The sun lorded over a forgotten land. Machines roamed these blasted horizons, working tirelessly and impatiently. The largest ones reshaped the continents, the smallest ones coaxed life-giving air from the soil. Between them were many others of their kind in various sizes, toiling, repairing each other and disassembling the gargantuan war machines of a bygone era to forge new workers. In a few thousand more years, the seeded bacteria would givethe world an atmosphere capable of supporting life.. but then the return of oxygen to the air would mean they would start to rust and die. They accepted this unavoidable fate with the machine equivalent of joy - a task well completed, a purpose fulfilled. And humanity, as always, dreamed on. Prologue: Colored marbles skittered across the plaza. Children's toys, bright balls of glass, potentially dangerous if you step and slip on them. These were not merely innocent toys though, as aptly demonstrated by how they gouged ten-foot-wide crates in the pavement, and flung passers-by into the air like so much... cannon fodder. Which in a sense, they were. Lighting flashed across the plaza. Two men dressed in red armor- jackets hefted their Lightning-Throwers (aka Energized Particle Rifle) and began to reduce the area's property values with wild abandon. They avoided the marbles, the kites, and the yoyos being thrown at them with the frenetic determination of the underpaid. Their quarry, sensing the tide of battle was turning against them, leapt and roof-hopped with ease of those who laugh at the laws of gravity. The two hunters stopped, and tried to regain their breath. The taller one espied an undamaged Ferrari nearby... and grinned. He sheared off the car's roof with his EPR, and when the smell of vaporized metal faded jumped in to hotwire the car. He shouted at his younger partner to hurry and then burned rubber when he was in. As they passed through downtown, they noticed they flicked uncertain looks at the destruction left behind. Sure, the job didn't pay well - but the thing about it was that as long as no civilians were around to harm, they could cause as much property damage as they wanted in their pursuit of the enemy. He flicked a look at the scattered remains of people... on the ground... on the walls... everywhere. He'd soon gotten used to such carnage, they'll all be back to health and remembering nothing of their 'death' in the next Reset anyway. But only if they managed to take down the damned freaks that killed these people in first place. Reality won't revert as long as the source of the disruption still existed. People like him existed to keep people from discovering they were actually immortal. "Hey, Base, this is D-One. Lost sight of the targets near 102nd and 34th street. Pachbell's Park, I think." "RD spikes are headed towards the North Harbor ." replied a smooth, feminine voice through the headset he wore. "Apparently, they think they can actually HIDE from me. Ohoho-" The hunter quickly shut off the link. Harbor, eh? The City relied primarily on transport and trade, but ever since the Orbital Elevator and the Train Line, there had been a dwindling of of the merchantry strength. So North Harbor held mainly several beached hulls of the famed Super Cargo Carriers. And within one, the MGV JYUSENKYO, sat three... well, no one could really call them people anymore; though they had the appearance of Goth children, with white painted faces and numbers tatooed on their cheek. Even biologically, they were still children. But on a sub-sub-subatomic level... these were the most dangerous creatures you could ever find. They could control the very nature of universe itself, altering the nature of reality around them to suit their whims. They laughed, the strange hoarse sounds echoing within the rusted metal hulk. "That was so kooooool, man! Did you see how the guts were flying?" This boy has a '23' on his face. He pounded with his bony fist at the hull an applause to himself. "HAHAH! Damn right! We OWN3D those los3rs good!" said '98'. They drank in the feeling of power. They were, without a doubt, the God over these mundanes. They didn't remember what they had been before they were 'renewed', awaked to this power that lies within everyone. '34' looked pensive. "I don't know, man. This is all fun and all, but it feels wrong, you know?" '23' kicked him. "WUSS! What the fuck are you saying? You growing a conscience on me? '34' snarled. "All I'm saying is that it's useless, you know? They'll just be respawned later. Everybody respawns. I want to do HURT something permanently, you know?" A look of cold calculation spread over '23's face. It was soon however, replaced with a look of horror. Blood dripped down the small hole on his forehead, and as he dropped to the metal floor, his body flicked, began to glow blue, and then disappeared. '34' screamed, looked up and saw two men in red vests, with the word "MODERATOR" stitched into the lapels... "Oh, shit." "Banned." the two said at the same time, and pulled their triggers. A pair of 'Reset' Rounds slammed into the newbie's chest. He died, and somewhere... a mind rested. All was right with the world again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________________________________ Illuminati-fiction.net presents * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * THOSE WHO HUNT NEWBIES * * * * A DAC communityfic * * * * * * * * * * _______________________________________________________________________ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Net was alive. Humanity had taken the next step in evolution, that is to live beyond the limits of corpoereal flesh. People had now the option of jacking into the immense cyberspace, and live out their lives anew. As conditions on earth worsened, more and more people chose to upload their entire consciouness online, to await the time when the poisons cleared from the skies and life again returned to the ground. Vaults had been made to shelter people from the ongoing devastation. However, it seemed that man's aptitude for destruction had been exercised too much, and that this time, they've done their job CORRECTLY. Their chosen task of exterminating each other was finally accomplished - the Earth was dead, and soon makind itself would be. The Vaults wouldn't be able to support humanity forever, the small pockets of them that remained. There only hope was in the future, the far far future - we're talking a million or so years here, for the world to recuperate. Man can't live that long. His machinery however, could - if it didn't have to bother with keeping people alive, disposing of their waste and keeping them entertained. Detached Arcological Community was the first of the 'Brave New Worlds' built. The people who 'lived' in it just called it DUCK AND COVER or just DAC instead. The Upload was a chaotic process, and everyone who enters the Net gets a complete rewrite of personality. Everyone is a Newbie at the start,innocent and anarchistic. However, most outgrow this state and attain the sense of identity they will assume as they walk through the streets of DAC, 'Role-playing' that this was the Real World, not an image made to comfort them as we waited eons upon eons for nature to re-assert herself. Over time, people forgot. It had been thousands of years since the Upload, and for many there was simply no other Real World than what they experienced. The other three Vaults, created their own digital realms to be populated by people, and connected to each other. These different realities then became subject to cross-migration. There really weren't that many people in DAC. Some opted for cold- sleep, to be reawakened later. The most popular option is not to leave a body at all, but have the robots then grow for the a new body when it was time to awaken. These bodies could be biosculpted to fit the personality they wanted to use forevermore. Those that live in DAC had set lifetimes so as not to strain the server... but until their cycle ends, they simply couldn't die. Effectively immortal in the literal sense, Humanity's consciousness was now a precious thing and had to be preserved. Human minds created the fundamental reality. No machine consciousness could equal its ability to interpret sensory input, it could craft easily something that would stand even from nothingness. To the sleeping mind, there was no difference between a dream and reality. All it needed was to be active, to be constantly stimulated. Fifteen million minds rose, slept, lived, and layered memories upon memories. The hope of whoever designed the idea of a Perpertual City, was that eventually human beings would outgrow their need for war. When they get what everything always wanted - then perhaps they'd stop being so -stupid- as a collective species. Because people were people, and there were those who instinctively wanted to destroy Order, even if it was the last bastion of humanity. These fools were called Newbies. As said, people forgot. Newbies