[continued from previous message]

Burning lights all night long to keep the memories away.

How little Doomers all upset because mojo bones is singing songs.

Tears that turned to thunder in lonely rooms shut up to long.

Eighteen wheels of thunder and a heavy load of gold.

The radio goes on chatting about a world of long ago.

I’m not holding out a key ring, I’ve already kicked in the door.

Her tears have turned to thunder; she couldn’t hold out anymore.
Buying up the old books; half a penny watch them drop.

Laying off the fry cooks and handing them the mops.

Cause if this rain don’t stop crying: It ain’t never. It ain’t never.
It ain’t never gonna stop.

She cried like an owl, sang like the wind, I came home to find her stuck on
the road again.
It’s been a long. It’s been a long. It’s been a long road down. An I know that you know
I’m going to take her where she wants to go. She’s going to be there with a morning rose.”
Michelle stops singing and douses the flame in the hurricane lamp. Mr. Eight is piloting the S.X. Rover, remaining silent two hundred feet further away than
the longboat; hoping to smooth the waters and negotiate some type of accord with The Owl after
he attacked The Construct and interrupted The Totality in The Core. He is not regretful for attacking The Players only chastened that Michelle should suffer the severe consequence of being left alone in the Nebulous Region.
Patience not his strongest suit he trips the arctane lensing system used to navigate between the lightmach abridgements. The rumbling hum of the ships dynamos and the blinding three hundred degree illumination conceals Michelle’s transition to her
owl body. She lands stealthily twenty feet behind the low sleek wheelhouse. Trying to sight Michelle using the decks spotting glasses by the cannonades he douses the lightmach illuminators and switches to infrared lensing looking for her heat signature.
Already half stooped and leaning forward by the edge of the two hundred foot hand rail; Mr. Eight is airborne and over the rail before the pain lets him realize he has been summarily accosted by the collar and belt; then effortlessly lofted overboard. A
momentary sense of shock strikes as he submerges and rises drawing his pistol from his rear belt holster.
Knowing time is on her side, Michelle stands her ground, naked and dripping wet arms folded across her chest, staring dark eyed at the execrable villainy of his excitable temperament, daring him with her posture and glowering transfixed eyes; to shoot
and prove once and for all to the entire width and breadth of The Construct; that he’s a psychopathic cold blooded demented killer, of innocent men women
and children: and nothing more.
Mr. Eight puts his pistol in the holster and floats on his back knowing it is
useless to try to climb the streamlined lightmach hull. Unable to communicate with The Core he awaits her final decision in the comfort of the life force swallowing infinite
darkness of The Eternal Waters.
Michelle enters the wheelhouse directing the 2085 to seal all hatches and compartments.
Firing the auxiliary engines full astern she leaves Mr. Eight floating in the darkness. Lucian taps his middle finger once to acknowledge to The Alliant this
is where he intervened on attempts two and three to build a new core around an Origin Point. The
Old Chief’s narrative would always inexorably end up with him onboard the S.X
Rover with Michelle in futile attempts to prevent a core failure. Unable to trigger access to the 2085 lightmach system The Rover would wrap itself in evermore tangled webs
of the computational fabrics until a brilliant flash of red, blue and gold streaks; followed by an internal explosion of their minds and bodies would deposit him, Michelle and the five Main Index disks across a one billion year stretch of Natural Time
with a complete recollection of events, in the nearest available living form. Michelle ended up in the body of a Great Horned Owl. Lucian landed in the body of an Eagle 500,000 years before his birth.
Trevor is patient. He watches Mr. Eight swim with a sinking heart to the grey
longboat and climb aboard. He gets dry clothes from the nearest bulkhead and changes. He eats a few cans of sea rations opening a large can of orange juice.
He rolls seven or
eight cigarettes and lights one.
Mr. Eight lights the hurricane lamp and readies to kill himself with the jeweled stiletto Michelle has left behind. Trevor leaves The Core ambivalent whether it is a new core attached to a new Origin Point. Swimming quietly to the longboat he sees Mr.
Eight turn sideways raising the knife with his right hand plunging it towards the heart. Sinking to his knees he wavers back and forth, the hilt visible wobbling, the tip gleaming in reflected light. Trevor reaching the bow begins pulling himself along
the gunwale. Mr. Eight’s head bobs and he slumps backwards to the deck. Slipping over the gunwale he is in the dinghy undetected rowing silently towards the new core.
