calm on this side but the six-foot breakers send billows of mist high in the air. The hydroplane, fully powered up, was edging as close to the rocks as possible, but it was still a good six-foot jump. I jump first, and motion for Dennis to follow me. I could see his obvious concern about the rocky motion of the boat and the slippery texture of the rocks.

"Just jump, I'll catch you. Jump--do it now..." He jumps, his right foot hits the platform, his left slips off. Before he could fall I snatch him by his shirt-front and pull him in. I strap Dennis in the G-couch and myself also. I interface with the on-board computer and take over manual control of the craft. Two hydrogen-powered turbines push the hydroplane twenty feet above the water and us back deep against the seats. We clear the breakers and hear the ear-piercing whine of the turbines amplifying, as I redline, doing about a hundred plus on top, heading south.

On the nav-screen there's a flashing message from the AI, "Meet operative 00692 at coordinates 17° 20' 10" north, 70° 16' 2" west. Transfer item to tactical at 1600 hours."

I download the coords, set the hydroplane on auto, and initiate the radar/sonar counter-measures. I decide it's time for a smoke. I was lucky enough to score some bootleg tobacco grown in a hydroponics farm in the projects. I pull myself out of the couch and roll myself a cigarette.

"Dennis, you smoke?" I ask."

"No--I don't do illegal substances."

"Right, babe. Look. Let's talk. You blew it when you used your credit card. Everyone's on to you. The minute you and Olivia went public with your findings, the multinationals owned Ptah anyway.

"Look at yourself. You come from a different era. You're an old man--why don't you just give yourself a break and take the three million yen and let the multinationals fight over it? You never know, a lot of good could come out of it...they might find any number of bio-chemical breakthroughs...things we never dreamed of."

"I don't understand," Dennis says casually.

"Look. I remember very little of my father and there's nothing that I'd rather be able to do than to remember my childhood with him, but you yourself said it's years away from public use. And who would receive what? And maybe there's a lot of experiences that shouldn't be relived, I can think of several myself. All I know is that one way or another the multinationals would have got a hold of it, and there's nothing you and I or anyone could do about it.

"Have you ever seen what a GNR Nerve Probe can do to someone? It stimulates the pain centers in your brain but doesn't cause any real physical damage. You'd experience pain beyond physical comprehension. If you think that fletchette in your cheek hurt, you're in for a rude awakening."

"I feel like I'm dead already. I have nothing left to live for 'cause I'm too weak, too old--Fuck it," he says, burying his head in his hands.

"That's the point. They won't let you die." I get up and do a quick perimeter check on all the bands, looking for even obscure energy probes. Nothing.

Dennis thinks, "When I was five my parents took me on a road trip through the Rockies. They pulled over so I could pee. I wandered away from the highway into the high grass and in the fields I became lost in the buzz of summer insects. I felt like the world was spinning on its axis and the axis was me. The dry, stagnant heat, the stillness was a part of me. I sensed life in its entirety--at that moment more than I ever had, until Ptah. Now sitting here with my murderess I feel I have come full circle. Perhaps creating Ptah was not my destiny, but rather being apart of it; a portion of a larger destiny. I've done my part. All I want to do is rest and smell the foxtails again.

"Here--here it is." Dennis reaches around his neck and pulls off a gold crucifix that's hanging there. He throws it to me. I catch it backhand. He says, "Inside the cross is a microfiche of the schematics of the NT3 and the formula to Ptah, simple enough."

I start imaging what appears to be a tactical profile two hundred clicks east, speed mach 1.5. As a precaution I arm the air to ground missiles. They would not be effective unless they were fired immediately, but there's no way of telling if the craft is hostile. If it were, I might be able to take them out along with me. At our present speed we should intercept at just about the exact coordinates the AI gave me.

At 50 clicks out I receive a tight-beam message with the appropriate operative call sign. We're traveling through five-foot swells so I keep the craft on top but power down to twenty-five knots. The tactical paces us ten meters out. I manually override the canopy open. The tactical had been jury-rigged for open-ocean pick-ups. It positions directly above us four meters. A servo-mechanical arms distends itself an connects to the docking hook. A nylon harness descends along the arm towards us.