are those who awaken to the fact that nothing around them is real. No one really knows what triggers this change of perspective, but it is inherently dangerous. Ordinary people find themselves with extraordinary abilities - and the tempation is simply too great to resist. Newbies. The new version of humanity. It is theorized by the few who have regained knowledge of humanity's state of existence (and remained sane somehow) that when the robots have deemed the world worthy again for human life, EVERYBODY would become newbies. Those that are left will decide the future of the species. Until that time however, these beings are a nuisance for people who want to live out their lives in contentment. It was a precious thing, contement - the human race had never been able to just sit back and let things flow... people on the whole were far nicer than any point in history. There hadn't been open war in over... no one's exactly sure but it was a VERY long time ago! So exists the Moderators. They 'moderate' the level of chaos in the new human worlds. **** "Elanire, take a transcript for the handbook." the disturbingly normal guy said to his secretary. She opened her word processor and made a 'okay' sign. "Everything functions according to specifed rules. The fact that we don't know ALL of these rules doesn't mean that they aren't there or that they aren't in effect. Society functions by rules. Science, by rules. Relationships by rules, and reality by rules. The thing is - once you know these rules... you may now try to figure out ways to bend... even break them." While most who find themselves newbies turn into Normal People after some time, living again within the rules of accepted reality, there are those who would never outgrow this state of being. Newbies aren't children, they could be cunning and malicious as adults. Hell, a disproportionate number of them ARE adults. Everyone got to choose what body they would have when entering DAC, and all citizens had the right to Play God to themselves. Newbies GAIN again this superuser access to the system. They can alter themselves however they see fit, and while they could never be entirely unkillable, they can violate many of the established laws...the more they change themselves... the more insane they get. For newbieness is roughly quitable to insanity. How else would you define someone who refuses to accept reality? The knowledge that THERE IS NO ESCAPE, whatever you do - this is what drives nebies into a nominal state again, or to the level of an emotionally-crippled child grafted to a superweapon. "Moderators also know these rules. Most of us have been awakened to the fact that the world functions by layers of upon layers of rules that define reality. We that remember both the ignorant bliss of being mundane and the sadistic glee of being pure newbie - we are chosen to uphold these laws set by our ancestors. We lie between the sanity and power, and are affected by an entirely different set of rules from mundane or newbie." He sighed. "As your read this, and as you leave to interact with the world outside, remember - that you are separate from them forever. Walk the fine line between normie and newbie. Slip, succumb - and you die. We find you, we kill you. End of story." "Don't you think that last bit's a little depressing, boss?" "Eh." He shrugged. "No one ever said it was going to be easy. The afterlife kind of sucks that way." "We're not dead yet." "Semantics, semantics.." **** It had been a run-of-the-mill day, generally. The sun was shining. The birds we singing. The lawyers were lawyering. A red car pulled up to a McDonalds and ordered a pair of Happy Meals. Stainless munched on a burger and waited. His companion was not at all happy, but was at least content. The Snoopy toy, Snoopy as Joe McCool, was exuding enough coolness to frost half the windshield, and the young man was etching a stick-figure drawing on it. Below the figures were the words DIE DOLM DIE. The dispatch radio bleeped. "Hey, Stainy." a voice from seemingly all around the car said. French fries rained, as the moderator nearly jumped in surprise. Again he cursed him employer. The car's full 3D sound system was based around a simple design, really - missile warning. The beeps should help the driver know where it was coming from. Add a little landbound sonar, and it'll help avoid collisions. A blind person could drive the car. Then some bright idiot decided to expand the system to include Theatrics Audio's YOUR EARDRUMS HAVE IMPLODED technology. It wouldn't have mattered, except that somehow the car's internal comms were directly linked to it. Removing the connection made the car simply not start, for some inexplicable reason. Again he considered getting a normal car. And again, he relented with the knowledge he just wouldn't find a DeLorean on the market. Hell, this car withstands at least seven carnapping attempts every single day. And no one sells cars with two centimeters of battleship-grade armoring, or a MiniFusion engine. "Don't call me that!" he yelled. There wasn't heat in his voice though. "It's StainLESS, not stainY. You make me sound like something out of a garbage can or something." "But it's so CUTE! Did you know that st'anee is Alvish for 'steadfast'? It fits you." "So? I don't like it." "But I do." replied the girl. There was steel in her voice. "And what are you planning to do about it?" Stainless stopped. If there was something he'd learned (beaten into his skull, actually) was that you DON'T get dispatch angry at you. The girl on the other end may look like a willowy young Alvii... that's because she IS an Alvii. It's not merely the current fad of young girls, that was woman with nearly two hundred years of combat experience behind that innocent smile. Men have fought for the right to protect that smile, and more men have grown to fear it when they realize she didn't need protecting. And she holds everybody's duty sheet. Being nice to Elanire (or Firyal, when in a ruthless, Alvish mood) was the only way for you to get easy duty, threatening her was completely out of the question. "Okay, okay... what have you got for me?" "Three newbies just showed up. Looks like these are pretty fresh, we might still be able to bring them back to their normie selves. It's at a drugstore three blocks from you - I've marked it your navmap." And at that, she clicked off. A display window popped up as a holographic layer in front of his windshield. A blinking pink bunny face showed him where the targets would be. He resisted the urge to groan. "Well, get going already!" said his partner, Arch. The kid had a distinctly eager grin on his face. "Yeah, yeah..." Stainless was tempering his ethusiasm. After all, you can't really expect anything when dealing with newbies... The DAC police were a rather efficient lot. On the ball, they were a lot nicer than SFC's Protectorate and not as hopelessly inept as SCC's Militia. Only NEC's Samurai were less likely to get killed at soon as a newbie showed up. This was not to imply of course, that they ever had a chance of taking down a newbie. The DAC-P were used to weirdness, and there was again that familiar sight of several police teams... VERY EFFICIENTLY.. running away. The DeLorean slid into the space the police vacated. The drugstore was a mess, a large gaping hole on its side showed what looked like a large purple... turtle? gorging itself on pharmaceuticals. Stainless pulled out his EPR pack from beneath his seat. "Oi, orders are to capture." Arch grumbled as he put back the bazooka and took out an EPR pack instead. The two moderators stepped out of ther vehicle, with appropriate theme music coming from the car's external speakers. Which had the effect of attracting the big purple newbie's attention. Once again Stainless cursed his boss, for putting style about survival. The idiot probably had a hero complex, since he couldn't be on the field like the moderators he employed. The newbie turned, and spat out a large ball of plasma at them. The two jumped aside, the blast spattering harmlessly against the car's armored frame. Arch answered it with a thread of lightning. "Yeah? Well, eat this!!" he shouted. And eat it the newbie did. The turtle grew larger, its snout lengthened until with a disgusting splortch.. what looked to be a chaingun poked out of its maw. Stainless had only time enough to utter an "Oh, my." before a wild torrent of plasma bolts peppered the scene. Within the space of second, the moderators had leapt clear almost a hundred feet from their car. The plasma fire merely pinked off it, but behind the car the shots burrowed into a building, perforating its support columns - and with a sudden roar half the facade came crashing down... "MY CAR!" Stainless screamed in anguish. He glanced at his partner. "Arch. KILL!" The kid grinned. From his belt he took out a cylinder, which he attatched to the end of the EPC. The silencer-like addition was a Reset Switch. It converted the lighting blast to a more