[continued from previous message]

Trevor, Danes, Alex and Harris are looking south into the wide mouth of the tunnel, politely debating the wisdom, of allowing Grigori and Stephan to roam unsupervised, in Library City’s underground tunnel network. Ted sees The Vault rise off the
wooden passenger bench and alerts Trevor. His curiosity aroused he stands beside the hovering vortex paradome repository waiting. When it heads up the stairs and out the entrance he follows it. It stops four feet away from the floating Disk-2. Standing
between the bubbler and wrought iron trash bin with the meadows to his back and
clusters of fat thick tall oaks to either side, he reaches for Disk-2. It retreats three feet. Trevor takes out the small laminated card wishing he had committed the code to
memory. The Main Index recited softly in Disk-2’s presence it stops communicating with The Construct and The Totality: surrendering itself onto Trevor’s outstretched palm.
McBain catches The Vault as it was about to fall to the ground. Tucking the disk in his shirt pocket and holding The Vault in a football clutch he takes a drink at the bubbler and sits down.
Michelle can feel her ship’s stationary deployment shifting positions ever so slightly. Disk-1 in her pocket she slides the new amber wells into the two hollows of her maroon leather jacket and zips it up. placing a watchman’s cap
over her thick
shoulder length hair she moves to the double doors and sees The Vulture passing
down Mulberry Street on his way to the V73 Battle Tower.
The Owl steps out onto the broad sidewalk, in front of the shiny chrome frames and green tinted glass, of the Swain Building. Vulchario’s pace does not change and DATAFACE does not enter the block of eight business style buildings. The Shadow is
gathering at the street’s outlets.
“Eva.”
“Vlad.”
“Looks like my hostages are half rescued already.” The Vulture tips his hat having changed into his Supreme Commander uniform as the towers absolute wartime authority. His dark brown coat, slouch hat, leather riding boots look as if they’ve never
been worn before. His slouch hat is adorned with the Gold Thunderbird of the Silver Chalice and Crystal Spring. His whip is coiled latched to his wide leather belt. The riding crop and vortex paradome head in its small pants leg sleeve. Michelle in crisp
blue jeans and leather coat and boots seems as if she is out shopping.
“Certainly you wouldn’t ruin Mr. Eight’s entertainment and shall allow me onto the field.”
Michelle smiles politely. “Once, if not a thousand times, The Pilot has commented how he hates it when the protagonist and antagonist exchange soliloquys before deciding the matter at hand.”
The Vulture hearing the revelry from the third floor’s open windows, a television tuned to a Carillion’s station on one balcony, a radio tuned to another three windows over with intermittent laughter, spilling out of both gatherings: pauses briefly
to pay honest respect to youthful folly; half a cigar still in hand he listens to the Carillion folk song Morbiditus is singing along to above.
“The rider has a monkey clinging to his back.

The runner has a rhythum that time can never track.

A beat that never falters the rhythum is its truth.

Hatred shall destroy itself that is the final proof.

Viva the unknowns child a sword in his tender hand.

Wandering swiftly thru the nothing to find the path that’s marked by sand.

Where leaves of destruction might still choke out the sun.

The levy of illusion concealing what is never done.

The earth shakes with laughter heaves with long lost joys.

The doves are granted respite to put away they’re toys.

The mountains whisper of voices long held in reserve.

The future tastes of choices the darkness has preserved.

Thunder races thru the valley an owl stirs up on its perch.

The wind cowers in the shadows the moon echoes thru a church.

The tree of truth stands looming a tear falls upon an ornate hearse.

Sunrise lies in waiting the harvest finds it flowing first.
The meter of time is ticking a rhythum broken and renewed.

Runners and riders sit at tables the gamblers huddle and review.

