Messiah in Green 1, Revelations (Formerly 'Lexx', complete)

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 2, Chapter 17

"Lexx hon, do wake up, you're going to be late."

Blinking fuzzily, Lexx tried to figure out where she was. A gentle rocking and bumping suggested a vehicle of some sort, traveling over uneven terrain. So how did she get here? Lexx could remember fleeing to the desert... looking for something, a way home. Chicago home, not Plant home. She remembered having to run from something but being unable to. Fey, they had caught her, given her something, some drug. She was...

Lexx immediately started to struggle against bonds that no longer existed. Movement was still slow and tired, whatever they had given her hadn't fully worn off. Lexx gazed at her unrestrained body in confusion, then at the rest of the small room she was currently in. Two rows of seats, each bolted to hardwood walls, and a single door out one end. Only one occupant in the room with her, the one that had likely spoken and woken her up. She was obviously fey, having the same emaciated yet devastatingly attractive body shape. Yet unlike most all the fey Lexx had come across, she was much taller, at least six feet, probably more. Even stranger was the definite Asian tinge to the woman's features. She smiled at Lexx, a cold gesture.

"What's going on?" Lexx felt like she had been asking that question far too often.

"Your stop is coming up my dear, we don't want you to miss it."

"I'm... my stop? Look, just so we're clear, wasn't I just captured?"

"Yes, you were incredibly interesting, I couldn't help but want to find out more."

"And what did you find out?"

"Oh, worlds of stuff! I figured a First Caste would not be so far away from a Plant, all alone, unless there was a great story behind it, and I wasn't disappointed. A First Caste with memories of earth, willing to sacrifice untold power within the Plant just for a chance to go back home, all so very noble and heartrending."

"Wait, how did you know? Last I remember... your flunkies hit me with something..." Lexx wiped her face experimentally. Her hand came away clean, if there were still glitter on her, it would take more than that to wipe it off.

"Dear, with all this power, don't you think putting you in a trance and draining you of useful information would be well within my means?"

"I'm," Lexx focused, the sleepiness was fading away rather quickly, "I'm not your 'dear', as far as I can tell. So, what happens now?"

"I already told you, we get to your stop, and you get dropped off and continue on your way."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"I don't believe you."

"Why not?"

"You're fey."

"Am not!"

"You're leading a band of fey, you look like fey, you admitted to having the capabilities of fey, you're fey."

"And would you consider yourself a Plant-born?"

"Fine, what are you then?"

"A changeling."

"Changelings are f... wait, you're saying you're the one that was taken and replaced?"

"Exactly, about three centuries ago now, and rather eager to get back."

"You're not making sense."

"You're going into it with the wrong preconceptions. It wasn't an involuntary change, I had spent quite a bit of time in consultation with representatives before agreeing to the switch."

"Why'd you do it?"

"The same reason you would have done it if given the chance: Everyone else's reality sucks."

Lexx opened her mouth, then closed it again. She had to concede the point. "So why are you letting me go?"

"Because you want to get back to earth, dear. Were you like any other First Caste, I would have simply drained you of anything useful, let my court torture every last trace of passion from you, then ransomed you back to your Plant, if they were willing to take what remained. But since you aren't, since you actually have a functioning memory and drive to return home, I see no reasonable choice but to let you go," the woman smiled winningly.

Lexx nodded, "Fine, what's the catch?"

"Of course, a bright one you are-"

"Could you drop the condescension? And do you have a name?"

"Queen Mab-"

"How original,"

"I find it fits, dear. In a moment, you will be dropped off at the furthest extent of my travels, the closest you're going to get to what you seek. If you do manage to find your way back to earth, I've left a... a file on your body, to be given to the aformentioned associates of my back home. Don't worry about finding them, they're only active during a certain time of year, the late summer, and when they are, you will find yourself strongly drawn to them."

"Wait, on my body?" Lexx was examining herself again, finding nothing out of place.

"Pull your dress down," Queen Mab said helpfully.

Lexx glared at her, not moving.

"No, really, if you want to see for yourself."

Turning away, not really knowing why she was insisting on being so modest, Lexx took a peak at her own minimal cleavage. For a moment she saw nothing, then, in the inconsistent, shifting light of wherever she was, she caught a glimpse of it.

"Glitter?!"

"Quite an effective data-storage medium for those who know how to use it."

"Glitter?! Why the hell won't it wipe off?!!"

"Don't worry, it will disappear once my associates have read it."

"I don't want to fucking sparkle! I don't want to go flashing your... associates, whatever the hell they are either!"

"It's too late to fight about it now, dear."

"Why the hell can't you simply go back and tell them yourself... not that this doesn't kinda work out in my favour?"

Queen Mab sighed, "I can't."

Lexx smiled, "Ah, the truth comes out."

"I didn't spend all of my time in this wretched place. I came here by accident, and I've been stuck ever since, over sixty years now. I hate it here, no one is interesting. I want out. That's the message I need you to send to my associates on earth, they can take care of the rest from there. I can't get out of here because every... well, every trans-reality rip is one-way, all of them only leading to this horrid place, none away. The only ways out of here lay right in the middle of where I can't go."

"I'm guessing this is that mythical way back home that I've been looking for?" Lexx asked, "So why can I get there when you can't?"

"Because you're Plant-born. This place... it's locked so that only the Castes can get in."

"Why?" Lexx asked, "I've been stuck here two years, and I still don't know where the hell 'here' is. I don't even know why. All I know is that one moment I was being tortured in Maccadyne, the next I ended up-"

"Maccadyne? You came here from Maccadyne?"

"You've heard of it?"

"I... wow, back even before... yeah, yeah I have. That explains it," Queen Mab looked exultant, "That explains a lot. Okay, we don't have enough time, so here's the quick story: The Plant, that thing which controls all the Castes? In case you don't know, it's only one of nine. Now, something nearly none of the Plant-born know: The Plants themselves are slaves to something more, just like the Castes are slaves to their Plants. All nine Plants are arranged around the desert we're in right now, all of them are directing energy towards the center of this desert, to something I can't get into. The Castes maintain the Plants, the Plants produce energy, the energy gets funneled to one location. Some sort of inter-dimensional power-station. Up until a moment ago, I had no idea who ran that station."

"Maccadyne," Lexx said.

"They control the ways in and out, they must be running the operation," Mab replied, "We're here."

Lexx stood up, and was happy when she found the movement caused no dizziness. "Fine. I'm feeling ready to go and take out that company single-handedly now. Unfortunately I have no idea what the hell I'm doing, any advice?"

"We can't get inside," Queen Mab said, "But from what I've seen from the outside, it looks like a giant set of factories, all connected to a large central tower, that must be the focus point. Since the energy is being used by Maccadyne, there must be some sort of portal back in there, some place for the energy to go through, and for those running the gig to keep tabs on things here."

"So keep heading to the center," Lexx said, "Umm... how am I supposed to know what these portals look like? Are they labeled?"

"If I was allowed in to see, I wouldn't be here telling you," Queen Mab said, "If it's an open portal back, though, you should be able to guess where it is, feel it."

"Thanks," Lexx said as Mab opened the door for her. Almost immediately the room was filled with whipping dust. Lexx shielded her eyes and slowly stepped out into a sandstorm, "What the hell?"

"Good luck dear! Don't let me down!" Queen Mab slammed the door, locking Lexx outside.

Lexx watched in amazement as the room she was in, the entire building she had been 'riding', lifted itself up on spider legs and marched off into the storm, disappearing in seconds. Lexx turned and looked at the massive concrete structure. Only vague shapes came through her slitted eyes, as far as she could determine, she was in the center of the massive funnel-cloud she had seen from the distance before she had been caught. The Queen had been nice enough to drop her off near a door. Lexx tried the handle, it opened.

For the next half hour Lexx wandered through abandoned buildings, fascinated. Nothing had been here for a very long time, Lexx's footprints were the only thing to disturb the thick dusty covering of the floors. She wondered if any of the large, rusted heaps of machinery worked, or what they were supposed to do if they did. Lexx had held a few factory jobs long ago, she could put forward a few vague guesses. She made her way through the first building, and upon exiting, found herself in a large work-yard. Here the wind wasn't so bad, and Lexx could see a few other buildings, as well as the massive tower at the center of it all. It was here she aimed for.

Skin prickling at what felt like a massive buildup of static energy, Lexx carefully pushed open one of the unattended doors of the tower with her cane. She stepped inside, feeling the strange urge to close the door behind her and lock it, just in case. Through some sort of reception all, through another door, onto a massive factory floor, wasn't she done with factories? Lexx suddenly realized she wasn't alone in here.

It wasn't so much a factory as it was a massive hydroponics bay. Row upon row of water-gardens, all filled with identical, red-leafed plants, all tended to by hordes of Third Caste workers. Hundreds of rows, all radiating out from a gigantic central column, with at least a hundred-foot diameter, all maintained by thousands of Third Caste. None of which paid Lexx the slightest bit of attention. What was going on here?

Lexx had a moment of indecision. Part of her wanted nothing more than to investigate, try to find the meaning behind all this. This was obviously the culmination of all that existed on this world. The Plants, the Castes, the jungle which surrounded the desert. All that energy, it was all aimed at this one, colossal room, but why? To grow strange looking plants with red leaves? Another part of Lexx had had enough, that other part said that a chance to rest, to truly rest, lay ahead, on top of that pillar. A hundred feet wide, forty or so feet tall. No ramps or stairs, how on earth would she get up there?

"Bamf."

A few deep breaths, perhaps Lexx should have hobbled closer to the pillar before transporting herself on top of it. No matter, she was here now. The bird's eye view of the gardens didn't help answer any questions. The giant pillar itself turned out to be hollow, Lexx was standing on a walkway leading around the entire rim. Far above, through a strange haze, red lights glowed. Nine bridges lead from equidistant points of the perimeter of the pillar, all to a large, hanging platform in the center. In the center of the platform was...

Lexx immediately started heading down the nearest bridge. Perhaps she could have bamf'd safely, but for some reason she didn't want to risk it. The static she felt early was a hundred times stronger here. The sheer concentration of energy, reality itself felt unstable. Lexx found herself sighing in unconscious relief every time her foot managed to find solid ground, even though the bridge looked sturdy enough. For every step she took, Lexx was momentarily worried she would go drifting off into space, or right off the edge of the bridge, down below.

Looking down, Lexx immediately regretted it. She peered into the abyss, and the abyss looked back at her. She didn't become the abyss, or at least she really hoped she didn't. Lexx didn't think she was that ugly. In the infinite darkness below, something was approaching. Something that had possibly been awoken simply by Lexx's glance downward. Something that Lexx only caught a brief glimpse of before resuming her hobble, faster than before, skin trying to crawl off in multiple directions. Something with far too many eyes, but just one mouth, one endless mouth filled with endless teeth. Infinitely far below, yet closing with unholy speed.

"Abaddon," Lexx heard a whispering voice say, then realized it was her own.

As if in reply the thing roared from below. 'Roar' being a relative term, what portion of the sound Lexx's hearing was capable of registering did not correspond to anything Lexx had ever experienced before, other than that it sounded like some strange, alien hunger. Lexx groaned in pain as she involuntarily broke into a run, her bad knee protesting and threatening to collapse with every step. Still twenty feet away from the central platform, her knee finally gave out and Lexx fell to the ground. She could now hear the clatter of warped claws on the steel sides of the abyss, coming ever closer.

Lexx looked at the platform. Everything looked stable, but she could feel the very fabric of reality being stretched thin here. If she tried to bamf, there was no telling where she'd end up, she could impose her own reality on other realities, but that tended to require a stable reality to paint her own over first. Rows of teeth appeared on either side of the bridge Lexx was on. A single mouth, towering thirty feet above her, closing in on both sides, ready to devour the bridge and her on it. In desperation, Lexx looked back towards the central platform, seeking anything solid she could grab onto.

It came to her in the form of a scent. The creature, Abaddon's sheer bulk had displaced so much air that, by sheer chance, a gust of wind went past the central platform, carrying its scent to Lexx. The smell of rain, of grease and smoke, of pollution and filth wafting up from a ruined river and an abused landscape. The smell of Chicago, the smell of home. That was it, that was the portal on the central platform. As the gargantuan mouth snapped shut around her, Lexx grabbed onto that one moment and pulled.

"Bamf."

[LadyTevar]

Does she make it?!?!?

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 01

"Rain rain, go away, come again some other day."

It wasn't a full downpour, but the water dripping off her hanging head was indicative of a thoroughly drenched Lexx. She was on her knees, body sagging as she tried to re-learn how to move. It was like being jarred unexpectedly from a vivid dream, and trying to re-acquaint yourself with the waking world on the fly, except Lexx hadn't been woken, she had just been tossed from one waking world to the other. The reality-shift equivalent of sleep-paralysis wore off and Lexx snapped her head up, trying to figure out where she was.

A rooftop, at night, during a storm. Incredibly vague answers which nonetheless provided a wealth of information. There was grit on the roof, it hurt her knees. Unsteadily Lexx pushed herself to her feet. She bent over shakily and grabbed her cane, proceeding to hobble to the edge of the roof. Her skin was slick with rain, her sundress, though mostly waterproof itself, plastered to her frame rather uncomfortably. Lexx shivered from the cold as she looked over the parapet at the city below. It was a city, moreover it was a city she recognized. Lexx had made it home after all.

Lexx giggled, the giggled turned into a laugh as she turned and sagged against the parapet. She chortled and shivered as she turned her face up toward the frigid rain. It tasted slightly acidic and quite foul, quite impure to the next most recent rain she had been exposed to. It didn't matter, Lexx was home, had finally come back to Chicago after two years! She ran a hand over her smooth scalp, wiping a splatter of rain away and laughed some more. She had to, it was the only way to verify this wasn't a dream to be taken away at her moment of greatest hope. Lexx knew that she would never dream of herself just sitting on the rooftop of the Maccadyne building, she could tell that was her location from her brief look over the edge, just sitting there and laughing maniacally for several minutes straight.

Eventually the laughter died off. The cold became a more insistent concern than the question of whether or not this was some dream. Lexx once again stood up, there was a triangular shaped shed amongst the many antennae and radio towers, a stairwell leading inside. Lexx offered one last glance around, there were no lights on up here, the neighboring skyscrapers likewise had no power. A few blocks away, things seemed normal though. In fact, judging by the lit windows, it looked like power had gone off over a large, spherical area, centered around the Maccadyne tower. Lexx tried to figure out why this didn't surprise her.

She was responsible for it, that's why. Apparently hopping across the boundaries of reality had some odd effects, which made sense considering it was a violation of many known physical laws. One of those effects must have been the disruption of local electronic. Though not a long disruption, Lexx noted as Maccadyne's backup power generators kicked on, providing tepid light to the rooftop. She made her way over to the shack and tried the door, it was unlocked, and revealed a stairway going down.

Two stories down, Lexx took a peek over the edge of the stairwell. She didn't know how many stories high the Maccadyne building was but was fairly certain she didn't want to walk all of them. Were the elevators still functional on back-up power? Lexx decided risking that was better than pulling a reverse Ghostbusters scene. She tried the next double-door she came to, the sign indicated she was on the sixty second floor, which meant the tower was sixty six stories tall. The double-doors opened without protest, revealing a hallway lit only by the red exit signs, littered with doors to endless offices. The last time Lexx was in a location like this, she had nearly been caught by a security guard, best to keep an eye out.

The unreality of all of this hit Lexx once more as she made her way to the nearest elevator, not fifteen feet from the stairwell. She was here, back on earth, from some place she didn't even know the location of. She had spent two years locked away from here, and now she was just casually swinging back into things? Should she feel more out of place in a modern office building after living without electricity for two years? Lexx pressed the down button, the elevator responded quickly, apparently it did work. Maybe two years wasn't that long after all, it felt like forever.

The doors opened, Lexx stepped inside. Like the stairwell, it was well lit in here. She hit the ground floor and the contraption started down. It would be so much faster to simply install a reality-distorting central column here, like in the Plant. Less stomach-churning too, that was something Lexx was going to have to get used to again. As the LED indicated the carriage was at the twelth floor, Lexx thought better of things and hit the second-floor button. What if Maccadyne security were watching the elevators and had someone waiting for her down there?

The doors opened and Lexx once again found the stairwell, same location as before. A pretty repetitive floor design, she thought. Lexx moved slower down this last flight of stairs, carefully peeking through the slitted windows at the bottom. The temptation hit her to go further downstairs, to see what she could find in the basement levels, where she had allegedly been kept before she ended up in the Plant. Lexx didn't know what time it was, obviously past business hours but nothing more specific than that. If she could maintain her suddenly stronger grip over her own reality, she would be well armed to do a little infiltration downstairs and stand a reasonable chance of making it out in one piece.

It was the exhaustion that convinced Lexx otherwise. If she could survive for long enough, if she could find a place to rest and recuperate, she would come back. Now? Lexx was tired, she was wet and aching all over, she just wanted to find somewhere she felt safe. Lexx crept through the door, down the short hallway into the main lobby of Maccadyne. She could hear voices out there, one electronic, one human.

"Doing a second floor sweep, elevator was empty," said the electronic voice.

"Same down here," said the human voice, "Power company says things should be up and running in a few minutes."

"Watts in D Section here, stairwell door by the elevator's opened on sixty second floor, looks like we've got an intruder here."

"Nothing on cameras yet," the human voice again.

Lexx peeked around the corner, the security desk was positioned in a fashion that she was momentarily out of sight of the single guard watching things from there. Good, all the time she needed. Lexx planned fast, she could see the belt of the guard, the rather attractive looking box clipped to the belt. The box had two prongs. Lexx concentrated, opening her mouth to whisper, "Bamf."

Lexx was standing close enough to the guard that she could feel his body heat, she realized she was giving off an audible sigh of relief, thankfully drowned out by radio chatter. Subconsciously Lexx had been worrying that now back on earth, she wouldn't be able to do the fantastic things she had accomplished back in that fantastic world. It was easy enough to do so there, from the moment she had arrived in the Plant she had to accept most facets of reality as she knew it were to be thrown into question. Back here on earth though, Lexx hadn't been certain if she would be able to manipulate things the way she did on that other world.

In the few seconds since she had appeared behind him, the guard still hadn't realized she was standing there. Now was the time to act, nearly two years of physical training had to be put to use now. Smoothly, Lexx unclipped the tazer from the guard's belt. As he reactively reached to his side to grab it, Lexx planted the device on his back and squeezed the button. The guard made a 'woof' sound and fell over, striking his head against the counter on the way down. Lexx winced, that looked like it hurt. Immediately she went to work, putting a half-formulated plan into action.

Lexx dragged the incapacitated guard out, he didn't look much older than her, she yanked the man's shoes off, undid his belt and removed his pants. "Sorry hon," she said to the quietly groaning security guard, "This will look a little less out of place outside."

The pants were a little big on her, but the belt took care of the slack. Lexx slipped the shoes on next, quickly tying them. She kept the tazer right next to her, just in case she would have to use it again. She didn't think she would, back this had started, when she had been tazed and loaded in the back of a van, the shock had put her out of commission for a while. Still, her body was rather small, and this guy was already groaning and twitching...

Lexx removed the man's overshirt, leaving behind a white tank-top. She found one of those zip-ties on the belt and promptly bound the man's hands behind his back. She took a look at the tag on the shirt. "Hey Jeremy," she addressed the moaning figure, "Here's the deal, I'm not going to hurt you any more than I have to, 'kay?"

No obvious response. Lexx shrugged and rooted in the pants she was wearing, she found a wallet in the back pocket. She opened it up and smiled gladly, there were a number of singles in there. "Alright Jeremy, I'm only taking a few dollars out of here for subway fare, nothing else," Lexx tossed the wallet on top of the guard, "I'm also taking your shirt, belt, and pants... and I'm keeping the tazer. It's all Maccadyne property anywas, I think, so you're not losing anything except for a few dollars really."

Lexx stood up and stripped out of her Plant-made dress, briefly naked from the waist up before putting on the guard's shirt and doing up a single button for modesty. The guard was beginning to struggle, but the movements were still slow, she had a minute or so before he would become dangerous. Lexx crouched down, "Hey Jeremy? Here's the deal, I'm leaving now, and I'm guessing you're going to have to report this or something. So here's your radio," Lexx slid the radio to the other side of the lobby, thirty feet away, "When you're feeling up to it, you can go and grab it and call for backup, or whatever it is you do. If we ever run into each other again, just remember, I could have done a lot worse to you."

The dress was folded up and stuffed inside the pants pocket as Lexx made her way to the nearest El entrance. During the two-block trip, Lexx had bamf'd twice, experimentally testing if she could still do it here in mundane Chicago. Traffic was very light for the entirety of the walk, suggesting that it was rather late at night. Once in the underground station, Lexx momentarily worried that El rates had gone up, and she wouldn't have enough to pay her way through. The worry went unfounded and she made her way onto the Red Line, thankfully chilly enough to stay awake for the rest of the trip.

Lexx had the car to herself, something she was thankful for. A lot of crime happened on the El, and as much as she had been training in the Plant, it still seemed a little unreal, she feared that she wouldn't be able to call on anything she learned if she were actually assaulted. The pre-recorded voice alerted Lexx that Bryn Mawr was the train's next stop, and she stood up with a groan.

It was a two-mile walk from the station to her destination. Lexx considered using the shortcut her strange ability made available to her, but decided against it on the off chance that someone was watching. Besides, it would take the same amount of energy either way, and it wasn't like she was going to be late for anything in the interim. The storm fumed overhead as the rain slowly decreased to a mild drizzle. Lexx shivered and kept her bald head down, focusing on the next step forward, next block forward, counting off the streets.

Lexx managed to get back to the alley behind the apartment before stopping for breath. She had to make it back this far, just to see, make sure it was still there. This time it was Chicago that felt unreal and dreamlike as Lexx gazed at the alleyway where she had been kidnapped an eternity ago. Lexx half expected to see the van waiting for her, Mael running after it. She was afraid, she was actually afraid of this.

With a deep breath Lexx stepped into the alleyway, feeling like a far greater distance than just a single footstep was crossed. Another step, a third, they came easier now, the cane going in tune to her protesting legs, the trip wasn't over yet. Lexx reached the fence, the gate to the rear stairwell of her apartment. She looked up to the fourth floor, a soft blue light came from the single visible window, the glow from a computer screen. Lexx's breath hitched. She opened the gate, glass crunched underfoot down the walkway, to the back door with the malfunctioning lock. It still didn't work, the door opened.

Lexx hobbled up the flights of stairs, no elevator here to make things easier. Second floor, third floor, fourth floor. The only thing further up being the rooftop. Lexx stared through the back door, quietly testing the handle, locked as it always was. Beyond was the darkened outline of the kitchen, everything in mostly the same places. Lexx held her fist up, closed her eyes, took a deep breath. She took another breath, trying to will herself to knock.

There was a click, the door handle turned and the door opened. In the dark kitchen a tall, thin figure stood, wearing a lime green shirt and a pair of boxer shorts, her hair long and black. Lexx's raised fist fell to her side, her lip quivered. The girl stared at her, uncomprehending for a moment, then Lexx could see her adding hair to the person standing outside, recognition coming across her features. Lexx's eyes filled with tears as the woman spoke quietly, "L... Lexx?"

A deep hitching breath, Lexx replied in little more than a whisper, "Mael!"

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 02

Lexx muttered something in her half awake state that even she didn't understand. To make up for it, she sleepily wrapped her arm around Mael, borrowing a little warmth. For a while she remained like this, drifting in and out of a dreamless sleep. The times she awoke and managed to open her eyes long enough to verify Mael's presence, she was forced to wonder if that was the dream, being back here in the safety of the apartment. Such was the nature of sleep that even one's personal reality was thrown into question.

It wasn't until she woke and found that Mael's space next to her on the futon was vacated that Lexx decided it might be time to head into a state of greater wakefulness. Mael was gone, but it wasn't a concerning absence, Lexx could hear the bathroom fan on behind the closed door. First off on the checklist of waking up was the physical re-acquaintance. A brief check ensured that Lexx was still whole in bodily form, at least. The light wasn't on, but sunlight or something close to it peeked around the edges of the blanket-covered windows. Lexx looked at her hand, noting the slightly darker, rough patch around her wrist. The area where the living material which had bound her to the Plant was now physically merged with her skin, in poor light it almost looked like badly done henna. Closer examination revealed the wholly different texture of her skin in that area, as well as the strange green veins that wove through the brown.

Was that real? Had it really happened, had Lexx actually spent two years trapped in whatever that place was? A different planet? An alternate dimension? A hole in time? The complete lack of information about that place didn't help her uncertainty. But there was one thing she could verify right now. Memories of last night were rather confused. The trip home was a haze, after Mael greeted her at the door, everything went into a dreamlike series of snapshots and soundbites before all was cut off by the deepest sleep Lexx had ever experienced in a long time. Sometime during that fragmentary state of consciousness Lexx had heard something, though. Something about timespans which disagreed with her assessment of reality, it was time to check whose account stood to evidence.

Lexx poked the mouse and Mael's computer monitor lit up. The Opera web-browser with Mael's dozen bookmarked tabs was already open, Lexx simply opened a new tab and navigated her way to Yahoo. As the page was loading Lexx flicked the mouse pointer to the lower-right portion of the screen, over by the time. A second later a pop-up informed her of the date and year as well. Lexx's breath caught in her throat, she checked back to a now loaded Yahoo page to verify, just on the off chance that the computer's clock was wrong. It wasn't, Yahoo agreed that Lexx was wrong.