lethal charge capable of shunting brains back into coldsleep. People could not really die. They can however, have the apparent state of dying, but it differs upon the rules set upon the World. However newbies ignore these rules. The only way to stop them was to affect Reality itself to recognize them again. EPCs with their diffuse electrical charge obeyed standard Rules, so while it was fatal to anyone else the most it could do against newbies was to stun them. Reset-based weapons however had a direct link to the real world. Getting killed with these was a 'reformat' command, tagging which brains were ready to be pulled off the server and allow the memories to fade. It was the closest thing to permadeath anyone can have, since the next time you'd be 'born' was completely random. Not that you'd remember anything of your previous 'life' anyway. Arch peeked out from behind his cover, a tipped-over ice cream truck, and pulled the trigger. Instead of a wild stream of energized particles, what came out was a focused bluish beam. He'd turned the EPC to a PPC. The bolt shrieked as it lanced towards the monster, amputating its left shoulder. The newbie let out a growl, it was wanted to scream but had its mouth full. Stupid newbies; the moderators both smirked and then ran off in opposite directions with superhuman speed as it stood in indecision on who to attack first. Arch waited for his PPC pack to cool down enough for the next shot. Fifteen seconds was too long a recharge time! He unslung it from his shoulders and rapidly disassembled it. Soon he had a Compression Rifle, a repeating-laser carbine. He grinned. Unlike his partner, he liked his boss' style. Giving them reconfigurable weapons more than made up for his other... eccentricities. Stainless took potshots at the newbie. Like his companion, he'd abandoned the idea of taking it down with an EPC... but unlike Arch, he an entirely different gun instead. A silvered .45 Desert Eagle in his hand, loaded with miniature HEAT rounds... ah. He had his own definitions of cool. As laser in machine-gun stacatto attacked the newbie from the other side, he reloaded. Specialized Ruleset guns like used were more effective in the Reality they were made for. It would be useless outside of DAC, but while in the city no one, not even newbies, could ignore its lethality. Although since it conformed to the Special Rules, unlike the EPC, which could be Translated from one Reality to another (like say, from DAC to a hard fantasy setting), it had its faults. Such as needing to be reloaded with real ammunition. So what? He liked his gun. It was DAMN cool. That he was similar in some respects to his boss didn't mean he couldn't hate the bastard. What was it that Elanire said? Three newbies? Where are the other two? He rolled aside in reflex as a large boulder occupied his former hiding place. His peripheral vision noted something looking like a troll, with a gigantic sling. "I RULE OVER YOU A-gluk!!* Newbies had this tendency to yell before attacking, to sing praise to themselves. When this tradition started, it wasn't known - but this part of their insanity at least made things work in the favor of Those That Hunt Newbies. Stainless took the open chance, then whistled at his handiwork. Again, just between the eyes. That's why he was called Stainless - his work was just that neat. He noted that as the newbie faded off as it was reset by the Server, to leave just a bold outline made of the word BANNED endlessly repeating, closely spaced to appear to be a red chalk line,.. there wasn't even a drop of blood on the 2009 Corvega that it had been standing on. Newbies ranged from merely deranged to bordeline psychotic to completely whacked. A lot of newbies had 'superpowers', it takes a certain form of mental flexibility to dementia to alter one's own e-physical form to such extent. We normal people outgrow the need for such attention-getting quickly. If you had superpowers, you weren't human. And if you weren't human, we're allowed to shoot you with moral impunity. So goes the handbook. The more insane a newbie is, the more powerful it is; so goes the general rule. Newbies that have lost all their senses and mold themselves into unthinking monsters were the most common and most destructive type. TWHN is called up simply because normal weapons won't be effective against the things' obscene AC/DR... Armor Class and Damage Resistance. AC is the innate Reality Distortion around a newbie, shots fire against have the tendency to miss or misfire. That is aptly demonstrated by despite the impressive rates of fire Arch and the big newbie were dealing at each other... they were yet to score real damage. The scenery around them was already so much rubble. DR refers to a newbie's tendency to absorb the force of anything directed against them, be it fire, bullets or even magic. They ignored most of the Rules, and so only specialized weapons made for Moderators could kill them. Moderators too had their own AC/DR levels, though much less so than newbies. The Newbie-hunter ducked as another one appeared, sailing through the air, looking for all intents and purposes... a large tattery black rag. Death motif? Oh please. Like that's original. It slashed at him with its scythe, Stainless dove to the ground with supernatural speed and came up shooting. His bullets refused to penetrate cloth. Where had they been HIDING?! He jumped as it swung again, horizontally this time. On the scythe's return arc, he swiped it out of the newbie's hand while simultaneously giving it a Boot To The Face. In a left-handed swing, he sliced the spectre into two. The weapon disappeared at the same time as its former owner. "DIE YOU ANNOYING BASTARDS!" bbrakakakakakakakakakakakak *whiiiing* BOOMbrakakakak kakakBOOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Stainless sighed, as his partner let loose with his miniature-turbolaser composite rifle. The EPC pack could be combined with the tool belt in SO many ways. Archancelor was a newbie, or rather HAD been a newbie. But his love for heavy ordinance could be turned towards the Force of Good, as the young man with spiky hair hated other newbies with such ferocity as had never before seen. Apparently he was a sedate, religious person in a former life. Heh. He was currently trapped in the form of a sixteen-year-old boy, with the temperament to match. He is learning though, the moderator had to admit. Sooner or later the last vestiges of newbie-madness would leave the kid and he could either reintegrate himself into society or like Stainless... continue Hunting Newbies. "That's enough, Arch. I think he's dead." "Are you sure? I think I still see an atom of it somewhere..." "He's DEAD, man. And so is the building behind him. And the building behind that. " The tall man nursed a rising migraine. Too much collateral damage, he hoped that the drugstore that had been standing there just before Arch came in had Newbie Attack insurance. Or that The City wouldn't take it out of his salary again. Their PipLADs (Personal Information Pad for Logistics Area Domain, the wristheld comm/puters that were the imported replacements for cellphones in DAC, beeped. "I'll take it" he told Arch. "Go check around... maybe there's more newbies about." "Yeah, yeah. Lazy bastard." the teenager muttered. His own PipLAD went into Scanner mode. "I've got a ping! Woo..." Stainless opened up the wrist-communicator, and a face flickered into view on a small holographic window. It was of a slight young woman, with gentle elfin features. "Hey, Stainy.." she purred. "What's up?" Okay, yeah. So she was cute. But even a free-lance moderator like Stainless had to admit that she scared the living whey out of him. And here she was, working as their secretary ... life was weird. "Boss wants ya back." "But there's still one target we haven't -" "He says, NOW!" she said cheerily, but for a half-second or so, her face flickered to reflect the expression of the man she was quoting. Damn scary, how she can do that. "Okay, okay..." Stainless groaned. He close his PipLAD and hooted at Arch. "Playtime's over, Arch. It's back to the office we go." The teenager's seemed to consumed with mournful regret, looking so much like a puppy that someone kicked, that Stainless felt like laughing. "The DAC Guards can handle that." "But I WANTED to kill it." Stainless shook his head, and walked over to the Corvega. He fiddled with its latch, and opened it. "Come on, Arch." Into the driver's seat he went, sparing a gaze to the still burning remains of what had once been his car. Damn newbies. Arch reluctantly got into the car, shoved his rifle into the back seat, and moodily said nothing as their jacked car weaved through the branching paved roads and into to the run-down districts left behind by Updates, until they reached the main office - thirty minutes later. **** A squat brick building surrounded by disused warehouses, this was the perfect haven for anyone who wanted refuge away from both