The beat goes on forever just like they always knew.”
Vladimir half of a cigar still in hand looks up towards the open window smiles and continues walking to his battle station, twenty slow paces away he turns from the waist tipping his hat:
“The Vulture and The Owl part at The Swan. A Dragon’s wily stratagem and ambitious craft.”
Mr. Eight orders the five thousand Aeromyds manned by RN6 shock troops, sent through as gate testers, to advance to the towers midline and circle seeking and destroying occupied battle porches with specialized charged ordinances. The
twenty-eight seat
Aeromyds sweep forward through the gating array. Moses gets a battle adjustment
directing one thousand Aeromyds of bombing group one to try to take the zeppelins intact from above where their firepower is sparse.
The group veers off from the main body, piloted by 2085 into eleven attack groups, and are then released to manual flight, one mile out and high above, each bombardment platform.
The second group of forty million AR20 rising as dark black oscillating walls
readied for battle brings waves of distillery farms being set on fire; as Vulchario’s eastern army sees Aeromyds rising up the length of the tower behind them: and eight
blocks of airborne EMV micro flights about to swarm. The only attackable gate within firing range is fifteen miles towards the tower.
The zeppelins and the heavy guns of the eastern army train their sights on the outlet of the ten gate array. Artrex and Lucian position the light shielding shell obliterating Body Fortresses at an angle to receive any successful shells
fired across the
fifteen mile gap.
Each time The Shadow advance towards the south eastern prong of attack; The Essence armada advances, forming a spear and shield formation, sweeping back and forth, rendering the creeping death to grey chalky toxic powder. Mr. Eight following the
assault on the zeppelins, whose upper outer skins have been boarded; is redirected by the ATM to The Vulture’s Nest-V73, a six spire stainless steel edifice, with a central tower of diamond walls: being slowly pushed upward from
the distillery
compression chambers below. The nest is at a sufficient height for signaling and
Dr. Vulchario unfurls the half mile long scarlet-red background, and black letter “A” flag, ringed by a circle at its waistband, standing above five black stars, with two large stars at each corner.
Mr. Eight raises ATM’s hand acknowledging The Vulture’s presence and signals AR20 wave one through the gates. Dr. Vulchario is left alone to direct his forces being the only person that can order a surrender. At the northeastern attack prong,
safely situated behind the wide half circle of eight thousand ships belonging to Mr. Eight and Michelle: Rya Talon and Drorgo’s mechanized artillery form a
second wall aimed at The Vulture’s stationary eastern and northern armies that are awaiting
reinforcement within the hour.
Moses and Maurice 2085 track their command ships to the small stretch of Mulberry Street secured by Michelle and get updates on Templeton and Tatianni’s health and wellbeing. They fail to secure an ironclad promise that Michelle can stay with Doc
and the girls till the end.
“I came to secure Disk-1 and the Amber Rooms.” Moses looks up and down the winding street
as the Aeromyd bombers are hovering and dropping light charged mines and robotic clearing apparatus throughout Clocktown. “How many core ships form their perimeter?” Maurice asks.
“One thousand; half stationary and half maintaining a perimeter around The Swain.”
Maurice decides to continue deploying containment devices and Moses agrees to
stay to insure the intoxicated group of gate jumpers don’t walk off into the middle of a battle. A single armor clad, automatic wielding trooper takes up Moses pilot seat
and the other twenty-six troopers move unseen into The Swain’s lobby. Maurice
gets a transmission that all but two of the great zeppelins are secured and RN6
commanders request permission to fire on the eastern army twelve miles below. “Captured
porch and aerial platforms cleared for turnaround bombardment.”
Maurice commands the last of the five thousand bombers to drop the hollow attack cones used by AR20 outside the gate; and now rise to attack the main boulevards and intersecting avenues of Library City. Fully armored and dispensing tricolor light
grenades RN6 is convincingly landed.
Mr. Eight observing the smaller RN6 Aeromyds are capturing and destroying the
automated flack generating weapons at the towers midline; commands AR20 EMV aerial wave one through the gating array. The four massive, humming blocks, of ten million
football sized blue suited highly charged horned special forces; are adroitly funneled into the gates mouth, appearing as a three pronged trident, a second later at the gates egress. Small detachments break off to acquire shield and pipe buttresses,
dropped off by early arriving Aeromyd bombers, to use as charged path clearing battering rams against The Shadow and regular army troops.
