NationStates Jolt Archive

Life in the multiverse can be scary for ordinary people. They go through their everyday lives, working, loving, fighting, hoping, all with the knowledge that there are things just beyond the horizons of everyday life against which the only have the thinnest of protections. Beyond the heavens are ships that travel at speeds beyond what should be possible, shielded against even atomic blasts, and armed with weapons that could destroy nations in mere moments. Beyond the heavens are empires devoted to false gods, empires policed by altered and monstrous men who are men no longer, empires patrolled by planet killers.

There are other empires too, some which seem friendly and some not, which are ruled by beings whose claims to godhood, if by definition false to monotheistic minds, nonetheless rest of incredible personal powers which easily compare to those possessed by Zeus and Odin in the old legends. Somewhere on Earth itself, they know, still dwells the Dark Lord Melkor and his Balrogs, each in itself as strong as an army.

Among their own ranks, in the streets of Tarana or Narich or Zwingli, walk many beings more powerful than a gun and even a few more powerful than even an atomic bomb, mostly unknown, hidden behind a smiling face until something goes wrong and it's all too late. Many such creatures don't even look like harmless aliens. They look like ordinary men, even weak men. And it is behind shy smiles that unrestrained, unregulated, uncontrolled power lies.

In the shadows of life, they know there are things dead which still walk. There are things which hunger always for the blood of men and women or their brains. There are things of pure hatred, driven ever onward towards vengeance upon the living.

Across the seas there are lands where the people are all but slaves, despite denials to the contrary. There are endless billions dedicated to totalitarianism in one form or another, ever hoping for the destruction of the free world and all the loves and hopes and dreams of its countless citizens.

Yes, ordinary people have good reason to be scared in the multiverse. But they do go on, they do love and live and die of old age in their beds. Life is scary for ordinary people but life is also hopeful.

Ezana, Carasia

Cordell Enterprises Corporate Headquarters. It isn't that different from hundreds of similar buildings around the world. Not really. A glittering skyscraper, an opulent lobby, and offices hosting the men in charge of a multibillion Sterling corporation. It was a building designed to impress visitos and to reaffirm the belief of employees that they worked for something great.

Abdu Adelan was duly impressed. However, he remained convinced that he worked for something greater. Adelan was a representative of the Victims' Aid Foundation, a private charity that gave aid to the victims of violent crime. He was here for the same reason he had visited many other similar buildings, to convince the Cordell community relations people that it would be a good idea to make a corporate donation to VAF. It had been a good meeting. It could have been better. It always could have been better. But he did have a promise of a S206,000 check.

That was when there was a sudden flash and a woman was there who hadn't been there before. Within seconds, a signal was sent from the Cordell security computer to the Ezana Police Department. Just as quickly, the guards in the lobby had guns drawn. "Hold it right there, miss!"

She ignored them. Her eyes, shining, yellow eyes that no woman should have, sought out Adelan and locked. "Target acquired."

"This is your last warning! Freeze and place your hands above your head or we will be forced to open fire!" The guards held their ground, guns levelled at the stranger, even as the crowd in the lobby hit the ground. Screams and tears could be heard, some of them coming from children.

The woman charged. The guards fired. Bullets tore through clothing and skin, revealing not flesh and bone but metal and wires. Metal which bullets bounced off without leaving a dent. The woman extended a hand and bolts flew, striking one guard in the chest and sending electricity through his body. The smell of burning flesh was even worse than his charred body as it hit the ground. Her other hand shot out towards another guard, a metal fist smashing through his skull, shattering the bone carelessly upon the ground. The other guards...no longer stood their ground.

Adelan was on the ground. He tried to stand and run as the machine that dressed as a woman charged towards him. He did manage to stand when the thing knocked him once more to the ground and both were gone in another blinding flash.

Somewhere in Thorlund

The Honorable Ladina Rast was the Member of Parliament for the Twenty-Third District of Zutern and she was in a hurry. She had been vacationing in the mountains of Thorlung, secure in the knowledge that no legislation of any import would be passed with all the Parliamentary leaders of all parties away at the Commonwealth negotiations. Ten minutes ago, her chief of staff had called to tell her she was wrong. Taking advantage of the leaderships absence, a radical Nationalist backbencher had sought to introduce legislation to drastically increase the nation's nuclear program, a program Rast was thoroughly committed to abolishing. And thus she was hurrying back to the lodge where she was staying to get underway. If she could get to the airport in less than an hour, she could make the vote.

Rast hardly looked like an MP at the moment. She was younger than most members and maybe a bit more attractive, but neither to any significant extent. She was 36 and fairly average looking. But right now she was covered in dirt, dressed in jeans and a loose tee with worn hiking boots on her feet. She loved the outdoors and never missed a chance to a hike.

Rast paused for a moment, leaning against a large rock to catch her breath. She heard footsteps behind her. She turned and looked, as anyone would, but she saw nothing. It was the instant she turned back around that the men became visible, seemingly appearing out of the air. The green gas poured forth, causing the victim to fall to the ground, choking for air.

The men were wearing some kind of mechanical armor which covered them from head to toe. They didn't talk or, if they did, it was all on closed channels between their armor suits. There was no way for Rast to tell what nationality they were, their sex, or even whether or not they were human. It isn't like she would ever be able to tell anyone anyway. One of them stepped forward and looked down expressionlessly at the prone politician before a blade emerged from the arm of his mechanical armor. He brought it down hard. There was little pain.

Castle Damaskinos, Bilbtoria

Jason Bakirdzis stood quietly in the great hall of the ancient castle. It was centuries old, dating back to the early years of the Resurgent Dream. Most castles this old were tourist attractions now. This one wasn't. No one wanted to come here except local teenagers proving their courage. Local teenagers and inquistive historians.

Bakirdzis lay a hand gently on the jagged tooth of one of the many large demonic statues lining the great hall. These statues, similar in some ways to gargoyles, were what tended to scare people off. It didn't make much sense to Jason. They were just stone and the images were no more horrifying than that on many old cathedrals. Maybe it was just the fearful air abandoned places had. People avoided it because it was feared and it was feared because people avoided it. All of that helped Jason, who would be the first to visit the castle's musty library in over five hundred years. Still, the place gave him the creeps.