the chippy braindead optimism of the City, and the creatures that plauge it. Not that it meant this place was safe, of course. Now and then giant rats would venture out from the sewers, strange ships would moor at the docks, and various things illegal would happen. Newbies and tax collectors avoided this place like plauge. Which suited the freelance Moderators just fine. It was convenient to have the Black Market at their doorstep, and criminals were really nice folk once you got to know them. As long as you both understood that a doublecross and backstabbings were traditional with every deal, things would turn out fine. Or dead. It didn't really matter all that much. Making their way carefully through claymore land mines scattered all over the floors and corridors, they soon came to a door, room 341. THOSE WHO HUNT NEWBIES(TWHN) Enterprises A NEWBIE PROTECTION COMPANY Thus said the door. The task of controlling the newbiepedemic used to be part of the DAC's own police force. However, things had escalated beyond control as the Newbies for once, banded together to attack the DAC's own Police Headquarters. Half the building was atomized before the newbies could all be Banned. Most of the damage were caused by the Anti-Newbie Task Force itself. If you remember the adage 'Beware ye of hunting monsters, lest ye become a monster too', it somehow applied here. Massive property damage was often the result of a Newbie attack- caused by both sides. The Police force simply didn't have the base doctrine to cover it - crime, ordinary crime, was bad enough in DAC. To deal with insane superpowered freaks was starting to drain both reserves and sanity of the police force. The suicide and dishorable discharge from service rate, was really high, three years ago. When the Newbie Protection Company was formed and opened itself to franchising, it was hailed the saviour of the City. A beleaguered saviour, given what it would have to contend with(miles and miles of paperwork, more dangerous to the mind than fighting the newbies themselves) but appeciated nonetheless. Former Anti-Newbie police found themselves gainfully working again, in a job that they had grown to love. NPC's secret of sucess was to open itself out, sponsoring small agencies willing to handle newbies and newbiecrime. Over time, it became the liason for all cases that involve newbies, and every Vault and every Cit-e had an NPC branch. The masses were to be kept in blissful ignorance of the newbie threat, so waht if the countryside they lived in was full of monsters, that there was a good chance vampires DID live in their sewers... as long as no one knows that at any moment, anyone could find power and knowledge beyond their wildest dreams... carte blanche. TWHN was a relatively minor operator in the newbiehunting business, but notable by having survived in the face of other competition. It even had connections to the other BNW's. Stainless pushed aside the door(the lock had been broken not so long ago, and besides - there wasn't anything to steal in there anyway). It was a small two-room office. Despite that TWHN employed half a dozen or so freelance Moderators, there had never arisen a need for all of them to come and assemble at the office. They mostly just reported in, got their assignements, and then went back to collect their checks. Elanire sat behind the desk facing the door, absobed the game she'd bootlegged from the Sword Coasts, a far-off Reality where people role- played a less... normal life. It was a crystal that projected something similar to a holographic game screen, their magical equivalent of a Playstation. "*ahem*", the moderator coughed, trying to draw her attention. No dice. Baldur's Gate XII and a half-naked Drizzt were the only things she was able to see. A small rivulet of drool was hanging down her pert lips. A rather large bowie knife was embedded into the wood of her tabletop. Stainless sighed. "Is the boss in?" Elanire continued to fantasize. "Ookay. So we're just going in now. Stay in your happy happy land." He wasn't sure which Elanire he liked better - drooling fangirl Elanire, or testy knifeweilding maniac Elanire(who called herself Firyal, and had the tendency to make the even most innocuous thing explodable). She really was a nice girl, but having fought and then banned one too many Newbies... Stainless just shook his head sadly and went into the back room with Arch trailing behind. Dungy walls decorated here and there with patches of peeling wallpaper. Framed were clippings of newspaper front pages that proclaimed "NEWBIEPIDEMIC IS SPREADING!" "EVERYONE DESPERATE! POLICE FORCES OVERWHELMED BY SURGE OF L33t.", "CAPS LOCK CAUSES BRAIN CANCER!", and "SOLUTION FOUND! DESPERATE TIMES CALL FOR DESPERATE MEASURES!" One large photograph, fading with time, of several young men and women seated together atop a fearsome-looking mech unit. 101st Pan- Dimensional Newbie-Crushing Task Force:4291, was written into the lower left corner. And in there, sat their boss, a reedy man wearing a pinstripe blue suit and sporting prematurely receding hair. Nevertheless, he looked far younger than his years - and many a time had clients been surprised into thinking that the manager of this legitimized asassin's agency was a teenager barely out of college. Still, he was far older than he looked, and was the division chief of this little company.. Bluepencil was his callsign, B-pen the name he preferred to be called. He used to be Editor for some newspaper, how he got into the business of Newbie- slaying, was beyond their understanding. He clicked off the videophone just as they came in. "Ah, Stainless! Arch! Good to see you boys again!" he said cheerily. Maybe even too cheerily. You could almost hear 'so I can DEVOUR YOUR SOULS!!' tacked on at the end of it. "Guess who just called?" "Uh.. Satan?" B-pen was scary of an entirely different sort. The weird part was of how he was NOT scary. It was all that effort expended to appear so non-threatening, even downright semi-pathetic, that was disquieting. "Haha.. close, but no. It was Kreegle, our Lord Mayor. Seems he has a job out for us." Uh, oh. This can't be good. "What kind of job?" "Actually quite simple. A newbie appeared over at his house and kidnapped the Vice-Mayor." "...." "...stupid newbie." Arch muttered. "Yep. We're there to talk Monsieur Killzig out of spilling too much blood into the Mansion's carpeting." "We? Uh, boss.." the Aussie began to gesticulate wildy."When you say we, do you mean.. WE? As in you and us?" "Stop that, I don't know semaphore. And, yes." "And somehow not get killed in the process? Boss, we're moderators. Not miracle workers." "Or martyrs." Arch added. "You don't have a choice, either." B-pen continued sunnily. "It's about time that you two were given a learning assignment." While the overall record of the Fourth Pair: Stainless and Arch, was good.. they were both still fairly inexperienced. Most of the newbies they've been sent to eliminate were the real 'newbie newbies', unknowing of how to control the inane power that Newbieness brings. Besides, they wear red shirts. THAT WAS REASON ENOUGH. Although all moderators were expendable (redshirts, neh), Dan, Kashluk, and the others weren't that much fun to throw around - they were of better use alive and on the hunt. Moderators had powers, for lack of a better term. Stainless has his suprising accuracy. Arch has the high AC/DR holdover from his newbieself. Elanire has a shitzophrenic lock on her abilities, as Firyal she could be downright terrifying. B-pen has... the Aura of Absolute Normality. Stainless sighed again, and resigned to his fate."Okay, okay.. we're going there. I better get a raise for this." "Fine." "I want a raise too!" Arch piped up. "All right." Stainless turned sharply, horror apparent on his face. Apocalypse cometh! "You okay, B-pen? Usually it would take a crowbar to pry you away from a dollar." "It doesn't matter. You're both fired." The two Moderators dropped. "FIRED?!" "Now you're both re-hired, on probation. At half normal salary, of course.." "Listen, you..." "BUT! Since you've shown such good behaviour recently, I think it's time YOU WERE GIVEN A RAISE! Now you get to earn as much as other people working and bleeding honestly for their money, isn't that swell?" "... I hate you." "I know." Their boss grinned. **** But before confronting the Flaming Sword of Great Malevolence and Prussian Chocolate, aka Killzig, certain things must first be taken care of. This was another thing that separated men from newbies. Real men make preparations. To weep at a sucking chest wound is considered bad form, so ALWAYS WEAR POWER ARMOR, kids. Except when you're about to have sex. But you really SHOULDN'T be doing that yet anyways. We'll shoot your parents for their negligence in teaching you propriety... Oh, yeah. Sign the petition. Power armor should have breasts. It's getting harder to tell who's who inside. Beneath the run-down office building was a basement/garage of