[continued from previous message]

Ivan’s advance scouting platform DATAFACE has recorded and transmitted all the activity at the Crystal Skull, used to capture his mother Donna Gretchen. A
mere one and a quarter million ground forces, deployed under a single quarter of a hobbled
Timeship. It is so, so very early yet.
“Artrex, kind Sir, may I trouble you for an opinion and some courier tasks,” requests Ivan.
Dr. Vulchario is watching the war machine of his rivals Drorgo and Rya Talon, entrench their forces at the northeast and southeast, in the hopes of funneling
the Absolute Legions advance guard, into a pincer movement; to cut them off from the main body.
Both The Drorgots and their allies The Talonians once ruled Sealand and possessed The Tower Of Absolute. Porch seven has the longest over the horizon view of this slowly moving giant world, and can see to the halfway monument, used to aim long range
bombardments at the Crystal Skull, five thousand miles east.
Ivan in any last resort worst case scenario against Drorgo or Rya Talon would
employ his knowledge of their human identities on lightmach-23; and assassinate
them as a mere trifling detail of battle. They serve a valuable purpose helping
him to keep
his war machine strong, well trained and certifiably ready for any and all challenges to Sealand or The Stronghold.
“Dictation.” Artrex asserts studiously pen in hand.
“Professor Pierce Daniels. Care of: Advanced Intraphase Research Institute,
Fairfield, Eastern Protected States, 02766-8701, Timestamp 08-08-2006. Dear Pierce, please access code Zool.”
Artrex places his leather scribe sheath in the outer pocket depositing the correspondence inside.
Calling out to Igor, Artrex and Morbiditus in unison, “Enough warmongering for this day let us retreat to The Crystal Spring to liven our Eternal Presence
and make daily libations devoting them to whatever our fancies concoct to devote them to.”
They stroll to the ornate lift room.
The Dying Bridge

