[continued from previous message]

Michelle looked at Mr. Eight getting a nod to proceed. “The strategic value
of having the amber books can’t be underestimated. Augustus surrendering Disk
One to Alex and Frank means we at least have his tacit support even if he won’t operate the
books. The virus is becoming a problem due to bootlegging. The SRT from the air
force base are trained for lesser tasks and could never be upgraded to track and eliminate people exploiting the virus. Thankfully the price for a dose is more than most
people earn in a lifetime. It shall be a problem if the recovery of the core’s other four disks drags on.” Michelle and Templeton notice Miss Faversham is stroking the deep scar on Mr. Eight’s right palm. He offers a terse note of explanation, “I
wear it for our mutual friend.”
Pierce is nauseous and dizzy. He makes it over the retaining wall purging himself of the large lunch he consumed in Flagstaff before swallowing a few small sips of spring water Harris gave him. Mathias moves Silas’s truck closer to the overlooks
entrance, Doc returns to the van.
“Frank do you have any of those geriatric happy pills; I’ve never seen anybody die before.”
Harris gives Doc two large sedatives and looks at McBain who shakes his head negatively. Pierce sits down on the rear edge of the van; so McBain returns the
books hoping they’ll bring him some calm. Pierce takes out a pad writing “What was the nature
of this night’s anomaly?”
Closing and opening the book he receives an answer: 32313 with a dot code and a
blank page.
“There’s probably a steep learning curve here. Any tips Frank?” Pierce asks politely.
“Be as specific and combine the answers into a summary. Ask where AR20 S.X.
Rover is?”
“Doc more comfortable writing questions than talking to a book gives the question a try.”
The answer slip replies;, “Deep water hovering, in the Clarion Fracture Zone, Pacific Ocean.”
A black van appears at each entrance to the overlook. Harris clicks a penlight in both directions three times and the vans recede, backing away onto the main drive. “You guys ready to leave?”
Harris still holding the dead amber book throws it to a final resting place three thousand feet below the edge of the canyon; where Tobias and the decommissioned companion volume lay.
Frank and Trevor get in the front and Alex secures the rear doors. The shadowing black vans are rarely apparent leading and following the path back to
Luke Air Force Base. Pierce leans into the driver's compartment fumbling with the radio finding a
distant receivable station on 101.6 FM.
“Who screamed, what happened, when laid a golden egg, where went for a walk; why became a fork in the road, how refused to beg.” Pierce sings along merrily leaning towards Alex Mathias.
Pierce sedated, “Sometimes children’s music reaches deep inside and soothes my very soul.”
Ivan parts his London Fog trench coat withdrawing one of the dozens of snow globes his mother Gretchen made for him and his twin-brother Igor. Shaking the tightly sealed Mason jar filled with baby oil he smiles watching a wax covered photo of himself
and Igor building a snow man beside a wax covered tree. The snowman’s eyes are two tiny black lumps of faux coal with five more dots for a belt. The tiny carrot nose is still firmly glued to the body of rubber balls.
Looking towards The Vagabond; “What news comes to us from the world of dreams?”
The grey eyed dark haired traveler stirs circumspectly: removing his two-hundred and sixty page delivery from the satchel; stacking the couriered sheets in a pile on the bench between them.
Dr. Vulchario rises to place the snow globe on the stack of encrypted transactions. The wind rises depositing a page at his feet. He places his toe on it wetting his finger and holding it aloft.
Examining the windblown page from the stack top he catches a glimpse of a large
letter “L” followed by the beginning of PI, shaking his head, moaning at the loss of a piece of the light.
“They are coming for the disk.” The courier says laying his head back down on the soft leather satchel already refilled to its two-hundred and sixty page capacity. “How is Igor?”
Dr. Vulchario takes inventory of the day’s anomalies; the wind, the unusual
restart of the bags sequence protecting the hidden code, the pages not dissolving: most tellingly a personal question about Igor. He lifts the snow globe and deposits the
pages in the wrought iron grating of the parks rubbish bin, on the opposite side of the half circle of benches, furthest from the bubbler.
“How did you come to be assigned this task in Oceania?” Ivan Vulchario enquires cautiously.
The Vagabond replies, “Some questions are not worth knowing the answer to. Shall I proceed?”
Dr. Vulchario understanding the protocol that allows this intruder into Sealand-V73 takes out a thick expensive cigar and lights it, pondering the possible costs and consequences of continuing.