sorts. It was here that several vehicles were parked, most of them semi- obsolete. The newer ones, like the one Stainless had drove in, were 'salvaged' from the 'battlefields'. Since the owners were already being reset somewhere, they won't care that their car has been stolen.. or that they had even owned such a car in the first place. Stainless moved to his recent spoils of war, but B-pen waved him away. "A Corvega? Too conspicuous, where we're going... we're taking my car." "You have a car?" And here they thought he had a geas to remain within three hundred meters of the office at all times. The man actually LIVED and owned this run-down building. Even then he preferred to sleep in a folding bed within the office itself, working on paperwork deep into the night. Behind an treadless APC that had obviously seen better days, they found their ride. The blue-clad one gestured proudly towards it. "A minivan? Boss, you drive a MINIVAN?! Don't you have ANY SELF- RESPECT WHATSOEVER?!!" B-pen frowned, just a bit. "Technically, it's too small even for that. It's a compact car, a mini-compact in fact. The chassis class, I think, is called a Mini-Compo." Arch stared at the small car as if it was a humongous mutated cockroach. The car was a cross between a Yugo and an apoplectic Mystery Machine. Disgust was clear on his face. "What? Okay, it's small and unimpressive. But it's fast, has a quick turning radius, and fuel consumption's minimal. Frankly, I think everyone should drive one of these things... the capacity to dodge newbie fire is worth the -" "Self-humiliation" Stainless cut in. "I was going to say cost." B-pen glared. "This is vintage car! Do you have any idea how much it's worth now?" He sidled up to the compact and patted its frame almost affectionately. "It's far..FAR.. better than losing transportation every other mission. Maybe I should cut off all your vehicle insurance allocations and just have you all use the subway?" "Okay, we won't badmouth the car anymore. Can we get going now?" the younger moderator yawned out. "I wanna kill me some newbie." B-pen reached into his pockets and after some time picking out the right key from his filled keyring, unlatched the door.. then went to settle himself in the back seat. He leaned out the left window. "Hey, I'm not your chaffeur. Drive, Stainy." Stainless scowled, ground his teeth again, but made no complaints. Arch buckled himself into the riding shotgun. "Take us to uptown first. We need to pick up supplies." "Roger that, boss." **** Uptown was like a different world. The twentieth century came alive in uptown, which was separated into three sections- earlies, golden, and happening - also 1900-1935, 1935-1969, 1970-1999. The Cybercities each tried to evoke a facet of what makes humanity. DAC, being the prototype, chose to devote itself into showing the most frantic period in human history, the 20th to 21st century... the rush of progress and discovery that marked an unconscious need within the racial organism. The NeuralNet could be thought of a massive drive, and the different Realities are different Operating Systems on different partitions. These states of existence normally cannot interfere with each other except on certain contact points, their capital and source Cyber Cities. To the north was an island, the original SF City. SF used to mean San Francisco, the island was supposed to be modeled on that ancient earth metropolis. Over time though, the interest in high technology and the establishment of standard Rules set it apart from the rest of the Vault Network. Far above this island is the Tikonov Space Station. The reality based is high-tech, the ruling is totalitarian, and war/crime/ negative thought was supressed. To the West is the city of Neo-Edo. The immense citadel was a strange amalgam of Rome and Tokyo, and the reality base is protoreligious. Gods exist and could be called upon to manifest in the Brave New World surrounding the city, and technology manifested itself in the crude attempts at using gunpowder and seige machines. Warlords and fortified castles dotted the land, and leadership changed hands often. Northwest more of it is the Sword Coast and its capital, The Cove. The Sword Coast was high fantasy, pure and chaotic. Magic was true, everything from dwarves to elves, to orcs, to dragons, roamed this ragged coastline. Mages, bards, paladins and sorcerers and other classes, found no end of things to do. The normal populations of these BNW's didn't acknowledge the existence of the others, as operating under different Rules. Their only contact with each other was through DAC. Its people thought of these other Realities merely as those of different nations. To SFC, where gold was easily replicatable, flowed wine from NEC. From SCC, rare furs and gems, to them are given superior worked alloys and oil. And so forth, goods trade hands to get from where it was common to where it was priceless. Many a time a vested interest in having dominion over DAC was expressed, and many a time had it been rebuffed. DAC is unique in that it's the only City, Reality, that can handle all the other's concepts. A healing potion will work in DAC just as well as nanopaste. As the first Brave New World built, its fundamental structure was open and less ridgid than the others and its people by virtue of choosing the 20th century as their setting, could adapt to different points of view. As testified by its massive harbor facilities, trade was the lifeblood of DAC. Completely surrounding it are deserts to discourage armies marching from West. Ground-based star-naval guns and autoturrets on walls halted any attempts from above. DAC's Navy is unsurpassed, and the raiders that menace the Sword Coast are blown away the moment they enter DAC territorial waters. Here in Uptown Left, were discos, bars, Trekhouses, and well- advertized brothels. Cars were of mixed ages, so were the people. DAC was where all the other Cities came together... to taste what it was like in the other cities, without actually going there(SCC was simply too eerie and SFC had strict immigration and tourism laws). Under B-pen's direction, the mini-compo darted through traffic until it came to a small bar called the 'On the Bounce'. "This is a 1980s bar in a 1970s region" Stainless noticed."Isn't that against the law or something?" "It's a 1979 bar. Kind of like Rock meets Disco." "So... there's a fighting ring inside?" "Yes." *** They disembarked and entered the place. It was filled with shouts and cheers, as two combatants in the raised dais in the center slugged it out. The music blared alternately disco fever and pink floyd, depending on which boxer was winning at the moment. The grungy rock advocate grabbed ahold of his enemy's large fluffed hair, and slid into a chokehold. As the white-suited disco man tried to break himself free, the speakers meantime switched to Kansas' 'Carry on My Wayward Son'. B-pen stood by the doorway and breathed in the carnage for a moment. Then, telling Arch and Stainless to take their eyes away from the foxy women.. and conceding, stopping to view with them for a minute the happy shapely bouncing things. 'Highway to Hell' however, reminded them of their duty. The NPC franchiser made his way to the bar counter. The bartender was a burly man sporting a full moustache. "Why are you wearing such an obviously fake moustache?" he asked him. The bartender beamed. "B-pen! Ah, it's good to see you again, my water brother(so I can DEVOUR YOUR SOUL)." "Hiya, OTB. Redux, why the moustache?" "My wife thinks it screams out 'hands off, faithfully married man'! What with all the singles in this place" he shrugged. "The wedding ring that I used to be wearing only made them more excited.. an illicit affair, you know? But I guess both the Disco chicks and the Rock girls think a full moustache is so.. last century. "You mean last.. ahh.. thirty-seventh century." B-pen said with an honest grin. "But, if it works... that's good to hear." "What brings you here to my side of the urban jungle? No, don't tell. Let me guess.. you want to see what I modded?" "The mad l00t that only you can mod w00t!" OTB groaned. "Please, no puns." With a nod to the two redshirts, he backed away from the counter and opened up the back door. The three moderators followed him. A light switch was flicked on. "I'm in heaven." Arch muttered. It was a large room, with white walls almost covered over with weaponry of all types, shapes and sizes. There were two flat glass tables at the middle of the room, and a small hyperterminal rested near an edge of each. "Pick and choose, my friends. I'm offering you the special 'water brother' discount." B-pen made a theatrical gesture, complete with snobbish grimace. "I've seen all these before, OTB. Don't you have anything new for me?" 'B-pen's used a a gun before?' Somehow Stainless found that very hard to believe. 