Trevor is soothing his and Pierce’s nerves, getting ready for his tête-à-tête with the LX7 Consortium’s head honcho Robert Bitterman, by racing a few laps back and forth on Route-24. They’re in a tricked out, shiny
new 1979 jet black Pontiac
Trans Am, 6.6 Liter V8, Templeton bought last January and keeps hidden at the Harland Building. At the covert point of purchase last winter, Templeton in a winter gloom decided: “We’ll need it so we can start robbing banks.”
Trevor staring at the passing roadway, reveling in the subtle rhythum of flying over the long ribbon of highway, listening to the throaty engines smooth
echoes; and feeling the slow gentle purring of the rubber tires on the freshly laid asphalt: looks
over at Pierce who asks innocently.
“What’s the most important part of this car in your opinion McBain?”
Trevor knows there is no correct answer, “The safety belts.”
"How would you describe the interrelationship and dynamic interactions between the intake manifold and the ultra-glide custom hydraulics?” McBain listening, chortles, snorting twice.
He hits the radio play button pulling in beside the railway service lane behind
the gas station across the intersection from the closed and sealed Lambeth Rope
Factory. One of Pierce’s new favorites, The Dread Knots song, “All Is A Number” is on
the college station 98.7 WLRN.
“Three is for love. Four is for war.
Five is life. Six is a whore.
Seven is for justice. Eight is the door.
Nine is forever. One is the core.
Two is the law. There is nothing more.”
Bitterman, spotting Mac and Doc from across the street, ambles across the wide industrial intersection: shuffling painfully along in brown cowboy boots, black silk slacks and a white sweater. His thick black hair is greased and his pale face more boney
and gaunt than the last time they saw him. The curious duo exit meeting the small media mogul at the curb, in the shadow of three brown boxcars, on a spur that leads to an auto salvage yard. Across the street, the service road that runs along the tracks
is purposely obscured by dense tangles of thorny impenetrable bushes; twenty feet behind the camouflaged entrance, the armored vehicles with fifty caliber machine gun mounts; are lined up two abreast for an eighth of a mile.
Bob is cordial but still wracked by a deep rattling chest cough. “You ever been here before?”
Trevor opens the bargaining with some braggadocio, “In more ways than you can imagine.”
Bitterman bends forward, holding in a cough straightening up, flicking his hair back into place.
“On the picnic grounds there is a small pond with a hidden gate a few feet under the water. NID idiots have been tossing bodies into it for a good fifty years. It’s a two way gate controlled by a four ring astrolabe with a baseball size earth at
the center. It’s been stuck in one way mode from twenty-three to twenty-four.
You go through you never come back, at least until last July.”
Trevor swats at a mosquito a few times his tongue in his cheek, “And… you
scratch my back?”
“Yeah I got some old Super-8 films and some newer stuff you need to see.”
Bitterman counters.
“So they got you, to try to get us, to do them a favor” Trevor replies to
Bob’s, “You called me.”
“Alright, you answer questions about the amber books and we’ll take a pop
at the gates code.”
Across the intersection and through the picnic yards stone arch, the lighting is purposely dim the closer they get. The ground floor windows on the fieldstone building are painted black; snipers are hidden in the shadows of all
the open windows on the
second and third floor and on the roof.
Almost to the end of the old stone building, meandering frog pond and the forty feet of plush trimmed grass between them, used as a picnic area; an NID clerk is setting up a thick card table with a hurricane lantern and three padded chairs. Pierce sets
the stubby metal attaché flight case on the west edge of the table near the pond, grabbing the southern chair. The bird bath fountain with its astrolabe ornament in the center of four little pools, is between them and the pond. McBain grabs the chair
next to Daniels and Bitterman sits opposite of Doc. Bitterman offers tobacco and Trevor raises his hand slightly off the table and Pierce accepts a smoke. The clerk returns with a cooler and two oversized thermoses. Trevor rolls three
cigarettes and
lights one.
“Why were you banned from the old zero clock when the others were let in to
examine it?”
Trevor staring at the pond asks matter of factly, genuinely interested in Bitterman’s explanation.
“Pardon my rudeness Doc; the books are on the table and the gates open on this side, security or not, it is making me too nervous to proceed.” Bob tired from his sixth battle with ZB 12A virus.
Pierce stows the bookcase between his feet standing it on end then slides it down as a footrest.
“Well I’ll tell you why. I am an honest man who values his soul. I would have confronted everyone there with the bold stark facts and done whatever it took to convince Michelle…”
Bob doesn’t want to go too far, not knowing what Trevor and Pierce have or have not seen.
“Was there a ship or ships brought in at the frozen zero?” Bob takes a puff from an inhaler.
Trevor wanting to move forward, lighting a second cigarette, “The one they call the Manta.”
“All three bells, all three boys, and three auxiliary engines were there?” Bob fumes falteringly.
“Yes to all that plus four mechanical beings, escorting a million or so pocket sized warriors.”
Bitterman elbow on the table, palm over his forehead, groans softly shaking his
head in anguish.
“I’m bloody doomed! He must’ve given Mr. North the new disks and he refused unknowingly.”
All three men hear the rapid staccato foamy puffs of a dozen silenced automatic weapons being fired around the nearby corner of the rope factory. “Wait till we leave, damn it,” yells Bitterman.
The unknown bodies remain where they fell, beyond the twelve foot chain link fence that divides the picnic area, from the thick overgrown forest to the north along the railbed. “It’s nothing.”
Bitterman continues unfazed, “It’s the silent runt that’s run off with them this time for sure.”
“We’re not following you Bitterman: the carnival distractions notwithstanding. Elaborate…”
Trevor lights his third cigarette; rolling more, absolutely sure there are two red lights in the pond.
“The ships: they are wrecks, totally worthless; except as barbarous, pristine, substrata bombs.”
Bob stands up, walks to the edge of the reflecting pond, with pure seriousness of intent ready to leap. Seeing the submerged, two foot wide, gentle red eyes that something divine seemed to cling to, like a pure subtle holy vapor, he stomps his feet
shaking his fists; silently returning to his seat.
Bob takes a pen and crisp sheet of paper offered by Daniels, “The old ships
are a single unit.”
“They are on a final countdown to destruction. The five new disks are the new unified whole.”
Bitterman draws a coffee can sized circle; dividing it in halves then quarters.
Pierce is inhaling slowly, blow fishing his cheeks on the exhale, releasing each breath as if smoothly spitting.
Bob pens the names: S.X. Manta and S.X Archer on the top left and right sections adding the names S.X. Rover and S.X Signet to the lower left and right
divisions. Outside the circle on top he inscribes S.X. Hunter: designating those two quarters unified.
Outside the circle on the bottom he inks S.X. Skytrax equals those two pieces united. Pierce and Trevor are watching intently as Bitterman completes the puzzle. Outside the circle to the left he writes: Pilot – Eight.

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