The timestar invaders browsing The Octagon are each lost in their own fascinations with the details of this crude version of technology perfected in the dark stillness of Oceania at lightmach-25 and operated in many regulated versions of Sealand all
across lightmach-24. The Old Chief’s AR20 forces are establishing camps and survey mapping the area opened by the three engines.
The shock troops assigned to Major Danes continuously attempted to open the single file rider Roulette Gate located on the Oldwood Station compass. Three charged paradomes rolled like roulette balls tune to each other; then harmonize
with the coils
under the compass. When the new engines cleared working space to demolish the clock it extended several feet past the railroad tracks to accommodate troop movements. At twenty-four point five hours of natural time the gate was opened. Loading immediate
supplies on their back and harmonizing all day-date hour paced measuring devices to zero; the forty man squad enters double timing down the hill.
Gus loudly at Danes, “Every man shall stop a watch and write down the readout as precisely as possible so we can get concurrent renderings for each individual and reconcile the differentials.” Danes has been using the eye pieces loaned by Player
One to circle The Octagon and identify as many of the thirty-five frozen players as he can. “Ted you going to be OK now?” asks the chief.
The Major is both surprised and puzzled that Mr. Eight would spring this trap
with the players inside that he did. The Old Chief is standing frozen in time two desks away from the only empty workspace. Major Danes finally registering the question, “
Yes I’ll ask if I need it.”
Corporal Ian Dunross leads the forty man squad in a six deep and six abreast grid pattern, with one man outside at each cardinal point on the compass. They halt in position. Dunross circles his arm three times dropping it downward, “Stop.” Each man
lays their first chronometer down on a handkerchief. Danes asks “How much time outside?” Dunross replies, “Twenty-four point five.”
Harris drives Mcbain, Mathias, and Daniels back to Luke Air Force Base and gets them back on the T-43 Gator. Beginning their descent towards Oldham AFB Harris calls Mathias and his two reluctant colleagues into the Boeing 737’s conference compartment.
Doc is fiddling with the amber books asking them questions he already knows the answers to so he can study what formats they receive and answer queries by.
Alex shows no signs of his conflict with Silas. McBain is calm but tense. Harris points to the
coffee machine and refrigerator “Help yourself.”
The plane’s engines throttling back Harris throws his best pitch. “Sometimes big things happen and the only way out is to go all the way through without hesitation, like when a person accidentally misses a red light or a stop sign. It does no good
to stop in the middle of a busy intersection. When accelerated progress occurs,
it becomes necessary to rapidly make accurate appraisals. My judgement is we continue on and I make you aware of one final anomaly.”
Trevor uncrosses his legs leaning forward elbows on the table his chin resting on his clasped hands. “I’m pretty sure wherever you’re referencing I’ve already been there.” Doc is not as sure.
“There are mysterious wispy vaporous beings that still circle the church on
the north corner of our T-intersection. I’ve been studying, classifying and naming the different varieties. Sometimes the bravest of them cross the avenue and look right at
me.” Doc trailed off angrily wide eyed.
Harris looks to Alex for moral support, clearer elucidation and some sort of argument, maxim or truism, they could all rally around and invest in emotionally and intellectually. He didn’t want anyone entering the old fairgrounds and being confronted by
The Octagon’s failed timestar and the horrorfest it left in its wake without fair warning. Alex with enough time to gather his wits; “There was a failed experiment. It started normally but then left the boundaries of linear reality entering the past,
present, and future. All of us were; are, and shall always be: self-implicated.”
Michelle changes into more rugged clothing loaning the diminutive Miss Faversham comfortable hiking shoes, jeans, tee-shirt and a warm sweatshirt. Lisa is already dressed for
the occasion in sturdy boots, worn jeans, warm jacket and a carry-all bag with food, gear and medicine. Mr. Eight stands in front of Michelle and she bends her knees to level her eyes to his.
He discharges many different colors first; and then measures of the clear black
and white light, repaying her with interest for assisting McBain. Standing up Gauthier softly clasps Faversham and Templeton’s hands. Lisa looks at Mr. Eight tenderly, “
It’s been a long time Little Boss.”
Mr. Eight takes Lisa and Donna Gretchen’s hands gently and authoritatively clicks his heels once, appearing dead center between the three modest golden bells, Lisa and Miss Faversham slightly flustered their sense of purpose aroused by the leap. Cpt.
Azrok Steppe hands Lisa a pair of field glasses pointing to the Oldham Station
a third of a mile uphill. Sighting McBain coming through the gate she takes off
running dropping the field glasses and sprints to within a whisker of the four men exiting the
Roulette Gate. McBain braces himself catching her by the ribs her legs around his waist. Doc attempting understated drollery, “I think that chick digs you McBain.”