"Double-checking?" Mael asked, looking over Lexx's shoulder.

"It's true," Lexx whispered, "I wasn't gone for two years... I wasn't even gone for two weeks."

"I saw you kidnapped last Sunday, today's Tuesday, nine days, more or less."

Lexx sat back, staring at nothing, "I... I really don't know what to make of this."

Mael sat down, propping herself between Lexx's sprawled legs as she took over the computer, "Well, what feels right to you?"

"According to my memory... I spent two years away from here... but according to reality..." Lexx started.

"What about your reality? What's it's view on the matter?"

"That's the problem, my reality used to be certain that the years were passing, but my reality now is disagreeing with it. I have the memories confirming it, but I have every available source here denying it. I... I don't know what to... I think I'm a little insane."

"You want to talk about it?"

"Yeah... I guess it can't hurt, I probably wasn't very coherent last night... how long did I sleep anyways?"

"Fourteen hours, I got up halfway through and did a few things, then came back for a nap."

"Fourteen... yeesh. Yeah, I don't know where to start though..."

"Hungry?"

Lexx thought about it, "I'm... not exactly, but I think I should give food a try, I guess I'll have to, I've been off of it for a while."

"Chicken ramen okay? We don't have much leftovers at the moment."

"Yeah," Lexx nodded, unsure, "Yeah, sounds good, can't promise I'll finish it."

"Alright, tell you what: I've got some cooking out there right now. I'll grab it, you take a few to collect yourself, and when I get back, you can go through everything you experienced with me, from the moment you got abducted to the moment I opened the door to you last night, okay?"

"Yeah," Lexx said as Mael was already getting up.

Mael eventually returned with the bowl of nostalgic-smelling ramen. Lexx tried a few mouthfuls as she began talking, marveling at how intricate the process of chewing was when you had to focus on every step of the way. As she ate sparingly, Lexx told Mael everything. She told of the trip in the van, blindfolded and tied. Her arrival at Maccadyne and delivery to a closed room. The reappearance of the guard that had nearly caught them in their first break-in at Maccadyne, the shattering of her kneecap, her confinement. The claims of the Observer, her escape nearly prevented by Terrance McNeilson.

Lexx's appearance on the Plant was the most difficult part to explain, as she still had no idea how she got there in the first place. One moment falling through a hole in a lab beneath Maccadyne, the next waking up inside a pod in an unknown location. She explained the nature of the Plant, the organism the size of a city with an entire city beneath its bark. The symbiotic relationship between the Plant and the humans trapped inside, the plant providing food, shelter and clothing. The people maintaining the Plant, protecting it from outside threats and internal parasites.

The Caste system was also explained. The First Caste, fertile humans brought in from earth, normally with no memory of their former lives, Lexx seemed to be an exception to that rule. Their strangely extended lifespans, extending into tens of thousands of years, the physical mutations and mental corruption that occurred with centuries of close proximity to the energies of the Plant. The Second Caste, offspring of the First, sterile but having lifespans of centuries, acting as generals, teachers, and the upper class. The political tangle that occurred between them, the Second Caste competing against each other for status and favour from the First, while the First shuffled them around like resources in their dealings with each other. And finally the Third Caste, products of sporring from exceptionally aged First Caste who had become more Plant than human. Simple creatures of multiple forms and breeds, each suited to a different type of task in the plant, whether it was the squat, durable forms for maintenance and general labour, the lithe gangly creatures of patrolling, exploration and scouting, or hulking, wood-skinned behemoths for brute force and combat.

Lexx's escape from the Plant was covered. After two years of waiting for an opportunity, the help of the First Caste, Leiha, and the Second Caste, Radomir. Taking advantage of a war against the alien-minded fey and escaping in the confusion during the height of the destructive rainy season. Lexx went over her flight from the Plant, the pursuit of both the Plant's armies of Second and Third Caste warriors, a fertile First Caste was something too valuable for the Plant to give up easily. The vast desert beyond the edge of the jungles which surrounded the Plant, her capture by fey in that desert. The revelation that there were multiple Plants on that world, that they were all devoted to producing energy for some unknown purpose, all focused on the Maccadyne-control center of this world. Finally Lexx's escape through that very center, back into the Maccadyne tower, and her walk home from there.

"After that? Well, basically it's me trying to work up the nerve to knock on your door, and you answering before I had a chance to," Lexx finished, "Ouchie."

"What?"

"Cramps... I think my body's having a bit of trouble adjusting back to solid food."

"Maybe it's just the fact that it's ramen. Or maybe you don't actually need anything in your system at the moment. What you said about that ambrosia stuff... that it holds you over for weeks at a time," Mael suggested.

"You say it as if it actually happened," Lexx muttered.

"It was real enough for you, wasn't it?" Mael pressed.

"The evidence is sitting wherever I care to look," Lexx waved a hand in frustration, "Only nine days passed since that point. It doesn't matter if I'm convinced that it was two years, reality obviously disagrees with me."

"Yet didn't you just recently discover that aside from your own interpretation of it, reality is highly variable?" Mael asked.

"Yeah... well..."

"Isn't it possible that all of this did happen, but that where you were, this place with the Plants, time goes a little faster in relation to earth?"

"It's also possible that I was kept in an unconscious state at Maccadyne, hallucinating all of it, creating these images as explanations for whatever they were doing to me," Lexx countered.

"Except that it's really hard to pack two years of experience into less than nine days of hallucinations. You didn't even have to go through it for me to believe you, Lexx, I can see the passage of time in your eyes."

"I just want to know what's real."

"You already do, Lexx, in fact you have a better grasp of it than most people out there. You found that out when you escaped from the Plant, during that storm."

"You seem more assured of that than I do."

"That's because you're not the only one who discovered how subjective reality can be," Mael said.

Lexx stared at Mael, wanting to question but not knowing where to start. Mael obliged her, "You said, when you were falling in that big storm, how you felt like you were flying between here and there? A few nights ago, there was a storm here and... I don't really know how to explain it either... I saw you."

"What?"

"You appeared right here on the futon, just the way you said you did, soaking wet, wearing that hot looking sundress. I was currently going through my own paradigm shift as far as reality was concerned, I didn't really have the facilities at the time to do much about it, and you were gone by the time I came to my senses," Mael admitted.

"And you're saying..."

"You basically discovered you had superpowers," Mael put it bluntly, "So did I."

"That's awesome," Lexx said, "So cliche too. We should be a duo, fighting crime in spandex and-"

"I'm intending to, sort of," Mael said.

"What?"

"It's been over two years, for you at least, but do you remember one of the last things we talked about before you were abducted?" Mael asked.

Lexx thought about it,"A few things, yeah, but what in particular?"

"I was pissed. I was frustrated because I had the will and drive to do something for the good of the world, for people in general, but I didn't have the means, financial, physical or whatever to do it. Things have changed, Lexx, I can do far more now than I could then. I haven't really changed mentally, it's still me, but I'm far more capable of making my desires a reality. I can do something, I can actually make a change now, possibly take a good chunk out of Maccadyne. After hearing what they did to you, that urge is just that much stronger now."

"Okay, hold on, this is going a little too fast for me. I just got back, I... I find out I have two years of memory where none should exist, and now you want to take out Maccadyne. I mean, I agree, but can't we just hold on a second?"

"Don't worry," Mael scooted over and wrapped her arms around Lexx, "I'm not going to rush into it, it was just with you being back I've been a little motivated."

Lexx smiled in spite of herself, she rested a hand on Mael's arm, "I guess I need to get back into the habit of living on earth."

"Take your time, you've gone through a lot."

"I can't really do that, I'm not allowed. I mean there's things that have to get done, and I'm not allowed to rest for it," Lexx had to slow herself down, her voice was becoming frantic. She took a deep breath and continued, "I mean, I need to see if I still have a job, and if you guy filed a missing person report or whatever, we have to take care of that, and-"

"Don't worry about it," Mael persisted, "You're going to first rest until you feel ready to deal with things, and if you don't do so on your own, we're going to make you. Don't worry about the police, we filed a report, but we can take you to the station tomorrow and get it all cleared up. As for a job, I just got one, so we can coast for a while before we have to worry about money."

Lexx sat back, closing her eyes. She almost felt like she could nap for another few hours if it weren't for the ramen-induced cramps. "I can't say something cliched right now."

"What?"

"Well, at this point people usually say, 'It all seems like a dream now'. I can't say that, it doesn't seem like a dream. It was two years of simply living, day to day. A lot of the days were the same, but they all took the same length of time, they all added up. If it was a dream, it was the most vivid and best remembered dream I ever had, and it lasted two years. I dreamed an entire world and a society to populate that world. I dreamed near rape, torture, interrogation, boredom, physical conditioning, a full love affair, training, admiration, heartbreak... it would make such an awesome story."

"Was it a bad dream?"

"It was a fucking terrible dream! I was taken away from all the people I loved and cared for, held prisoner inside a place I never conceived of existing! I spent two years as an essentially well-treated prisoner, never knowing if I'd ever get out, get back to see... see you..." Lexx had to stop, she was close to breaking down again.

Mael leaned over and hugged her, removing was little resistance there was to Lexx's tears. "I was so scared... I thought I'd never see you again!"

"Not that it amounts to much since it was only a week and a half on my end," Mael said, running a hand through Lexx's hair, "I never stopped looking for you. I ran with the assumption that the police were useless and continued my own search."

Lexx pushed herself away from Mael, just enough to look into her eyes, "Mael... just in case I. No, fuck that, just because it needs to be said: I love you. I've been madly in love with you for years now, and I don't want to lose you again."

Mael hugged Lexx again, a hint of emotion crawling into her voice, "You dipshit, of course you're in love with me. You've made that obvious for the entire time you've been living here. I'm in love with you too... I always thought it was one of those obvious things that goes without saying."

"I'm a dweeb who lives for verbal reinforcement."

"Then I will be too. I want to take out Maccadyne, when and how we can discuss later, but I need to know now if you're going to be on board for this."

"I'm on board. I'm... I'm so fucking on board I can't properly express it right now, I need a stirring battle-hymn to show just how on board with this I am... and a nap."

"I'm up for some more sleep too, I don't have to work until tomorrow."

"How'd you get the job?"

"Remember how we both have suddenly refined views on the nature of reality?"

"Mael..."

"Yeah, I'm a bad person. I used my strange, powerful, unique gifts for petty personal ends and netted myself a job at Motherboard Metropolis."

"That's... that's hilarious actually. Here we are with the ability to dictate our own reality within certain limits... and you use it to get a job. Productive, but still amusing... exactly what can you do anyways? I mean, you already know what I can do, paint me blue and give me a pointy tail. Is yours the same?"

"No, not exactly. It's more like... well, after it happened, I just, I've been seeing things in terms of auras, energy. No, that's not quite right either, it's just... the fabric of reality. I see how things are ultimately connected, not all to each other, but indirect, things connected to things connected to things, you know?"

"Not really," Lexx said with a yawn.

"Let me put it this way," Mael said, "I can make a motion that will set off a chain of reactions in such a manner that something unexpected will happen, like so..."

Mael waved a hand and from the opposite end of the futon a pillow flew up and into her grasp. She gave it to Lexx, shifting the other woman so that the both had a comfortable place to lay, "I've taken to calling it 'the force', how original eh? It seems to also extend to fucking with peoples' heads on a small scale. I can't do anything big, toss pillows around, flick a light switch if I concentrate a lot, maybe give someone the equivalent of a ranged shove. How I got the job? Well, during the interview I just planted the suggestion that I was the best damn job candidate to ever walk through that door. That's about the extent of what I can do, really."

"So, Maccadyne, a multi-trillion dollar megacorp is going to get taken down by two girls, one who can jump from place to place and one who can perform small mind tricks?"

"Yup."

"Cool, so long as we're both on board."

[Oni Koneko Damien]

And that's all I have for the moment. I was intending to leave it alone until I finished part 3, but I felt a little bad for leaving Tevar on a cliffhanger. More to be posted as I complete it.

[LadyTevar]

Thank you Oni!

I just had to know if she made it or not. You had drawn me into Lexx that much.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 03

Mael had a job. Mael had the same revelations as Lexx. Lexx was back in Chicago, or back in conscious reality. Lexx leaned against Mael, wondering if this was how denial worked. All of this should be shocking and world altering. Lexx should have been a big ball of useless while her mind tried to wrap around this concept, but that simply failed to happen. She napped, she woke up, checked the couple dozen messages that had cropped up in her inbox. She had a few online conversations with friends, reassuring them that while she couldn't remember anything that happened, she was mostly fine now and coping. Mael had done a good job of spreading word about her disappearance, everyone Lexx knew, and a number of people she didn't, were in a panic over it.

Lexx agreed with Mael's idea concerning whatever the hell happened to her: Don't announce it. The story they were going with so far, the story they had given to the police, was that Lexx had been kidnapped, kept blindfolded and often unconscious. She eventually woke up in an alley down in the Loop, shaved bald and left to find her own way home. An easy to keep story, just enough details to satisfy interrogations yet not bring up too many questions. Easier to keep to by virtue of the fact that Lexx simply didn't know what had actually happened during that time. Telling the truth, or what Lexx saw as the truth was just begging for trouble at this point simply because Lexx didn't have any answers to the large number of questions it raised.

The police seemed to accept the explanation, marking Lexx's file off. They kept contact info and stated they would call if there were further developments or breaks in the case, such as it was. Mael was pretty cynical about the whole thing, in her opinion the police probably had their hands in Maccadyne's pockets, and any criminal proceedings regarding the company would go sluggishly, if at all. As far as she was concerned, they would have to go it alone if any good were to come of this. The revelation that Aaron was still alive and being kept there only hardened her resolve.

Lexx looked up at Mael, who she was leaning against. Mael had her disninterested face on, staring away at the middle distance outside the bus windows as she listened to some breakcore on clunky headphones. Too disinterested. Lexx had briefly considered keeping the info about Aaron to herself, but realized she simply couldn't live with that. Aaron had been going out with Sera, but to Mael he was more of a brother and best friend than a father-figure. Mael needed to know he was still alive, the consequences of the knowledge were secondary. Lexx only hoped she could keep Mael from doing anything too rash because of this.

Sera didn't know. There was a lot Sera didn't know. She received the same story that Lexx gave her friends, and nothing about Aaron. Sera had shown remarkable restraint, not asking questions and keeping back tears until after Lexx had rested. After that, all bets were off and the floodgates were opened. Sera's emotional nature had been infectious, causing Lexx to break down once more, even making Mael come up with a quick excuse to go hide in the bedroom for a while.

That had been two days ago. Between then and now had been a lot of rest, slowly increasing portions of food, Lexx was beginning to actually feel hunger again, and slightly lessening cramps. There had been moodiness too, nothing ever properly sated. Lexx chalked it up to coming off an addiction to Ambrosia, yet more evidence that it was little more than a drug with high nutritional value. Still, it wasn't as bad as she thought it would be, when she had dared to even approach the subject in her mind.

Of more pressing concern was the nightmares. Lexx realized she should have expected them, she had been traumatized after all. Still, they blindsided her. After the first night's blessed rest, her sleep and been fitful at best. Three to four times a night she would go through them. Always different scenes from her captivity in the plant. Leiha dying, the hideous crunch of her spine shattering under a First Caste's massive foot, then Lexx being next in line for a crushing. Prince David pinning her down, only this time there was no escape, no last minute rescue from his intentions to possess her body. Prince Radomir caught for his conspirations with Lexx. Brought up on charges, his eyes and mouth stitched shut and then banished from the Plant. Lexx brought back to the interrogation room at Maccadyne, the crowbar shattering through her kneecap, she never realized it was even possible to feel pain in nightmares, then the additional horror as the weapon lined up with her other knee.

She was terrified about what was going to happen. Their intended stop was half a block away from the Maccadyne Building, that massive penis extension that housed the international corporation. When she wasn't working, comforting Lexx from her nightmares, or simply socializing with Lexx, Mael had gone on a non-stop research binge on Maccadyne. In the end she had come up with a plan that was, in Lexx's opinion, stupid and hopeless. But with their meager resources, it was really the best they could manage at this point.

They were simply going to walk in the front door, see if they could get to Mr. McNeilson's office, batter down the door if it was locked, kill him and flee. If that went off spectacularly, they might even stick around long enough to see if any damning evidence of the company's tanglings with the fabric of reality were lying around. After that things were vague. Possibly taking the findings to the media, or anything that resulted in an investigation, really. All that was hoped for was bringing those underground levels to light and getting Aaron the hell out of there... and killing the CEO while they were at it.

The bus came to a stop, time to commence phase one of this brilliantly planned operation.

The gleaming phallus of Maccadyne Financial loomed over the two small women, leaving them dwarfed and forgotten among the crowds of people who went about their daily business on the sidewalks. Mael didn't even bother looking up at its immensity as she strode purposefully towards the gleaming double-doors. Lexx followed a little more hesitantly. It was only three days since she had gone the other way through those doors, under far more legally questionable circumstances. Lexx fussed with the shawl she wore over her bald head as she followed Mael through the door, hoping no one recognized her. Mael wasted no time in the vast, expensively decorated multi-story lobby, striding directly to Information.

"Hi, I need to know where Mr. McNielson's office is."

The receptionist took a second to put her call on hold, she looked Mael up and down briefly, then glanced at Lexx briefly. Part of their intricately put together plan was to put on the best clothes either had in order to fit in. At the moment, they looked like a pair of slightly punk-ish interns. "I'm sorry ma'am?" the receptionist asked.

"Mr. McNielson, we had a meeting with him," Mael said impatiently.

"Yes, of course ma'am," the receptionist said, disbelief evident on her face, "Just let me check the itinerary and we'll-"

"There's no need to check the itinerary," Mael said, waving her hand.

Lexx suppressed a giggle, it actually seemed to work. "I guess not, just let me get your names in the log and... wait, you ma'am."

The woman indicated Lexx, who was now currently shrinking into Mael, certain her cover had been blown. "Er... yeah?"

"Are you... is your name Alexxia Beltran?"

"I... yes?" was that the right answer?

"Oh good, we were wondering when you would come in."

"You were?"

"Mr. McNielson said you were his top priority, and requested that you be sent to him at once as soon as you returned."

"He did?"

"His office is on level sixty-five, down the hall, take a left, the large double-doors at the end."

"Umm..."

"Come on Lexx, lets go to your meeting," Mael said, leading Lexx away.

"Er, excuse ma'am, I didn't get your name."

Mael turned and waved her hand a second time, "I'm unimportant and forgettable."

"Yes... I suppose..." the woman went back to work, looking slightly confused.

"What the hell was that about?" Lexx asked as they went to the elevators and waited for an available carriage.

"It's a trap, obviously," Mael said.

The doors opened, thankfully the elevator was empty. Lexx hit the topmost button and the trip upward started, "So why are we blundering right into it?"

"Because he's expecting to see you. He's not expecting to see me too."

"I see."

Mael reached out and pressed the stop button. She turned to look at Lexx, "Listen... we don't have to go through with this if you don't want to. I know I'm probably rushing things."

Lexx hit the start button again, "What else can we do? We've got nothing, we need to get Aaron out of here and soon. I've got a few bones to pick with that asshole as well."

"I know," Mael nodded, "That's why I'm letting you have first dibs."

"I'm worried, though. The... that thing that called itself the 'Observer', it was saying that this guy is a demon or something."

"Then we'll see if we can kill a demon," Mael said.

"Or play some mind tricks on it?" Lexx asked hopefully.

"It doesn't quite work that way," Mael said, "Like I said back there, I'm unimportant and forgettable. I... I can only plant suggestions that people aren't going to think much about. Picking me out of a pool of job candidates, forgetting that I'm hanging out with that girl the big boss wants to see, that sort of thing. Useful, but not godly."

"Mael, I just want you to know-"

"I already know, we're going to get through this, don't over dramatize it."

"Mael..."

"Look, shut up. I'm sorry, but please just shut up. I've thought about it, and I've realized that the more I think about it, the more I'll second guess myself. I want Aaron out of here and I want this asshole dead and that's not going to happen by simply thinking about things. We're going to kill the fucker, ransack his office, and go from there because I am fucking sick of sitting around doing nothing."

"I don't want you hurt."

"I don't want you hurt either, but that didn't stop you from getting a shattered knee, losing your hair and coming back fucking traumatized. We have to hit back and hit back now or simply admit that they've won and we're powerless to stop it!"

Mael clenched her hands into fists and breathed deeply. Lexx, quite frankly, was terrified. She had never seen so much emotion out of Mael before. The doors opened to a quiet set of hallways, the industrious non-sound of minds working feverishly on new ways to leverage debt into profit. "Go on," Mael said, "Do your thing, do what you have to."

"And you?"

"Hanging back until I'm needed, element of surprise and all."

Lexx nodded. The hallway seemed awfully long, and once she turned a corner and lost sight of Mael, that length doubled. Lexx felt dizzy from the mental realization of what she was about to do. This was different from three nights ago. Then it had been a simple matter of survival, Lexx had been going on pretty much autopilot at that point. This time... this was voluntary, Lexx was going here of her own free will with hostile intentions to the person in that office. There was no way she was ready for this, she had trouble working up the willpower to even ask for a day off.

Lexx stopped at the door, a shiny embossed plate informed her that this was the office of Terrance McNielson, CEO of Maccadyne Financial. Lexx looked back down the hallway, she could turn back still, go back and... No. Lexx thought of what she had gone through, she thought of Aaron, she clenched the cane that had never left her side in over two years, the cane she might have to use for the rest of her life. The one responsible was inside, she had to confront him, for better or worse. Lexx opened the door.

Terrance looked up from his paperwork, "Ah, Alexxia, I was wondering when you'd come back, we have so much to-"

"Bamf."

In less than a second Lexx was crouching on top of his desk, cane jabbing downward in a well aimed blow at the man's solar plexus.

"Bamf."

The sound of air being forced out of the asshole's lungs was music to Lexx's ears as she reappeared beside him. He was already bending forward from the blow, Lexx grabbed the back of his head and added to the forward momentum, cracking it harshly across the huge, hardwood desk. It made a satisfying crack and rebounded. Lexx went with the flow and yanked the CEO backwards, letting go in time to send his head flying into the thick-paned window behind his desk. She was a little sad that it didn't shatter, but at least he left behind a large, single crack.

"Bamf."

Lexx was on the other side of Terrance, grabbing the chair he sat on and yanking it out from behind the desk. With a burst of strength she pushed the entire thing over, dumping him on the carpeted floor. Lexx released a gleeful shout of joy as she grabbed her cane and stepped over him, driving the end of it into his face, his generous stomach, his crotch, over and over again. All the hesitance and uncertainty was gone. As soon as she had seen his face again, Lexx knew with utter certainty that the one thing she wanted most in her life at that very moment was to hurt this man, to hurt him an awful lot. Down went the cane, again and again.

Hands burning, shawl completely fallen off, sweat making her clothes stick to her, Lexx finally came to a stop. She panted heavily, leaning on the cane for support. She wanted to say something fitting, something witty. All that came out was, "Fucker... fucker... fucker..."

"Feeling better?" Terrance gurgled through a shattered face.

Lexx reacted too late, Terrance reached out, seemingly unimpeded by the beating he had just taken, and yanked the cane out. As Lexx frantically tried to keep balance, Terrance switched his grip to her one good leg, giving it a harsh yank. The cane flew out of reach as Lexx fell painfully to the ground. She didn't have any time, merely tried for focus on a location a safe distance away from him in the spacious office.

"Ba-oof!"

Lexx was interrupted, Terrance had sat up with surprising speed and thrusted her back onto the carpeted floor, a hand planted firmly above her chest. Blood dribbled onto her from his broken nose as he bunched up his other fist and planted a single, powerful blow to her stomach. Lexx coughed and curled up, fighting to get air back into her lungs. Terrance wasn't allowing it, he shifted his hand, moving it up to her throat and tightening. The whistling intake of air was cut off sharply. Even through the pain and daze of getting the wind knocked out of her, Lexx immediately struggled. A little air got through, not nearly enough.

Already Lexx was slowing down, the edges of her vision going fuzzy as the sloshing sound in her ears increasing. One hand weakly tried to push Terrance's own off her throat, the other managed two feeble hits on his shoulder before even that took too much energy and concentration. "It's okay hon," Terrance said as Lexx began blacking out from lack of bloodflow and oxygen, "We're going to take good care of you, make sure you reach your full potential for us."

Lexx tried desperately to breath in, to peel the fingers away from her throat, cutting off bloodflow to her brain, already her eyes were drifting shut, she couldn't even lift her other arm anymore, fingers curling uselessly in a vain attempt at resistance.

Somewhere in her oxygen deprived brain, Lexx heard and felt Terrance knocked off of her. A dim pain registered in her head, something about sandpaper being rubbed on the inside of her throat. Lexx rolled to the side and coughed, heaving air inward and coughing again, nearly vomiting from the exertion. She gasped madly for air, arms spasming at her sides as pins and needles poked all over her body. Through tear-blurred eyes, she saw and half-register Mael standing over a fallen Terrance, a gun shaped object in her hand. It make no noise, Mael simply pulled the trigger and Terrance's form jerked and convulsed.

The next thing Lexx knew she was being dragged. She almost fought against it until she felt the presence of Mael's arms curled around her shoulders. She was being towed, dragged out of the office, to safety. Consciousness came back in a flash and Lexx struggled again. Mael didn't let go. Lexx tried speech, marveling at the cracked nature of her voice, "I'm alright... I can walk... I need my cane..."