"Alright--we're getting into this tactical. It's too hot out here to be putting along at 60 knots. You go first."

"Okay."

I watch as he's hoisted up into the darkness of the hatch bay. The harness comes back down. Before I strap myself into the harness, I set the hydroplane on auto for St. Croix, and program a thermal ghost-imager so it appears that there's two bodies in the craft. This might give us the edge that we need if something goes wrong. I make my way into the tactical. Once inside, I see that Dennis is firmly secured into a G-web. A faceless merc is pointing a fletcher at him.

"Can the heat, buddy. This fish is harmless."

"Procedure."

"Right. I'm going up front." Over my shoulder I say, "Hang in there, Dennis."

I position myself in the empty nav-con seat. The pilot and gunner don't even turn around, but I know they know I'm here. Now I have to decide where we can dump Dennis without incident. Northern Mexico comes to mind, and I recall a good twenty kilometer stretch of coastline without any real population.

"Captain. Permission to jack in."

"Okay. Passive only."

A flood of targeting parameters, flight statistics and the receding radar echo of the hydroplane is superimposed upon my consciousness.

"I have a sealed electronic dispatch for your eyes only," I hear the Captain voice through the head gear.

"Go ahead and download it to my station," I tell him.

I type out my mission identification code and read the dispatch. It seems that several multinationals set up a satellite net around our new destination, Japan. Any one of their orbiting weapons platforms could destroy us if they wanted to, so we're gonna transfer to a virtually undetectable caterpillar submersible.

"Captain, I have new coordinates."

Three and a half hours later we're at the intercept point. I go back to brief Dennis and prepare for open-ocean drop in heavy swells. "Dennis, we're gonna change vehicles again. This isn't particularly dangerous, but it'll seem that way. This craft is equipped with a two-man EV. Unfortunately, it's designed to keep you high and dry and we need to be about 10 meters submerged, so we'll have to sacrifice the integrity of the pressure envelope by flooding the EV.

"We'll both be wearing thermal shock suits with integral air supplies. It might be a little uncomfortable, but we'll live, capishe?"

Dennis says, "Let me see if I understand you clearly--we're going to purposely drown ourselves in an...escape vehicle?...so we can be some thirty feet under water. For what purpose? I don't understand."

I tell him, "Ever been in a high-speed caterpillar? Well, you're going to be soon. They're looking for us on top, so we're going down below."

"A submersible?"

"You're quick, Dennis." I notice from the corner of my eye the red status light turns green. I iris open the hatch bay. The EV is cylindrical, about 10 feet in length. I open a small service bay at the top where the compressed air and transponder are kept. I disable the transponder and disconnect the on-board pressure regulator. This way when I open the manual climate control venting system, instead of fresh air being pumped in, seawater will flood our compartment.

"Two minutes to drop," a voice sounds over the intercom. I rush to get Dennis out of the G-web, and together we don our suits and get into the EV. The inside is entirely padded with foam. Dennis and I are separated by a partition of G-web. I say, "Dennis, put your mask on and bring your suit to internal mode."

"How?"

"Like this--" I reach over and put the mask over his face and punch the red power stud, pressurizing the suit and enabling the thermostat. I barely get my mask on in time, as the airlock cycles open and I feel us tossed about by the jetwash. We hit the water hard--I open the vents and water begins to trickle in, slowly at first, cold against our exposed hands and feet, then fully filling the compartment.

I look over and of course Dennis is panicking, breathing irregularly, if at all. I use the intercom in the mask's head set to calm him, "Just breathe normally. There's a valve that will allow you to exhale without water seeping in. Breathe through the mouthpiece regularly. Count to ten if you have to." While I talk to Dennis I find the pinger and activate it. In the confined space we could hear it clearly, the sonar in the caterpillar will home in on it.

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The caterpillar picked us up without incident. Five hours later we docked directly at Nakashki. Under a tight security escort, Dennis is transferred to a conference room to await negotiations with Miro.

I am lead into the deeper levels by Mike Riverton, Miro's personal security attach\'E9. Mike asks me, "How was the trip in?"