Jason started at the sound of movement. Turning, he laughed slightly when he saw a rat scurrying across the hall. He'd almost had a heart attack. Shaking his head, he turned back to the statue, embarassed, although none had seen. Imagine a grown man jumping at nothing. And that was when he noticed the stone mouth was beginning to open. It was the last thing he ever noticed.

A girl couldn't even get drunk in private any more., or in an area remote enough to seem to be private...Here she was, lost, melancholy, intending to get drunker than the proverbial skunk, and what happens?

"Why can't I mind my own business?" I asked myself aloud as I hefted the unconscious woman over my shoulder. I staggered more than a bit and knew that, flat out no bull, I was close to shutting down. I managed to get to my knees with out falling over and set her back gently on the turf. The small cut she'd gotten in my first sloppy block of the descending blade had stopped bleeding.

At least the sun was not too warm and my rescuee didn't seem as out of it has she had a few minutes ago. I had no idea what that green gas had been, but it had dispersed quickly. Quickler than the hard copper scent of spilled blood, lots of spilled blood, that currently perfumed the air.

I looked over at the pile of corpses and scrubbed my mud smudged face with equally grimy hands. I had no idea what six imitations of Papa Heinlien's finest wanted with the unconscious woman. I just couldn't sit and watch them kill her, so despite being drunk enough to be seeing double I'd stopped them. I wasn't drunk any more, and my head hurt abominably.

'Forgive me for what I am. Help me be what I once was.' The words rose unbidden to torment me. I had never wanted to be what I had once been, and I damn well needed no forgiveness for what I was now.

Somewhere in Thorlund

Rast opened her eyes slowly, finding herself slung over the shoulder of some unfamiliar person. Everything was so blurry. She wriggled a little, trying to get to the ground. "Please....what's going on? Let me down...."

"Please....what's going on? Let me down...."

"Woah! Sure, hold still" After sitting for some time I'd managed to stand and get the still unconscious woman back over my shoulder. Now less than thirty strides later she's waking, wiggling and wanting down.

Carefully I bent over and let her slide from my shoulder. I tried futilely to wipe more of the grime off my hands and on to my faded jeans. Then I reached out, in case she needed a hand to steady her.

I knew I didn't look too presentable. Silvery white hair rather limp with sweat, cheap sun glasses hiding my eyes, well worn but not torn jeans and a plain dark colored tee with no name brand hiking boots adding the finishing touch. My gun and the other odd hand full of things that comprised my worldly possessions filled a small back pack.

Rast settled on the ground. She tried to stand, sinking back onto her bum unsucessfully. "What's going to happen to me?" she asked, clearly thinking that Rio had been with her initial assailants, dazed eyes looking about.

"What's going to happen to me?"

"I couldn't begin to tell you. I don't even know what country I'm in, much less their law enforcement procedures." I shook my head, letting a lopsided smile quirk my lips.. "Hell, I could even get in trouble for keeping you from being killed in some places I've been of late."

I did a slow three sixty, noting that we'd had come just far enough that the pile of bodies was hidden by a few trees and a rocky outcrop.

"Now that you're on your feet, or kinda, I'm going to take off. I don't feel like getting in trouble for sticking my nose in."

Somewhere Outside of Thorlund

"Keeping me from being killed? I thought...Wait. What happened?" Rast insisted, still lying on the ground on the isolated mountain side. She made another effort to stand, slipping and sliding down the steep trail a few feet. By now, her jeans and shirt were coated in brown dirt, as were her hands and face.

She leaned forward to place a hand on her leg, stretching it out a little. She was still looking at Rio with interest. Fear and confusion were slowly, very slowly, but surely, being replaced by curiosity...and confusion as she looked up at the younger woman. Her eyes were still only half open and slightly glazed over and there was a thin white green around her lips that she seemed entirely unaware of. She wasn't bleeding anywhere visibly except for the one cut on the top of the head from the mechanoid sword. "I...I missed the vote."

"I...I missed the vote."

That made me blink. "Vote?" Rather at a loss, I looked her over carefully. I didn't think she been hit in the head, or not hard enough to produce mental wierdness. However I knew sinking sensation that flashed threw me. This woman was not in much shape to try and get herself back to civilization. And that greenish white line around her lips told me more than I really wanted to know. She needed me, and I was through being needed. It wasn't a healthy thing, not any more.

I looked away for a long moment, longing just to teleport away and forget. However the large collection of bruises and the several bad gashes that my dark tee hid the evidence of, wouldn't let me. With a profound sigh, one that hurt bad enough to make me close my eyes for a moment, I swore under my breath then spoke up.

"Oh broken branches! Don't try and keep going on your own. You'll make it a dozen steps and flake out for hours. Here, have some water." The water in my small canteen might be tepid but it would help her.

"Rest a minute more and we'll get you home."

Somewhere in Thorlund


Rast took the water and gulped it down hurriedly. "What happened?" she repeated, looking at the water half-suspiciously, worried that she might be being drugged or poisoned. "I need to get back to Tarana within the next day. That bastard...Reich...he's going to destroy everything..."

"What happened?"

"I was minding my own business, a very healthy occupation, even if getting drunk while doing it isn't, when I noticed a bunch of M.I. wanna-be's playing hob with your life." I took a breath, thinking of how the buzz of the alcohol hadn't been helping, despite my desperate desire for it to be just what I needed.

"I was almost seeing double, thats where you got the gash on your face. I was clumsy." I shrugged, and winced as rent flesh pulled, especially where blood had begun to dry, sticking cloth to wounds.

I can't help you get to Tarana with any speed. I have no idea of where it is from here. I think I remember seeing a lodge or resort of some sort" I pointed in the direction I had been heading with her.

"Thank you. Who...who are you?" Rast asked.

"Thank you. Who...who are you?"

I just looked at my current recuee for a long moment, then realized that my name wouldn't - or hopefully wouldn't mean anything to her. Some how I doubted that those how hunted down my fellow Heroes would be looking for me in the back country of a nation I didn't even know the name of.

"I'm Rio, Rio Navada. And what's your's and who is this Reich bastard who's going to ruin everything?" Better still to get her talking about herself.

Somewhere in Thorlund

"Tarana's on the other side of the world. The sun never sets on the Danaan Empire." she said in a slightly sarcastic tone, coughing slightly. "We're in the Danaan Principality of Thorlund, in Danaan Ambara. It's a province of the Resurgent Dream. We're on the continent of Ambara. Marlund's just south of here. Then Pantocratorian Ambara, a self-governing colony of Pantocratoria. After that is Adoki. East of here is the Abt Republic, a completely independent nation settled by Taraskovyans."