"Got it already," Mael said, handing it to Lexx.

It turned out she was wrong about the walking. Standing upright sent another wave of dizziness through her and it was up to Mael to support her for the entire trip to the elevator. There was, strangely, no pursuit. Mael hit the button for the ground floor, the doors took an eternity to close. No one appeared for that entire time.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 04

"What happened there?"

"I think... I think we failed," Mael said.

"Goddamn," Lexx slumped against the wall, tenderly massaging her bruised throat and succumbing to a coughing fit, "Why didn't he just die?"

Mael crouched in front of Lexx, making sure she was alright, "Maybe it's true, maybe he is a demon. He just... he didn't react to any of it. You wrecked his face, had to have broken most of his ribs, I'm pretty sure I gave him a cracked skull. He was laughing when I dragged you out of there."

"What did you do?" Lexx looked up at Mael, then down at the gun strapped to her waist. It was a cheap replica of a pirate's pistol, almost a toy, "I mean, I didn't see very quickly."

"Something I didn't expect to work as well as it did. Maybe... maybe it was because I saw you... I think I got a little pissed. I didn't, normally I can't do anything more powerful than a punch, this was like braining him with a good sized rock."

"Yeah, but what's with the gun?"

"Sort of a focus, I guess. I could just snap my fingers and make it happen, but that takes a lot of mental structuring. The gun just sort of... it's like a pre-fab machine I just direct the hate through. Not good for constructive stuff... but apparently really good when I need to use 'the force' to hurt someone."

The elevator continued downward, Lexx looked at the descending numbers on the display above the door, "I'm kind of surprised, do you think he's going to let us go?"

Mael also watched the numbers, "Probably best not to question it. We're not really going to find out until it's too late."

The elevator doors opened to the main lobby. For a few second Lexx and Mael stared out, wondering at the lack of any attempt to subdue them, by security or otherwise. The elevator doors started closing twice before they hesitantly started across the open space, to the main doors of the building, infinitely far away.

Three quarters of the way there, the two girls were stopped. "Umm... Ms. Beltran?" called out the receptionist.

Lexx looked back warily, ready to bamf at a moment's notice. The receptionist continued, "Ah, Mr. McNielson just called down, he said he enjoyed the meeting, and hopes you come back soon. And... ah, Ms. Grubel?"

Mael stiffened, "Yeah?"

"Mr. McNielson says there are... erm, still openings here, if you want, he says he can get you a position working with, um, Aaron?"

Lexx grabbed Mael's arm as Mael began walking towards the desk threateningly. She was dragged two feet before Mael realized she was being hampered. "Come on," Lexx hissed, "Let's go while we still have a chance!"

Outside the front doors, on the white steps, Mael sagged down, hiding her face in the crook of her elbow, "He's fucking toying with us!"

"We need to stay strong," Lexx said uselessly.

"Wheee, strong," Mael said, twirling a finger, "A lot of good that will do us."

"Look," Lexx said, then paused.

Mael lifted her head slightly, Lexx was shocked to see tears and red-rimmed eyes, "Look what?"

Lexx opened her mouth then paused, "Umm... I don't really know actually, I was hoping I could come up with something to follow that up with on the fly."

"Great," Mael said.

"Look," Lexx tried again, "No, wait, I've got it this time. The Observer, she... it told me that this guy was a demon, and that he had, I think, certain feeding requirements. It said that he fed on despair. You know, hopelessness, it kind of makes sense. He's trying to get a meal out of us by doing this."

"No... he wants to do something with you, and me too," Mael said, wiping away the tears and standing up, "It's why he took you in the first place. He could somehow see that this... change was going to happen to you, and wanted to be able to control you, it, somehow. We have to figure out why."

"What about you?"

"What about me? Maybe he didn't see it until today? Maybe what happened to you is different than what happened to me? I don't know, I don't even know what really happened to us, and I'd really like some fucking answers in that direction."

"Was that why we came out here? I mean, aside from the obvious?"

"I... I don't really know anymore. It seems kinda stupid in retrospect... hell, it seemed kinda stupid when we planned it. I think... I think I just needed to get that out of my system. I'm really sorry, I probably acted a little... rashly."

"And I went along with it," Lexx hobbled her way in front of Mael and brought them both to a stop. She had to cough a few more times before continuing, "I was serious when I said I was on board for this, Mael. I love you and don't want you getting hurt, but I don't want to hold you back either. We both have reasons for wanting to see Maccadyne go down, and I went into this knowing we both might never come back out of that building, just the same as you."

Mael stared at Lexx, "You're becoming rather sappy."

"Well, I think the situation fucking deserves it," Lexx said, wiping away a tear of her own, "We've been there for each other ever since we met, and we need each other now more than ever."

She turned with a huff and made it all of two cane-assisted steps before getting hit by a car.

They had been a half block away from the bus stop, just heading across the driveway that lead to Maccadyne's underground employee parking structure. The car had come squeeling around the corner, heading into the parking garage, when it slammed on the breaks and collided with a momentarily distracted Lexx. Mael was immediately by her side, but it was already obvious the hit was little more than a tap. The driver's door opened and a younger man in business casual got out, all sweat, anger and obvious fright, "Jesus Christ lady, what the fuck?!"

Mael stood up, "Hey asshole, want to explain to the police what the rush was?"

"Look, no wait, listen," the man put the briefcase that had obviously just been sitting on his lap on top of his car. He shoved a hand in his back pocket, "We don't need to do that."

"We don't?" Mael asked pointedly, indicating the recovering Lexx, "She might be injured, or emotionally traumatized."

"Yeah yeah," the man said, bringing out a wallet and riffling through it, "Listen, I'm really sorry about all this, here, please, take it..."

Mael had several hundred dollar bills nearly shoved into her hands. The man was already ducking into the driver's seat, muttering profanities and scattered woe about already being late. He carefully pulled around Lexx, who was slowly pulling herself back to her feet, hobbling over to the dropped cane. Mael watched impassively, giving the man a finger as he drove away. Her eyes drifted upward, to the top of his car. The man was already heading into the garage, the door closing efficiently behind him. Mael's flipping of the bird turned into a quick, subtle, 'come hither' motion, and something clattered to the pavement behind the man's car.

"I got his license plate number," Lexx said, "But I'm not exactly big on trying to go to the police with this."

"Me neither," Mael said, "Besides, seems we've already made three hundred off of that little mishap, maybe more."

"Three hundred? Maybe you should start shoving me into traffic, we could be set for life!"

"Don't tempt me," Mael said, walking down the short driveway to the closed garage and picking up the fallen object.

"What's that?"

Mael held up a briefcase. The one the man had accidently left on top of his car when he drove off. She ran back to Lexx and they both looked at it. Lexx offered a hand and Mael gave her the case. Lexx lifted it experimentally a few times, looked at Mael, then nodded.

"Is it just me?"

"No."

"There's something weird about this... or in this."

"I can feel it too."

Lexx tried to examine where the feeling came from. She couldn't place it if she tried, but it was definitely there. She had the sudden, burning urge to find out exactly what was in the briefcase she held. Why, she had no idea, but the fact that Mael had the same urge just made her curiosity stronger. It was such a perplexing feeling, confusing both in its very nature, and the sudden, unprovoked way it came upon her.

The briefcase itself was enough to arouse suspicion. It wasn't a typical office satchel by any stretch of the imagination. It was made from brushed steel, the crack of the opening practically invisible. A single mechanical lock was next to the handle, with no other distinguishing marks. Lexx suspected that she and Mael could go at it for an hour with a crowbar and not even make a dent in it. She looked at Mael, "We need to find out what's inside, don't we?"

"It's sort of a foregone conclusion, yeah."

"Got work tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

"I've got an idea... hell, I could do it tonight."

"Not tonight."

"Why?"

"I've got plans for us tonight."

"Ah, tomorrow then. I know someone who might just be able to get this thing open."

"Cool. It's Maccadyne property, it's obviously important, I want to see inside."

"Kind of a neat coincidence I happened to cross paths with it."

"Yeah, creepy."

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 05

Veronica wasn't the woman's real name. But then again it was, insofar as she was only under the guise of a human, and 'Veronica' was the name given to that guise. It didn't matter in the end, names had a certain power, but only that which those who had the wits to speak gave them. Here, at this time and place, she was known as Veronica. Head of Public Relations at the Juggernaut that was Maccadyne Financial, rumoured to be second in power, or equal in power to the CEO Terrance McNielson himself.

The rumours were entirely true, but in a fashion that none of them would have suspected. Years ago there had been a publication known as 'The Weekly World News'. It was a tabloid that printed outrageous stories concerning celebrities, backwater towns and scientific establishments. The headlines were always something about the sudden end of the earth approaching, or the fact that the president of the United States was being controlled by aliens, or something as extravagant. Had they been around, and had they ever decided to run a story about how the CEO of Maccadyne Financial, arguably the largest corporate entity in the world, was actually a demon plotting the domination of mankind... well, that would have gotten a chuckle out of Veronica at the very least.

Her name wasn't Veronica. It wasn't the several hundred other aliases she had gone by during her rather interesting life. The woman didn't have a name, a permanent one at least. She knew who she was, and that was good enough for her. Let others think she was tied to a set of syllables, their loss if it ever came down to that. To most of the world, she was Veronica. To those who had known her, or heard about her in other guises, she was simultaneously Ose-Dantalion, Orias, or occasionally Murmur. It was true, she was a demon. Only half of one.

Her other half was in the same building, something that didn't happen often. She viewed it as a security hazard. Sure, either half wasn't quite as physically capable alone, but so long as one half survived, the whole could continue. Dantalion, the half that had taken on the form of the woman Veronica, preferred to keep itself separate, just in case someone got the idea to try and take it on. One could fall, give the impression that the attacker was victorious, while the other hid, learned, and planned to eliminate its adversary.

Ose, the other half, disagreed. How that could be when they were the same entity did not make sense in a rational world. But it wasn't a rational world. It was a world of improbable order that existed in a sea of chaos and entropy, populated by hilarious, sentient beings which had convinced themselves that a cold, hostile universe had been created just for them by a loving deity. Thus, in this irrational world, populated by creatures who were convinced it was rational, existed a demon split into two halves with occasionally opposing mindsets.

Currently they occupied the same building because something of interest to both of them had occurred. Ose had been attacked by someone, until recently, written off as a loss. The girl, Lexx, was back. Somehow she had found her way out of that pocket-dimension, had discovered the hidden potential inside her in the process, she had awakened. Even more, she was accompanied by another, similarly Gifted. The fact that Ose-Dantalion had completely overlooked the second one, Mael, wasn't too concerning. Seeing the spark inside Lexx had been a lucky coincidence in the first place. What was important now was the fact that both of them were identified as Gifted, and both of them had knowledge, however vague, of Ose-Dantalion's true nature.

How to approach the problem, Ose-Dantalion disagreed with itself. Veronica McNielson, Dantalion, felt they were a risk. They should be eliminated on the off chance that they did something to interfere with plans. Terrance McNielson disagreed, feeling that if they could be controlled, directed, they could help advance those very same plans. In the end Dantalion had acceded to Ose, as there were other issues that merited attention. The Blood was one of them. An unhappy piece of news delivered shortly after the attack on Ose, the package of Blood that Ose-Dantalion had wanted to analyze, to possibly further their own ends, had been lost just outside the Maccadyne building itself. Quite vexing.

First those two, the Gifted, now the loss of the Blood. Dantalion's paranoid mind was convinced the two were related. Ose didn't care, Ose watched the events unfold with glee, eagerly waiting for whatever happened next, convinced that everything would work out in the end. Now both stood in the same building, in the same room, overlooking the city, discussing without words what their next actions would be. One way or another, those two would have to be taken care of. The Blood would have to be recovered or otherwise accounted for. But even then, those were minor concerns, small portions of a greater plan.

In a way, they controlled a dominating share of the world through their puppet corporation alone. Maccadyne was undoubtebly one of the strongest financial influences in the entire world. For Ose-Dantalion, that wasn't nearly enough, not satisfying. It needed more. It needed worship and veneration. It could have received it in the place it had originally come from, but there was competition there, other things, demons. Here were only outcasts. Was Ose-Dantalion an outcast? If such an alien mind could have the equivalent of human pride, it would not admit such a fact to itself. What it was convinced of, though, was that unlike the other outcasts, it had a plan.

When the plan was completed, it would be in charge of the earth. If that involved transforming it into the equivalent of the hell Ose-Dantalion had just come from, all for the purpose of gaining the worship and veneration of sentient beings... so be it.

-----------

"Okay, fess up, where are you taking me?" Lexx asked.

"Like I said, on a cemetery walk," Mael replied.

Lexx looked up at the wrought iron fence that formed one border to the sidewalk they both walked down. Rosehill Cemetery, several square miles of ritualized death-acknowledgement plunked right down in the middle of northern Chicago. Closed at this time of night, but it wasn't the first time Mael had taken walks beyond that fence, Lexx knew. It was, however, the first time Lexx had come along for the ride. Why, Mael still refused to elaborate on. They came to a section of fence that looked like every other section. Mael stopped and pulled on a single wrought iron bar. It popped out of the fence, Mael stood aside and held the bar open for Lexx, who giggled and climbed through.

The cemetery itself didn't lend itself very well to stealth. It was relatively easy to hide behind gravestones, but the terrain was only mildly hilled, with a few isolated copses of thin trees. A mile away lay a group of mausoleums, beyond them, unused ground, awaiting tenants. Mael slowly winded through the stone markers, threading an indirect path towards a slightly closer pair of mausoleums.

"Where are we-" Lexx started.

Mael held a finger up to her lips and pointed through the near absolute darkness. Her extended finger indicated the distant moving light of a night patrolman. Lexx nodded at the two went on in silence. Their progress was masked by the heavy chirrups of countless crickets. Above a star-spattered sky outlined the occasional silent flitting of small bats, chowing down on mosquitoes thankfully kept at bay from the skin of Lexx and Mael by a liberal application of repellent before the walk. The atmosphere wasn't oppressive or frightening at all, in fact Lexx felt rather elated and somewhat giddy by the experience. If she tried, she could almost forget the situation they were both in, the world they had been thrust into and the things they would have to do to save someone they loved. If she tried, Lexx could simply enjoy the moment, taking an illicit romp in a taboo location with someone she was deeply in love with.

Lexx tried, and enjoyed.

They reached the mausoleum in due time. Lexx was suppressing more giggles, quite enjoying the night. Mael took one last look around, the night patrolman had gone behind a small rise, still probably a quarter mile away, not a threat. She went to her knees and gave the padlock to the tomb a sharp yank. It opened with a dull click, broken and only giving the appearance of security. Mael pulled the lock off the door and pocketed it, "I'll admit, I broke that thing a week ago."

Lexx reached for the handle, Mael's hand stopped her. Lexx looked at Mael, rimmed in stars, Mael was looking straight back at Lexx. It was one of those sorts of looks, Lexx bit her lip nervously. "Come on, I want to get this out of my system, and I know you do too," Mael said.

"What?" Lexx feigned ignorance.

"Look," Mael said, "I didn't bring you out here to boink, and once we go in there, that's not what we're going to do. But... we both want to, and this is just such a cool place to do it, so lets just snog a little to get that out of our systems, eh?"

"I... well..." Lexx was at a loss for words, was this actually happening?

Mael sighed and pushed Lexx against the wall, gently locking lips before the taller girl had a chance to protest. Lexx responded in kind, once it was actually happening, there wasn't much point in questioning it. This did happen to be a fantasy come true, it would be foolish not to take advantage of it. Mael tasted a lot like toothpaste, a bit like Mael, and a smidgen like cigarettes. She had brushed right before heading out, Lexx actually felt a little guilty for forgetting to do the same, she probably tasted like leftover beef and onion stew. Mael didn't seem to mind too much.

It was a silent make-out. No voices, no gasps or moans, even the sound of their skin and clothes brushing softly against each other overshadowed by the attendant crickets. At some point Mael made as if to separate, but something, some unspoken agreement between them decided it was a bad choice, and she pressed against Lexx again. An undetermined amount of time later Mael pulled way, almost regretfully. She looked around and said without much emotion, "Probably not the first time the dead have gotten a show like that here."

"They've probably seen a lot more than that," Lexx giggled silently, surreptitiously wiping the evidence of Mael's presence off her lips.

"Okay, you ready to go in, or are you up for more?"

"Oh, I'm really up for more... but I'm also really curious. Let's go in."

The door groaned and protested as Mael slowly worked it open. "I should probably go over that with WD-40," she muttered.

It was dark inside, and Mael led the way this time, offering a hand to help Lexx in. A small wind-up flashlight clicked on, illuminating Mael's gaunt face, "Here's the deal, once the door's closed, I turn off the light, and we both remain as quiet as possible. Breathe, but breathe quietly, scratch any itches now and be ready to keep still for a minute or three, okay?"

Lexx nodded, realized she probably wasn't visible, and replied, "Got it."

The door seemed to enjoy closing more than it did opening. It clicked shut with satisfaction and Mael turned the flashlight off, its own plastic click echoing through the small structure with finality, burying both in complete darkness. Lexx realized she couldn't even remember the last time she had been in utter darkness, the kind so complete that it seemed to spread to envelop other senses. Eyes were open, but it was the same as if they were closed... only more so since the expected vision never came. Physical sensation was next to go, there was nothing present to the eyes, how could the stone seat beneath her be taken for granted? Its cold sensation beneath her rear flickered and became questionable. Sound was next. The crickets outside seemed to fade, grow insubstantial and distant.

It was with some measure of shock that Lexx realized the change in sound was more than just an illusion. This was like a game she used to play when she was younger. When she was older she learned it was actually a form of limited self-hypnosis. She would sit on her bed and stare at a dark portion of her bookcase, and spot where the cubbyhole formed by tilted volumes created a patch of almost pure darkness and shadow, regardless of the time of day.

It always took a while, sometimes longer than others, but soon that darkness would become infectious. As Lexx stared, the edges of her vision would grow blurry and indistinct, fading away. Other senses would always follow. Back then Lexx thought of it as falling into the shadow. When she got older, when she started ditching the religious baggage her parents had heaped upon her, Lexx began to learn that what was actually happening was that she was falling into a light trance, her fixation on that point of darkness slowly drowning out all other peripheral sensation. Always, though, it would end with her snapping back to reality, feeling strangely giddy from the experience, as if she had brushed against something forbidden and unknown.

Now it was like that, but unsettlingly different. As Lexx focused on the fading sound of the crickets, they failed to come back. Even Mael's presence seemed questionable for a while. As commanded, Lexx made no noise, wondering if doing so would save her from this feeling of disconnect from reality. It seemed it would take more than just mental effort to snap back into the real world. With a start, Lexx remembered that the 'real world' was, for her, already a questionable entity. For some reason, this epiphany relaxed her, and she allowed reality to reform as it wished around her. Things seemed to settle, the uncertainty of her physical presence was replaced with the less disturbing uncertainty of her physical surroundings.

The crickets were still silent, but the stone beneath her felt strong and solid as ever. She could feel the heat of Mael sitting across from her, the soft hissing intake of breath. "We're here," Mael whispered and clicked on the light.

They were still inside the mausoleum, or some similar looking stone structure. With a grunt, Mael pushed the door open. There was something different about it this time. It still squeeled and protested, but the sound was swallowed, lost without an echo. And still there were no crickets, which seemed the worst part of all. Mael shone the flashlight around the grass outside the tomb. They both stepped outside. Lexx then realized what looked so wrong about their surroundings.

Aside from the beam from Mael's flashlight, there was no other source of light here. Nothing, no distant streetlights, no curious night watchman, no moon or stars, no diffusion from cloud cover, nothing. Even the beam, like the sound earlier, was swallowed up, petering out to nothingness less than fifteen feet in front of them. Aside from their tiny island of light, the world was nothing, no sound, no vision, a complete variable. Lexx stayed close to Mael.

"We're here," Mael called out, voice retarded and muted by the strange atmosphere, "I brought Lexx along, I want some answers now."

Lexx was on the verge of questioning Mael when she felt the presence. Another sound in this world of undefined nothingness. Footsteps, bare feet by the sounds of it, a single person. Into the island of light stepped a naked figure. Lexx watched the light travel up thin, pale legs. She groaned as she saw the person's crotch. Obviously feminine, but painfully stitched shut with wire. The fingers stitched together, breasts gone, the chest likewise stitched up. No eyes, no ears, nostrils and mouth stitched shut. An abomination.

"You again," Lexx muttered.

"Welcome to The Dark," the Observer said.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 06

It turned out that Lexx was unable to do anything with the magic suitcase until four days later. Her email to Alice got a quick reply that classes had removed any openings in her schedule for half a week. The time waiting had been spent waiting impatiently, debating whether or not she should go re-apply at Burger Blitz. Sera had been against the plan, reminding Lexx that she needed some more time to recover. Maybe it was true, Lexx had been a little unhinged as of late. The visit with the Observer hadn't helped things... strangely enough, Mael hadn't helped things either.

The Observer had been just as unhelpful the last several times it had appeared. It still wore that same unsettling outfit, the picture perfect copy of a naked Lexx with all bodily orifices crudely stitched up. At least this time the Observer had explained that it was essentially a lifeless mannequin given animation for the sole purpose of providing a means of communication between it and Lexx. Its disturbing appearance was simply some of Lexx's own mentality added to the Observer's baseline creation. The fact that somewhere inside Lexx's subconscious was a naked, stitched up version of herself raised questions about Lexx's psyche she wasn't certain she wanted answered.

All that had been said in that meeting was that Lexx had to stay away from Maccadyne, and by extension, so did Mael. Let them do what they want, just stay out of the way. Move out of town if necessary, the Observer needed Lexx alive for other purposes, and that couldn't be achieved if she continued to fight the corporation. Lexx made the quick connection that the Observer was saying, in essence, she would die if she continued fighting Maccadyne. Of course both Mael and Lexx were wholly against this and fully rejected the Observer's offer of a safe location completely isolated from both earth and Maccadyne. There was no anger or further conflict from the Observer. There never was, just an acknowledgment of their decision and a lack of further concern.

What was most aggravating was that Lexx still had no idea just what the hell that thing was. It claimed to be some sort of godlike being in control of thousands of worlds, but that was all it was: A claim. Lexx doubted it, figuring whatever it was, it was far less. More than a delusion, from what she had seen, but definitely not what it claimed. Mael took a slightly more cynical view. She assumed the Observer was working with or for Maccadyne. To her all the evidence stacked up well: It appeared right when Maccadyne started to have a larger impact in their lives, it seemed to know the interior of Maccadyne well enough to get Lexx out of there, and it seems awful concerned about what Lexx and Mael do with Maccadyne. Lexx's entire escape could have been an elaborately played charade just to convince her of the Observer's benevolent nature.

Lexx didn't want to think things were that bad, but she had to admit she didn't have anything to outright disprove Mael's claims. At the moment she wasn't exactly thrilled with Mael either. After the event in the Dark... hell, during the event in the Dark, she had become strangely withdrawn and closed up... more so than usual. Lexx had wanted to press her for more information, to find out how she knew about the way into the Dark, to go further exploring in that strange place with her. All requests were acknowledged, but ultimately left unacted upon. Mael went to work, Mael came back. Mael would talk, snuggle, and otherwise, but Mael was officially closed for business as far as discussing what had happened that day, or what they should do in regards to Maccadyne.

That day was already hazy with unreality in Lexx's mind. The bruises on her neck had vanished, healing away disturbingly rapidly. They had lasted less than a day, which was strange considering how severe they had been. Angry purple welts simply gone. Perhaps it was something leftover from the Plant, or from Maccadyne's experiments if that were what really happened, Lexx had a supercharged recovery system... healing system... whatever it was called when it wasn't dealing with things the immune system covered, injuries.

The wrought iron gate was set into an ivy covered wall. The entire place simply reeked with affluence, just like every demi-mansion on the North Shore area. The gate opened even before Lexx could hit the communication button on the outside. She flicked eyes up at the obvious security camera before walking up the curved driveway, bordered by decorative shrubbery. Lexx wondered what it was like to be this absurdly rich.

April had been born into old money. Her father was Thomas Parker, a lawyer of some note who had successfully defended several rather large companies against various lawsuits. He had built up the Parker And Sons law firm from his own father's legacy, propelling it to the stage of national recognition. Lexx didn't know all the details, but apparently there had been a bit of a scandal concerning Thomas and his old wife, resulting in her leaving him and tearing away a small chunk of his inheritance. April, just in high school at the time (private and chartered, of course), had taken it really badly. Thomas had gone in and out of depression and alcoholism and preferred escapism to confronting his own family problems.

One thing led to another, and eventually it took an attempted suicide by April to jar her father back into reality. This had all happened long before Lexx had met either, she only got the story secondhand. After that, Thomas decided he needed to rearrange his priorities. He sold off the law firm to several shareholders for a ridiculous sum, ensuring he had more than enough to spend the rest of his life in style, give his daughter the best he could, and a little extra on the side. Moving from Manhattan to the North Shore, the last several years had been a slow healing of the gulf that had grown between father and daughter.

Lexx had met April at, of all places, a fetish club. Daddy knew of daughter's preferences, and so long as she could prove she was remaining safe and sane, he preferred to ignore those predilections rather than actively try to impose on them. They had enjoyed each other's company, though Lexx found April to be somewhat annoyingly superficial, she had joined Lexx in an attempted full body-suspension. Since then they had kept in sparse contact, always on the borderline between friends and acquaintances.