"Piece of cake. What's all the fuss with this guy, you'd think I was holding a Yakuza boss by the heat I'm getting. I mean, a fuckin' combat AI--last time I dealt with one of those, half of Baja was erased."

"Seems that Miro has a certain fascination with life and death. He thinks the drug has power over people."

I say, "Well, Miro's always been a little eccentric, I can't wait to see what he's going to cook up for me now." We reach the office and as I enter the room, Miro is standing at his desk, his back towards me. I notice he's wearing a gray fiber-mail suit. Facing me, I see now his glasses are the newest Pierre-Cardin fashion, bi-polar filters with the latest adrenochrome delivery system, straight into the tear ducts.

"Adrenochrome? Or maybe something more exotic?"

"Yes, adrenochrome, nothing too decadent. Maybe I'll have a Ptah analog cooked up. You do0 have this for me," Miro says, his voice thick with the drug.

"Yeah, I've got it--it was kind of hard to come by."

"Understandly, you'll want a bonus," Miro says.

"Yeah, sure."

"Fine. Let's see this most eagerly awaited item."

I walk over to the holofiche machine and display the formula for Ptah.

"Yes, very clever," he observes, "almost a hallucinogen. But just the proper mechanism to affect the time dialysis. Yes, very clever." He studies the display for some time, then turns and says, "Dennis is safe nearby, no?"

"Yeah."

"I have an interesting dilemma. I have what I want, yet it should appear as though I don't."

I say, "No one knows that you have it..."

"Yes and no. Sources are aware that you left St. Croix with Dennis...they are not entirely aware that you reached your destination safely.

"So we will garnish what information they have with a press conference featuring your friend Dennis..."

"Ain't no friend of mine."

"Then you shan't have any qualms about killing him at the press conference."

"I don't get it, why do you want to kill him in public?" I ask him.

"In a moment we will offer him a position with the company to pursue Olivia's work where she left off. We'll write the press release to read something along the lines that the Ptah formula was incomplete or damaged, and that Dennis is appointed head of R & D to complete the damaged Ptah formula and come up with a working commercial model."

"That might be kind of difficult considering how he's been treated...and the fact that it's an outright lie." But why kill him in public? I repeat to myself.

Miro says, "We shall persuade him. He has two choices--he can have his freedom by pretending to head a fake project or he can roll out of here in a body bag. Either way, Ptah will be perceived as a lost project, and we'll escape heat from the competition."

"Okay. Put so delicately, I don't see how Dennis can refuse. Realistically, there's nowhere safe for him to live...protection from the company would be an asset."

"Exactly. Let's go talk to this gentleman and see how he feels about my most generous offer."

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I have been waiting upwards of thirty minutes and now the door opens. The security men who have kept silent company with me as I waited stand attentive as two men enter. The shorter one motions the guards to leave and then looks with darkened glasses at the other, seemingly asking him something. The taller man nods in affirmation to his unspoken query. The shorter says in a slow, lethargic voice, "Greetings, Dennis. I'm head of operations for R & D here at Nakashki. My name is Miro. This is Mike." He reaches his hand out to me and I shake it. Mike simply nods again.

"Hello," I say. They sit down at the table across from me. Miro is lightly tapping the plexiglass in front of him. "Dennis, I have with me the bankcard Tess was telling you about, in the amount specified. Here." He stops tapping the table and smiling says, "I'd like to offer you a position..."

"You must be kidding! I've waited patiently enough now to leave all this shit behind me. Mi...Miro, I know about Nakashki, it is well known, I have no aspirations to company life--corporate dogma doesn't suit me..."

"Wait," Miro says, meaning to interrupt me.

"I am an accomplished physicist. But we both know I can't compete with your techies--I don't want to. There'd be little gained by hiring me on, especially at the position you offer. You tell me what can be gained."

"Dennis, I am painfully aware of all that you've said. You must be quite anxious to go, but I cannot allow that yet. I said that I offer you a position, not a job. We'll pay you for the illusion of being a part of our team. It wouldn't look so good if we had to tell the public we had wrestled the formula from you--it would definitely bring harmful political ramifications to the company.

"In order to build a commercially viable product, we need you on board. Is it possible you could help us Dennis?"