Rast was vaguely aware that she was rambling and that she hadn't really answered Rio's questions, but...she was still feeling rather not herself. Her thoughts were cloudy and almost child-like and her thoughts kept blurting out. Rast couldn't quite figure out how this woman could have gotten here without knowing where she was. And so she had told her. "There's also a lot of unsettled land that we kind of claim south of Abt." she added.

The sun never sets on the Danaan Empire.

Rio blinked at that. She didn't know of any nation with enough holdings to span the globe, and didn't know of any on planet empires either. All the countries around Nuevo Nihongo would never consider merging, even if it would be to the advantage. Getting an empire together was an impressive acconplishment . But no, she'd never heard of a country named the Resurgent Dream either, she would have remembered a name that interesting, or so she thought.

Letting the woman talk on, even if she hadn't gotten around to mentioning her name, gave her more information. And more information was always good. She was mentally cursing herself though for having given her own name without thinking.

"There's also a lot of unsettled land that we kind of claim south of Abt.

"Thats nice, but without seeing a map, and never having heard of any of these places before, it doesn't tell me much. And how I got here without knowing where here is, well lets just say that one generally doesn't arrive any place when doing a blind jump, but some how - or as always of late- my luck was out and I arrived someplace."

Her shrug made me hiss in pain as the wound in her side informed Rio sharply that such movements weren't appreciated.

"Well, Marlund and Adoki are little countries but...You've honestly never heard of Taraskovya or Pantocratoria before?" She honestly found that almost impossible to believe given the generally accepted position, if not popularity, of both nations in the international community, at least based on everything she'd seen. She found it equally impossible to believe about her own nation, of course, but she didn't want to sound arrogant. How could someone not have heard of countries? She had, of course, seen the United Nations records about hundreds of thousands of nations in the world but there were certainly less than two hundred countries actually active in the world and it seemed that any educated person would have at least heard of all of them once or twice. But then that did depend on where exactly this woman was from. There were some countries, such as the nations of the Reich, which Rio also seemed never to have heard of, where knowledge about the outside world was strictly forbidden. But that didn't make any sense. Rio was clearly a metahuman and the Reich persecuted them. There were other parts of the world where a sort of ultra-provincialism prevailed. Earth C, for example, thought of itself as "the world" despite being one of the smaller regions. Of course, given the oddities of fractal reality, that was almost true in a sense but still...

"My name is Ladina Rast." she said. "I'm a Member of Parliament from Zutern. You're on a continent called Ambara. It's roughly the size of South America if that's more familiar to you."

You've honestly never heard of Taraskovya or Pantocratoria before?"

Rio shook her head. "Nope, sorry, and I have been away from Nueva before. I earned plenty of reward points and found it more fun to travel than to redeem for lots of stuff. I spent a month in both Nova Nippon, and Questing Cats. Though both of them are all but neighbors. " She added but didn't mention the spectacular two weeks that she would never forget at Celeneapolis on Luna. Also Rio knew enough world geography to know that she'd never seen nations named Taraskovya or Pantocratia on the detailed holomaps of the city Library.

"Do you mean Amerika de la Sur?" Rio asked slowly, struggling with a dawning insight that maybe her no- destination-specified jump had taken her to some where far other than even death. "Thats on the far side of the globe from Neuva Nihongo."

Then she looked slightly abashed and turned to a safer subject. "Ladina is a pretty name. Pleased to meet you Ms Rast."

Rast frowned thoughtfully. "Have you ever heard of Menelmacar? Derscon? Knootoss? Lavenrunz? Tarlachia?" She was slowly beginning to suspect that Rio might not be from this world but she wanted to make absolute certain.

"It's nice to meet you too, Ms. Navada." she said. "You have a very interesting name. It sounds Spanish, correct?"

Rio shook her head, as disquiet turned to fright tightly held where it wouldn't tear at her. "No, I've not heard of any of those either. I've had friends go to Albianon, and Lysk, both of which are senior members of the League of Nations." She moved both hands in a helpless little gesture that stopped short as her body protested again. She had no idea how lost she looked.

"You have a very interesting name. It sounds Spanish, correct?"

The sudden turn of conversation to the origins of Rio's name had her blinking again. "I guess it does, but I'm not, not that I know of. The census computer just assigned me a name when I was turned over to the State Orphanage. Day of the month for a name starting with R and the month of the year for the N to start my last name. Or thats what they told us. Me and the other orphans that is."

The Iesus media was crowded with reports of the incidents. Headlines screamed lines such as “Metahuman Orgy of violence and rape”, “Metahumans unleash satanic powers” and “The Enemy within: Metahumans turn on human hosts!”
The new Minister of Culture Julia Kung used the incidents as a chance to speak to Iesus and the world about the growing peril of Metahuman mutation.
Iesus television and radio repeated her message again and again…


“Again…the truth is shown to the world…again the violence of metahumanism is shown….and again the innocent human pays!

The goal of the Metahuman is to make himself the ruler of humanity. Wherever he comes, he destroys works of culture. They have no love in their spirit, rather only a lust for destruction! Thorlund and Carasia are just but the latest demonstration that the metahuman is vermin! Uncontrolled meta populations equals the eventual distruction of humanity!

Over the centuries, metahumans have infiltrated every nation, poisoning the once proud nations of the world…committing crime after crime. See how they betray the people they live amongst! Behold the danger of unbridled metahumanism as it runs wild in the Resurgent Dream. The metahuman has no honour…no love of the humans they live among; they are parasites with greedy lust for possession and power, for fame, for suppressing and enslaving the surrounding world.

The Metahuman bewitches and exploits the gullible, the ignorant, the trusting. See how they turn on the helpless people in Thorlund! See the suffering they inflict on those who have loved them and had been their neighbors! Metahumanism is a world plague and will remain a world plague for all eternity. Wake up Humanity! Wake up and see their can never be peace with metahumanism!

Humanity! Never forget your spirit and your blood. Your inheritance is true and strong, you are blessed and deserve better than to have to suffer the mutated violence of metahumans! Defend your inheritance! Defend yourselves! Wake up! Wake up!”