"Lexx!" oh shit, here comes the stereotypical hug, "Oh my god are you alright?! We were so worried!"

"Hey April," Lexx tepidly returned the hug. She felt bad that she was essentially intending to use April only to get this damned suitcase open, "I'm alright... took a licking, kept on ticking, you know."

"Good god hon... the new look. It's different, not bad exactly but... well, unexpected?"

Lexx giggled despite herself, "Unexpected? Tell me about it, I sure as hell didn't expect it."

"Oh my god! Was that from... when you were... I'm so sorry!"

"It's okay hon, it'll grow back, and I kinda like the punk look for now anyways. Can I come in? How've you been?"

A voice came from inside as Alice let her in, "Sweetie? Is that Alexxia?"

Alice rolled her eyes at the term 'sweetie', "Yeah daddy, I'm taking her upstairs."

"Hold on, hold on," the elder member of the Parker household bustled out to meet them, "You can't just bring her in without giving me a chance to say hi!"

"Hello daddy," Lexx waved awkwardly.

Mr. Parker didn't look the part of a rich lawyer. Over six feet tall, a sparse beard and muscular frame made it look like someone had plucked a viking raider off the battlefield, put him in a smart business suit and stuck him in a courtroom. His personality was anything but vicious, though. "Hey hon, I think that looks smashing on you."

"Thanks daddy," Lexx said, blushing a little despite herself.

"Listen hon, I've been paying attention to the news... if the people who did this to you, if the police catch them... I know a few really good attorneys. And if they aren't willing to cover the costs, I can convince them to do your case pro bono."

"I... you don't have to daddy," Lexx said.

"I'm a big city lawyer, was a big city lawyer. It'll do my heart good to stick up for someone who needs it, rather than for a corporation."

"Come on Lexx, daddy you should know better," April admonished, nearly dragging Lexx up the curving stairs.

"Know better?" Lexx asked as she was pulled up to one of the cross hallways on the second floor, "It sounded like a good idea to me."

"He'll do it too. But do you really want to do nothing but talk about, well, that? I figured you should get your mind off of it."

"Not much I can do anyways, not until they're caught."

"Heh, he's acting noble, but do you have any idea how much good press would go back to him and the company for this sort of thing?"

"Does it matter?"

"Just saying, everyone has an ulterior motive for things. Anyway, you had something for me?"

"Something..." Lexx fumbled, then lifted the briefcase, "Right, this."

April looked at it, "Are you going to open it?"

"No no, that's your job," Lexx said. She waited a tick, then realized she needed to explain further, "You're good with locks, so I figured, if you wanted-"

"It's not yours?"

"It is mine, sort of. I found it in the street downtown. No one claimed it, there's no name on it, I figured cracking it open and taking a peak inside might help in that department," Lexx thought fast, she wasn't expecting April to be this cautious.

April took the case and lifted it, examining it, "It's really light, I mean, for looking like it's a big block of steel. I'm not certain about this, it looks really valuable, I don't want to get into trouble with it."

"My case," Lexx said, "My responsibility."

"Yeah, easy for you to say. Tell you what, I've got a date in an hour. I can either continue painting my nails, or get to work on cracking this thing open. I want to look good, but I also am kinda curious about what's in here."

"Who's the date with?" Lexx asked, "And good god, do you have your entire life scheduled out by hourly block?"

"A molecular bio major. He's not much to look at, but he's head of the science club and gets good grades," April was a strict political dater and not even slightly ashamed about it, "I need a better 'in' in that department anyways, one of the advisors doesn't care too much for me."

"Couldn't you just blackmail them?" Lexx asked. April herself was majoring in forensics and police science, last she checked. A bit of a departure from the family heritage, but daddy seemed to approve.

April rolled her eyes then dragged Lexx to her spacious bedroom, "Come on, you can get to polishing my toenails while I work on this."

"What?"

"It's not anything kinky. I need my toes done for the date, you need this lock cracked, there isn't time to do them both, so you're going to have to earn my service."

"Oh... right."

---------

Mael wasn't the best at driving, she would be the first to admit. She could do the job, but only that, mostly due to lack of practice. In Chicago, there just generally wasn't much need for it. It wasn't like LA or any other west coast city built around the concept of cars, or so Mael had heard. Chicago was a pedestrian city, and a vast majority of the time Mael was perfectly fine with that. Times like this were the exception to the rule.

Sera had called. Sera wasn't feeling good, and thus Sera wanted to be picked up so she would have to walk and catch a bus home. Sera had managed to time the request perfectly well so that Mael had just been getting off work when it happened. Sera's own job as a medical transcriptionist was anything but demanding, but then again she had her own problems which made life itself a difficult proposition to deal with. Somehow she had managed to find the strength to keep Mael alive all these years despite that limitation, so Mael felt she couldn't complain. Besides, maybe it could take her mind off things.

The compact made it into the small lot without any major accidents aside from a relatively close call with the fence. Sera got in without pretense and closed the door. "What's up?" Mael asked.

"My back's killing me, I just don't want to push it too hard at the moment," Sera said, looking away.

"Yeah, probably not a good idea," Mael said, pulling away and back out into the busy street, "Is it really that bad?"

"It hurts, that's all I know," Sera said.

"Really?"

"Yes," she insisted.

The lights turned red. Mael used the opportunity to study Sera for a second, "Okay."

"Mael..."

"Yeah?"

"What's up?"

"What?"

"You've changed."

"I'm still me."

"You are, more so than I've ever really seen you before."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're you, to a level I've never seen you be yourself before. You getting a job is just the tip of it. Something's different, you're far more... confident?"

"Maybe getting a job does that to a person?" Mael suggested.

"Maybe, but usually that happens after they get the job, and not shortly before."

"I'm not on drugs or anything like that, if that's what you're wondering," Mael said.

"Then what's going on?"

"Nothing."

"Now I know you're lying."

"Then why ask?"

"Because I don't know what you're lying about, or how. If I knew specifics I'd just confront you about it, but right now I'm reaching around in the dark. I know something's wrong, but I don't know what it is."

"Nothing's wrong, if anything things are more right, at least on a personal level, than they've ever been before."

"That's it, why can't you tell me what it is?"

Mael thought about it. Why couldn't she tell Sera? The more she thought about it, the more she realized she lacked any real reason to. "Okay, here's what it is."

----------

"Got it," April said with a smile.

Lexx had been lounging on the side of her bed. The open window had already removed most of the scent of nail polish. The suitcase had lasted longer than April's toes had, but she didn't show any sign of frustration or nervousness as she continued working on the mechanical lock with a series of long, thin metal tools. There was no indication that she had been successful, no stereotypical clicking noises or any hiss of suddenly released air.

April had picked up this trade, she said, from her father. Apparently during his younger years he had gone through quite the rebellious phase. He didn't want to be a lawyer, he wanted to be a magician! His parents had entertained the humourous desires and let him study all he could about one famous magician in particular: A Mr. Houdini. Even though Mr. Parker had eventually found his true calling lay more within the family tradition, he had managed to learn a few neat tricks along the way, several of which he had taught to his daughter. Possibly because, subconsciously, he knew it would be infinitely helpful to her if she knew how to get herself out of a pair of handcuffs in a bind. Probably not.

"Alright," Lexx said, "What have we got?"

April was feeling around the edge of the strangely light suitcase. They had decided it must be made out of titanium or a similar substance. Aluminum? "There should be a catch along the edge here somewhere... wait, here we are."

Lexx and April both peered inside. They both waited for the other to make some sort of discovery or mention some revelation of what lay inside. Neither did, there was a mutual sigh of almost disappointment.

"Well?"

"It's... blood," April picked up the single vial that lay in the shock-proof padding, "At least it looks like it."

"Obviously it's important for something," Lexx said, prodding experimentally at the padding, wondering if there was anything more beneath, "...obviously."

"April?"

"April!"

April was still staring transfixed at the stoppered vial, "Right, something more... doesn't look like it."

"Yeah, is that even blood? Maybe we should check," Lexx reached for the vial.

"Wait, no," April held the vial away, almost possessively, "It could be a sample of something, maybe some sort of nasty disease. We don't want to crack it open and set it loose by accident, do we?"

Lexx raised an eyebrow, "What do you suggest we do then?"

"Leave it with me hon."

"With you?"

"Of course. I go to university, I have access to all sorts of labs. I can run a few tests there, see if there's anything neat about this."

"You sure you can do that safely?" Lexx asked.

"Promise, if I catch ebola, I'll be sure to keep away from you for the few days it takes me to bleed out."

"And if it's some sort of zombie virus?"

"Then I'll get the chance to literally take a bite out of crime."

Lexx snorted and laughed, "Oh eff you."

A vibration at her side. Lexx checked her phone at the same time Alice checked her own. Alice made a disappointed clucking noise, "The twit's late. How can I hope to use him for maximum efficiency if he can't be bothered to be punctual?"

"Dunno," Lexx said, "Are you sure you're okay with this thing? I mean, what if it's government property or something, aren't you worried about being tracked down?"

"My dad's a lawyer, I think that'll give me a nice edge of things come to that," Alice said.

"Alright... listen hon, I gotta run."

"Kay sweetie, make sure you get your ass back here more often!"

Lexx muttered something in the affirmative sense as she left. The text message had been a quick, simple thing from Mael. Four words: 'I blabbed to Sera.'

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 07

Rose tapped fingers impatiently on the keyboard of the laptop. She didn't particularly enjoy being here, here being one of the dozen or so Burger Blitz fast food establishments in Chicago. Sure, the sundaes weren't too bad, but better could be had elsewhere for slightly more money, and without the certainty of running into people Rose would rather see dead. She smiled at that. Maybe it wasn't the people that annoyed her, but the fact that she was by nature an impatient person and their necessary demise couldn't come soon enough.

There was also the problem of how to arrange things here. The last two times things had gone off exceptionally well due to a lucky set of circumstances each time. This time didn't look like it was tilted so much in her favour. The sparse number of people here were sitting or standing in a fashion that made it easy for them to run out the doors should something really bad happen. It wasn't a conscious choice on their parts, it was just the luck of arrangement and social brownian motion. It also made Rose's job a bit more difficult. Perhaps she could lure a few sheep away from the mass, get them into a more favourable environment for the slaughter...

"Hey there babe, this seat taken?"

Rose looked up at the speaker. Early to mid twenties, polo shirt, beginnings of a beer gut. The creme of the college crop. With a bit of effort she managed to make her disdainful scowl transform into something a little more neutral before her dislike was noticed. College guy was accompanied by larger college guy, larger in fat content rather than muscle it looked like. Without waiting for an answer, smaller college guy slid into the booth, sitting across from Rose.

...or perhaps a few sheep would come bumbling right over to her.

"Can I help you?" Rose asked nicely.

She wanted to test, just to make sure there was no redeeming qualities about these twits. She didn't know why she bothered. Most all the time she was proven correct in her assumption they were wastes of flesh, and if something different came up, all it would do was make her feel a little regretful about what she was intending to do to them. Only a little, her job came first after all. Rose was pretty certain she was a fully fledged sociopath by psychiatric standards, that in any properly run society she would be immediately hospitalized and kept that way for a very long time.

Oh well, society wasn't proper, and Rose didn't much care for psychiatrists anyways.

"You're not, like, a complete bitch like all those other goth girls, are you?" the guy asked, his friend giggled a little.

Nope, not much of redeeming value there. "Not unless I've got a good reason to be," Rose said, allowing the hint of a smile to play across her features.

"What are you doing on that?" indicating the laptop.

"Just writing, but I'm always up for doing something a little more entertaining."

"I know somethin' more entertaining," bigger college guy said. Smaller college guy shushed him.

"Don't pay any attention to Greg, he's a dipshit."

"Why you gotta put me down like that John?" Greg protested

"Have you got something more entertaining for me to do?" Rose asked, now allowing herself to break with a sweet smile.

Greg smiled stupidly and punched John in the shoulder, "Fuck yeah! Ain't something we can do out here though."

Rose nodded, understanding. This really shouldn't be this easy, "Well, as far as I know the bathroom's rather private."

John was the more skeptical of the two, "Aw shit, really?"

"Really."

Apparently that was all the convincing he needed. Rose got up, putting her laptop away and adjusting her skirt and perfectly arranged fishnets beneath. "Come on you two, I'm going to give you something you'll never forget."

"Holy shit man," Greg breathed, pushing John forward, "I told you they were all sluts!"

Sometimes Rose hated her job. Right now she was busily swallowing bile and working extra hard to put a voluntary extra twitch to the motion of her hips as she walked. Anything to keep their minds away from thinking that maybe, just maybe, she wasn't aiming to have cheap, repulsive sex with them in the bathroom. Not that they looked like they had a lot of brain-matter to distract in the first place.

No one besides the security camera saw the three of them enter the bathroom, and Rose wasn't worried about that yet. Greg's hand was already moving towards her leg as soon as the door was closed. Rose swatted it away in distasted. "What the fuck man?" Greg whined.

"Just making sure we aren't disturbed while I have my fun with you two," Rose said, locking the bathroom door and then striding to the single stall. Thankfully it was a well-cleaned bathroom, she wouldn't have to worry too much about cleaning herself up afterward. She pointed at Greg, "You first."

Greg didn't need any more encouragement, he squeezed his mass past her into the stall and Rose obligingly closed and latched the door behind them. There was a clatter as he eagerly fumbled with his belt. "Sit down," Rose said, indicating the toilet, "I'll take care of that."

The truth was she didn't want to see him pull his pants down at all if she could possibly avoid it. Thankfully for her gag reflex, he followed orders, placing his bulk on the seat and waiting to see what she would do. She could almost see his mind working, inefficient machine that it was, he was wondering if she were going to get on her knees and give him a blowjob first, or maybe some sort of lapdance.

Rose did neither. She reached casually into her right boot and pulled out a short, curved knife. Greg's mouth was still hanging open in dull surprise as she took a single step forward and slid the thin blade easily into his chest. Rose put a single foot between Greg's legs on the toilet seat and leaned forward, "Feel that? It's the shock of penetration setting in. Give it a few more seconds and it will be over for you, sweetheart."

Greg's mouth tried to work. It was true, his body was already going into shock, parts of it shutting down in pure surprise over his heart being unexpectedly skewered. He managed to say something incoherent in a pained whisper before his body shuddered repulsively. Rose pulled the knife back out, wiping it off on his varsity hoodie. He wasn't dead yet, but he sure as hell wasn't going anywhere now.

"Jesus Greg," John said from outside the stall, misinterpreting the noises, "I can last longer than that!"

"C'mere and prove it," Rose said, opening the stall door and summoning John over.

John smiled nervously and walked over to the doorway. Rose stood aside and let him get a full view of his former friend. Greg slumped on the toilet, pants still fully up, head lolling uncertainly, one arm weakly feeling its way to a spreading dark patch on his gray sweater while the other just hung limply. "Jesus," John said, slowly piecing together what happened.

He glanced at Rose, down at the knife in her hand, comprehension slowly working its way onto his face. "Jesus!" a terrified shout now as John turned to run.

He made it all of four steps before his mind caught up to what had happened to his body, nearly to the door. One hand went up, feeling the hot, slick substance which now coated his neck, feeling the strange canyon that had suddenly opened up in his flesh, removing his voice and breath. The other hand clutched at the door handle, pulling fruitlessly at the locked portal. John's knees gave out before he remembered how to unlock the door, and he flopped nervelessly to the floor, a small red puddle spreading beneath his head.

Two people. Neither fully dead, but just moments away from it. Rose nodded approvingly and went to the sink. She washed the knife off and dried it with a towel, then checked herself out in the large mirror. Nothing seemed out of place, Rose grinned and blew herself a kiss, then reached into her vinyl satchel and pulled out a pair of sterile gloves. She went into the stall and with a grunt, pulled the dying Greg off the toilet. With effort she got him onto his back, with more effort she managed to pull his sweater and shirt off.

"Fucking disgusting," Rose muttered to her self, looking at the ample, hairy torso, blood already clumping chest hair into knots.

Reaching again into the satchel, this time producing a small plastic case with a set of disposable exacto-razors. She quickly went to work, Greg stank of sweat, blood, body odour and a large amount of beer, she didn't want to take any more time than necessary with this. A few slices across the chest and stomach and her work was complete. The letters were Roman, Latin to be precise. Blood welled weakly in the new wounds, the heart had given out already and Greg's body lacked the pressure to bleed properly anymore. The thin red lines on his torso spelled out 'Gluttire', the Latin word for gluttony.

Satisfied, Rose stood up and went back to the locked men's room door. John had stopped moving, finally. Dead or not, he didn't protest as Rose grabbed one limp wrist and dragged him away. She stood by the door, waiting, seeing if this time it would actually work. The last two attempts, even though they had lucky breaks as far as numbers of unwilling participants had been concerned, had been ultimately unsuccessful insofar as she hadn't found her intended target yet.

The whole ritual of carving an extinct language into someone wasn't wholly necessary. It was just a focus, a tool to help get her into the proper mindset. The same as any and all magical rituals. Something which most of the religious tended to forget. Somewhere along the line people forgot that it was the mindset the ritual helped to establish that was most important to the working of wonders. Not the ritual itself. They became so obsessed with the specifics of a single tree that they forgot they could use that technique to create an entire forest.

Something shifted from within the stall. Rose took off the gloves, tossing them in the garbage and feeling her arms. Goosebumps, there was a slight chill to the air. Rose nodded and waiting for more noise and movement. Her smile was back, it seemed that the third time was a charm, literally. More flopping noises of thick flesh slapping the tile floor. A gurgling exhalation of breath, followed by more slaps and a creaking, tearing sound. A scrape, a second scrape. Someone finding their way very uncertainly to their feet.

It wasn't Greg that staggered out of the bathroom stall, not any more. It had been his body a few moments ago, but the thing that had taken it over wasn't fully compatible with human flesh. The killings, the release of life and sudden, terrified emotion had weakened certain boundaries momentarily, allowing something in the know to pass through. The fact that Greg had been a fat fucker had just attracted this thing all the more. It had latched upon his bountiful reserves of fat, for they came closest to mimicking the substance this thing was made of, it impressed its own form onto them, molding Greg's body a little more to its liking.

"Hello dear, I've been searching for you for quite a while."

Greg had somehow gotten fatter, much fatter. But in a wholly unnatural, uneven way. One forearm bulged out two nearly the size of a pillow, spilling over his wrist and drooping towards the bathroom floor. His chest had drawn inward, exposing his ribcage and making the expanded mass of his distended stomach, scraping against the floor, look all the more disgusting and out of place. His legs had expanded, though unevenly. Both had gone beyond the capacity of his jeans, and the pants lay shredded around his ankles. Thankfully the acres of folded fat obscured his genitalia, Rose really didn't care to check if they were similarly infected. The Greg-thing stared at her, still trying to work out how to use eyes as a visual sense organ. His upper lip had grown to the size of a toothpaste tube, flopping over his lower lip. A drool-filled raspberry sound found its way through, quite possibly an involuntary noise made by something not familiar with the intricacies of controlling human biology.

Rose was just glad it didn't accidentally shit on the floor while experimenting with its musculature.

"Not that you'd understand, but my name is Rose Watterson. I represent the interests of my boss, a Mr. Eisei."

The reaction was immediate. Apparently it could understand, the thing that used to be Greg shuddered. Rose could see parts of it already beginning to deflate, it was trying to get away, cross the boundary between realities before the weakened spot healed over. That would not do at all. Rose reached into her top, drawing out a glass pendent on a chain. It wasn't the best work, Rose simply wasn't very good or experienced with glasswork. But it was her own work, and it had taken a lot of energy to make. And that was the important part of all wonder-working: Putting your own energy and feeling into it.

Rose snapped the pendent off her neck and threw it on the ground, shattering the glass. The hours upon hours she had put into making it were released in that instant, the energy available for her to use as she saw fit for just that moment. She used it, mentally taking in the solid, unbroken walls and floor of the bathroom, the locked door behind her, an inescapable prison. It worked.

Immediately the deflating process stopped. The thing that imperfectly inhabited Greg's body was trapped here on this version of reality, at least for a while. "That's better," Rose said, "As I was saying, I represent the interests of Mr. Eisei. It seems he had made a proposal to you some time before, a favour to you in return for your agreement to vacate this area. You failed to hold up your end of the bargain, and thus I was sent to explain why that is not a good idea on your part."

The abomination flopped, mewled and drooled. It threw itself against the bathroom walls, the stall door, never daring to try and move towards Rose. Despite the thing's grotesque mass, it somehow worked up an impressive amount of strength in its movements. There was a sickly snapping noise as one of former-Greg's arms broke in its desperate thrashings to get free of this prison.

"There's no use fighting it," Rose said, reaching into the satchel a third time and this time drawing out a lighter, "You had your chance earlier, and you failed to honour your agreement. You only brought this on yourself."

The door rattled behind Rose. A muffled voice could be heard on the other end, "Hello? Hello?! Is everything alright in there?"

"Fucking interruptions," Rose said, pocketing the lighter momentarily.

"Hello?!! I'm coming in, are you hurt?"

There was a click, the locked turned and the door was pushed open. A short man in a Burger Blitz uniform took half a step in before seeing the body of John draped across the floor, he nearly slipped in the blood. "Holy shit!"

Then he saw the thing beating against the back wall of the bathroom, heard the inhuman vocalizations being forced through a mostly human throat. He staggered backwards from unknowable horrors, taking in breath, trying to find the memory of how to scream. "You'll do nicely," Rose said, grabbing his shirt by the collar and yanking him back into the doorway.

A quick movement of the knife and the man lost the ability to scream. As he slumped weakly against the wall, Rose took out the lighter again and held a steady flame against the lapels of his shirt. After a few seconds, the supposedly flame-retardant fabric caught. The air around Rose shimmered slightly. "You can feel it, can't you?" she hissed, "Life escaping, available for you, your own element to take and use as you see fit. Take it!"

In his last seconds of life, the man stared uncomprehending at Rose. She wasn't even talking to him. The flames slowly eating away at his shirt suddenly took a more intricate form, twisting unnaturally and contrary to the normal laws which governed combustion. With a sudden, predatory intelligence, the small fire jumped at the large gash in his throat, disappearing inside. Despite the weakness of shock and bloodloss, the man suddenly thrashed and gurgled in pain. Steam escaped from the wound in his neck, hissing angrily.

The man was dead by this point, but his body shuddered and tried to rise to its feet regardless. Already portions of his skin were reddening, spiderwebs of superheated body fluid began to strain against his epidermis as the spirit inside ravenous consumed and devoured. The dead, now burning body looked towards Rose questioningly. Rose nodded approvingly, "Go, find more to eat, burn this place to the ground. Just save this room for last."

Without a word, the corpse staggered out of the doorway. Surprised shouts in the main lobby quickly turned to screams and the sound of running feet. There were certain to be plenty who got out the doors, Rose knew. But it would catch enough, grabbing them, embracing them and forcefully injecting its own essence into their bodies through any available orifice, most often the mouth. Spreading. Like a zombie-virus played in fast forward combined with an arsonist's wet dream. Once living, human bodies had all been consumed, it would seek other material, anything in the restaurant to burn and devour. Even using its own power to convert normally flame-proof material into something a bit more favourable to combustion.

Rose didn't know exactly what it was. She had read something a long time ago about Hua Po, Chinese spirits of flame which were created when three people were hung from the same tree. She had drugged and dragged three people into the Dark, finding the nearest suitable tree, and hung them there. Just to be sure, she had then set them all on fire. Whether it was the fire, the death, or maybe the possibility that the myth of the Hua Po was based on reality, the thing had come and devoured the burning corpses. It had stayed with Rose ever since then, and she ensured it was fed regularly. She called it Po, it was pretty much the closest thing she had to a regular companion.

Sometimes Rose thought about it. Yeah, she was probably a sociopath, a net negative on society. Oh well, Mr. Eisei had strict requirements for those who worked beneath him, and a functioning conscience was a definite liability. The screams and fighting in the restaurant had died down to the sounds of pained moaning and crackling fire. Rose probably ought to leave soon, the cops and fire department would be here shortly, followed or preceded by the media. The layout here was generally the same as the last two Burger Blitzes, she could make her way in back, close herself in a freezer or cooler, turn off the lights and make her way to the Dark from there. If not... well, it wouldn't be the first time she had found her way out a highly illegal bind.

Humming a tune she had once heard on a youtube video, Rose closed the bathroom door behind her, sealing the squealing creature inside. Her job was done here.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 08

It took a little while for Lexx to psyche herself up for the walk across the street. Burger Blitz stood dark and unopened. Several weeks ago, earth-time, she had gone in for what was to be her last day of attendance on the job. Not a full work day, she had been turned away at the doors due to the fact that there had been a massacre the night before. Normally the mere slaughter of over a dozen people wouldn't keep a Burger Blitz closed for over two weeks. The demands of business made it imperative that the investigation and re-opening get done as soon as possible.

Gruesome, but a relatively smart move from a business standpoint. Acknowledge the murders, then push through the paperwork as quickly as possible. Re-open, eat the loss in sales as people are understandably hesitant to frequent a place where people had died in the double-digits. Force the face of normalcy there for long enough and eventually the memory would blur, people would get hungry. The signs would be bright and colourful, the moths would be drawn to the greasy, warm flame. Memory of the dead sacrificed on the altar of consumerism. Lexx could hardly blame them, aside from her coworkers, she knew no one who had died there, and what did her coworkers mean to her? She had someone who had meant worlds more, who she had loved, die in her arms.