'Pack o' lies.' He always took everything he overheard with a grain of salt... sometimes he wondered if he was the only sane one in the Moderators legion. Even though no one was sane who was a moderator. But OnTheBounce just laughed. "You lose interest too fast once you finally figure out something. I think I've got a few that will require you to put some thought into it.." He pressed a few buttons on one of the consoles, and recessed walls opened to reveal more hidden weapon panels. He reached up and plucked a strangely-shaped Assault Rifle. "How about this one? It's what the elite crew of the gravtank DAC ROSHAMBO weilds for personal firearms. I modded it, of course. Added heatsinks, stripped the metal casing and replaced it with lightweight cerafibre, rechambered it to accept either .5 or .331 rounds. The standard range of this baby is 900 metres on full-automatic, switch it to farsight mode and the sniper range is two kilometers. If you can see the target, that is. Also if someone closer can 'paint' the target, you can take the shot with complete confidence... see this? Those are 'Messenger' projectile rounds... GUIDED shells. You know... 'reach out and touch someone'? These bullets can perform small course corrections in flight." "Interesting. What does the crew of the battlecarrier DAC Saint Proverbius carry?" The gravtank ROSHAMBO and the carrier SAINT PROVERBIUS are the pride of DAC's Self-Defense Force. Layered with advanced hullplate composites and forged mithril, you needed a Tactical Nuke +5 to even dent them. Since DAC is the only place to enchant high-tech weaponry, those who face them are out of luck. Only newbies, who ignore the standard Rolls of Damage, can threaten these mighty vessels. OTB hmm'ed. "This one." He took another assault rifle, one that had a grenade launcher assembly. "Range is closer, but it's meant to be a skirmishing weapon... you should see the damage this thing can do. With a variety of loadouts, from grenade to .331 to incendiary to flare to flak to EMP pulse, it's best for someone used to fighting in close quarters. The SP's are trained to do that - either they're on their strike craft or they need to slug it out with newbies charging en masse the sides of the carrier." The DAC SAINT PROV doesn't have a seige main cannon to take out newbies from a distance like the DAC ROSH so they adapted their tactical doctrine to cause as much damage as possible in the shortest time. Again, B-pen refused to take the weapon. "I don't know.. it's not really 'me', neh? Neither of these fit my style." He thumbed the moderators behind him. "But they could use solid armaments... charge it to my card." He held up a Platinum MaestroCard. Triple-coated. Hesitantly, OTB took it from his fingers. "Something's going on." said the SF City refugee. "I don't suppose you're going to tell me what the heavy equipment is for?" "I don't know myself; I just have a bad feeling..." It should be noted by now that most moderators do not have normal given names. As to why is simple; the moment someone notices that it's weird for them to be named that way, is a sign of someone either turning newbie or that person is also another moderator. Mods share a brotherhood of sorts, theirs is a separate subculture developed through thousands of years. Stainless and Arch positively drooled at the guns given them. "Don't do that!" B-pen yelled, as quickly handed them his handkerchief and a salary deduction. "It can't rust, don't you worry." said OTB. He slid the MaestroCard into his hyperterminal and shifted half a million standard credits into his account. He was the supplier of whatever arms TWHN needed, and gave his repeat customers a sizable favor. With these funds, he put up an opening bid for a surplus vertibird. "Don't you have any infantry-level energy-based weaponry?" "You know that with the treaty in effect with 'Science Fiction' City... any nonconventional weaponry is -Out Of Character- and as such is severely illegal." "That means.. you have some." he grinned evilly. "Indeed." **** And then so, suitably armed, they made their way further uptown and into the suburbs. Also known as the Goldenhomes, 50's to early 60's region where the all sweetness and innocence in the air had been known to cause cavities in passing birds a-flight. _______________________________________________________________________ Chapter Two The stately Mayoral Mansion was a structure oozing with dignity. It was perched atop a cliff, overlooking the DAC Bay and the City itself, and below it was a series of caves and tunnels. And a giant robot. But that's not important to the plot right now. We're concerned with the carnage happening at the front lawn. And the mayor, weeping, because the giant robot's launch gantry was stuck, and he couldn't go out and play. "Zombies." Stainless deadpanned as the minicompo pulled by the Mansion's driveway. "Dragons." Arch said flatly. "Mass destruction." B-pen groaned. "Situation normal. Elanire." "Yes, boss?" The dispatcher's voice came out in Surround Sound. The car might be small and ugly, but it was fully-loaded with options. He opened up a foldaway control panel from behind the front seats. In less than half a cubic metre of space, was one of the most advanced and compact mobile HQs in their world. Chaos around the manor was nothing new. He and the others were moderators, with the power to ignore several rules of reality. Kreegle and the others that live within the Mansion were Administrators. Their power over reality was about as subtle as a kick to the teeth. They ARE the City itself, the entire Reality hinged upon their continued existence. These founders were the bedrock of their Brave New World. "Situation overview, if you please?" "There's serious RD going on, boss. I'm counting just one massive RD spike, probably a LevelBoss-class newbie. Do you want reinforcements?" The franchiser lowered the windows and sniffed the air. There was a slight tingling in the breeze, and more than just a signal of reality distortion, it was a frequency he hadn't felt since... He shook his head. Impossible. He began to work his terminal. Certain newbies retained enough sanity to do more than just perfrom random acts of violence, but to actually try and take over the world. Over time, a newbie either goes more and more insane.. or more intelligent, adapting to its newstate of being. Most moderators were once newbies, having regained sanity at the expense of their powers. Some 'older/more experienced' newbies go more than just maniacal... but megalomanical. They have full control over their powers and know the best occasion on which to use them. Newbies were rated according to their threat rating. From Z, or all the terrifying power of a small garden snail... to A. Codenamed the Akira-level threat. His computer made calculations, and gave the hidden newbie a rating of D. Dangerous. And suicidal, if it was trying to attack an admin. Only an Akira-level newbie can threaten, even kill... an admin. The universe itself was determined to protect these chosen few. Akiras were newbies with a admin powers, an admin awareness, an admin ego. He shuddered. He'd only seen one Akira-level newbie... he hadn't left his office for almost thirty years now. Just being near a newbie, even a pathetically underpowered one(considering), was still unsettling. His everpresent grin wavered slightly. The admins were the only people who could order him around. He had no idea why Kreegle was so insistent he personally accompanied the most expendable pair of moderators he had... for a moment he wondered if they had finally decided he was too much trouble and had to go under 'permanent and unrecoverable retirement'. "Send whoever we can spare from patrol duty." he said to Elanire. At the very least, additional moderators could be used as perimeter scouts. Only a moderator, or newbie, can detect a newbie. Sensors can detect minute changes in the environment and mark them as Reality Distortions. The extent of the distortion... the 'spike' in the meter, could be used to guage a newbie's power but it wasn't completely accurate. Large masses of low-threat newbies in one spot made for for a taller spike than one high-threat newbie. Admins also had this annoying tendency to dampen RD spikes. They themselves emitted Normality itself, stabilizing Reality wherever they go. Better then, to err on the side of caution. On a city like DAC, with five million people, newbies were a daily statistic. Pulling away his moderators from the city proper meant that rival companies would pick up more newbie bountry, but the safety of the admins were of prime importance. Admins were unique in that they retained memory of themselves when they respawn, and they respawn in full strength. Nevertheless, in the brief period (a week or so) that an admin lies dead, newbie counts in the populace skyrockets. Even he didn't want a repeat of the newbiepedemic of sixty years ago. He closed his eyes and let his senses free. The battle instincts of a trained moderator was really the only reliable guide in these situations. Arch eeped as he found his seat popping up into the air and turning into a miniature turret. He grinned as he felt the trigger of a gatling dropping into his palm. Stainless screamed as the car went into turbo mode and smashed through the Mayoral Gates. 