Two people were walking down the path. Oddly they seemed to be identical in height at a couple of inches over six feet.

The man wore a loose fitting, sleeveless shirt. His head was shaved and on it was a tattoo of a raven. The wings came down in front of his ears, the tips reaching his jaw bone. The head came down onto his forehead and the tail feathers fanned out on the back of his neck. On his right inside arm was the tattoo of an upside down torch and on the left inside arm the tattoo of an hourglass, it’s sand spent. He was a necromancer of no small power and, though his body looked strong and fit, it was a strength lent to him by his patron and his powers.

The woman with him shared the same facial features as her twin. Both of them good looking but not exceptionally beautiful or handsome. Her breasts were of somewhat smaller to average size and her hips were slim. She head the lean, hard lines of an athlete. Where her brother was weak and slower, she was fast and strong. She was an expert in hand to hand combat, with the swords that she wore on her hips and with the bow and arrows on her back. She was graceful and agile in combat and even walked with a certain grace. She seemed to have aquired more of the elven blood of their half-elven father, while he had aquired more of their human mother’s blood with his plodding ungraceful, though ground eating, gait. As they walked they seemed to look at each other or nod, as though conversing, though they never seemed to speak.

The telepathy was limited to them alone, the bond of their blood forming the link between them. He could extend his own in a limited fashion, something he was working on, though right now he could only send and receive empathic signals and at far to close of a range to be effective for defensive or scanning measures, only to evaluate people he was speaking to at the moment.

‘Where do you think we are’, she thought to him.

‘I don’t know. This place is unfamiliar’, he thought back.

Naoley, Wintermore

Ladan Liberman was one of the most influential men in the Resurgent Dream. He was a billionaire many times over who had access to foreign and even alien technologies not available to anyone else. He was head of the largest genetic research corporation in the nation and had once even run as a candidate for Parliament.

Liberman looked his influence. He was a muscular, bald man in his early fifties, normally dressed in a well-tailored suit and almost always wearing a rather serious expression. Now, however, as he settled back into the comfy chair in his office, he allowed himself a small, bemused smile as his private screen played the Iesian broadcast. "The problem these people have is an almost complete lack of subtlety. If they had toned down their statement, they might have gotten a lot of people wondering about the wisdom of allowing such powerful and alien beings among us. As is...most Danaans will ignore it."

"I think they were aiming this production more for their own people." responded Valentine Cabal, a prominent businesswoman in her own right and current guest of Mr. Liberman.

"Yes...well...I still think these crimes give us the perfect opportunity to unveil our project." Liberman answered, leaning thoughtfully forward.

Somewhere in Thorlund

"I think...I think you might be from a different world..." Rast ventured nervously.

I think...I think you might be from a different world..."

Perhaps to her surprize, Rio looked far more relieved than upset at that prospect. "I was beginning to think that myself. Scarey at first but ..." Rio let her head droop a little, but her shoulders came up, as if a weight had been lifted off of her. Her voice was bleak. "At least I don't have a price on my head, and death squads hunting me here."

In her eyes anger and pain waged war. "Once upon a time, just like all fairy tales, I was a hero, I liked being a hero, it made me feel good, feel needed." The bitterness in her voice was boundless. "The little orphan girl could be useful, be wanted, worthwile...Then they decided that we were some sort of evil monsters. Did I stay and fight the lies? Yeah for a bit, but every friend, every one I ...loved... betrayed me and so I ran, hid, and learned that there's not much I won't do to stay alive."

She fell silent for a moment. "and I talk too much." The last words out of her lips before she passed out.

Somewhere in Thorlund

Rast stared at the woman curiously. She was preparing to ask another question when her saviour suddenly passed out right in front of her. Rast tried to stand under her own power but rubbery knees wobbled beneath her. She walked over to Rio, reaching for her, trying to revive her. "Rio! Rio!"

Rast was starting to recover from the gas. She felt she might be able to lift Rio. She had to. The woman had saved her life and now it was time for her to return the favor. Bending down, she gently took Rio in her arms and tried to stand. She managed...for a few moments. Then Rast collapsed back onto the ground, closing her own eyes as she sunk into unconsciousness next to the fallen heroine.

An Unknown Location

Rio and Rast awoke a few hours later. They were no longer on the mountainside where they had lost consciousness. Instead, both women were in what seemed to be a large bunker. Each was floating in some kind of greenish, semi-transparent fluid in a large transparisteel tube. To either side of them, there were similar tubes containing other people, none of whom either woman had any reason to recognize.

Oh my head hurts...I shouldn't have drunk so much Then more memory kicked in, and the five beers - though they were far beond her normal drinking habits - paled to nothing. She remembered the fight, her desperate attempts to keep six, Oyi! Six of them I must have been crazy to take on six people in Uncle Heinlin's powered armor, even if they weren't up to his standards. But I didn't do to bad She fuzzily consoled herself, some of her old pride returning.

Time had little meaning in her muzzy state but eventually her head cleared enough for curiosity to make her look about, pay attention to her surroundings. Such as the fact that she was breatheing a translucent, green tinted fluid, fluid that she floated all but weightless within.

The lady she had rescued, Ladina was in a similar situation to one side, a stranger on the other, but she couldn't see much else. She didn't feel any sense of panick yet either, and that didn't trouble her for the moment , though perhpas it should have.

As Rio floated there, machines examined her. They examined the surface of her skin, her complexion, her musculature, her pores. They used an equivalent of an x-ray device to see her skeleton and the inside of her body. They scanned her brain with standard methods and with more special instruments designed to test what made her special, to discover the nature and the limits of her psychic powers.

Meanwhile, samples of her blood and skin had been taken and were even now being examined in a laboratory, seeking to determine everything possible about this strange woman from another world.

What the researchers learned was that Rio was no accident. No, she was the result of generations of alterations, each gene splice and modification clearly tagged and coded, if unreadably, no matter what she had been told. Rio was not the final product, but she was close, perhaps no more than four generations away from the final result desired. Examination would show that her ova had been harvested in the past, but not been stripped completely. Her fertility was significantly lower than 'normal' and would require scientific intervention on both hormonal and physical levels however.