Wave one safely through the gate and properly reformed; hovers at the southeastern attack spearhead: Mr. Eight begins pumping wave two and three through the array satisfied The Vulture has no troop bridging counter measure, of extraordinary proportion,
to unleash on the column of ten gates arrayed for battle. Four blocks of AR20 aerial EMV separate into half circle and rise up level to the highest buildings
of the small village of Clocktown wrapped in the protective glass and steel palisades of Library
City. The four great blocks divide themselves into forty small divisions of one
million, completely circling The Tower Of Absolute. Wave two disperses itself into forty units and doubles the perimeter strength. The small amount of automated fire below
lessens as RN6 attack Aeromyds target and silence battle porch after battle porch.
Mr. Eight leaves wave three hovering aimed at the isolated eastern army; five
thousand troop slaughtering battering rams held aloft floating five miles high:
a small wall of titanium grinding wheels to open ground level flight corridors.
Rya Talon and
Drorgo’s twenty-five million fast attack infantry, and three dozen mechanized
divisions, are advancing on The Vultures northern army, hiding in clouds of distillery smoke; the self-propelled guns wreaking havoc on the mass of troops locked into a
defensive position: their moral weakened by the rising piles of corpses.
Sitting by the bubbler in Parkland Trevor watches the Aeromyds crowd the streets of nearby Boulevard Five. The thrumming sound of the black blocks of pulsating EMV divisions circling the towers rim brings Alex, Harris, Danes and The Alliant up the blue
steel stairwell of the old abandoned Bell Tower Station. Trevor shouts above the sound of the humming electric dynamos.
“Can you give me some kind of heads up on this?”
The Alliant comes beside Trevor, “Let them pass by and then begin it must be done outdoors.”
Mr. Eight detecting no sign of a willingness to surrender orders the AR20; “Close The Circle.”
The ear shattering drone of the approaching phalanxes of aerial invaders forces all five men back underground to escape the skull rattling, eyesight and
hearing threatening waves of sound approaching. The clear light Presence from the aqueduct remains
stationary and undetected.
The tornado sounding passage encourages all five men to retreat two dozen steps into the mouth of the tunnel, before retracing there steps to the surface, finding the invaders methodically crossing Parkland Avenue: to secure Boulevard Five. Frank takes
a bottle of whiskey, a thermos and two boxes of crackers out of the provision duffel bags, and takes a seat on the middle bench by the pathway’s gap, leading into the northern meadow. Taking half a cup of coffee and half a cup of
whiskey; Harris
watches with a self-contained sense of awe as the clouds of AR20 special forces; choke Library City above ground; while at street level electrical arcs and small powerful thunder bolts, crisscross unstoppably at ground level, as The Shadow tentacles
trigger carpets of tricolored light grenades; emitting softball sized obliterating vortex paradomes with each inward explosion triggered. Harris looks at Trevor raising his cup, “There’s no time like the present.”
Trevor sitting by the bubbler unwinds The Vault and places the lid beside him. The array sensing Disk-2 opens immediately into a smooth, flower shaped, five leveled platform to update.
Harris gets up from the far bench, carrying the bag of provisions, pointing to
the weapons trunk on the hand cart. Alex pulls it along while The Alliant and Danes come over. The small team gather in a tight huddle five feet from the bubbler. Trevor is
glad The Alliant is here to assuage the paranoia he might feel if allowing; Ted, Frank and Alex into this close a degree of proximity to The Core. Slipping
Disk-2 out of his shirt pocket there is a slight tug felt between his two fingers. Unseen by the
men’s inward gaze; The Presence freed from the church steeple across the street from the Harland Building coalesces into a modest sized hardened dome. Disk-2 hovers over the tiny button sized Disk-5. When the golden funnel of flowing rivers of yellow-
white light forms from disk to disk; absolute silence and darkness surround the
five.
Trevor can see by the ambient light he is sitting on a small black onyx block
attached to a flat surface of the same exact texture that extends to a fifty foot square on all sides where a different subtle greyer shade of black resumes. Further out
looks misty and active with vague motion.
Trevor says cautiously, “We are inside it now.” Taking his steel cigarette case out he offers everyone a smoke and they accept. The only dramatic change the men notice are small white clouds of mist solidifying at the four cardinal compass points
at a distance of three hundred feet.

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