One thing Lexx did know was the person who murdered them. And that person had struck again. It was the reason behind the closed doors today. Three joints hit, three sets of murders, all under similar circumstances. Burger Blitz had to acknowledge that on a larger level, and today all its locations in Chicago were closed. Unlike the most recent attack, this particular restaurant wasn't a burned cinder. Rose, the bitch she knew in high school. Rose, the one Lexx had randomly run into at random, who had deliberately set it up so that Lexx wouldn't be there when she attacked.

Rose who had made the wheels fall off someone's SUV with nothing more than a gesture.

Lexx didn't know how, or exactly why, but Rose knew something about what was going on. Maybe not specifically with Maccadyne, but at least she knew something about the world beyond that which most others inhabited. And maybe, just maybe, she had left some trace of evidence here. Something the police passed over simply because they didn't know to look for it. She had originally intended to re-apply for her old job here, before she read the news of what happened. Now Lexx had an aim she was more comfortable in pursuing.

A brief circuit of the restaurant showed something was immediately amiss. A pair of garbage bags sat at an odd angle, left far away from the locked dumpster and leaning against the main building itself. Intrigued, Lexx moved forward and nudged the bags aside. She nodded, unsurprised, at the discovery that one of the basement windows had been smashed in and crudely hidden. Apparently Lexx wasn't the only curious one.

A cane fell on the basement floor, clattering softly. Lexx pushed herself down the boxes, stacked in a crude platform to allow easy access in and out. Grabbing her cane, Lexx walked her way deeper into the recesses of Burger Blitz. She could feel something off here. Something strained about the atmosphere, like she was pushing against some insubstantial membrane. Lexx had felt this before, in the mausoleum.

Perhaps it was the close presence of the Dark that was distracting her. Or maybe she just wasn't that good at keeping alert. She didn't notice the person sneaking up behind her until she as tackled to the floor. Lexx struggled, someone was on her back, holding her down. She drew in breath to scream, then froze as something cold and metal was pressed against her throat. "Easy! Easy! We don't want an accident!"

Lexx stopped moving, stopped struggling, "Okay... this is me taking it easy."

"Good, awesome, you just stay still."

Lexx felt pressure on her backside. It moved around to her hip. For a moment she thought she was being molested, but it turned out he, it sounded like a he, was only rooting around for a wallet. Lexx relaxed a little. Let him grab it, put him at ease, less ready for any mistakes. "Can I roll over?" Lexx asked, trying to make herself sound weak and vulnerable, "I... I can't really breathe like this."

"Hmmpf," the man said. Lexx could just strain her head around to catch a blurry glimpse of him through her peripheral vision. Scraggly dark hair, a black t-shirt, no other details.

The pressure on her back eased up slightly, "No sudden movements, I don't want to hurt you."

"Okay," Lexx said, "I... I don't want to be hurt. I think we can get along, alright?"

The man laughed again. He looked to be a little younger than Lexx, now that she had a clear view of him while on her back. He straddled her belly, holding her down while he clumsily opened her wallet with one hand. He looked scrawny, but obviously had some weight to him. The other hand held the knife loosely against her neck. "Alexxia?"

"Lexx. Yeah. Listen, I'm guessing you're here for money. I won't get in your way... and you saw the cane, I can't move fast anyways."

"You have no idea why I'm here," he said, "No idea at all. Money is no concern to me, not that you would understand the importance of this."

"Really? I mean, I didn't want to imply you're a thief or anything Mr. ... um,"

"Steven, just Steven."

"Yeah Mr. Steven. If it's all the same to you, I'd really like to get out of here alive. It's dark, I didn't get a good look at you or anything."

"As long as you be a good girl and do as you're told, you'll be out of here alive," Steven said, "We're going to go to a special place together, we're going to have a special experience, and then we'll go our separate ways, that sound good?"

"Umm... well..."

"That's if you really want to get out of here alive. You think I haven't killed anyone before? Especially pretty girls?"

"Yeah, can we go with the first plan?" Lexx thought quickly, "Look, you're not going to find the money in that pocket."

"What?" Steven glared at her, "I'm not looking for money in... okay, what pocket?"

"It's in the secret one, it's a flap under," Lexx tried to indicate, but her arms were pinned to her side, "Look, you have to use both hands, it's easy to find."

"Alright," Steven lifted his other hand and started fiddling with her wallet.

The knife was away from her throat, that was all the opening Lexx needed. He was strong, obviously. He had a surprising weight for someone who looked, really looked like a scrawny geek. But Lexx had a few years of training under someone who had spent several centuries working on personal combat techniques under nearly any and all circumstances. The physical endurance training during that time helped a lot too. Lexx grunted, putting as much force into her lower back as possible, using her shoulder-blades as a lever.

Steven gave a surprised, "Hey!" as he was lifted off the floor. Lexx dropped back down. Before Steven fell back on top of her, there was just a moment where she was relatively unrestrained.

"Bamf!"

Lexx had been looking towards her dropped bag, several feet away. Steven was still recovering from the fact that there was suddenly no one beneath him as she quickly jammed her hand inside, finding the heavy, blunt object she was looking for.

"Bamf!"

Steven had just been turning, getting a bearing on where she was, when suddenly she simply wasn't anymore. Lexx was now standing behind him. She pressed the tazer against Steven's lower back and gave the handle a good squeeze. There was a loud snap and Steven fell forward, sprawling across the floor. The knife flew off into a corner by the freezer. Lexx grinned and twisted, cracking her back and quickly massaging out the bruises from her own fall. She limped over and grabbed her cane. "First rule... oh fuck!"

Steven hadn't remained sprawled. In fact he had almost immediately jumped right back up and half staggered, half sprinted to the corner his knife had fallen. Picking it up, he whirled and faced Lexx, who now held the cane up warily, resting easily on her good leg and waiting for him to make the first move. "You're one of them!" Steven said, awe in his voice, "You're one of the Gifted, aren't you?"

"The what?" Lexx didn't move, other than to flick her eyes back and forth to check the shadows, just in case Steven had any friends here, "And why are you still moving?"

"Takes more than a little jolt to keep me down, girl," Steven said, taking a step towards her. He didn't take another step, she didn't back down.

"You really don't sound that tough," Lexx said.

"You look kind of funny with that cane," Steven countered.

"So what now? Your move, fuckface. You got the legs, I know the territory."

"What? No hon, you're on our territory."

"Our?"

"Gifted... heh. Father's going to be so happy. You don't know it yet hon, but your blood is ours!"

"What?"

Steven didn't answer, he instead whipped open the freezer door and jumped inside. Lexx was over there in a fraction of a second, but it still wasn't in time to catch the door before it slammed shut. Grumbling, Lexx fumbled with the latch and pulled the door open, someone had taken out the lights inside, so only darkness greeted her. She dismissed the darkness and flipped the switch. Nothing. The lights truly were out. She fumbled in her bag again, exchanging the tazer for the small flashlight. Cautiously she played a light over the interior of the freezer.

Nothing. She ventured inside, keeping one foot in the doorway just in case someone tried to slam it shut from behind. No one here, no room to hide behind the boxes either. Steven had simply disappeared. Lexx found her mind wandering back towards the strange, strained feeling over the atmosphere of this place. The thin membrane that was so easy to walk through, yet so undoubtably present. That soft wall that you only knew you were getting through when it got harder. The way into the Dark.

Whoever this Steven was, he knew about it as well.

----------

"We need to find more," Lexx said, sprawled across Mael's lap, idly fiddling around with her tazer.

"What?"

"More. You know, more people like us. We aren't the only ones, maybe there's like a club or something."

"Yeah... more," Mael began to zone off again.

"Mael?"

"Yeah?"

"What's wrong?"

"What?"

"You're doing it again. You've been doing it for the past few days. It's like you're not all there."

"I've had a lot on my mind."

"Yeah, and it's stopping you from doing anything with your body."

"No... maybe... no."

"What?"

"You remember that whole 'certainty' thing, and that sudden sort of drive I've had? When we took our trip to Maccadyne?"

"Did it... dry up or something?"

"Not exactly. It's more like it's just hitting a brick wall, over and over again."

"Explain."

Mael thought about it. "I hurt that CEO guy, right?"

"Terrance? I don't think it was permanent," Lexx decided she was on a first-name basis with one of the most powerful 'people' in the world, just because.

"Doesn't matter. What were you feeling when you attacked him? I'm just curious."

Lexx went back over her memories. "Okay, well... beforehand I was really fucking nervous. I almost wanted to turn back right on the spot, go running back to you. You're sort of a safe point like that for me. But then I heard his voice and I... I..." she faltered, then pushed on, "Then I remembered what happened the last time I had seen him. I... I remembered that, the crowbar... going through my knee, that pain. It's like... I didn't think pain could do that, ever be that bad, it was a nightmare, just off physical sensation alone, I feel nauseous just thinking about it now, it hurts. I wanted... I wanted him to feel that pain, feel it a lot. It felt, it was like a guilty pleasure, it felt so good, just such a great release to be breaking something that hurt me. It was, I guess it was a stupid, animal thing, me got hurt, me hurt back, lotsa lotsa hurt. It just felt good on an unintellectual level. Lexx angry, Lexx smash."

Mael nodded, "Okay. That's what I've been thinking about. I didn't feel that, I didn't feel any of it. I came in there, I was pissed and full of righteous anger and all that. I hurt the fucker, and he deserved it, he deserved worlds more for what he did to you, to Aaron. But even though... even when I was pissed, trying to take out someone who needed to be taken out, I didn't feel it. I didn't have that pleasure, it was just... it felt so pointless. Repaying hurt with hurt, and to what end? Would he learn? Would it undo what had been done to you? I couldn't divorce the intellectual from the purely emotional, it did nothing more me."

Lexx nodded uncertainly, "...okay."

"That's the thing," Mael was now gesturing pointedly, "I kept on asking if you were all ready for this, but it turns out you were far more into it than I was. I think, maybe I was just projecting my own insecurities onto you. Now, now I just don't know anymore. I know what we have to do, for the good of far more than just us. But I'm scared that when it comes time, I'm scared that I might not be able to work up the will to go through and actually kill someone."

"Is that really a bad thing?"

"What?"

"I wonder if there's some sort of 'low battery' light on this thing," Lexx was still fidgeting with the tazer.

"What? Why?"

"That guy I told you about, who attacked me? He got right back up after a jolt from this. Can I test it out on you?"

"No, and how is it not a bad thing?"

"Well... look at it this way. I beat the shit out of him, and it felt really good. It gives me incentive to do that again. Hurt someone in righteous anger and whatever. What if I keep on doing it? What if one of those times... I'm wrong? I end up hurting, or doing worse to someone who didn't do anything do deserve it? You're approaching the problem from the other end, but think about what we can do together? I can be the willingness to do something hurtful for a greater good, and you can be the reality check to stop me from doing something stupid. Somewhere between this weird enjoyment of violence I've suddenly gained, and your aversion to it has to be a happy medium."

"Suddenly? Maybe you've had it all along, and you just found out now."

"That's not the point. The point is... umm, I don't know, I think it was a pep talk of some sort."

"Maccadyne, taking it down and how I'm not certain I've got the balls to."

"I'd hope not, unless there's been some secret you've been keeping from me."

"But seriously, I haven't just been obsessing over my own inadequacies for the past few days. I've been thinking about things, something I kind of want to try putting in motion. About Maccadyne and... well, we can't just walk through the front door and burn the place down, right?"

"Yeah, I figured as much. And those secret underground labs are probably better guarded than the stuff upstairs, so our trick with the ventilation probably won't work either."

"Exactly! So, how the hell can we get in there and throw a wrench into things? We can't get in the normal way, we have to find a back door."

"I think I see where you're going with this, and I kinda like it."

"The Dark?"

"Yeah. That's our back door. I've been wanting to explore more of it... but until now I've been hesitant to go it alone there."

"But now that there are two of us."

"Right, buddy system."

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 09

"Hello? Oh, hey Lexx, sorry, you caught me studying. Yeah? No. No, sorry, haven't had a chance yet, too much work, summer-classes suck and the labs aren't open that much. Don't worry, I'll get it in, I'm really curious too. Okay hon, love ya!"

April rubbed her head, flipping the phone shut with her other hand. She stared at the computer, trying to get the symbols on the screen to resolve into coherent words. Three seconds into the attempt and her head was pounding already. It had never stopped pounded, trying to focus merely reminded her of its presence. A few clicks and the brightness was turned down nearly to the minimum level, just enough for the computer screen to remain visible. Still too bright. Everything hurt, but it was all overshadowed by the thud in her head.

Standing up increased the pain, remaining sitting also increased it. Staggering over to the light switch increased it tenfold. Turning off the lights didn't help at all. The only light came from the dimmed laptop screen now. Ibuprofen didn't help, Midol hadn't helped. The pain only got worse as the day went on. The assumption that she had been dehydrated had been proven wrong, this was worse than even migraines. Yet the certainty remained that the pain was only there because April was missing something desperately needed.

There was more light, through a doorway. April wobbled and focused, the light of heaven? No, just the soft glow of her bathroom nightlight, automatically switching on in the darkness. Bathroom, toilet, vomit? No, she was nauseous, but she didn't need that. Something else in there. Mirror, the cabinet behind, medicine cabinet, medicine... blood.

That was it.

April staggered to the bathroom, flicking on the light and instantly regretting it. Shielding her eyes against the burning brightness, she fumbled the medicine cabinet open and carefully took out the vial of red liquid she had stashed in there. The simple act of holding it seemed to steady her somewhat. The rubber stopper... what an inconvenience, in the way... so easy to remove.

The scent was something else entirely. Copper, slightly, but something else enigmatically fragrant, a strange lack of smell that nonetheless filled her senses and seemed to wash away a good deal of the pain. But not enough, because April hadn't done enough yet. That was it, wasn't it? It was this blood, or whatever it was that was doing this to her. It wanted her to do something. It lacked a mind, intelligence, so it just drew her in whatever way it could. It needed to be consumed, and thus it created a need in the nearest available body, a need to consume it. Dumbly delirious, April took the vial to her lips and drank the thick substance.

-------

A day off that wasn't... sort of. Mael had off work, and she intended to fill the evening as much as possible. Lexx was taken along for the ride, voluntarily caught up in the wake that was created on those rare occasions that Mael got aggressively social. In this case it involved taking a bus ride to the northern portion of downtown and making their way to Club Nein, right off of Clark.and Sheffield. Lexx didn't think Wrigleyville was the best location for a breakcore club, given the jock-ish nature of its inhabitants, but then again it was right near Boystown and the gothier section of Clark and Halsted.

The club itself was small, but actually rather enjoyable. It was one of the few places in the city that had managed to evade the most recent smoking ban, Lexx was still uncertain how she felt about that. On the one hand, she didn't have to deal with the snarl of smokers sitting right outside the main doors, on the other hand, there would always been a nicotine haze on the inside. But the music was good, and the people in general were pretty tolerable. Then again she'd only been here twice, Mael was the expert as far as clubs downtown were concerned.

Cover charge was ten dollars, and soon enough both found themselves in the company of dozens of self-labeled deviants. Lexx tried to lose a bit of the cynical shell and just enjoy herself. If anything, Mael was in a worse position than her. Last night's talk hadn't shifted her glum attitude, even if it made her a bit more open about it. "Hey Mael!"

"Yeah?" shouting was the only way to communicate here, it was kind of liberating.

"Wanna dance?"

"Give me a moment to work up to it... I'm soaking in the atmosphere."

"I meant it, you know. I think it's a good thing that you're against violence in general!"

"What?!"

"I said I think your hesitance is good!"

"Oh... I'm still wrapping my mind around it, I'm just pissed at myself is all!"

"It'll be easier if you're moving!"

"In a moment, we can't stay here long!"

"Why not?!"

"I want to walk around, see if there are any... you know, ways into the Dark nearby!"

Lexx pursed her lips, "Hey Mael."

"Yeah?"

"Stay here, enjoy yourself, let out what you need do and fucking de-stress. I'll take a look around, 'kay?"

Mael looked at Lexx for a long moment, then gave a brief hug, "Get out of here you sap."

"I'm asphyxiating on cigarette smoke anyways."

"Ooh, good idea," Mael reached into her back and produced a pack.

---------

Lexx didn't really need the walk, and despite the smoke, she would have rather been in the club. As much as she disliked most people, there was a decent chance of meeting someone cool there. But Mael probably needed the release more than she did at the moment, and Lexx could at least make herself useful and do a little 'recon'. Besides, she knew she could use the practice in recognizing the feelings associated with the presence of what she was now calling 'dark portals'. So far the trip had produced a full negative return on investment. Lexx spent the time thinking instead.

Just what the hell was the Dark? From what absurdly little exploration she had managed to do that time her and Mael traveled to see the Observer, Lexx figured that it was some sort of mirror to the world she was currently in right now. The most obvious difference was the debilitating lack of any sort of light, probably the cause for the name. The lack of sound was also rather unsettling, especially when it looked like you were in the environs of a city, as cities by their nature were never quiet. Long ago, before her abduction and trip to the Plant, Lexx had a brief run in with the Observer. She had been told that the Dark was a sort of crossroads of reality.

Whatever it was, Lexx would feel a lot safer not being alone when she was in that place. She hadn't actually run into anything there, but she very much doubted it was empty of life, or things which were the equivalent of animate life. Mael had outlined plans to do a few trips through the one known dark portal in Rosehill Cemetery, going together for greater safety. She had even bought a cheap pair of walkie-talkies and extra flashlights. Lexx figured at some point they should try out the dark portal in the Burger Blitz, but that was a bit more problematic. It involved more obvious trespassing, and once the restaurant opened back up, it would be nearly impossible. Lexx vaguely regretted not crossing over when she was right there, after that guy Steven had escaped using the same means. But she was alone then, and it seemed Steven probably had a better working knowledge of the Dark than she did, and would be at a much greater advantage if he had waited for her to come bumbling in after him.

Sure, she would fight, but she wasn't certain she would win. Fighting was pretty much a given in Lexx's life at this point. She accepted it was going to happen again, and was actually a little gleeful about it. That actually scared her, the lack of hesitance about it. The trip to Maccadyne, her assault on Terrance McNielson, that had been the first full on fight Lexx had really been in. It scared her how much she had enjoyed it and looked forward to a rematch. When Steven had jumped her, she had felt so... alive once she had regained her feet and was flush with adrenaline. In all, Lexx realized she probably needed Mael far more than Mael needed her. Mael had proven she could will herself to fight even if she didn't enjoy the concept, Lexx didn't know if she could drag herself out of one if it became necessary.

Lexx stopped. She tried to work out what had suddenly grabbed her attention, reached out and throttled her memory. It wasn't that strained, cold feeling of a dark portal, it was something entirely mundane which had snagged her vision for a moment before becoming unremarkable once more. Lexx focused, retracing her visual path. Her eyes settled suspiciously on a van parked awkwardly near an alley, facing away from her. A white rectangle on the back of the van, that's what caught her attention. The license plate, MSE-933, IL.

It took Lexx a moment to realize somehow she had memorized that plate from over two years ago, her time, without ever consciously recognizing it. Just a brief glimpse of it, way back then, on the day that van had pulled up to her, and several faceless people had pulled her inside. Lexx swallowed, a nervous tension suddenly building up inside her. She hadn't been noticed, or passed over as unimportant by the single occupant of the van. He seemed more interested in keeping in radio contact with what sounded like two or more people somewhere else.

"Road's clear guys, hurry it up."

A crackle, "We got her, coming out in a minute, unlock the back, then get the van started. Looks like a clean catch."

"I won't believe that until we hand her off," the man in the driver's seat said, "Evan out."

The driver's door opened and Lexx crouched in the shadow of the Kia parked behind the van. There was the reason for the nervous tension, Lexx was giddy, almost joyful. She was about to get into another fight.

---------

Mael didn't so much sit down on the barstool as she did collapse into it. With a smile she spun around and rested her elbows against the bar. She was sweating, it felt good, she didn't sweat enough. It was definitely going to be a shower night tonight. The bartender cruised by, giving her a questioning look, Mael shouted for water, her voice hoarsely rising above the din.

"You're not like everyone else here."

"Nice guess," Mael said, turning to see the owner of the deep voice.

"What are you drinking? I can probably get you better," He was huge, but not hulking, decked out in an imposing trenchcoat, a well trimmed goatee and long thick hair, with a deep voice that somehow managed to carry over the chaotic music despite the fact that he was using a normal speaking voice.

"Right," Mael said, deciding to match him for speaking voices and not caring if he didn't comprehend, "I'm not in the mood for roofies right now."

"If I want you, I'd prefer you be fully conscious when it happens," the man said.

"Do you want me?"

"I haven't ruled it out yet."

"Well, guess that makes two of us," Mael looked away, still not very interested.

Sadly this was about the closest she normally got to flirting. The dancing had been great, the physical release perfect. It hadn't dislodged the mental stress though, merely gave it some breathing room. Her body felt great, her mind felt like shit. It was a really bad spiral to be in at the moment, Mael all but hated herself over this stupid neurosis. What if she locked up at the worst possible time? The more she thought about it, the more she became convinced that it was exactly what was going to happen. It was inevitable that her and Lexx were eventually going to get into an altercation, and to Mael it was becoming more certain that when that happened, she would be a hindrance to the cause.

Mael sighed and took another drink of water before reaching into her pack. Fingers found nothing, Mael looked and saw that she was out of cigarettes. Fuck. "Problem?" the man said.

Mael glared at him, "Can you solve it?"

She paused, now glaring at him for different reasons. For a moment Mael was convinced she was looking at an automaton. A very delicately constructed and cleverly decorated doll, so very lifelike, but completely a facade. Once good shove and the man would fall to pieces, metaphorically speaking. Yet at the same time Mael could see that it wasn't a weakness, the facade covered something up, and if he fell to pieces... there was something underneath that, well hidden, sort of.

"Actually, never mind the question. Since you're bothering me: Fucking solve it."

"Name's Viktor," the man said, producing a pack of cigarettes, Mael didn't recognize the brand.

"Mael," Mael said, taking one and waiting patiently for a light.

"No, no light until you answer a question or two."

Mael shrugged, "I can just light it myself."

"But you won't."

"Why not?" it was true though, Mael hadn't moved towards her bag.

"Because you're curious, you can't help yourself. You know I'm not what I seem on the surface, and you know that I can tell you're much the same, and you want to see just how far this goes."

"Psychic?"

"Don't need to be, just have to know how to read people."

Mael nodded, "Fine, ask away, I want a smoke."

"How open are you to the idea of corruption?"

"Is there some special context to this, or is this a generality?"

"Physical, mental, ideological, take your pick."

"It's kind of alluring, but not practical on a day-to-day basis," Mael said.

Viktor nodded, "Okay, question two: The cigarette in your mouth is laced with something that will temporarily corrupt your thoughts and your body, removing good judgment and hampering your reflexes. With that in mind, are you still willing to let me light it, knowing that I could take advantage of you while you're in a relatively helpless state?"

Mael stared and Viktor. There was a challenge in his eyes, almost mocking. Mael grinned, "Do it, faggot."

It was a really stupid decision under almost any circumstances. Going along with a complete stranger who has just announced that he intended to drug her and quite possibly do something vile to her. But Mael went with it anyways. Maybe, subconsciously, she just wanted to hurt herself.

------------

Duct tape was a fantastic thing when you thought about it. Lexx tightened up the last of the bindings and ripped the slack off. "You don't mind if I keep this, do you?" she pocketed what was left of the roll of duct tape.

It was an amazing tool, it barely qualified as 'tape' in terms of durability and versatility. 'Tape' usually implied something highly limited in application, designed for a certain small range of materials and functions. Duct tape on the other hand, it stuck to anything. Clothes, flesh, metal, wood, glass. Even if something were wet, or had a thorough coating of dust, as long as you had enough surface area to make a full loop, then the duct tape would simply stick to itself and achieve the same ends.

In this instance, the duct tape was currently sticking to three people, in large quantities, rendering all immobile. Lexx had gotten the jump on the lone occupant of the van when he came out to open up the back, then proceeded to incapacitate the other two who eventually came out of the alley bearing a large, writhing bag. The tazer saw use only once, but it seemed to work perfectly fine on the now convulsing man on the ground. Either Steven's resistance was a fluke, or he really was just weird enough to shrug off that sort of electrical jolt.

That was nearly ten minutes ago. Now Lexx sat in the back of the van, legs dangling to the pavement outside. Next to her sat a small girl, she couldn't be more than four or five years old, the present inside the writhing bag. Nearby on the sidewalk lay several cut strips of tape, what had kept the girl silent and complaint while they transported her. "So, Squeaker, do you have a name?"

The girl hadn't run, though she looked like she might at any moment. Her clothes suggested she was above the poverty line, if only just. She looked up at Lexx and nodded. "Okay hon, can you actually talk, or should I just start calling you Newt?"

"I can talk."

"Cool, do you know what these assholes were doing with you? Where they were taking you?"

The girl shook her head, but her expression suggested she had a good idea. "Do you have a place to stay, Squeaker? Parents? A home for me to take you to?"

Another head-shaking. Lexx sighed, "Alright, I've got a few more things to take care of, then I can get you a roof over your head for tonight at least, and a decent meal, after that we'll have to see what to do with you. Please don't run away, I have to make a quick call."