I am in a noose, the worst kind. I become aware that I'm nervously shifting in my seat and try not to panic. Miro is resting casually back in his chair now, Mike looks at me with an expression of stone on his face. I realize now that I will never have any freedom, that the world will not be satisfied by the achievement of Ptah alone, that they will demand recompense and power. I feel a tightening in my chest, a stifling anger. I want to strike out blindly with this impotent rage burning up inside me. I am tormented by the non-descript bullying and constant threats to my life. There is nothing more frustrating than being powerless against a faceless corporation--but this anger has a face--and he's staring at me across the table.

"Miro, you have a right to your precious drug and your money--you've bought me off. But I will not have my freedom bought at any price!" I begin to get up from my chair and shout, "I..."

"Sit down!" Mike exclaims with authority. I am compelled to disobey him, but his eyes tell me that I must not become uncontrollable. A flash of the fletcher point torn from my cheek courses throughout my consciousness. I wince quite noticeably and sit down.

"The environment out there is quite hostile to you Dennis. You will need the security of our company to stay alive," Miro says.

"No," I reply. "The bankcard will be ample enough to secure my safety, thank you."

"As I suspected, you are deftly elusive Dennis. I admire that. But we must reach some impasse. As you are not lending me any concessions, I must tell you that if you will not compromise your position, we will kill you. I simply cannot have you be caught in turn by my competitors."

Well I suspected that I guess. I don't know whether my life is worth so little or so much. I might protect my conscience believing Ptah never existed and let myself be killed. Still, it smacks horribly of melodrama and I've never had much liking for such things. So to myself I concede honor and principal to my well being. And as if on cue, there is a knock on the door. The three of us sit silently for a moment until Mike goes to the door. He is given a document which he brings over to the table. It is a press release form. I read it without much attention and sign it.

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Machine consciousness [»«] ten-fold layered perception and purpose [»«] a driving need [»«] pride in its destiny. Fashioned in twenty-four hours out of carbon and silicon, pseudo-scalae and selective gene splicing, the centipede waits. Running in a tranquil pre-opt mode it muses on its divine purpose and the forever approaching need.

A cellular modem implanted deep within its two-meter glossy length switches it over to active. Its many eyes open upon the everchanging vista. Paramount in its mind is the sonar/pheromone facile of the objective. But to be satiated one must first get there. The targeting template downloaded earlier echoed, but now I augment it, computing the obvious variables: crowd size [»«] additional surveillance [»«] areas of high visibility. A route having been chosen, now modified, the killer feels the tightening anticipation.

An hundred pneumatically augmented legs churn at a frightening rate, moving the killer some twenty meters per second narrowing the proximity envelope. The template specifies the target objective on a raised platform at the rear of a sixty meter clearing which is now filled with spectators. It hesitates momentarily, then chooses to attach itself upside down on the concrete awning covering the walkway towards the stage. For four seconds the centipede travels the length of the clearing, reaching the end of the awning.

It drops to ground level parallel to the stage, the pneumatics hiss. Simultaneously, it arms itself and checks the perimeter for targeting emissions. Optical sensors assimilate outside visual information and encode it to the camouflage matrix which changes according with the environment the killer is in. Now virtually invisible and moving at top speed, it nears the rear of the platform. Spaced ten meters apart, three security personnel hear the PIE siren erupt. Searching frantically for the intruder, they spot the centi-killer at the last instant.

They fire as it is only meters away, but the crowd-control chem-tips merely deflect off the pseudo-scalae. The killer switches from defensive mode to positive ident for a high integrity kill. With a burst of sound, a multiple sonar image is processed in nanoseconds, imaging several targets of which only one matches the template. Moving within a few meters of the chosen target, the last crucial check is made. Even as the capacitors are charging to ignite the primers, sensitive pheromone receptors get a positive lock on Dennis Li's signature scent.

The hundred legs become two hundred barbed hooks as it locks itself to Dennis' chest. For reasons known only to itself the directional charges do not ignite immediately, instead it waits, somehow savouring the convulsions of fear that wrack the target. The killer muses about a destiny fulfilled and a job well done.

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