There were no inserted nonhuman genes, but there were sequences that were not found in any human population of the world she had so inadvertantly arrived on. The genes had clearly been manipulated, but Only toward the human maximum. Senses had been enhanced towards human maximun -visual and aural primarily, but smell and tactile were well above the norm. Taste however had been diminished, barely registering at the low end of human norm. Her eyes tested as extremely sensitive to ultraviolet, making cloudy days a danger to her.Her memory was photographic and the engrams associated with 'learning' were stronger, more sure.

Her entire bio structure had been modified. Titrates of iron threaded though the calcium of her bones structure making them stronger, with less density needed. Thus the marrow of her bones was greater in mass, as the wall of the bones were thinner while retaining their 'normal size'. Her liver, spleen, pancreas and kidneys were slightly, perhaps ten percent larger, but their functionality was nearly eighty percent greater than high end human 'norm'. Her pulmonary vasuclar system was also enhanced, her heart larger and stronger, the aveoli of her lungs more effectient. Her muscular system, while not increased in bulk - she could lift twice what a 'normal' woman of her height, weight and build could lift. She had the body of an olympic calibur athelete without the signs of rigourous training.

Possessed of an extremely high metabolism to fuel the needs of her altered self, she had significant nutritional needs- not much over thirty hours and her body would begin to starve, to canibalize it's self for needed nutrients. She had been over two days without - the five beers had not been enough. Her collapse had been just as much due to depletion of slender reserves, as blood loss from her wounds sustained in Senator Rast's rescue. Rio had been operating at her limits for some time, her endirance and immune system worm thin by circumstance. Her nutritional needs also had some unusual aspects, that would require a specialized diet rich in trace minerals, iron and other elements - perhaps the reason for the diminished sense of taste. And her psionics also drew from that reserve, they were not unlimited, and their use was not without cost.

Though her metabolism was recovering with astonishing rapidity, and given the lack of damaged helix tags her life span could be estimated at roughly two hundred years, with little decline of the senses and organs until the final years.

The genetic sequences unknown to Rast's world were the key to her psionic powers. On a scale of one to ten, her Telekensis rated a eleven, her Aportational a nine, Telepathy much lower at a six, and her Empathy merely a three. There was no precognative ability beyond a hormal human danger instinct.

Naoley, Wintermore

Chwalibog Kaldowski walked quietly into Mr. Liberman's office. He was an athlete, the star player of the Agwenberg College soccer team. He was also a moderately handsome man with dark hair and fair skin. He had responded to an advertisement, calling for physically capable young people looking to help change the world for the better. Out of thousands of applicants, he had been the one choosen.

Ladan Liberman rose with a polite nod as the young man entered. "Mr. Kaldowski, I presume?"

"Yes, sir." Kaldowski answered. "I'm here to learn how I can help people out. The lady I talked to said it would involve some kind of tests."

"In a manner of speaking." Liberman replied. "In a manner of speaking..."

Eventually the drugged remoteness wore off and Rio felt a sudden flash of panic. Where am I ? What am I doing in a regen tank? OUT! And with that mental cry she teleported from the tank to reappear in the near instantaneousness of thought outside it. Translucent green slime dripped off of her unclad form with small, thick, plopping sounds, but Rio ingored that. She was too busy going to her knees and heaving up the superoxygenated fluid from her stomach and lungs. By the time it was all over the floor instead of in her, her ribs were sore and her head swimming again. The several severe wounds she'd sustained in the fight earlier were gone, completely healed she noted.

"But how long was I in there?" She rasped painfully. She brushed her normally silvery white hair out of her face, ignoring the green staining to it, and looked about. She recognised Ladina, but none of the others. She didn't see any guards, or other personell about, and heard no alarms. "But they might all be silent alarms so as to not alert said escapee" She mumbled as she hauled herself to her feet.

There were dozens, perhaps even a hundred, other people being stored in the same area as Rio and Ladina. Most of them did not look human. Some of them were blue in color and far more massive than a normal human being. Among this type of being, the females universally seemed to have an equivalent musculature to the males, likely a combination of cultural and biological differences. Still other beings seemed to be mixtures of humans and animals and a few even resembled the Satyrs of myth. Other beings were closer to the human norm, set apart only by unusually bushy eyebrows or slightly pointed ears. Many of the others looked like normal humans, although they might or might not have something special about them on the inside, as Rio did. A few feet from where she had escaped, there was a computer console. In front of every containment vat was a small display providing some information on the occupant.

For the moment, at least, no one seemed to be making any move to recontain Rio. She had the run of the large chamber.

Rio looked carefully about, searching for anything she might recognise as a surveillence system, but she didn't find anything familiar. The 'other than obviously human' beings in the tubes had her eyes wide, but she was almost certain that they were just as much 'people' as she was. I wonder what gives the skin that blue pigment. Is it due to differenece in blood, like Star Trek said the copper in Spock's blood made his skin greenish? And a fur pelt would keep one nicely warm.

Her attention quickly came back to Ladina. She'd rescued her once, and was very disinclined to just leave her behind heck if this is some sort of prison, do I want to leave any one behind? she though briefly before she turned her attention to the display at Ladina's tube. Some of the information seemed to be medical data that she had little knowledge to try and decipher. But Ladina looked fine, as far as Rio could see the small gashes that Ladina had were as healed as her own were.

"But her head was bothering her, what if she had a concussion?" Rio spoke aloud as she chewed on her lower lip. She could aport Ladina out of there, but she worried that she might cause her more injury by removing her too soon. Then inspiration struck.

She rapped firmly on the tube, standing where Ladina could see her if she opened her eyes, responded in some way to Rio's actions. Maybe Ladina would be able to read her lips, try and communicate in return.

Ladina opened her eyes slightly. She stared at Rio blankly for a long moment before trying to mouth something. Unfortunately, her lips couldn't be seen through the breathing device affixed over her mouth. Rio raised one hand and gestured away from herself, moving head as much as she could to try and take in the room around her.

Rio was allowed to look at all of Ladina's readings without any sign of interference.

Specimen: Rast, Ladina, Member of Parliament for Zutern
Associations: Labor Party
Species: Human
Special Abilities: None
Age: 32
Sex: Female
Category: Z

Rio wondered what catagory Z meant as she waited for Ladina to bring her attention back to her. She did wonder why Ladina had a breathing mask, but not herself. She stepped over to where she could quickly glance at the display on the tube she had been in.