'Ride of the Valkryies' sounded. B-pen chuckled evilly. This was why he lived in just above abject poverty, so he could afford his ludicrously expensive and dangerous toys. Buahaha. They plowed through mindless zombie hordes, and slid to a stop right in front of a deployed DAC Guards' batttletank. Its commander growled at seeing the vehicle. He pushed open the cupola and stared down at the moderators. He had on full combat armor, complete with enviro- sealed mask. "I've been waiting for you, B-pen. So we meet again. *hisss*vhoo* *cough* Damn, my air supply's leaking.*shhhhhhh* There. The circle. Is now complete." "...who the hell?" The DAC Guardian took off his helmet. He was a young man with scraggly blonde hair and a vicious expression. "When we last faced I was but the learner; now I am the master." "Only a master of weevil, Bart." replied B-pen. He stopped, and smirked. Inwardly, he was supressing great amounts of shock. Of all the people he expected to see, his former student wasn't on the list. "Well, I can't really say ...of evil, you know. I KNOW evil. And you, you're no Jhonen Vasquez. Besides which - you do know that the more you actually TRY to prove yourself a badass, that only implies a failure in the trait, eh Bloodbath??" "You still talk too much." The turret swiveled, and put a crater right where B-pen used to be. He was a few feet away, clutching at his chest. "Gak.. heart.. can't handle... ki abilities.. damn, I'm out of shape." He gasped like a fish out of water, ignoring Stainless' curious look. The moderator could also do that superspeed thing, it was a basic mod skill, but he'd never really believed that his boss had once been a moderator like himself. Yes, he knew intellectually that it had to be so; but the sheer HARMLESSNESS of the guy... he looked like he couldn't hurt a fly! He'd seen examples of B-pen's reluctance to kill anything, being frightened even by cockroaches. "Hey, BB... what's up?" Unlike the boss, he was on good terms with the DAC Guards. In the background, Arch continued to mow down the zombie legions milling about the courtyard, unable to enter the Circle of Protection. "Summoner's around, but it's keeping silent. " the City-employed moderator took out a 9mm Beretta and casually shot his former teacher several times in the head. "It's been raising skeletons since morning, but nothing else. We don't know where it is." "So you're stuck here pulling guard duty? Sucks to be you." Bloodbath only shrugged. When the admins called, you went. Even he had to obey their slightest whims, or be sent to where he couldn't live up to his modName. Good thing the RD field in conjunction with the admin RS field meant that normies outside it would only still see the Mayoral Mansion as the sedate seat of government that they thought it was. B-pen merely blinked. Come on, it's been thirty years.. but surely BB wouldn't expect him to just go out without personal shielding? He grinned slightly. "BLOODBATH! SIT REP!" he shouted. "Sir, all clear within ten meters! Ammo stocks good, tank is primed and ready to... YOU BASTARD!" The tank turret swiveled again, but this time the NPC man didn't bother to move away. So the old instincts still work, eh? B-pen grinned wider, secure in the knowledge that even BB wouldn't DARE ruin the marble facade of the Mayoral Mansion. "Don't be ashamed of your subconscious learning, BB. Acting without thinking has saved your life more than once, quiaff?" The DAC guards were the official DAC anti-Newbie Task Force. Unlike the NPC moderators, the Guards had a set budget and operate mostly upon the premise of covering the most ground and ganging up upon a newbie. DAC is BIG, after all and they had tto patrol it thoroughly. Completely opposite from TWHN's viewpoint, which was to take a few talented people, give them the best equipment in all the realms, and watch them kick ass. Though this, they were capable of getting to newbie spikes even before the Guards, and collect the bounty. DAC is big, and there are still gaps in the newbie protection. Whosoever takes down a newbie must be rewarded, this is not just law.. it is tradition. The Guards do well in their task, but B-pen had to say to himself sardonically, that they weren't just as good as the Brigade he used to belong to. Ahh, perhaps it's just the domain of the older generation, to think the new generation would never amount to anything. Most definitely, its root was that the Guards were a police force, not a military alliance of all the BNW's. The Newbiepedemic didn't just menace DAC, but was a manifestation of Realities themselves starting to warp and buckle. DAC Guards and freelance newbies direct competitors, BB was one of the few Govmods that got along with with Frimods. He only had one person to prove himself against, but that person had sworn he would never fight again. Arrrgh! Bloodbath had been a particularly nasty newbie. When the great newbiepedemic had ended, those that left where either hunted down or made into moderators. He had personally taken Bloodbath under his wing, and even he had to admit, that the kid had some skills - close even to the level of when he had been at his own best. Somehow the master-student relationship had devolved into some sort of illogical rivalry, and when exactly that happened, he didn't know. BB quit and joined DAC, after realizing that he simply wouldn't be able to defeat him so easily. Flashback; twenty-eight years ago. B-pen: Don't you think you're being a little unreasonable about this? What good will finally beating me do? Okay, so I have certain bits of knowledge, but I'm not the best at any of my strongest skill choices. That's the pitfall of being multiclassed, you know? BB: I get to wipe that goddamned grin off your face! DIE! B-pen: Wait... you're serious. You're trying to kill me? BB: I've been poisoning your food, putting traps where you walk, attacking you at every turn... and you get the point only NOW?! B-pen: Aheheh... oh well. Elanire. Lock on using my line-of-sight. Prepare to fire Orbital Laser on my mark.... That was the last time the two saw each other. B-pen had remained true to his word, that he wouldn't shame his former comrades by invoking the moderator abilities that had failed them. Better to be nothing, than not enough. Bloodbath of course, knew only that the bastard had won yet again, through cheating. B-pen yawned and decided to go in, letting the two converse. Arch was like a lesser Bloodbath, happy to blast away at masses of monsters. The two had even forgotten he had even been in the area. The Aura of Absolute Normality and the Orbital Death Array he'd launched under great personal expense... these were his only defenses. Pacifism only works if everyone else is, he knew that much at least. "Door, this is moderator designate Bluepencil. I have been summoned." "Permission granted, B-pen. Enter, friend, but be wary." The door slid open, a full meter-thick of ornate cast battleship- grade armoring. Hesitantly he stepped inside. Admins are like God, he remembered as he cleared the portal. Manipulating brainwaves is easy... the AAA manipulated the mental processes of those around him, but his own mental defenses wasn't a tagged ability. He realized he'd just willingly abandoned his backup/possible witnesses to his demise. For the first time in thirty years, he'd Abandoned A Plan. Oh. Shit. The door slammed close. **** Elanire looked up suddenly from her RPG. Her level 24 elven sorceress lost 89 HP to a silver dragon's cone of cold, but that was less disastrous than the sudden silence in her skull. Her empathic link to the Boss was gone. As Dispatch, she needed to know at every moment, where every TWHN employee was. Though at times she herself had to shut it off so she wouldn't get some embrasssing... insights, her ability to home in on any RD spike was the cornerstone of TWHN's survival. With a gesture, the outside office changed into a control center littered with various surveillance screens. TWHN had a patch to almost every communications and detection equipment in orbit, in their quest to continually find newbies. The office appeared to most people as barely larger than a barbershop. Yet there was ten-foot tall blue- glowing crystal dominating the circular room with walls of obsidian, and showing that the outer office was at least twice as large as people thought it was. Elanire herself was a skilled Alvii Fighter/Illusionist. She let other see what they needed to see, all she wanted was to get the job done. "Stainy." she spoke aloud. "Yeah, dispatch?" "Could you give me a status report, please?" "Pretty much normal. Someone's been pulling undead out of a graveyard and teleporting them here. I don't know why, this place is warded so thoroughly, not even a Hell Lord can