played by Chris Anthony

Janet Carter took hold of the railing with her left hand and slid herself down over the edge until she was hanging, ten feet above the floor. She'd thought of this trick early on; the red lights on her uniform that indicated operational status, easy enough for the others to see normally, now blended in with the pattern of lights on the wall behind her, rendering her near-invisible in the encompassing darkness. She held her specially-made handgun in one hand, finger pressed softly against the trigger; her eyes were constantly moving to spot her opponents.

Silently she dropped from the platform, hit the ground, and rolled to the side by reflex; just as well, for a shot that would have tagged her instead spattered harmlessly on the wall behind her. Swiftly she ducked behind a pile of crates.

The green light of her opponent appeared as if out of nowhere, perhaps ten feet from her, but facing the opposite direction. Taking careful aim, she fired, and felt a twinge of satisfaction as the LED suddenly went dim. Light flared overhead, and Janet looked up, shading her eyes. "Am I the last one?" she asked, somewhat bewildered.

"Yep. Good work, Carter," said a disembodied, amplified voice. "We've got a new wave coming in, so I need you guys out ASAP." Indeed, the boxes and platforms were moving, rotating and shifting to new positions. Janet swiftly unbuckled her LED harness and helmet, slipping the custom gun into its holster at her waist. It was completely harmless outside the arena, but it still comforted her to know that it was there.

---

Janet had to shield her eyes again as she stepped into the noonday sunshine outside of Photon. It seemed a pity to go home on a day like this, so instead she opted for a trip to the Memorial Circuit; she hadn't been there in months.

She didn't bother joining one of the vast number of tour groups headed around the Circuit; Janet knew the spiel by heart. Instead, she travelled at her own leisurely pace, trying to ignore everything but the stunning beauty of the monuments and the sun beating down upon her back.

She was, therefore, very surprised when an earnest young man, dressed all in white - which seemed to glow in the afternoon sun - approached her. "Janet Carter? Lieutenant, U.S. Army, currently unassigned?"

"That's me. FBI, CIA, or MI?"

"None of the above." The young man smiled, showing perfect white teeth. He must have been about her age, but he displayed a certain innocence rare in the modern adult. "I'm from... an independent agency, you might say." He extended his hand. "Name's Galen Johnson. I know," he added, somewhat ruefully, "my parents were fantasy buffs. What can I say?"

"Anyway," he continued before Janet could respond, "I'm here to giveyou this." He handed Janet a pamphlet. "The camel flies at midnight, but only in Cleveland!" Laughing good-naturedly, he backed off, disappearing into the crowd.

Janet looked around, but could find no sign of him in the crowd surrounding. A bit disoriented, she looked down at the pamphlet. It was an advertisement for Beacon, Inc., but didn't really give much information about what the company actually did. It did, however, list several Internet addresses, and hastily scrawled across the back were the words:

"galenjo@horde.beaconinc.com
WRITE ME"

Janet moved, with little haste, to the library. She had an Internet account at home, but she wanted to check this out right away.

As a matter of fact, the library was oddly devoid of people, considering that it was the middle of the day.

"Weird," she muttered, and walked out of the library. The street outside was its usual bustling self, and the sun beat down upon the DC denizens as it generally did at midday. Janet looked around for an empty cab for a few minutes, dismissed the exercise as futile, and started walking. It was only a few miles to home, and she had some research to do.

---

Home. Once said to be "any man's castle", a person's house is generally his or her inviolable property, absolutely sacred.

Sometimes, however, Tragedy strikes with her rod of bronze, and homes are violated, defiled, their contents tossed about as sailors in a storm. Thieves and criminals can destroy one's sense of privacy, of safety, in a moment.

This, fortunately, did not happen to Janet Carter.

She unlocked her door and peered into the hallway, half-expecting some creature from the Abyss to leap out at her. None did, although a small rodent skittered across the floor as the sunlight shone through the doorway and onto its small, ragged body. Still, Janet was feeling uneasy about what had happened on the way home, and thus drew her lightgun. "Just in case," she told herself.

It gets dark early in the Eastern states during the winter. Even at 1400 hours, the sun appears to be setting (in the south, but that's unimportant), and so the light was casting odd shadows throughout Janet's house.

Janet didn't trust shadows for the time being. She turned on every light she could find and closed every window. The television was switched on - being the only station she ever watched, the channel was permanently set to CNN - and the radio in her bedroom tuned to the local NPR station.

"No, of course I'm not scared," she muttered, a reply to a phantom taunter. "Just cautious. My nerves are a bit on edge."

A mere sixty seconds later, a series of events involving Galen Johnson, a small ceramic plate, a Hot Pocket™, and a rather jarring knock at the door served to prove Janet's last statement.