"If it isn't a prison, and it really doesn't feel like a hospital...Is it some sort of collection or display?" She shivered as she said that aloud. That made her even less happy thant the thought of it being a prison. Being part of some sort of museum like display was dehumanizing in the extreme. "You don't collect people damn it!" her voice was an angry whipser.

The room remained silent and non-responsive. It was up to Rio to attempt something or not. Ladina was clearly barely aware of the world around her. She was hardly following Rio's attempts to mouth communications.

Rio closed her eyes for a long second then determination brought her chin up and her eyes open. She noted how the breathing mask was held on by a wide elastic looking webbing. The attachment point was clearly visable, somethign she could dnap with a sharp telekenetic 'tug'.

"Then I aport her own. She might get in one mouthfull of that goo but I'm fast enough that she won't get another." She spoke aloud, as she viaualized what she would need to do. Snap the webbing, aport her, catch her and get her down on the floor on her side in the 'recovery position' and ...don't plan too far ahead Rio warned herself.

She backed a step to make sure there was plenty of room for Ladinas materializing body, then setting aside doubts, she did just what she had planned. The breathing mask drifted away from Ladina's face as the webbing was snapped free by telekenetic fingers, then she was aported from the cylinder into the space just in front of Rio who at the same time stepped forward and caught her body as gravity tried to reassert it's surly bonds.

Plans often go awry and Rio found herself on her butt with Ladina mostly on top of her. "OOFFFF!" Rio found her breath driven out of her by the sprawling fall and for a long second could do little more than lay there. A whooping breath, and she managed to sit up, rolling Ladina off of her in a semi gentle fashion. She brushed her hair out of her eyes as she positioned Ladina on her side, upper arm brought over and hand under her head. Then Rio scrabbled around to draw the woman's lower leg up. The recovery position would allow Ladina to breathe and to permit fluids to dran from the nose and throat.

An Undisclosed Location

And Ladina was indeed teleported. The position into which Rio mistakenly brought her, awkward in the best of times, was rendered all the more so by the fact that both women were currently nude. As soon as Ladina had had time to cough out all the fluid in her throat and nose and to briefly wipe down the rest of her body, she did blush a bright red. She stumbled to her feet, looking around the room. It took a moment for embarassment and confusion to turn to fear. "We can't still be in the Resurgent Dream. We...we can't. Do you...can you use your powers to tell where we are at all? We have to...all these people..."

Ladina took a moment to collect herself. She was a Member of Parliament, an elected official selected for her ability to make hard decisions. True, she wasn't often in personal physical danger but she shouldn't be stuttering like a child. "I don't know where we are. However, there has to be some sort of normal society nearby. Do you require a line of site for your teleportation?"

Rio had been too busy to think about her unclothed state, indeed back in Nihongo nudity was common and unremarked on generally.

"I don't have any idea of where we are Ladina.And no, I don't have those sorts of powers. There are many races here I don't recognise, but there's been no obvious alarm sounded by our leving the tubes, though I can't tell if we are or are not being watched by electronic means."

She looked about once again, but still saw nothig she recognised as surveilence equipment.

"I don't know where we are. However, there has to be some sort of normal society nearby. Do you require a line of site for your teleportation?"

"Either that or a solid mental picture. I've done the last blind jump I want to chance for a bit. I haven't looked about completely, this space is pretty big. There might be a door or other sort of exit about." Rio replied as she began looking about more than she had earlier.

An Undisclosed Location

It actually didn't take Rio all that long to find a door number of steel doors on different walls of the building. The first one they tried led to a stairwell which led directly out into what seemed to be a busy street in the middle fof the day. Traffic on the street itself was fairly thick and pedestrians were moving by in large numbers, moving from shop to shop. Most of them were dressed in typical Western clothing of various kinds. None were naked. The two women received a wide variety of looks ranging from shock to indignation to lust. "Thank God none of them seem to recognize me." Rast muttered. "We need to get to a telephone and call the police."

Still blushing and trying to cover her body with her hands, Rast hurried towards a payphone just down the street, rapidly dialing 227, the emergency phone number in the Resurgent Dream. A few minutes later, green and white police vehicles pulled up. The officer on duty held out robes to both women, his own face coloring nervously. "Here you go, ladies." he said. "Do you mind coming down to the station with me to answer a few questions? These are some pretty serious accusations you've made here."

Rio took the robe the blushing police officer had handed her and wrapped it about herself. She had become more and more uncomfortable as the minutes had passed. Something felt so very wrong but she couldn't put her finger on it.

"Do you mind coming down to the station with me to answer a few questions? These are some pretty serious accusations you've made here."

She gave ladina a look and put her hand on the womans arm, gently urging her off to one side a few steps. She whispered, her voice strained but low, carrying to Ladina's ears alone.

"Ladina, I have a bad feeling. I think that if we go with him, when the authorites come back, that place will be empty, gone, cleaned out. I think I ought to go back and get the others out. It's wrong to leave them like that!"

Part of her wanted to do mothing more than leave, and hope this was just a bad dream, but the greater part of her just couldn't bear the thought of leaving the others to what ever their captors had planned for them.

Naoley, Wintermore

Ladina nodded. "I...I want to say that that makes no sense but neither does a criminal being able to have a scietific kidnapping facility like that beneath a major city undetected. Whoever is behind this is very powerful or very influential. You might be right."

She paused a moment as though considering her options. "I don't want to leave you but...I'm no use in a physical fight. I am an influential woman, however. If I go with the constable, I can make certain they send capable men and women in after you."

Ladina looked down a moment, blushing again and gently squeezing Rio's hand. "You saved my life, Rio. I'll always remember it and always owe you. If you ever need anything...I just...it means a lot."

She let go and smiled at Rio. "Good hunting." And with that she returned to the policeman.

Good Hunting

Rio watched them drive off, a heavy feeling filling her, a lonliness that had become an all too a constant companion of late. She shrugged it off and squared her shoulders as she headed back through the non descript door, back through the stairwell and into the room with the tubes.

She looked them over carefully, trying to memorize the plaque at each tube. And to see if any of the others were aware, awake to any degree.[/i]

There were dozens, if not hundreds, of different tubes. The plaques identified them as containing humans, boggans, trolls, redcaps, sidhe, rock giants, pooka, sluagh, clurichaun, beasties, elves, dwarves, Martians, and numerous other species. They were of both sexes and all ages. They were ranked in categories from A to Z.