break through." "Where's the boss?" "He's gone inside already. Door won't let us in." "I see. Thank you." She turned off the link and contemplated lightly. She didn't need a radio link to contact anyone... this was an Alvish Clairesphere, it automatically opened communications with anyone she named, according to Standard Rules. If they were carrying radio or a crystal of communication, that was how she would contact them. But she could also enter dreams or plant thoughts directly into other minds. Though she could only recieve return thoughts from those of at least two Levels below her. She was inside an artificial temporal focus point, if she was in Firyal mode she could have her mental powers boosted so much that she could see glimpses of the future. Not that she hadn't learned her lesson about trying to see the future, though. She'd seen how that screwed up Paul Atriedes and Sailor Pluto, and she kind of liked being close to sanity, thank you very much. A sudden yell broke through the silence. "ELANIRE! FIRE ALL OUR ORBITAL LASERS AT MY LOCATION! FULL STRENGTH!" "What?! Sir, but -" "DO IT Nyaaouuch-" "Boss? Boss!" She sent out her mind, calling on Firyal the Bright Elf's abilities. Around Kreegle's mansion was a psionic void. Uncharacteristically, she swore. Not just in alvish, but in several tounges including gabullin and orukush. She considered firing the Orbital Lasers anyways, then reconsidered. Ruin the Mayor's House? It was a work of art, an archictural classic! Her loyalty was to her employer, but her alvish common sense warned her that it would be pointless. The only ones able to break a mental link forged by an alvish bloodrite were admins themselves and B-pen, impulsive fool that he was, had blurted out about his only ace; and undoubtedly they had a shielded themselves against it now. **** B-pen bounced off the floor several times. "Didn't I tell you not to over-react?" "...over-react? I am NOT OVER-REACTING!" he yelled into Killzig's face, only to get cuffed again by the much larger man. The troika of administrators over DAC were Kreegle, Lord Mayor; Killzig (sometimes Killian), Master of Security; and Dan Wood, Minister of Affairs. Killzig was known for his fierceness, but because of that he knew he could get away with some impudence. The man expected it, even relished it sometimes. It wouldn't be right at all to berate the kind Kreegle, and Dan Wood was using Zen to be beyond the reach of insults. He cast his gaze around the mayor's office. All three admins were there, which was unusual in itself. Kreegle sat behind his heavy oak desk, smiling benignly, like a male Kasumi Tendo. Beside him stood Dan Wood, resplendent in the pressed white uniform of a Grand Admiral. Killzig smirked, his eyes unreadable behind his patented Shades of Coolness +3. A battledroid stood off to one side, active but not hostile. That was strange. But on one of the chairs sat a bespectacled boy of twelve, and it was all he could do to keep himself from gibbering in fear. A boy obviously confused, he'd never had anyone try to strangle him offhand before. "You have nooo idea who you were, don't you?" he asked the boy. "My name is Donald Thompson, sir." The boy made cautious bow. The NPC franchier put his mental rolodex to work. Thompson.. thompson.. now where did I hear that name befoe? Thompson and Associates. The biggest arms manufacturer in SF Confederation. These were the people had built his own Laser Sattelites! And this was the CEO's only son. Oh dear. Killzig smirked at seeing B-pen's eyes widen. "So you see why it would very bad if you were to kill our guest." "Not to mention impolite." Kreegle put in. "Political necessity.. " he grumbled under his breath. He glared at the boy again, who cringed. The Orbital Lasers, they'd launched in case TWHN ever faced a newbie they couldn't defeat on their own. There were actually at least a hundred Las-Sats up there, facing away from Tikonov Station. The six TWHN owned was nothing compared to what NPC itself had. Though technically all of these was for newbie defense, it was also DAC's protection against SFC's aerospace wings. After a few moments he smacked himself. Only six Orbital Lasers? He'd hoped to take down Yamu with only six focused lasers? If his fears were true, then six would not have been enough. But, and it was looking more likely, that six would have been more than enough - he'd only killed an innocent. Oh yeah, and he would be dead as well. The admins were immune to something that followed Standard Rules, no matter how much power it could put out. He considered the boy again. "I apologize for trying to kill you, Mr. Thompson. You reminded me of someone I once... knew." "Um, I think it's okay if you call me Yamu." B-pen twitched, doing his hardest to resist the rising urge to kill. Yamu was a name that gave him nightmares still. He was one of the Akira-level newbies during the newbiepedemic. After all the trouble he'd gone through to kill that one, he'd been reborn again. Accursed randomness! Chaos theory apparently existed to make a moderator's life hell. "Do you know why you're called Yamu?" Yamu shook his head. Deciding at last that the kid at least didn't have any idea of the destruction his former personae had caused, he relaxed a little. He held out his hand. "I'm called Bluepencil here. Go with B-pen." Yamu shook it. "Wow, you people sure have weird names." Instantly the moderator was ten feet away, clutching his strained heart. His blood pressure was thundering with both fright and fatigue. "He's awakening! Why didn't anyone tell he was awakening?!" Dan Wood chuckled at that. "We brought Yamu here to protect him, not to have you throw everything you've worked for in the past thirty years in a futile attempt to kill him." "Why?" The three admins grinned. **** "That's a 'Falcon' heavy dropship.." Stainless noted. He adjusted the magnification on his binoculars and watched as Kreegle's pet dragon met it in a friendly fashion. The SFC soldiers inside were surprised at seeing a such a beast up close, but were secure in their ability to handle it. They didn't believe in magic, thought the world was one of the many planets terraformed by the Terran Empire, settled, and then abandoned. They thought themselves the sole purveyors of fabled lostech, the superadvanced technology of their ancestors that dabbled in everything from hyperdrives to genetic engineering. That, was their explanation for the existence of dragons, orcs, elves, and psionic phenomena on the chaotic world below them. The dragon was a magnificent creature, nearly twenty meters long, with a wingspan of fifteen meters, scales of polished jade, and her toothy grin was mischief itself. The dropship was an antigrav transport, a mammoth that flew through the air with not even the slightest of ease. Armored and armed to the hilt; on land, it was a fortress all its own. The dragon made a lazy circle around it, trying to decide wheter it was food or not. Even through thich armor and shielding, she could smell the fear of the men inside. The dropship did look like a gigantic meat bun, somewhat. "ATTENTION, SUPREME AUTHORITY OF DAC. YOU HAVE WILFULLY ABDUCTED A CITIZEN OF TIKONOV. RETURN HIM TO US AT ONCE OR YOU LEAVE US WITH NO CHOICE BUT TO TAKE HIM BACK WITH EXTREME FORCE," the dropship SFC LARGO sent on a broadcast commchannel to all recievers down on the City. "...those idiots." Did those normies really think they could threaten an admin and get away with it? What were SFC's admins up to? This sort of cross-cultural stuff shouldn't happen. **** "So you agree to it?" Dan Wood held up a file folder. All symbolic, of course. It was actually a concrete representation of data, that could be used similar to spell scroll. A map. The account number of a deposit box. A list of people to contact. License to use Advanced Ruleset weapons in broad daylight. A little admin gift, XP, added boost to their basic mod abilities and five extra skill points. All in all, an Adventuring Kit Starter Pack. He dangled it in front of the moderator's face. If he so much as touched it, the data would be uploaded directly into his brain. The moderator was almost weeping, wracked with indecision of wheter or not he should quit his day job. After thirty years of isolation, the admins now wanted him to form an Adventuring Party and go off on another freaky Quest, and cruelly giving him the illusion that he actually had a choice in the matter. Nothing would happen if he decided to say no, they'd just give the hopeless, but nonetheless exciting task to someone else. But as Kreegle's half-hidden smile showed, they knew that he could only accept. "Help him, oh B-pen, you are our only hope." "No.." the moderator whispered in a pinched voice, trying to keep himself from laughing (Maniacal Laugh #23) to death. "There is... another." "Baka. And that's why we're sending you out to find him." "... must resist.. fortitude saving throw failing... starting to talk.. like Shatner." -to be continued-