Onboard The Core he submerges and pilots himself to the safety of Oceania’s deepest sounds.
Trevor whistles a merry tune as he unloads fresh pants, boots, shirt and rain
slicker from the bulkhead. Scooping up the unsmoked discarded cigarettes from between the deck boards Trevor takes a hearty slug of the orange juice before lighting a smoke.
He recites the Main Index codes to insure that all is as it should be. Announcing his status to the unseen observers.
“Vault Four – Core Code 32313 – Disk-2 Main Index Secured.”
The Alliant and The Old Chief return to viewing the swirling holocaust of eternal presences trying to encapsulate Trevor’s body in the thick underbrush
thirty feet off the railbed and service road near the old rope factory. After eating and smoking to
give both Michelle or Mr. Eight ample opportunity to alter the sequence he slips into the comfort of the dark water. He awakens six times back in the boat
and repeats the procedure after carving a notch on the bench for each occurrence. McBain has
performed extensive reconnaissance of The Tower Of Absolute.
He knows what Library City atop the tower is looking for. All five levels of the Main Index to become the new core and every version of the jeweled stiletto
used to kill the person who originally built Library City.
Exiting the longboat for the seventh time he takes the jeweled stiletto in its leather sheath and tucking it into his belt slips into the dark water for the seventh time. Watching the longboat slowly drift away he smiles seeing its name is Mr. Four.
Allowing the everlasting mysteries of the dark unborn eternal, to exhibit its evident authority, over even the most exacting taskmaster; Trevor loses consciousness briefly, awaking in the spinning webs of diamond filaments; as the eternal beings,
obsessed to the point of damnation into The Natural: continue their fool’s errand.
Using the purloined stiletto as a diabolical machination against its creators
he parts, wedges and chops until only the sound of glass underfoot is left. He escapes in 1929 enlisting in the Army.
Lucian withdraws his index finger from The Alliant’s palm. “Somehow, we already have what we need; and know what we need to know. It is all a matter of
figuring that out step by step.”
The Alliant replies; “Better to play The Game and build a future than sleep
in eternal bliss.”
Lucian fatigued after such a vast journey of the mind shakes hands with his opponent politely.
“I am defeated honorably after eventful circumstance and eventual failure at
building The Core.
I shall assist the victor with all the “Courage – Heart – Intelligence”
I can manifest for success.”
The Alliant stands and they shake hands a third time. Lucian strategically surveys Library City in the distance patting the leather sheathed stiletto on his belt. He nods to The Alliant who returns to reading his book.
Calling out to 2085, “The Eagle - All Transit 64 – The Octagon.” he lands between the bells.
Mr. Eight has taken the ATM underwater and removed the ten gating rings from Deepwater Lake after pulling the seven salvageable rings, from the gates former
partner at the southern end of the railbed, in the reflecting pond at the Lambeth Rope Factory.
Gretchen has returned safely home to the subterranean caverns under the Crystal
Spring that receive whatever Essence-Presence is able to escape the distillery and storage pools.
With forty million airborne special forces guarding the stack of seventeen gates and the ATM and Body Fortresses fully charged Lucian commands his generals to begin carefully unearthing the heavier weaponry buried outside the perimeter of the failed
timestar’s blast zone. Mr. Eight, under his own initiative, has brought the stacking platforms from the rail cars into The Octagon; so waves of aerial combat forces can be released in large secure groups, into and through the gating arrays, directly
onto the field of battle. Penta Annihilatum Cannonade shall be moved in after each gate placement to support the forces fighting on the ground and in the electrified sky.
Harris leaves the Misty Hob kitchen with a coffee pot and a bottle of Russian
vodka. Mixing a drink he sits on the stairs close to Michelle, who is softly playing classical music on one of her rare guitars, made to her design by a gifted luthier. A
wire string bell runs from the front spring loaded bump gate, to a post where the driveway opens, from a steep lane into a double wide oval with a low bush garden; outside the front portico. Hearing the bell chime a few jangled scattered notes; Michelle
puts the instrument in its case, storing it in a hall closet. Jack Barret familiar with
the half mile winding lane, stops his Pontiac Bonneville wood panel station wagon under the portico. Ivan steps out of the front passenger door moving towards Frank confidently.

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