Dismounting Templeton plants a punch on the upper arm of Pierce Daniels, “Ouch a girl sock!”
Templeton laughs and Pierce is at ease, “Still carrying that rucksack of worthless cigar boxes?”
Doc replies, “Where’s Tati?” Lisa soberly, “She’s not ready Doc. She
is working a rock show.”
Pierce forgot Tatianni had arranged a show with four of his favorite up and coming local bands.
All four men walk very slowly along the pathway, between troop camps, opened between the gate and the eastern patio of the stadium surrounding the amphitheater and The Octagon.
DATAFACE makes an appearance at the boundary of the crystal skull. Dr. Vulchario Drone-19 and four of Drorgo’s captured scouts have converted four trebuchets into a viewing platform.
Professor Vulchario languorously delights in the consumption of his hefty aromatic cigar while reconciling the motley appearance of this courier with a mortified coldness that fuels his morbid imaginings. “Have you ever alighted on your rounds to
serve subpoenas for Evangelina?”
“I go where I go, I carry what I carry, every world is different, or at least they once were.”
“The moonlight witchery of Hossattanus’s moral obliquity shan’t sully a
majestic ascendance.”
The Vagabond continues napping in and out oblivious to the professors meaning or nuance.
By Vulchario’s estimations, the youths only informing feature, being his physical self; his mind seemingly impotent of ideas; and any impressions of individuality.
“Has a candle of thought ever flickered with curiosity about the nature of this destination?”
“I have seen many come and many go. I know the way of and way to uncountable worlds.”
“Well if your mind be sound and your information rings true, I am vastly your debtor for the notification.” Dr. Vulchario knows The Vagabond cannot lie because he is the Foreign Courier.
But no compulsion or compunction forces him to speak or reveal the congress of his thoughts.
“Is there ever a question in the eternal that does not bring a hornet's nest of replies about one's ears? If you sincerely wish to apprise yourself of Igor’s wellbeing; or lack thereof, I humbly request you accompany me to Clocktown and ascertain the
matter for yourself.”
Vulchario watches the courier rise noticing his satchel is lumpier than usual. Rising to accompany the doctor he takes the final load of two hundred and sixty pages out of the bag, holding them in front of Vulchario who declines. Placing the final set
of pages on top of the previous set he withdraws a fresh satchel from within the old one. “The bag is decommissioned.”
The courier says guilelessly imparting a further development by opening the new
courier bag.
The brass plate above the magnetic snaps is inscribed A.S / R.O.E.\P.D. above Badge 01-10 AO.
Pierce talking to Lisa on the walk down the hill discovers she has moved his collection of photographs to the woodworking room in the finished basement of the house leased by Tatianni at the Reed Estate. A small team has stacked them sequentially in
labeled metal flight cases.
“I knew Alex and Frank were into some ultra-secret…” Pierce trails off noticing the three basketball sized engines orbiting brightly; creating a dull white fluorescent circle in the space between The Octagon and The Manta above it. “The
government is sicker than I ever imagined.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions Daniels, how do you know that’s not your ship. It isn’t but…”
Templeton puts her arm around Doc, “It would be wise to let me sedate you this gear is intense.”
Pierce responds “I’m still wonked from Harris’s happy pills, anymore and I’ll be unconscious.”
Danes satisfied the exorbitant turn of events precludes being waylaid or confined again enters the Body Fortress he saw Sister Francis access. “Ma’am can I help you transport the babies?”
“Yes that would be very much appreciated, on duty I am Sister Francis; off duty I am Elaina.”
The Major grabs the two well balanced flight bags holding the infants and follows the old nun to the outside of the console circle. She waves to Mr. Eight and he bows his head momentarily then sticks his hand out towards her fist closed wiggling his
extended thumb. Francis replies with the same gesture moving to a cautiously guarded thumbs up. Tight lipped he shakes his head slowly, affirmatively, raising his right hand to say goodbye. Major Danes is grateful to be in the polite company of one of
the few people here not reduced to a frozen diamond mummy by the timestar.
Friar Dormante seeing Francis is exiting turns to Brother Aesop who has been in and out of conversation with Juzya Kydd since arriving, “We’ll have plenty of time to record the details before the situation changes. Twenty-four hours has passed
outside.” Aesop checking his watch sees only ten minutes has passed. Danes, Francis, Dormante and Mercurius set out up the hill.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)