Specimen: Cir Lor-Ban
Associations: None
Species: Unknown
Special Abilities: Preternormal strength, preternormal speed, semi-impermeable skin, flight, heightened visual acuity, heightened hearing, energy discharge, cold discharge
Age: 19
Sex: Female
Category: A

Specimen: Barak Waley
Associations: Waley Investigations
Species: Human
Special Abilities: None
Age: 32
Sex: Male
Category: A

Specimen: Damaris Priest
Associations: Sappho Tribe (unconfirmed)
Species: Human
Special Abilities: Preternormal strength, preternormal speed, semi-impermeable skin, immunity to psionics, immunity to magic, animal communication, flight
Age: Unknown
Sex: Female
Category: A

Specimen: Abantes Capodistria
Associations: Unknown
Species: Human
Special Abilities: Gills, pressure adjustment, animal communication, preternormal stregnth, preternormal speed, semi-impermeable skin
Age: 32
Sex: Male
Category: B

Specimen: Kari Raab
Associations: None
Species: Human
Special Abilities: None
Age: 19
Sex: Male
Category: B

Specimen: Anz Mar
Associations: None
Species: Martian
Special Abilities: Preternormal strength, preternormal speed, semi-impermeable skin, flight, telepathy, shapeshifting
Age: 52
Sex: None
Category: B

Specimen: Werner Wachter
Associations: None
Species: Human
Special Abilities: Preternormal speed
Age: 22
Sex: Male
Category: B

Rio, really couldn't see how they fell into different catagories, and all of them seemed to be unconscious. She looked at the data again, still was unable to discern a pattern and chose one at random. The woman inside was named Damaris Priest and was noted as unconfirmedly belonging to the Sappho Tribe. Rio had never heard of such a tribe, but she didn't think it mattered.

Firmly she rapped on the tube, hoping to get some response, such as she had gotten from Ladina.

Naoley, Wintermore

Priest didn't seem to notice at first. Eventually, her vague gaze settled on Rio. She moved her arms slightly in the green goop, almost as though she were trying to pull her arms loose. The woman had an olive complexion and a body which looked equally capable of winning a weight lifting competition or a beauty pageant. She looked out of place, like some sort of Amazon from a child's mythology book.

Even as the woman in the tube began to focus, Rio could hear the hiss of vents opening. Gas began to rapidly fill the large chamber, knocking unconscious any who breathed it. Heavy, steel panels slid down over the doors, sealing at the bottom to prevent any escape through the regular doorways.

Damn! Rio screamed in her mind as she took one last safe breath. She'd been well trained as to how to handle gas. She was an adept class telekenetic, and the very air around her became impenetrable to the gas. She knew that she could hold out for a short time, but she could only hope it would be enough. She reached out again and the vents were forced closed as if by giant unseen hands. If I had a proper kit. but she didn't.

She didn't want to run, she was tired of hiding, and she was very angry. Bracing herself as if she were firing a gun, feet apart, shoulders squared she closed her eyes, shutting down everything save her telekensis. Invisable power lashed out grabbed the heavy steel panels that had dropped down over the door that she and Ladina escaped through.

The panels and the door peeled aside like the skin of an over ripe fruit, then her fury rolled up the stairwell, bending the heavy steel safety railing aside like so much twisted taffy. It exploded through the simple door that led out to the street in a flash of blinding power fuled by rage. A spike of visable energy seared toward the heavens, marking the location for all to see.

Rio sagged to her knees nauseous and barely conscious. "Okay you sorry sons, hide that if you can." And with the last of her consciousness she lashed out again and again smashing the tubes. She could only hope that the captives could do some part in gaining their freedom. Just as she could only hope that she hadn't injured herself too badly, but she was very afraid that she had. "just tired." She mumbled as consciousness slipped away.

Rio couldn't tell how long she was out but it couldn't have been too long. She soon felt herself being shaken awake by someone very strong. Someone was breathing into her and pushing her breath out, forcing Rio to revive. While Rio still likely ached all over and had a splitting headache, her senses were returning to her.

Her brain felt like it was afire, and a trickle of blood ran from her nose, evidence of a minor cerebral hemorage. Spots and amorphous shapes swam gailly and nauseatingly before her eyes. And her mouth tasted like a herd of camels had dwelt there for some time. The groan she gave hurt her ears...but then again every fiber of her body hurt in new and imaginative ways.

"That which doesn't kill you just makes you wish it had" She managed to get out after some interminable time had passed. Her throat felt like she had poured liquid fire down it. But eventually the thought drifted through that maybe she had screamed her throat bleeding raw. She seemed to remember screaming, she remembered being angry, but, it would take longer for the rest of her memories to coalesce.

The woman waking Rio wasn't a police officer or a soldier. She was another captive of this strange place, a well-formed, athletic woman with short blond hair. "You're a psychic of some sort, aren't you? You can latch on to my mind for calm if you'd like." the woman said gently.

When Rio could look around, she could see that one or two of the captives were helping the others recover. In addition to the blond standing over her, there was an extraordinarily tall brunnette and a hairless but very muscular green man. The woman helping Rio spoke again gently. "My name's Cir. I'm here to help you. Can you stand up?"

She supported Rio, surprisingly gently. "I took care of all of the gas. The police and even the militia should be here any minute but I'm not sure they can handle whoever is behind this. I think we have more power than an army in this room though from what I can tell about most of these people and I'm guessing you're extraordinary too. Do you think you could come after our captors with us? Damaris, Anz, and I can't do it alone."

Was...taught never to panic...one good thing I learned." Rio muttered. She didn't even want to think about useing her Gifts. That would hurt too much. "Pleased to meet you, I think. " She swallowed hard to force down incipent nausea. "I'm Rio."

She blinked hard a few times, eyes wartering from the brightness of the dim lights, but the swimming shapes faded to where she could see. Standing seemed miraculous, and Rio was grateful for Cir's support

Do you think you could come after our captors with us? Damaris, Anz, and I can't do it alone."

Rio nodded faintly. "I'm not too sure how much help I'll be right now, I drained myself pretty badly. But wrong is wrong" Her raspy whisper trailed off for a moment then strengthened "And that is what I was taught even if every one else said it wasn't"

She truly didn't know what help she could be. She ws more than a little afraid that she had damaged her self interanlly. It had happened to others, over use or misuse of their powers ripped them away, made them inaccessable for varying periods of time. Up to and including forever. Though there were always the tales of how such had strengthed the gifts, took them to a whole new level. But Rio had always discounted those as fairy tales.