Lexx got up and walked around to the front of the van. During her search of the vehicle, she had located a number of photographs, addresses, dates and briefly jotted down instructions about targets. Apparently these three were a freelance abduction crew. It would have been far more helpful if there was some information about their 'clients', but Lexx guessed they were professional enough not to carry that sort of evidence around with them. Well, this should be enough to damn these three at least. Lexx had arranged all the evidence on the front windshield of the van, easily visible for anyone who was curious. She turned back to the struggling figures on the ground.

They each had a new set of bruises, thanks to her. Lexx was pretty certain she recognized their voices, though they were now muffled with duct tape. She recognized the back of the van for sure, it was the same vehicle she had been abducted in. The hardest task now was not to get too much into enjoying this sort of vindictive retribution. Keep it reasonable and not too harsh. Better check the battery on the tazer, make sure it's still working. Lexx pressed the tool into the back of one of the bound figures and squeezed the handle. There was a click, a gurgling scream and the man convulsed. Yup, still seemed to be working fine. Better yet, it looked like the duct tape was holding.

Lexx grinned, wondering if she should try it out on the others a few more times. She decided against it, she should really be getting back to Mael now. She took the cell phone she had found in the pocket of one of the kidnappers and dialed three quick numbers. A few seconds later a connection was established, Lexx's voice was plaintive and helpless as she talked on the phone, "Hello? Police? Hello?! Help me! People kidnapped me... I'm stuck in a van... I think they want to rape me! I'm in a van near... near... Newport and Seminary... oh god they're coming back... please help!"

Snapping the phone shut, Lexx walked to the back of the van. She tapped the bumper with her cane, getting the girl's attention, "Alright Squeaker, I've gotta scram. You can either come with me, or sit here and wait for the cops, or just run off on your own. I'd rather you come with me, but I'm not gonna force anything."

With that, Lexx turned and walked away, heading back towards Club Nein. A moment later the girl got up and followed. Several minutes into the trip, Lexx saw several police cars go by, lights on and sirens going. She smiled, the kidnappers' day was simply getting worse by the moment.

----------

Mael had ended up grinding with Viktor. The cigarette was indeed laced, and it was having an effect on her judgment, but she was still rather disappointed. Even as she enjoyed herself, feeling slightly giddy, she mocked the man, "That was it? You had me so hopeful there was something really bad about to happen, you just passed me a weed-lined smoke. I've done worse than that."

"It's the principle of the thing," Viktor said, "I was just testing your willingness and openness to the idea."

"Did I pass?" Mael asked, calmly ceding her personal space to the man as they danced.

Viktor replied by leaning in and forcefully kissing her. Mael submitted and allowed it to go on, he smelled remarkably clean. A few seconds into the make-out she made a sudden discovery. Viktor was definitely good at this, there was no doubt about that. Confident, not too sloppy or aggressive with his kissing, and could probably win over most girls. But above all else, Mael could tell he was also faking it... just like her. Mael was the one who broke contact, "You're not getting anything from this."

"Neither are you," Viktor countered.

"So why bother then?"

"Another test, to see if you're shallow enough to be content with just some random snogging."

Mael nodded, "So... if I'm getting this right, you're a highly selective date-rapist who likes playing hard-to-get."

"I object, everyone I've ever violated has given their consent to it."

"And what do you mean by 'violate'? I'm hoping it involves more than just a tepid make-out in a club."

"Depends on what you consent to. If you want, I could give you a literal mindfuck right now."

Mael stared at Viktor. It was another challenge, another test. She knew he was wanting to back up his claim right there, she only wished she knew exactly what that meant. "Fine," Mael had a thing for taking challenges, "Show me."

Viktor held up an index finger, with his other hand he began to pull on the finger. At first Mael thought he was doing nothing more than a crude pantomime of masturbation. Then with a sickening crack, his bones disconnected, and his finger began to lengthen. Mael had been vaguely dancing for the past few minutes, but she slowed to a shocked standstill as she watched Viktor's finger get longer, the skin warping until it tapered to a fine point.

Viktor walked forward, steadily pushing Mael back until she was pressed up against the wall. "You're going to need the support," He growled in her ear.

Something warm entered her other ear. There was a brief pain as it pressed against her eardrum, everything suddenly going fuzzy and...

Crashing, screaming, complaints. A siren, people shouting. Mael blinked uncertainly, wondering how she was still standing. As if suddenly alerted to the fact, her knees gave out and she sagged to the floor, still shivering from whatever had just happened to her. Immediately a finger went up to her ear, Mael looked at the result, a tiny dribble of blood. She checked her skirt almost as an after thought. Disheveled, along with everything beneath. Someone had been molesting her... she knew who. After that... why would he even need to molest her? He had managed to bypass the physical filters and go straight to the source and...

He hadn't. Mael had woken up from a trance, during which she had done the act to herself... several times judging by how much her muscles ached. All of it attempting to mimic something which had simply been too much for her senses to take in. That was it, she had actually blacked out from pleasure. He had done it, he had mindfucked her. Mael smiled. People were running around in front of her, she realized she should probably come back to reality at some point. Something was going on. She noticed without surprise that there was a business card sticking obviously out of her bag. There was a message scrawled on the back:

"I can help you with Maccadyne. Stop by for a visit sometime. -Viktor"

The front was an address, apparently he did both massages and computer repair. An odd combination, to say the least. More people running around, the crackling sound of walkie-talkies, the music stopped. Mael dimly realized something bad was going on. She looked up and saw police, a lot of them. A drug bust? Oh shit, she probably stank of cannabis right now, courtesy a laced cigarette. Was she in any position to escape? No.

"Bamf."

"Lexx..." Mael drawled, unsurprised and only half-aware.

"Jeezus Mael, what the hell happened to you?"

"Dunno... someone spiked my-"

"Hey you two, don't move, keep on the floor!" One of the cops had finally noticed them.

"Aw fuck," Lexx said, "Come on Mael, we're going for a fun ride, try not to puke on me."

"Whee-"

"Bamf."

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 10

April waited by the back fence, feeling a little embarrassed about it, but remaining solid in her devotion to this particular cause. It was evening, long after she had come to her senses after the best high she had ever had. A decent portion of the day had been spent simply recovering from that, daddy had been concerned that April was coming down with something. She decided it was probably for the best he continued to think that. Better that than revealing she may be getting into drugs again.

That's what it had to be, some sort of new drug, something she'd never heard of before. That alone was saying a lot, April had heard and done a number of drugs in years previous. She was clean now... well, up to a day before now. This, though, this merited further study. She was convinced that it wasn't actually blood, just something that came in a red, opaque liquid. It was a very strange sort of high, in retrospect. There were no hallucinations, as with acid, no dulling or warping of the senses. She didn't giggle or get hungry, there wasn't any immediate sexual pleasure from it.

It was just as if all her senses had been sharpened beyond belief, then began that pleasant pounding. Not at all the same as the pounding headache that had been going on before, this was different, lower. As if her heart had become a large bass chord reverberating throughout her body in the best possible way. It had continued for several hours, each strum more enjoyable than the last until she had been rendered completely incapacitated on the bed. For nearly four hours she had remained this way, it wasn't sexual, it was just a feeling of complete sensuality with her own body. She could feel her heart pumping whatever that substance was into every single corner of her being.

Afterwards there was no real downer either, unless that was scheduled to hit later. The pounding had gradually receded, and the only depression came from the fact that her normal state of being wasn't as enjoyable as being under the influence of that unknown drug. Finally coming to her senses, April had found something else, a note sitting on her windowsill, on the second story. The note had told her that if she wanted more of the drug, she would be near the back fence of her property at sundown. So here April waited. She didn't have long to wait.

Bushes rustled from beyond the fence. Someone came out. April looked and was almost immediately disappointed. Average height, incredibly gangly, rather icky hair. He looked like a complete geek in the worst possible way. Not the cool kind, rather the kind that never got a social education and generally failed at most aspects of life. Regrettably, he came up to the fence and stared at April... almost leered. She didn't know how he had gotten the note up to the second story window, but she had the disturbing feeling he had been watching her in the midst of her high.

"You're here about the..." April ventured.

"The Blood," the man replied.

"Right, that's what you're calling it," April said, "Alright, fine, so how'd you track me down?"

"We always know where the Blood goes. I'm in charge of operations on the north side, so naturally I came here to verify its status. It got a bit diverted from its intended course, but we'll try to make the most of the situation."

"Right," Alice nodded, "You're a big bad drug-dealer packin' and keeping your mind on the money, whatever. How much for more?"

"You don't seem to understand-"

"I understand perfectly. I got a sample intended for someone else. Now I want more. Take the opportunity for more business while you can and tell me how much."

"No, you really don't. We don't accept money, at least not for this sort of instance."

"What? Look where I live, asshole, you don't think I can make it worth your time?"

"Oh, I think you can make it worth my time, bitch."

April blinked, then narrowed her eyes, "Really?"

"You want more, you're going to have to earn it."

"I see," Alice folded her arms, "And exactly what is worth more than money for you?"

"For me? Watching an uppity bitch learn that not everything comes to her on a silver platter."

Alice nodded. She decided to play along with it for a bit. Feigning a look of defeat, Alice dropped her eyes and took a few steps towards the fence. Her arms dropped to her sides and the next look she gave the man was imploring, "What... what if I said please?"

"That's a start. You can do better than that though."

She was up against the fence now, "What do you want from me?"

"How about inviting me in, I'd love to see what your room looks like."

"How about a kiss?"

"Kind of a small down payment, but okay," the man got within grabbing distance.

Alice's hand shot between the bars, grabbing the man by the collar and yanking forward. There was a dull clang as his head impacted the wrought iron bars. Alice stepped back, far out of reach of any retaliations. "Here's the deal asshole: I'm willing to give you money for this. I'm not going to degrade myself and entertain the fantasies of a pathetic, misogynistic geek who never learned how to properly get laid and is bitter about it. You want my business, you'll get that through your sad little head."

The man rubbed his head, glaring at Alice. "Okay, obviously you can't be reasoned with right now."

He reached into his pocket and flicked a business card through the bars, "When you feel ready to not be such a cunt, give me a call."

---------

"Okay, so here's what I've come up with," Lexx said as she and Mael walked down the street, "There is no secret government program dealing with all of this. There can't be. It's not a matter of incompetence or malice, it's the simple fact that this is, bluntly, Someone Else's Problem."

"Someone else's problem," Mael said, tasting the phrase as she squinted in the light of the morning sun.

"Yeah, exactly. Look, the Dark exists, the fey exist. Demons controlling corporations exist. Yeah, they're hidden, but not hidden all that well. We stumbled across them by chance, there are thousands of people who dedicate all their spare time towards looking for these things. At least some of them have to find out some of this stuff, even if it's by chance. So why isn't knowledge of this stuff a little more well known?" Lexx asked.

"Because almost all conspiratards are... well, retarded? I mean, who would take anything they say seriously?"

"Sure, but that begs the question: Why are they retarded? Because they're wrong? Except at least some of them have to be right by sheer dumb luck alone. But still no one will listen to them despite the fact that at least some of the people who aren't bloody conspiratards have to have stumbled across these sorts of things and can relate. There are people willing to chop a good deal of their childrens' genitalia off over a belief in talking snakes and gods who fuck humanity to give birth to themselves, but not this?"

"Well, one does have a bit more cultural impetus behind it."

"What about Scientology?"

"Touche."

"Alright, so people can believe their thetans are being stolen by space-Satan, but not that the epitome of evil corporations is run by actual demons? There's more than pure chance and cultural selectiveness at work here. You could say there's an actual conspiracy to keep this sort of thing out of general knowledge and discredit the conspiratards... but that's exactly the sort of thing people laugh at them about in the first place. And it still doesn't explain why there isn't some sort of government work studying these things going on behind the scenes."

"What if they are, but keeping it well covered?"

"The government isn't as incompetent as many would like to believe, but I believe there's too much bureacracy for them to keep such study under wraps. There's also the fact that the US isn't the only entity in existence on the earth. The Dark exists everywhere, I'm pretty certain, and everywhere else on earth also likely have its own people who are unlucky enough to stumble onto it. So either there's a worldwide conspiracy between governments to suppress knowledge of this, or something different that actually matches reality as we know it."

"As far as Maccadyne is concerned," Mael pointed out, "They don't seem too interested in suppressing knowledge except for general security purposes."

"Exactly, no one's making any concerted effort to hide this sort of thing aside from its natural tendency to be obscure. Yet it still remains hidden. Here's what I think: People don't want to acknowledge it. Maybe there's just a natural tendency in people to not want to acknowledge that sort of thing, it's Someone Else's Problem. For some reason, hitting upon unpleasant truths that stretch or break their accepted reality activates a denial or ignorance switch in most peoples' heads, and they simply do not acknowledge it. I'd say it's some natural attribute of the Dark and other such things, but that assumes that such things are so focused around humanity it would even be necessary. I think it's the fact that these things are blatant evidence that here, in the heart of what we would consider a human-controlled environment, there are so many things we don't know about, so many things we are simply a small, forgettable portion of, that people just refuse to acknowledge how small they really are."

It had been a successful trip to the Dark, insofar as they had discovered another way to escape should things turn bad. After the events at the club, Lexx and Mael had taken Squeaker home. Sera refused to do anything until Squeaker had had a shower and was fed. In her shorts was a card listing the orphanage she was being cared for at. The next day they had gone out to return her there, and Lexx did a little hanging out around the Loop, looking for more dark portals. None were found, but there were some really awesome street-performers putting out a few good dance beats that Lexx couldn't help but move to.

That night Mael had made sure they got a brief nap, then got up at around three in the morning. She had wanted to test a theory about the Dark, and it necessitated being there at the very late hours of the night. So only half awake and grumbling at the sparse, very-early morning traffic, they took another walk to Rosehill Cemetery. The portal inside the mausoleum was still there, and this time it was Lexx who led the way between the frequencies of reality.

At least that was the way she was looking at it now. It was a limited, incomplete metaphor, but when she explained it to Sera, it made the more sense than an actual literal description. If the whole of reality could be likened to a radio-dial, then that which most of humanity operates on would be a single frequency, tuned into a single station. A few people and places had the ability, though, to 'turn the dial' and start looking at other frequencies. It was all the same type of energy, the same locations, just on a different wavelength, as it were.

The Dark seemed to be a catch-all for general untenanted static, or so it looked. It was in most places a general, empty copy of Chicago with almost no natural light whatsoever. There were things there, but they kept themselves well hidden to the point that the only evidence Lexx ever found of them was brief glimpses in her peripheral vision. Half-sounds suddenly cut off before source or nature could be determined. The mirror-image of Chicago was a limited one, though, and not just because of the lack of ambient lighting.

Occasionally things were missing. A few bricks out of a wall, with impenetrable darkness on the other side, a random hole in a section of the iron fence, bars neatly shorn off as if a godly subtraction tool had been applied to the photo-editor of reality. Other times it was much larger. An entire street just suddenly ending, cut off and falling away into a black abyss. A large gouge, dozens of feet wide, taken out of the ground, revealing piping and tunnels beneath that Lexx and Mael did not yet have the courage or reason to explore.

Other times things were added. Plantlike organic structures made of dark, semi-translucent woody material that seemed to absorb all light. It always felt either slightly warmer or slightly colder than the surrounding air, a little sticky, and gave the impression that it was simply waiting for peoples' attention to be elsewhere so it could shift in subtle but disturbing ways. Buildings occasionally existed where none should, and a dense growth of plant material blending seamlessly into bricks, concrete, or even steel twisted into chaotic patterns would suddenly block the way.

Normally the Dark, Mael found out, was only accessible during the night. What Mael wanted to check was if it was possible to escape from the Dark to the 'real' world during 'day' or whatever passed for it during the Dark. With Lexx along, Mael had felt a lot more comfortable with risking being stuck on this side of reality for a number of hours, waiting for nightfall and subsequent escape to come again. They both discovered, thankfully, that not only was it possible to escape from the Dark during the day, as twisted as it sounded, but there was an equivalent to 'day' in the Dark. There was actual light there other than what they brought with them.

Unfortunately what little light there was only reminded Lexx of the Silent Hill movie and games. It was a dim, grayish phosphorescence that manage to light everything without illuminating anything. They could see the area immediately around them, up to a distance of about ten feet. After that an opaque gray haze masked the world around them. They existed in this dim bubble, their walks causing objects behind them to disappear, and new unknowns to pop up in front of them. Flashlights failed to further illuminate this cloaked world.

What was important, Mael had said, as that the Dark was a seeming valid 'backdoor' to the reality they had grown up in. Also, according to Lexx's experience, Maccadyne did a lot of fucking around with various dimensional anomalies. So if there were any dark portals in the Loop, they were likely to be in that lab area of Maccadyne. This meant that once they found an easy way there through the Dark, 'easy' being a relative term, Lexx and Mael would be able to drop in uninvited to see how well they could gut Maccadyne from within. Now all they needed was a plan.

"Hello?" Mael interrupted the brief pause in their conversation by answering the phone. "Yeah? No shit... yeah, I guess we can, at least briefly, I have work a little later... okay, love you, bye."

"What?" Lexx asked as Mael put away her phone.

"Sera, she says St. Mary's, that orphanage called, apparently Squeaker... I mean 'Kaitlin' has disappeared again, they want to ask us, you a few questions since you found her last time."

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 11

"Kaitlin... she's been a troublesome little angel ever since we got her," Sister Helen smiled worriedly, decorously avoiding giving Lexx and Mael's outfits disapproving glances, "This isn't the first time she's disappeared on us."

"Yeah, I kind of ran into her the first time," Lexx said, shying away from the multitude of children, several of whom were shrieking.

"No, that wasn't the first time either. Kaitlin, we have to keep an eye on her, she's always trying to wander off," the nun fretted.

Lexx was feeling a bit out of place here, she could only guess at how Mael felt about being in a church-run orphanage. The last time they had stopped by, Sera had been the one to actually go inside and drop Squeaker off while Lexx and Mael waited outside. Now in here, Lexx in a plain black t-shirt over black fishnet with a leather collar, and Mael wearing a Deicide band shirt and pants with half a dozen chains hanging off, surrounded with platitudes from bearded deities and talking to a woman allegedly married to a dead demigod, they were feeling a bit uncomfortable.

"Where does she go?" Mael asked.

"Oh... places," the woman hesitated.

"Places?"

"It's... um, no pattern to it, she just has a wandering spirit that we try to bring home to God."

"Are you sure about that?" Mael pressed.

"Yes... well... yes, quite certain," the woman composed herself, clearly uncomfortable with Mael's questioning, "If there's... if there's anything, any information you can provide about Kaitlin's whereabouts, we would be so grateful. We can't offer any sort of reward at the moment, money's tight for everyone right now, but..."

"Is there anything else about her you can tell us?" Lexx offered, "It might point us in the right direction."

"No, I'm terribly sorry but no. Legal regulations, we can't give out that type of personal information to anyone but the authorities."

"We're trustworthy," Mael said with a calming wave of her hand, "We can help you out for no trouble at all."

"Trustworthy..." Sister Helen's eyes glazed over for a second, "...yes. Well, I don't see what harm it can do. It's just that Kaitlin's story is a little strange. She's not technically an 'orphan', her mother actually gave her to us, said that she loved Kaitlin, but that she was a danger to the child and it would be better for the two to be far apart. That was... my, almost two years ago now."

"Do you know where her mother is?" Mael waved her hand again.

"I... I know where she was then... she probably moved, it wasn't a very good area. Here... I actually remember the address, let me grab some paper..."

----------

"Can I ask you something?" Lexx asked when they were back outside the orphanage.

"Was that it?"

"What? No... actually, I kind of got the impression that you had other things you'd rather be doing than this. What's up?"

"To be honest, yeah, I'd rather be doing more with our own problems. It sucks for the kid, but we, well, you mostly, did a lot for her already, and we only have so much attention we can devote to any one cause at a time."

"You don't want to investigate this further?"

"At the moment I can't, I've got to get to work in little over an hour. But I kind of wanted to be doing other stuff today than going after someone who obviously doesn't want to be here. There was somewhere else I wanted to investigate."

"Last time she got out, she was nearly kidnapped."

"And you stopped her kidnappers and left them out for the police."

"What other place was this that you wanted to check out?"

"A factory... at least it was, found stuff about it online. Dunno what it is now, but apparently Maccadyne just sits on the land and never does anything with it. They're not getting any money out of it, it goes against all common sense. There are stories about it being haunted too... I kind of want to see if something more is going on there."

"Well... tell, you what. I'll check up on this address while you're at work, and then later we can both check out the factory, 'kay?"

"...'kay."

------------

63rd and South Paulina Street in Englewood turned out to be a bad neighborhood. That was a bit of an understatement, Lexx knew going in that Englewood wasn't exactly the best part of town, and now that she was actually here, she almost regretted coming. Trash littered the streets, the stereotypical used syringe cracked beneath her shoes. The place was a flophouse, not so much an apartment as it was a set of walled enclosures with things resembling beds, tables, kitchens and bathrooms. Lexx's target was a 'Streetside Acres' apartment complex.

The front lobby had a single black man lounging and watching an ancient tv. As Lexx came up to the counter he swiveled in his cracked leather chair and gave her a once over. Lexx could almost see the mental process going on his head. Too white to be a casual passerby. Too well-covered to be a hooker. Too drug-free and clean to be a resident. Either a cop or a long-distance family member. "Y'need Miss?"

Lexx leaned on the counter, hoping her bared forearms wouldn't stick to it, "I'm looking for a woman, name's Elle Machen. I was told she used to live here, she still here by any chance?"

The man cracked a smile, revealing a half-present set of ill-kempt teeth. "Yer in luck, hon. She down'er," he jacked a gaunt thumb towards a poorly lit hallway, "Uppa stairs an' near d'end, 214. Numma' one's missin' from'a door, dat's how'ya know it's right."

Lexx nodded, standing up straight, "Thanks a lot."

"Y'here fer th'kid?"

Lexx stopped, "What's it to you?"

"Jus' askin' yo," his hands were raised non-threateningly, "Elle jus' moved back in', an' I was tol' it was fer th'kid's sake."

"Yeah... the kid's sake, it's what I'm here for," Lexx was fully suspicious now.

"214 Miss, all y'need is right there."

"Got it..." Lexx gave the man a final look before following his instructions.

Something was up. Lexx hardly had what she would consider a spider-sense. Hell, she was kind of in this mess in the first place because of said lack. But even she could tell someting was wrong. Had she been expected? What the hell was this about 'Elle' coming back for the kid? The old man was probably right though, the only way she'd find more is checking out the room.

Lexx wasn't even on the second floor before she heard the commotion. The first thing that grabbed her attention, over the muffled sound of TV's and arguments in various other rooms, was Kaitlin's high pitched voice raised in desperation and complaint. Lexx had broken into a rapid hobble, taking the last eight stairs two at a time, before she realized why. Down near the end of the hall she could see Kaitlin, petulantly knocking on the door to room 2-4 and demanding entry. There was another voice coming from beyond the door, tired, moaning and exasperated.

Kaitlin turned at the sound of running feet, "Lexx!"

"Squeaker, goddamnit! I was fucking worried about you you little shit!" Lexx knelt in front of the six year old, "Are you okay?"

"She won't let me in!" Kaitlin protested, turning back to the door and beginning to pound on it once more.

"Who won't?" Lexx asked, though she already knew the answer.

Even if she didn't, it was about to be revealed. Whoever was on the other side had heard the conversation and decided it was a good time to jump in. Lexx could here unsteady footsteps weaving across the floor from behind the door, chains were pulled as a cracked voice cursed from the other side. The door was pulled open and something that might have once been a good looking woman glared daggers at Lexx through heavily bagged eyes. "You goddamn stay the fuck away from my baby!" it croaked, brandishing a dirty pistol and waving it wildly.

"Shit!" Lexx said, backing up a few steps and weaving rapidly in a vain attempt to keep out of the errative firing-line the weakly-held muzzle present, "Okay ma'am... just calm down, I'm not here to-"

"You ain't here to nothin'! You ain't takin' her, y'hear!"

"I don't want to take her lady... I just wanted to make sure she's alright!" Lexx doubted Kaitlin would be alright anywhere near this woman.

"Mommy!" Kaitlin squeaked, almost in tears and rushed forward, nearly tackling the skeletal-framed figure back into the apartment.

'Mommy' recovered as best she could, still warily aiming the weapon at Lexx, "Y... y'ain't one o' them?"

"One of who?" Lexx asked, thinking she had probably been mistaken for a child-services worker or something like that.

"Them vampire-cultists!"

Lexx was stunned, "What?"

"It's them! They wanna take my baby... so they put me back here!"

There were fairly obvious trackmarks up the woman's arm. A fucking meth addict, and probably in the middle of a high. Lexx didn't relax in the slightest, knowing this woman could possible turn violent at any given moment, "Okay ma'am... I'm not with any cult. I don't like vampires myself."

"Y'ain't? No... y'don't look it. Yer clean, ungodly maybe, but clean! C'mon in, lemme close th'door b'fore people get curious."

With considerable hesitation, Lexx followed. Kaitlin seemed glued to her mother's side. If mommy 'Elle' noticed, she made no sign of it. She staggered back in, Lexx was stuck with her in an apartment that smell of liquour, vomit, and something chemical-laden and quite acrid. "Y' probably dun' believe me. No one does... I don't blame'em. Y'tell em you were a vampire's slave... they laugh in yer face. I would've too, seven years ago."

"Are you Squeak... Kaitlin's mother?" Lexx prompted.

"This lil'angel is why I got away," the woman announced reverentially, "An' she's why I'm here. He thought... Father thought she was his... but she ain't! She was someone else's, a right paying John with a broken rubber! Ah knew it, and I weren't gonna let him have her! So I got away, an' I got her away from me... in case they caught me again... then at least they wouldn't catch her with me!"

"I see," Lexx said, who didn't.

"Listen missy, I don't know who you are, but if y'ain't them, an' y'care fer Kaitlin, take her!"

"No mommy!" Kaitlin refused.

"Y'gotta!" the woman was growing frantic, "They're probably comin' right now! They caught me again, put me back here, prolly as bait for the girl! He wants her, Father wants her, that sick fuck! Take 'er afore they come!"

Lexx was now fully intending to do just that. Mostly because this broken shell of a woman was unfit to raise a pet rock, let alone a little girl, but partially because the woman's crazed words, combined with everything else that had been happening, were beginning to scare her. Almost on cue, Lexx heard footsteps in the hallway outside. Several sets of footsteps.

"They're here! They're here," Elle sang, doing a strange cavorting shamble of hopeless frustration, "Take Kaitlin an' run! Th' fire escape works!"

Lexx was already moving to take Kaitlin, peel her away from her tweaker mother, when the main door to the tiny apartment was kicked down. Three people, two black men and one woman filed in quickly and efficiently. The men had firearms pulled, aimed downward but ready to shift up at any second. For a moment no one moved.

"Who are you?" asked the woman with a strong southern accent, gazing levelly at Lexx.

"A concerned party," Lexx said, still holding Kaitlin's hand and gently guiding the scared girl behind her.

"Git out!" Elle screamed hoarsely, "Git out!"

"Quiet yourself," the woman said with restrained authority, "And you, young lady, hand over the girl an' I'll see to it that it's none of your concern."

"The girl is my concern," Lexx said, "Who the fuck are you?"

"Her caretaker, come to make sure she gets back home safely."

"Her home isn't with you."

"Keep your nose out of other's business before it gets cut off, lil' miss."

"I'm not a 'little miss', my name's Lexx. And this girl is my business, so unless you've got papers showing you're her legal guardian, you can fuck right off."

"You really think you can take me, Miss Lexx?"

"What's your name?"

"Johanna Adams."

"Well, Johanna Adams, I think that if you don't back off, I'll take you and your two little mooks and use you all to recarpet the hallway," Lexx allowed a hint of a smile at that semi-decent ad-libbed threat. It almost perfectly covered the fact that she was scared shitless over the fact that a gunfight was almost certainly about to break out.

"Disrespectful little bitch, I'll-"

Whatever Johanna's threat was going to be, it was drowned out by Elle's sudden, maddened screaming and the deafening crack of multiple gunshots in an enclosed apartment. Lexx fell to the floor, wrapping her arms around Kaitlin and propelling both to the nearest wall, trying to keep her body between the smaller girl and the bulk of the shooters. The fact that she could now hear a dim ringing alerted her to the fact that the gunfire had stopped. There was a high-pitched whine going on, a further examination showed that it was Kaitlin screaming.

" --- ---- --- ---- " Lexx said, and got nothing in response.

Kaitlin's shrieking was becoming louder, hearing was coming back. Lexx tried again, "Who's still alive?!"

A quick visual check showed three huddled forms on the floor. Elle and the two gunmen. There was no sign of-

Lexx was rolling out of the way, pure trained instinct, before she had registered the sound of running feet. She righted herself easily, levering up to a standing position with the help of her cane and already facing Johanna. The two sized each other up, then Johanna attacked first, moving in quickly and trying to knock the cane out of the way. Lexx slackened her grip and easily allowed it to be knocked aside, using the momentum to spin and fall to her knees, driving a fist upward at Johanna's midsection.

The blow missed, blocked, and several more equally fruitless exchanges occurred in rapid succession before Johanna finally got the upper hand and locked her arms around Lexx's shoulders from behind, pinning the cane against her neck. Lexx thrust upward, gaining herself a bit of space, then dropped down, opening her mouth and biting down hard on Johanna's forearm. A scream and she was released.

"Bamf."

Lexx was now across the room, scooping up Kaitlin. She turned and swung her cane through the window.

"Bamf."

They were both in the fire escape, Kaitlin still trying to adjust to the shock of suddenly not being where she was a moment before when-

"Bamf."

They were in the alleyway below, thankfully empty of any other life. Lexx managed to set Kaitlin down before nearly collapsing herself and desperately trying to catch her breath. It was a whole lot harder to do this with two people, she had discovered back at the club. While bi-locating with just herself was the equivalent of running a straight-line distance between the two point in terms of energy expenditure, carrying someone along with was likewise giving someone of that weight a piggy-back ride the entire distance, at a flat out sprint.

"Gifted!" Johanna was leaning out the window.

Lexx looked up, mouthed the word 'what' as she was too exhausted to shout back.

"You're a Gifted! Best be runnin' along now, I'm comin' downstairs for you, an' if Father wants anythin' more than that lil' girl, it's a Gifted!"

"Oh fuck," Lexx gasped, turning to once again collect a crying Kaitlin and flee, "I just can't fucking catch a break."

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 12

Mael didn't go to work. In fact she had called in sick before they even left for the orphanage. Instead she took a bus further downtown, just to the north of the Loop. The address on the business card was easy enough to find, it ended up being an expensive-looking ground-level apartment with a heavy door. Knocking on the door produced a dull metal clank, but no further results. Second on the list was trying the buzzer beside the door.

"Hello?" Viktor's resonant voice crackling through a cheap sound system.

"Viktor? It's Mael."

There was a pause, "From the club?"

"Yeah... you said to come and visit?"

There was no reply, but a second later the door buzzed and clicked. Mael tried pulling it open, it was rather heavy and ponderous. Mael walked inside and pulled the door shut behind her, grunting with the effort. The apartment was well equipped with all sorts of band posters, random flyers and the best of the flashier parts of a Spencer's Gifts. A common room, a kitchenette, closed doors leading to a bathroom and bedroom possibly, and another thick, reinforced door leading... Mael didn't know where.

"You're either too trusting, too stupid to know better, or both, just coming in here and closing the door behind you like that," Viktor was in the kitchenette, taking what smelled like tuna casserole out from the ministove.

"I'm trusting of myself," Mael said, shifting the small back on her shoulders, "At least my ability to get out of something if things get too rough."

"Do you like it rough?"

"Not particularly. Right now I'm not exactly in the mood for it, so could we skip the sexual banter and get down to business?"

"Business is such a dry word. For me this is a deep interest, a hobby and obsession. A-"

There was a sound. A deep rushing followed by the clack of plastic against porcelein. Someone was flushing a toilet. A second later the bathroom door opened an a red-haired kid stepped out. He stopped, staring at Mael then at Viktor, "Who's this?"

"Schindler, this is Mael. Mael, Schindler, another customer. Speaking of which, Mael, you came at a bad time, we're going to have to make this meeting short, I had an appointment with Schindler here."

"I can wait," Schindler said, glancing suspiciously at Mael, silently questioning her purpose. He glanced over at the ministove, "Is that tuna?"

As Schindler at directly from the casserole dish, Viktor addressed Mael, "Business, Maccadyne. I didn't get much from our first meeting, but I got the distinct impression that you had a dislike for the company."

"Probably me babbling from the weed you slipped me. Yeah, 'dislike' is an understatement. I hate the entirety of that entity."

"How much?"

"How much? If I could, I'd burn that building to the ground, kill off the CEO and the entire board, set charges in all other direct-owned facilities and have false charges brought against all corporate entities directly involved with the company. Scorched fucking earth, that place is a blight upon the planet, a cancer, it needs to be cut away and the wound left behind cauterized with fire."

Viktor nodded and stood up. "Follow me," he said, leading the way the the reinforced second door.

Mael followed, uncertain. A glance at the Schindler kid, he looked mid to late teens, attempting to lose himself in that voluminous sweater he was wearing. If it weren't for its shockingly bright red colour, Mael would have thought the long straight hair was strictly emo-styled. "You've got a personal stake in this?" Viktor asked as he walked down the now-revealed basement stairs.

"Yeah."

Mael hesitated at the top of the stairs. Nothing seemed out of place from what little she could see down there, but there were noises. Soft shifting and moaning. Subtly disturbing in ways Mael couldn't quite place. A last glance back at Schindler, still munching on tuna casserole. He offered her a skeletal grin, it wasn't very encouraging. With a deep breath, Mael went down the narrow stairs.

"You see," Viktor was explaining, "I specialize in corruption. Mental, spiritual and physical. But I'm also a bit of an information-whore, especially in regards to things that don't want to be found out."

Mael heard the words, but they were taking a little time to trigger comprehension. The majority of her mind was still trying to digest the things she was seeing down here in the basement. The disturbing nature of the sounds in the basement were revealed. Subconsciously, apparently, Mael had known that human flesh and vocal-chords shouldn't have been able to make sounds in that specific fashion. Even if she hadn't consciously realized it, part of her had drawn conclusions about the nature of the sounds and decided that it would take massive deformations of flesh and interior structure to produce them. She was right.

There were three or four visible, possibly more in the other subsections of the basement. It was hard to get an exact count because in some cases where one person ended and another began was very unclear. It was art with flesh and bone. They were all living, most conscious and somewhat sensate. All were obviously normal people at one point or another. Now, somehow, Viktor had altered them completely. It was as if he found a way to give flesh the consistency of wet clay, and mold it more to his liking. Occasionally limbs and other body sections were recognizable before stretching away into a twisted parody of life.

It was hard to described the whole of it simply because there was no apparent overall them behind it other than, as Viktor had just said, corruption of the physical form. Only individual details were describable, trying to add it all together was consistently met with failure. A woman's face on one end, the neck stretching unnaturally away into a sea of flesh, from which several Celtic knots of bone and sinew extended, leading to a slowly writhing torso... which in turn led to more. It sighed and moaned, it sounded more like pleasure than pain. A single visible eye fixed on Mael for a second before rolling upward and closing again.

There was no blood on any of them. No flesh was ripped or torn. Even the areas where bone, muscle and sinew were visible glided smoothly between tissues, one leading to the other without disruption. It was all a work of art, still living and quite possibly enjoying it.

"Why... why are you so curious about my reasons?" Mael asked, finding her voice again.

"I have some working knowledge of what goes on at Maccadyne, beyond the financial aspect. I want to know more, to see exactly how I can meddle with it. And in you, someone so driven by that monolith, I see the opportunity, the opening to do so much more. What I need to know is your reasons, and if they are incompatible with my own aims," Viktor explained.

"What are you aims, other than the vague bullshit you've been spouting?" Mael pressed.

"Maccadyne is run by demons, I want nothing more than to dissect them, see how they work."

"Then our aims are compatible, I can promise you that."

"Good, I can show you a little more, just so you get an idea of what I can do for you, to help you out. Then we can set up an appointment to get you properly... altered for digging about in Maccadyne."

"One thing... who is this Schindler guy? Is he here for a 'massage'?"

"No... no, the massages and computer repairs are just a front. I have a more publicly open space elsewhere for that. This house is only for my special customers, and he is quite definitely special. I'm hoping you become a repeat customer as well, Mael."

"So what does he come here for?"

"He wants me to kill him," Viktor said bluntly.

-------------

"No mommy, I'll grab it," Lexx moved before Sera could unseat herself, grabbing the heavy pressure-cooker and shifting it over to the stove.

"Thanks hon, could you wash off the carrots too?" Sera started making quick work of the peeled potatoes, dicing them and flicking them expertly into the pot.

"We only have five more carrots," Mael said from over by the fridge, "Will that be enough?"

"Should be, for just us," Sera said, "I would have liked to have Kaitlin over again. Best behaved kid I've had in a while."

"That orphanage probably wouldn't have gone for it. Second time missing in as many days? They're probably keeping her on a leash until they know they're in the legal clear," Lexx said.

"Still, it's been a while since there's been a kid in the apartment..." Sera looked wistful.

"Mom," Mael stared her in the eyes, bringing her back down to earth, "You're over forty and are fighting to keep from being an invalid. Choose your battles wisely."

"It would be a lot easier if we could do part-time kids," Lexx said, "Have them over for the fun and cute stuff, then hand them off when they get smelly and annoying."

"Or disposable kids," Mael offered, "Keep'em while they're cute, and when you get tired of them, throw them in the pot with the carrots and potatoes!"

Sera grinned, "I thought they would have gone better with pasta, perk you up when you're feeling ill. You know, kids-n-noodle soup?"

Mael gave a deadpan stare, Lexx just chortled. Calvin meowed from the other room. Mael turned to take care of the cats while Lexx continued working on the carrots, shifting from cleaning to peeling. "You guys are heading out again tonight?" Sera asked, turning serious.

Lexx nodded and continued peeling.

"What do you actually do out there? Is it something like superhero work, trying to stop crimes?"

"Not exactly," Lexx thought about it. How to explain it without revealing anything about Aaron. "It's... right now it's more exploration than anything. We know some of what we can do, and we've seen things that we couldn't before. We're just doing baby-steps for now, getting used to the way we are now and trying to find if we've got a niche we can fit into."

"I just... well, I don't know quite how to say it. I just want you to know... I don't fully understand, but I'll do my best to support you guys. Just... just don't put yourselves in danger, please?"

Lexx looked at Sera, "Everyone is in constant danger, we've just got a better view of how deep it goes. I can't make that promise, but I do promise to try and keep it to a reasonable minimum. It's the same thing everyone with half a brain does every day of their life."

------------

"Flashlights?"

"Check."

"Walkie-talkies?"

"Check."

"Weapons?"

"Check."

"Common sense?"

"Umm... I think we left it back at the apartment."

"Shit, guess we'll have to do without it for now," Mael grinned humourlessly.

"Do we actually have a plan here? Or is this going to be another 'poke until something interesting happens' scenario?"

Mael looked at the building they were planning on breaking into, "Well, we've already found something interesting. This place doesn't look much like a factory, does it?"

It didn't, even though there were deep in the rustiest portion of the south side, surrounded by the decaying husks of abandoned warehouses and manufacturing centers on all sides. This place, though looking similarly abandoned, differed widely in design and function. Squat on the ground, fogged windows barred, a high fence all the way around. Mael and Lexx had made their way into the weed-choked grounds through one of the many holes in the chain link, careful to avoid the rusty hooked edges. The building looked more like a hospital than a factory, and the barred windows suggested that most of its patients weren't there voluntarily.

"An asylum?" Lexx whispered, "This just gets better and better."

"Ready to go in?" Mael asked.

"No," Lexx said, "Not really."

"You want to go back?"

"No, I'm going in... we're going in. The thing is... it's something I've been thinking about. We're not soldiers. We're not trained to break-and-enter, get our way out of a jam, survive under fire and whatever. We're just a couple of jack-offs with an agenda that happened to stumble across unearthly powers. I just don't want to take what we have for granted. We've got an edge, but it's stupid to think that edge will get us out of everything, let's not ditch common sense because of it."

"That's kind of what we're doing," Mael gave Lexx a one-armed hug before re-shifting her bag full of supplies, "Going right into Maccadyne was an impulsive mistake, but we learned from it. Now we're trying things a different way, poking around the edges and finding out as much as we can so when we do hit them again, we know how to hurt them the most."

"That scares me too. It's been, what, over a week since we stormed the gates, as it were. What have we heard from Maccadyne? They know exactly who we are and what our intentions are. Hell, Terrance said he wanted to do nasty things to me. Why haven't they shown up yet? I'm sure they could surround the apartment subtly, just wait for us to come out and take us without anyone being the wiser and police bribed into silence. Why haven't they done jack shit yet?"

"Maybe they don't consider us a threat," Mael shrugged, "I mean, that CEO guy, Terrance, didn't seem very threatened when we attacked him. Yeah, sure he's got a hard-on for you, but maybe he thinks we can't really do anything to actually hurt him. Maybe it's not worth the energy to come out and get us when he knows that sooner or later we'll be going back there anyways."

"Seems too much to hope for," Lexx said.

"Probably is," Mael agreed, "But the situation is we haven't been harassed, yet, and I intend to use that while it lasts. When we go back to Maccadyne, I want an army at my back, metaphorically or literally."

"Goes right into the whole 'find more people like us' thing," Lexx said, "Speaking of which, I think I've got a better lead on what, exactly we are. That woman at the flop-house, Johanna-"

"The southern one?"

"With the ancient dialect, yeah. She called me 'Gifted', same thing that Steven guy called me. I'm thinking among the... er... supernatural circles in town, that's what we're called. And that means there are more out there, we just have to find them. Of course she talked a lot about some guy named 'Father' and blood... so did that Steven guy. We really need a who's who of the occult here."

"Blood..." Mael was thinking, "Didn't you say that suitcase had a vial of blood in it?"

"Suitcase... oh shit!" Lexx jumped, "I completely forgot about that! I should call up April and see what's going on, it could be connected!"

"Later," Mael said, "We've got a job to do right now."

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 13

The survival pack, Lexx admitted, was pretty thorough. A year before Lexx had moved in, Mael had been involved in a few break ins. Nothing malicious, just Mael and a few friends exploring abandoned and condemned buildings for the sheer joy of finding that which time had forgotten. Between them, Mael had ensured they packed along a crowbar, two crank-powered flashlights, walkie-talkies, cell phones, cameras, a tazer for Lexx, bandages and antibacterials, twenty feet of rope, several whistles, and a pair of hunting knives. Enough to cover most possible scenarios while still wearing fairly light on their backs.

Most would probably prove unnecessary here, but it was better to come too prepared than unprepared. The front doors to the place had been locked and chained, but a long broken window had provided entry into a dusty reception area. The initial suspicion of a hospital was proven correct, faded signs showing the locations of administration, patient wings and various medical-themed locations respectively. It also became quickly apparent that it was indeed a mental hospital, and probably not a very friendly one from the look of things.

The history of the place was nonexistent, or at least unpublished. The only real information on this location was found online, and mostly that referred to this place as a factory, so already not a lot to go on. It also stated that it had been closed down by Maccadyne a number of years ago, then the property had just been sat upon. Taxes were such that it much have been a constant money-sink, so no one knew why they refused to sell the land. The building was obviously not maintained. An unsteadily creaking floor suggested a basement, and a warped and sagging ceiling necessitated very careful navigation in case holes suddenly opened up above or below. It was a surprise this edifice wasn't thoroughly condemned and razed, Lexx suspected a lot of money had exchanged hands to make sure it was ignored by the city, and Mael agreed.

Now to figure out just why things were the way they were here. The building was large enough to take up an entire block, though only four stories tall. Lexx and Mael were determined to search the majority of the ground floor, do a decent skim of the upper stories, and plumb the basement if there proved to be one. Separating was not a part of that plan, and the walkie-talkies were only there in case they were involuntarily taken apart, or got split up madly fleeing from something.

The main hall described a large circle around the inner courtyard of the building. The offices, cafeteria and visitor areas here were empty. They found a set of padlocked doors that were labeled for basement access and made a note to return here once the upper stories were searched. For the moment that left the courtyard to check out before taking the stairs of questionable structural integrity upward.

Despite the lack of any hard physical evidence for strangeness, Lexx and Mael were oddly thrilled in their search. Mael pointed out that the dry, chilled feeling that implied a dark portal lurked nearby. The feeling got stronger as they neared the courtyard. Having satisfied their curiosity with the ground floor, Mael forced the interior doors open with the crowbar and both entered the interior courtyard. A few tangled weeds clung to life in the dusty mounds, and the sidewalks were half-reclaimed by the surrounding soil. Out here the presence of the Dark lay heavy in the air, drowning out the sounds of nearby traffic and lending a heavy outline to all visible objects. Mael got Lexx's attention, pointing towards something in the center of the courtyard. Lexx followed the pointing finger, noting everything now left trails in her vision, as if reality itself wasn't certain where it lie.

The wrought iron arch sat in the center of the courtyard like a lead weight on actuality. It didn't leave trails, it just was, like a rock weighing down the center of a plastic tarp. And as if she were on the same tarp, Lexx felt herself falling towards it. At least walking towards it at a steady, if inexorable pace. Mael said something else, but Lexx missed it, damn atmosphere was weighing on her ears or something, everything was muted. She was feeling rather dizzy, actually, she needed something to steady her balance and that standalone arch there was the only thing tall enough to lean against that wasn't her cane. The ghostly memory of Mael's fingers on her wrist faded away, momentarily forgotten.

The iron was cold. Shockingly so. Lexx gasped and tried to draw her hand away from it, but for a moment her muscles wouldn't respond. It was as if there were a live current going through the wrought arch that numbed her arm and paralyzed her fingers around the substance. With a cry Lexx finally managed to rip her hand from the surface and stagger backwards several steps. "Damnit... Mael, don't touch that," she said, trying to rub some feeling back into her hand.

"Mael?" Lexx asked worriedly, feeling the emptiness behind her.

She turned and was mostly unsurprised to see that she was alone in the courtyard. "Fuck."

Had Mael managed to sneak away? Did Lexx somehow get frozen in place for a while and something happen to Mael while she was insensate or... Lexx looked around again. It was a lot darker than before. In fact the only source of light appeared to be hovering insubstantially around the arch that had just given her a jolt. That was it, Lexx had stumbled directly into the Dark. She studied the wrought iron, there was nothing there that looked intrinsically wrong about it, just that it was so... there. In some inexplicable way it sat a little more boldly in her field of view than everything else, as if it brought its own significance with it. Experimentally Lexx touch the surface again. It was unnaturally cold, but nothing further happened, no jolt this time.

It slowly dawned on Lexx that she wouldn't be able to get back to her favoured reality this way, either that arch was one way, or one-use. Or maybe required some special preparation that had been set up before they even got here, but needed to be re-done to be used again. Whatever it was, Lexx was stuck here until she found another way back. Lexx pulled out the walkie-talkie, "Mael? Mael, come in."

Static, low and different than any other white noise Lexx had ever heard before. It crackled softly, but it a fashion that sounded like a number of low voices were whispering something just out of comprehension. Lexx shivered and turned the volume down slightly, she really didn't like that noise. "Great, now what?" Lexx asked no one in particular, her voice sucked away into the surrounding darkness.

In the end she decided to leave the courtyard. The way she had traveled here from her reality was no longer there, and if Mael somehow managed to find her way here too, hopefully the walkie-talkies would work to connect them. Until then Lexx could make herself useful and try to find something, anything of significance here. The Dark's version of the courtyard seemed little different than the earth, the door back inside the sanitarium opened silently to Lexx's touch. She switched the torch on and flashed it around the local halls. The light dimmed and faded out of existence a mere fifteen feet from its source, just like it would anywhere else in the Dark.

As Lexx crept fearfully down the hall, she came to the depressing realization that this was her first time in the Dark completely by herself. It was amazing how solitude here reduced one's confidence and willingness to explore to just about nothing. Getting along by one's self on earth was difficult and trying. Here, company was pretty much required for any effectiveness whatsoever. Still, she made her way slowly down the dark hallways. The unsteady flooring in her own reality was reflected and amplified in the Dark, large gaping holes opened up in the floor and ceiling, darkness that no light seemed to penetrate. Lexx did her best to avoid the edges entirely, certain on more than one occasion that she saw dark shapes crawling away just out of reach of the torch's weak beam.

The exit from the hospital, if Lexx remembered correctly, was forward, a right, another right, a left, then through a double-door to the main lobby, then out the glass doors to the fenced yard. Hopefully the floor remained whole enough for her to make it the whole way, she didn't want to risk trying to find another way outside this place. After an eternity of slow creeping, Lexx made the first right turn. She stopped again at a sudden realization:

The closest dark portal she knew of was several miles away.

Lexx fought the urge to sag in defeat and despair against the nearest wall, but she still stood in place for over a minute, trying to fight off the paralyzing hopelessness of her situation. She could very well be stuck in the Dark indefinitely unless she got really lucky and found another way back. It didn't matter that she had access to manipulate reality in ways most people simply can't, this was not earth. This was not an area in her general knowledge, and she doubted she had a chance of making the several-mile trip through unknown,unimagined territory if there were anything residing here that took an unhealthy interest in her.

Just calm down. Don't panic, don't hyperventilate. Take things one hobbling step at a time and remain focused on the now rather than the might-be. Slow your breathing, wait for your heart to stop that damn racket and-

Lexx had just managed to calm herself somewhat when she realized she wasn't the only one breathing in this hallway. Instinctively she held her breath and looked up, shining the torch in the direction of the sound. This other breathing was accompanied by shuffling, scraping footsteps. Slow at first, then increasing slightly in speed as the owner neared the radius of her light. Shadows moved at the periphery of the light, followed by a pair of legs. Someone else here?

Lexx noticed the person was wearing a hospital gown, quite old and tattered looking. She played the light upward over the body. Male, stocky. He came to a stop and Lexx got a chance to shine the torch on his face. His head was tilted at a slight angle, his eyes staring lifelessly in her general direction, not even squinting in the light. A small streamer of drool escaped as his already slack mouth dropped further open and emitted a dry, hollow moan.

The moan echoed and grew, emanating from points all around the building. Lexx's stomach dropped to her feet as her entire body went suddenly cold, her skin trying to crawl one way while her feet attempted to drag her body in the other direction. Zombies. All around, in the building, after her. The light danced crazily as she nearly dropped it from suddenly nerveless fingers. Almost by pure instinct, Lexx managed to hold onto the light as she turned and hobbled heedlessly into the dark.