"Alright." Cir said. "Maybe you should catch your breath a bit first. You've had a rought time of it. Is there anything you need? Anything I can do for you?"

"Asprin? Lots and lots of asprin?" Rio grinned wryly, trying to ignore the pain. "But I think you all need some clothes, and I'd like something other than this robe. Heck I don't even have my pack any more." Not that it had much in it, but it had held All she had.

Then she shook her head hard at her thoughtlessness. These people had lost far more, most likely, than a small pack of clothes, and a few momentos.

She hurt, but she'd worked hurt before. They needed her, they'd said so, and that was more than asprin to her battered ego.

It took about another half hour for everyone to be revived. Once the many beings who had been held prisoner were all awake, Anz addressed them. "I believe we are all ready. Avoid lethal force as much as possible. Do not get separated. Pay careful attention to your surroundings."

The large group then took off down the corridors, with the three who had somehow stayed awake through the gas leading the way. The corridors were almost indistinct, futuristic, crome hallways, nicely lit and largely unmarked. Still, the group kept going further and further and deeper and deeper. Whatever it was they were going after, it was hidden well beneath the city. The corridors twisted and turned so that the whole thing was located under a rather small surface area. Someone with the wealth and connections might have bought the plot and then simply used their influence to keep the city from building under it.

It was when they had gone a good way down that gunfire suddenly came from up ahead. The bullets ricocheted off Cir, going this way and that. Most people ducked down out of their way and a few moved to protectively block them. It was full automatic fire up ahead.

Now would be thr time to find out if she really had hurt herself, damaged her Gifts with that last out. Rio dodged past Cir and created a telekenetic shield, a wall of force that filled the hall, protecting those behind it.

Then she 'walked' it down the corridor towards the emplacements that held the weapons. There were not people standing and holding the weapons but pintle mounts that the weapons were attatched to and belt fed from hoppers underneath the weapons.

Once the shieled was down to the emplacements and the hall now safe, Rio let out a sigh of relief. She knew she was tiring more rapily that she normally did, but she also knew that she hadn't fully recovered from her exertions just an hour or so before.

'There I can hold it till we can get past them" She told Cir.

"I sense minds near." Anz announced. "But clouded with rage. They are not in control of themselves. Something has been done to them. So much rage. It is...it is hard to maintain the link."

"How powerful do you think they are?" asked Barak. He had been out like Rio had and only had a normal human physiology to support him. It hurt him just to walk but he wasn't stopping.

"Not exactly human." Anz said. "Not anymore. They've been altered in both mind and body."

"That explains it." Barak said. "I think that someone was trying to use their studies of the many paranormals captured here to create some kind of artificial supermen, a project whichc failed rather badly."

"Then these are innocent people." Damaris said. "We have to treat them as such."

We have to treat them as such."

"Yes bet we also can't allow them to hurt themselves, others, or us. I'm not much good at gently dealing with such, but is there some one who could take them to unconsciousness? 'Put them under' while we deal with whomever did this?"

Rio looked at the others. She could see the thin white line of pain about Barak's, and gave him a sympathetic look. She could deal with her hurt, but very much disliked it in others.

Barak smiled back weekly and kept going. In another moment, they were in the thick of it. The people down here had had something done to them. Their skin was discolored, their faces broken, their figures mishappen. They had assymetic bodies. Many of them had hunchbacks or odd growths or hair in the wrong places. They looked like monsters and they seemed to act like them too. They charged at the band of escapees without a thought, scratching and clawing and punching and kicking and biting, all with intent to kill. They seemed driven only by a mindless, animal rage.

Though her heart bled for them, these victims of unspeakable tampering, she would not let them hurt the others, or herself.

Rio moved between the oncoming creations and Barak. She remembered that his display had said no powers. He had probably been following a line of investigations - she also remembered that he worked as a private detective - and been captured when he got too close to the monterous truth. She also tried to grab Kari and get hin behind her, as she remembered the young man also was unpowered.

Her attacks were aimed as much as possible to take those swarming over the escapees into unconsciousness as swiftly as possible, though she would kill if there was no other choice. And as she fought physically she fought useing her Gifts as well.

A pair of hands that ended in talloned fingers clawed her, leaving parallel bloody furrows as Rio chose to forego a defensive move in order to clasp both hands together and deliver a precisely targetedhard strike to the insane - no you couldn't call them insane her mind flickered with rage over the thought they had never beeen sane to begin with, poor things females right temple - right where it would cause near instantaneous unconsciousness - a coup counter coup concussion.

The thought vanished as her telekensis lashed out grabbing the arms of one othe the abominations and whileing it around in a fast circle that knocked too others from their feet.

When the last of the creatures had been subdued, Barak leaned against the wall. "We need to figure out what possible motive could have been involved before we proceed further."

Rio looked worriedly at the obviously exhausted Barak, and grimmaced. "I only worked with the investigations department a few times, and most of my training was not geared towards that end of things. I'll help as best I can, but you look about to pass out and we're all injured and are exhausted."

She looked at the others, and spread her hands in a half helpless gesture. "I don't even know much about where we are. It seems to be a nation called the Resurgent Dream, but I really know nothing about its culture, history, politics and such. I couldn't even really guess as to why, save for the old cliche." Rio raised her voice in a not too far off imitation of two popluar in her nome nation cartoon characters "So what do we do tonight Brain?" "Why plot how to take over the world, of course!"

"This wasn't a power play." Barak commented confidently.

"You came here with someone?" Barak asked Rio.

I was with a woman named Ladina Rast." Rio replied as she took a moment to examine her wounds. "She said she was a Member of Parliament from Zutern. When I escaped from the pod, I got her out too, and we found a stairway up and out on to what appeared to be a commonplace city street. She called the police and they sent an pofficer to retrieve her."

She frowned worriedly "At least I hope the man was a police officer. She seemed to believe he was. I cam back to the holding room to try and get others free. Hopefully she'll convince the authorities of what happened and they will come charging in to save the day."

She shook her head, a bitter smile on her lips "Or more like they'll do nothing or worse are actually in on this horror"

Knowing that no matter how she hurt, there were those who were hurt worse Rio began exploring the room, looking for any thing that might be of use, and most importantly a way out.