Her mind was in a blind panic now, Lexx's only thought was to get away from the terrifying emanations. She didn't care where she went, only that it was away from the scary things in this building. She plunged heedlessly forward through the hallway, managing to avoid a large hole in the floor just by pure luck. She made it around the right turn, now a left from this direction, only to nearly stagger into the arms of three more zombies creeping up behind her. They were slow, but Lexx was panicked and reacting very badly.

Legs turned to jelly as Lexx felt cold arms wrap around her. Lips and teeth pressed softly, then not so softly against her shoulder and neck. She was hyperventilating, growing dizzy and uncertain even as greedy mouths sucked eagerly at her flesh, just waiting for jagged teeth to pierce and take delectable chunks of Lexx away. It didn't happy, but the dizziness failed to go away. Finding some little sense of composure, Lexx tried to pull away, tried to scream. All that occured was a vague, half-conscious writhing and a weak moan, the exertion already starting to weigh her eyelids down, she wasn't going to escape. She was just going to get weighed down by these mobile corpses and devoured here in the darkness, far away from any help and any hope.

The walkie-talkie suddenly crackled. "... ....exx? He...o? ...ome in L..."

Mael? Mael was here? Out of nowhere Lexx managed to get her second wind. This time it was a full scream that escaped her lips as she pulled violently away. She turned and ran, full out ran without the use of the cane. Unfortunately her brief memory of the local geography gave out, and after four steps her foot hit empty air. The fall was probably only ten feet or so, but it felt like an eternity before the ground came up beneath her like the fist of an angry god, seeming to drive all air, sense and life out of her.

Lexx hurt all over. Her head seemed the worst, even though it felt disconnected from her body at the same time. Her entire body felt disconnected, Lexx wondered if this were her last moment alive, that she had somehow shattered like porcelain and was just waiting for her consciousness to catch up to the fact of her physical expiration. A small portion of sense returned and Lexx returned her fears to something a little more concrete. She had to find out how to command her limbs once more, before zombied would doubtlessly fall through the hole on top of her and finish the meal they had started.

"Lexx? Lexx, if you're there, you need to get to hiding right now."

Moaning in pain, Lexx pushed herself up. First the torch. Painfully she dragged herself over to where it lay nearly six feet from her. Still functional, thankfully. Head pounding, driving out most rational thought and reaction, Lexx pointed the light at the source of the voice. The walkie-talkie, lying thankfully near her cane and nearer the wall. Lexx began an agonizing three-legged crawl towards them, her bad leg simply didn't want to move at all anymore. The run hadn't been a good idea on all counts.

The walkie-talkie was in reach, "Mael? Mael?! I'm here... I'm here in the basement... I fell... I'm not doing good. I need... I need..."

Lexx gasped. Her hand shot to her neck, then to her shoulder, where the zombies had managed to bite her. She felt over the exposed skin. She felt over it a second time, confused. Her panting slowed a little, she used her other hand to shine the torchlight over her first hand. Her skin was clear, no blood visible. She checked her shoulder and neck a third time. The skin was definitely unbroken. Lexx tried to look at her own shoulder, then decided against it when finding out that rotating her head released bolts of pain all along her neck. Probably a result of the fall. Weakly she lifted the walkie-talkie, "Mael... I'm in one piece. Be careful there's... you're not going to believe it, but there are zombies here."

"I know," Mael's voice faded in and out of the static. It sounded like she was whispering, "I'm watching them now. Where ever you are, keep your head down, they're not the only things here. I managed to follow you here but only after... hold on-"

"Mael?" Lexx asked, then asked again, growing frantic, "Mael?"

No reply. Lexx tried to shrink into the wall. After thirty agonizing seconds she worked up the strength and courage to shine her flashlight up to the hole she had fallen through. No other zombies had come through yet, and the light revealed none up there. Lexx was beginning to realize that this wasn't really turning out the way she expected a zombie-attack would. The fall had hurt a lot, but it shouldn't have been completely debilitating, and yet another check verified that the zombies hadn't even broken her skin when they bit her.

"Lexx? You okay?" It had been a full minute since Mael had dropped into silence.

"Yeah... still here," Lexx said, a little more in control of her voice.

"So... ...out that. Had to keep l... self. Watch out, zo... ies are the least of our concerns. There's ... ...one here that... you won't bel... this."

"What?"

"Either I'm insane, or ...dyne's PR rep just crossed over into the Dark."

"Wait... what?!"

"I'm serious... Veronica Matthews, head of PR for Maccadyne. After ... ...sappeared, I heard ... car. ... hid until she bled on the arch and ... figured it was ... cut myself and activa... here."

"We should meet up somewhere," Lexx whispered, "You're not coming in clearly. I'm in the basement... I'll try to find a way out."

She looked up at the hole again. She felt weak, far too exhausted to attempt a 'bamf' out of there. And even if she could, there were likely zombies waiting for her up there. Judging by the moans, there were zombies waiting for her down here as well. That was the weird thing, well, one of the weird things. They had been going on for a while, why weren't they on her yet? For that matter, when they were on her, why hadn't they bit her? They didn't even really try it was more of a... sucking. Like they were trying to give her the world's worst hickeys. Yet it felt like so much more than that, like they were sucking out her...

Lexx shivered. They were zombies, they existed to feed on people. It wasn't flesh that sustained them, though. Funny, she never really believed in the concept of a 'soul', but it was hard to pin any other single-syllable name to whatever it was that felt like it was being sucked out of her when those things attached their lips to her skin. Condensed willpower? Potential energy? Whatever it was, Lexx knew that if they had their way, when they were done she would likely be entirely paralyzed, if conscious at all. She had to find a way out of here.

Cane in hand, she managed finally to stand. Terror still clawed at her, but there was also a gnawing curiosity. She could hear the undead in the basement here with her, but they still hadn't come staggering out of the shadows cast by the torch. The basement itself was the typical concrete and cinderblock she would expect, yet at the edge of the light she saw the beginnings of iron bars. Wincing in pain, Lexx made it a few steps forward. Warmth dribbled down her left knee. Blood from a knee torn open in the fall. Wiping away sweat, Lexx also discovered a swollen egg growing on her forehead. That would explain the headache at least.

Something threw itself weakly against the bars. Lexx staggered forward another step and finally saw that there were at least four cages in this section of the basement, all filled with zombies.

"H... heeeelp..."

Or not quite zombies. Zombies didn't talk. "Hold on," Lexx said, hobbling forward and giving a comfortable squeeze to the hand that reached pathetically through the bars towards her.

The hand squeezed back, then yanked Lexx forward. The cane clattered to the ground and Lexx stumbled. The zombie hungry fastened its mouth onto her forearm, Lexx could feel the strength leaving her body as the zombie fed. More hands reached through the bars towards her.

"No!" It was meant to be a scream, it came out as a mere whisper.

Lexx escaped by simply falling backwards, it was pretty much the only thing she had strength to do. The back of her head cracked off the concrete, sending off more flashbulbs of pain. Something touched her foot, a finger curling around the edge of her shoe, fumbling for the purchase needed to drag her back towards the bars. With monumental effort Lexx managed to shift her leg out of their reach. She closed her eyes, so tired, but not allowed to fall asleep. The voices helped with that.

"Sooooorry... p... pluuu... pleeeeease..."

Her eyelids weighed a ton, but Lexx opened them anyways. Not-quite-zombies. The eyes that stared back at her, still visible in the light of the fallen torch, were hungry but not lifeless. The three behind the bars wore dirty, ragged clothes. Bums, possibly picked off the streets and delivered here for... Lexx didn't know. With a groan she sat up again. Dizziness and pain created a sine wave through her body, she was dealing with a possible concussion by now, things really weren't looking too good. With a shaking hand, she re-acquired the torch and shone it around. Every cage had at least three of these almost-zombies in them, every cage but the last.

Lexx kept her light trained on the last cage. There was a lone figure inside, slumped against the bars. It was visibly breathing, but that was it. Lexx took a deep breath for strength and crawled forward, towards the final cage. The thing, the person inside didn't visibly react. It wasn't until she reached the bars that the man opened his eyes and looked at her. He couldn't have been much older than Lexx, mid to late twenties at best. He was black and, judging by the fishnet and skirt he wore, excessively goth. "Are you..." Lexx said, then slumped to the floor with dizziness and exhaustion.

"Yeah..." came his voice, "Gimme a sec... dizzy..."

"You're alive..." Lexx said, not bothering to get up.

"You aren't gonna be if you don't hide," he said, "She's coming. Don't have time... those boxes... turn the damn light off..."

Lexx saw what he was talking about. The only adequate piece of cover here. She focused, using what little energy she had left to turn the torch off and focus even further, "Bamf."

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 14

Steven pressed pause, just when he was trying out the new Borderlands, he got a visitor. Checking the time, he realized he wasn't expecting anyone right now. Considering only people he expected to see knew where he lived, this wasn't exactly a good thing. A brief check around the small apartment revealed nothing suspicious, but there wasn't really time to do a thorough clean up, the knocker sounded impatient. A brief glance through the peephole revealed...

"Wait... April?" Steven heaved a sigh of relief, it was just that chick he visited earlier. He opened the door, "Hey... how'd you get this addr-"

April was pointing a gun at him. She motioned for him to back up, a sweet smile on her face. "Steven Nordstrom, born to William Nordstrom and Maria Nordstrom Ruiz. Allegedly disappeared after his first year at technical college. The name has popped up since then on several personals sites, and aliases used in his college days have still been used in various online forums."

"Okay, okay, I get it, you know a few tricks," Steven was diplomatic, just waiting for a chance to get around that gun.

"No, you don't really get it yet because I haven't told you the really good bit. On several of my email accounts I have a time-delay email ready to be sent to various law enforcement agencies, just in case I suddenly disappear. They contain all your personal information, your current address and previous known address, and circumstantial evidence linking you to trafficking of contraband substances. There is also hard-copy versions of this information kept in my room and several other rooms, set to be easily found by my father should I fail to come home when I told him I would."

"I see where you're getting at," Steven said, "I have to admit, I'm impressed by... wait a minute!"

April shouldered her way past Steven, heading immediately for his room, "This place is fucking disgusting. Anime? Seriously? I didn't think you were that bad."

"Wait a damn minute, just what the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Steven stopped at the door. April had one hand occupied pointing the gun at him. The other hand was rooting through his desk, drawer by drawer. She found a thick folder and dropped it open on the desk. "Oh dear, look at this. Addresses? Licenses? My goodness, I wonder how many of these I can link with various missing people, or people in rehab?"

"I'm guessing you want some of the Blood? On the house? I can provide, you know."

"You're really fucking pathetic," April shut the folder, "All female? No fatties by the look of it? Is this really the only way you can get some?"

"Can we please just-"

"Shut up you greasy little nerd. Here's the deal, I have money, you have something I want. I give you the money, you give me the substance, I don't ruin your fucking life more than you already have, we're all happy. Do you get it now?"

Steven looked at the gun, then looked at April. He smiled, "Alright, you win. Let's take a little trip."

"A trip?" April asked, suspicious.

"As long as you set enough of a time table for your return, we can go visit my own connection and get you some of it right from the source."

---------

Lexx was feeling some of her energy coming back. The only problem now was restraining the urge to use it in throttling the woman who came into the basement. She brought her own light with her, the only reason Lexx was able to get a clear view with torch extinguished. Mael had said it was some Veronica person who was PR for Maccadyne. When she had come into the basement, Lexx realized that Veronica and the woman who had supervised her torture were one and the same.

She hadn't been spotted yet, or so she hoped. If she was, Veronica wasn't making any sign of it. Lexx concentrated solely on not making any sound as she watch the proceedings through a crack between the boxes she was currently hiding behind. Veronica had brought her own light with her, quite literally. She was completely nude, and in the darkness Lexx saw phosphorescent lines and spirals running all over her body, dimly lighting the entirety of the basement.

It was the same woman. The one who had been in the basement interrogation area of Maccadyne when Lexx had been kidnapped. The one who had ordered and watched as Lexx's knee was smashed to pieces with a crowbar. The same knee that to this day forced Lexx to rely on a cane to get around. Veronica might not have swung the crowbar herself, but she was the one directly responsible for the pain that still haunted Lexx's nightmares and served as one of the single most traumatic experiences in her life.

She was standing right there, it would have been the easiest thing in the world to simply appear behind the bitch and slide a knife between her ribs. Yet she kept herself from doing so for several reasons. Foremost was the memory of her attack on Terrance. How even after he had taken hits that should have permanently collapsed his windpipe, turned his ribcage into a bag of splinters and left several large cracks in his skull, he had simply stood right back up and began choking Lexx. She remembered how the Observer had once told her that Terrance and Veronica were essentially the same entity, and thus how it was likely she would be just as unaffected by physical debilitation.

But mostly Lexx held her anger and lust for violence back simply out of curiosity.

"Micheal, how are you doing today?" Veronica asked, her voice caring but businesslike.

Micheal, if that was his name, didn't respond. Veronica stopped outside his cage, "Are you not feeling well dear? That's too bad, we'll have to do something about that."

"Let..." Micheal took a deep breath, summoning some effort to get a single sentence out, "Let... me go..."

"No, I'm afraid I can't do that. Even if I did, you wouldn't be able to make it past my pets in your current condition. But then again you should know that already, they seem to have fed pretty well off of you. Now it's my turn to do the same."

Veronica opened the cell door and stepped inside. Lexx could see Micheal try to move away from her, but only succeed in falling over sideways. "Oh," she said, voice full of mock concern, "You seem pretty lethargic. Let's see if we can't put some energy into those limbs."

Veronica knelt over Micheal, straddling his chest. It would have been erotic to watch if it weren't for the fact that Lexx desperately wanted to kill one of those involved. Micheal continued to weakly struggle as Veronica caught one of his wrists. She had something in her other hand, Lexx didn't realize it was a thin steel spike until she saw it pressed against Micheal's restrained thumbnail. Lexx cringed as Micheal began screaming and thrashing, lethargy falling away in sudden agony. Through eyes slitted and vision slightly blurred from sympathetic tears, Lexx watched in horror as Veronica slowly, yet firmly drove the spike under Micheal's thumbnail, blood welling up and beading outward as steel cut through flesh and nerves.

Micheal was thrashing with real energy now, but Veronica still had no trouble catching his other wrist. She released the first and produced a second steel spike. Lexx watched the process repeat itself, the screaming continue. The zombies, or not-quite-zombies, or whatever they were howled and moaned at a fever pitched, excited by the noises. The second thumbnail completed, Lexx watched in sickened confusion as Veronica pivoted on top of Micheal and forced him to roll over onto his belly. Lexx didn't comprehend what was happening until she saw Veronica grab one of Micheal's bare feet, producing another steel spike.

This time it was too much even for Lexx to watch. She turned away as the screaming reached a new pitch and hoped it would cover up the sound of her dry heaving. Dry heaves turned into something a little more solid, and Lexx strained to keep it all in her mouth and swallow it back down. Vomit stank, and if Veronica smelled the bile, she'd know there was someone else down here. Eventually the screaming leveled off and decreased into a hoarse moaning.

"Oh dear, you are quite the delicious one," Veronica said, "I wish I had more time available to feed from you... but I want to make you last before turning you into another one of my pets here. Besides, my other half is expecting me, and if he knew that I was keeping a Gifted here... well, I already have enough trouble keeping a leash on his own urges."

Micheal moaned something incoherent in response. Lexx finally found the strength to watch again, Veronica was running a hand through his long hair in a mockery of concern, "Don't worry dear, I'll be back again, and we'll have a chance to make the rest of your nails just as pretty as these four."

Veronica left Micheal in a heap on the floor and left the cage, walking to the other end of the basement and around a corner. Lexx watched her light fade and eventually cut away with the sound of a door opening and closing. She turned her walkie-talkie back on, keeping the volume low. She had kept it off while Veronica was in the basement just in case Mael tried messaging her and inadvertantly break her cover. "Mael?" she hissed, "Keep down, I think Veronica's heading back upstairs. Give me a call when and if it's all clear."

She turned the torch back on and made her way back to the cell. It was locked, but Veronica had left the keys hanging on a clip on the far wall. Covering the torch while near the holes in the ceiling, just in case Veronica were nearby above, Lexx crossed the distance, then re-crossed it with keys in hand. Somehow, the pseudo-zombies reaching for her from the other cages didn't seem quite as scary anymore. After two tries Lexx found the right key and entered the cell. She knelt over Micheal, "Shit... oh shit... Okay, I'm getting you out of here but I have to... shit."

"Just... do it," Micheal's voice came through the moans.

"Okay... okay... fuck," Lexx moved a hand towards one of the spikes in Micheal's thumbs, but her muscles and willpower turned to jelly at the thought of grabbing it and pulling it out.

She closed her eyes, better do this before she had time to think. Reach out, grab thumb and spike, compensate for sudden pained spasms... and yank. It was more difficult than she thought it would be, and Micheal immediately let out another scream, but the spike came grudgingly out. Only three more to go. Lexx took another deep breath. "Okay, why not... why don't you tell me what the fuck's going on here while I do this? Focus on the details, keep your mind off of..."

Yank. Scream.

He was outright crying now. Lexx didn't blame him in the slightest. "Seriously though, what's going on?"

"She... that bitch is a demon, she..."

"Yeah," Lexx said, "I know all that. She's a demon, she feeds on pain... I've been on the receiving end of that once before and still looking forward to a little payback. What about the zombies? What's going on here?"

"It's... it's complicated. They're people... they... drained of willpower, have to feed on other peoples' to saTEEEAAAARRGH!" one of the toe-spikes was pulled out.

"So basically zombies that feed on energy rather than flesh... got it," Lexx sat back, catching her breath. It wasn't difficult physical exertion, she was just hyperventilating and trying to keep her stomach in one location. She leaned forward again and got a firm grip on Micheal's ankle, "Okay, last one, I'm counting to three..."

"No! Not three... just do it so I'm not... not expecting it..."

"It's more for me than you," Lexx said, fingers posed above the spike, "One... two-"

She yanked the last one out before she had finished 'two'. The walkie-talkie crackled, "Lexx? Mael. She's gone... I think we're in the clear, but I can't find the basement and have to keep moving to keep ahead of the zombies... think you can get up here?"

Lexx picked up the device and thumbed the talk switch, "Mael, yeah, keep moving, we should meet in the courtyard. I've... I've found someone down here, another, um, 'Gifted', like us. He was kinda being kept prisoner, I'm going to try and get him out."

"Got it... get up here quick, these things seem really hungry."

Lexx put the walkie talkie down. "Micheal? That's your real name, right?"

He was clutching his hands to his chest. He looked at Lexx and nodded, "Y... you're Gifted?"

"Yeah, if that's what they're calling us, that's what I am. Do you think you're good to walk? Otherwise it's going to be bitch carrying you out of here."

"Give me a shoulder... I think I can hobble."

-----------

Lexx collapsed against the archway, staring up at the thankfully visible night sky and breathing a sigh of relief. "The adventuring life is not for me."

"Really?" Mael said, wrapping the bandage around her forearm, covering up a small gash. It turned out fresh blood was required to open that particular dark portal... rather cliche actually.

"No, not really," Lexx admitted, "That was... holy shit. I mean... I'm sorry Micheal but wow, that was fucking amazing."

"No, I understand the rush," Micheal said, "I get it too, it why I keep going back there."

"To the sanitarium?" Mael asked.

"No no, just to the other world, the Dark. I... I like exploring it."

"Really?" Mael said, interest obvious in her eyes, "Is this something you do often?"

"Hold on, you still haven't explained how you got stuck here," Lexx interrupted.

"I don't have much time to explain, I need to get home... call some people. I was stuck there for... what, two days I think."

"You sort of smell like it..." Mael admitted.

Micheal carefully massaged his foot. His toenails had stopped bleeding, but Lexx still shuddering, imagining what that pain must be like. Micheal looked up, "Do you know who that woman was?"

"Veronica Matthews, Public Relations director for Maccadyne," Mael said, "And apparently dabbler in the occult or something."

"You don't know the half of it," Micheal said.

"Oh I do," Lexx said, "PR director and a fucking demon. Somehow a dual entity or something with Terrance McNielson, CEO of Maccadyne, she feeds off of others' pain... and apparently keeps zombies in a disused sanitarium as pets. What I don't know is what the hell you're doing here."

Mael was staring at Lexx. Lexx shrugged, "She was the one that tortured me."

"I was looking for Maccadyne's back door. I managed to find it... but kind of got caught in the process. Those... zombies are fucking nasty if they get their hands on you... I don't know what I would have done if you guys hadn't showed up, are you part of the Foundation?"

"Foundation?" Lexx asked.

"Back door?" Mael asked.

"I really need to get back," Michael said, standing back up and wincing once full weight was back on his feet. He rooted in his pockets and found a scrap of notebook paper, "Anyone got a pen? I can give you a number and email... we can talk more later."

"Hold on, what the fuck is this 'back door'?" Mael demanded.

"It's a... you know the Dark doesn't exactly match our world, right? It's... it's like a direct connection between this building and Maccadyne's labs. I've... I had some half-baked plans to mess with some shit there but I'm going to need a lot more work to pull it off."

"You don't even have any bus money, do you?" Mael looked slightly concerned, though Lexx could see the sudden interest burning in her eyes. Lexx had to admit, she was feeling the same. Mael continued, "Look, we'll get you home, make sure you get there in one piece, but in return you're going to tell us more along the way, especially anything you might know on how to fuck Maccadyne's shit up."

------------

April wasn't as confident as she initially was. Something about following Steven into the subway tunnel just didn't sit right with her. "You coming or not?" Steven asked, obviously gloating over her indecision, even if she still had the gun trained on him.

"Why the fuck can't you just go get the stuff yourself?" April asked, again.

"Look hon, you've got a timetable to keep to and so do I. Now you want to go back and do the whole attempt at framing me... well that sucks, but it's not the first time I've had to hide from the law. But if you want more Blood, you're coming with me."

In the end April realized she had no choice. She wouldn't admit it to the geek, but she was quite hooked on the substance now. She rationalized it in her own head, she simply needed to get more to actually study it, just like she had told Lexx she would. Of course if she imbibed in some of it herself while doing so... well, that was just an additional benefit. The addiction seemed wholly psychological, there were no physical cravings or pains, just a mental rut, her brain locked in place and demanding another hit of whatever the hell it was.

They both had flashlights, the station Steven had picked was virtually abandoned at this time of night, so no one saw their disappearance into the tunnel system under the city. April knew that even with her precautions, Steven could possible kill, rape, or do something worse to her down here and hide from the repercussions for any length of time. But then again, she still had the gun... and she was still curious.

The trip took a good thirty minutes and a detour through several maintenance doors. April's internal geography was by now totally at a loss as to what direction she was pointing. At one point the flashlight showed the opening of a station that looked like it hadn't been used in years. The stairs upward ended abruptly at a brick wall. Steven opened another maintenance door, the edges of it glittered under the rays of the flashlights, it had been used often, and recently. There were stairs leading downward. He invited April inside with a greasy smile.

The hesitation was a little worse here. She was already underground, and when she went into the stairwell, she saw that it went down at least four stories before the light gave out. Reluctantly she followed Steven downward, gambling on the fact that if he wanted to do something horrible to her, he already had a number of opportunities before this point, so there must be something special waiting ahead. Ahead and below. It was more than four stories, April counted six before Steven opened another door. There was a barred grating across the stairwell at this point, unlike the door, it looked like it hadn't been touched in a while. April saw that the stairs continued downward beyond the grating, she shivered from something more than just the cold.

"Don't worry hon, we're almost there," Steven said.

April rubbed her head with her flashlight-hand. It had taken a second to comprehend what Steven had said through the steadily growing pounding sensation in her ears. She knew this feeling, she had had it before, when only a jolt of something she kept in her bathroom medicine cabinet had stopped it, yet also produced it.

"Steven? That you?" the voice came from around the corner of the hallway. It was feminine, with a thick southern accent.

"Hey Jo, I brought us a guest, Father approved."

April turned the corner, through an open door was what looked like a well maintained underground apartment. Lounging on a recliner, watching a small, ancient TV with the sound muted was a black woman. She looked at April with some strange combination of pity and disdain, "Y'must be that April girl. Father's through th'other door, he'll hook you up."

"What?" April asked, trying to shake the cobwebs out of her head.

"Go on through," Steven unbolted and opened what looked like a bank vault on the far end of the apartment, "You'll get your fix inside."

April tried to hesitate, tried to protest, but her limbs were already moving of their own accord. The pounding in her head was drowning out everything else, including any resistance. She swam through the murk of the apartment, dimly registering that Steven had gently taken away both the flashlight and her gun. It wasn't until she not so much heard as felt the thick steel door close behind her that April felt any real urge to resist.

"I think Father will like this one," Steven said.

"You're really pathetic," Johanna turned off the TV and walked out.

It smelled in here. Coppery, overwhelming. There was no light at first, then a sort of heat-lined shimmer revealed the interior of the vault. It almost looked organic. The vault door set in pulsating walls... a hole in the center of the sloped floor, nearly bubbling over with a thick, red fluid. Something was coming out of that fluid. Bloated and bloody, smelling of copper and corruption. It rose above April, hunching over her and opening a grotesque, distended jaw in a parody of a hungry grin, dwarfing her. April screamed and pounded against the vault door, a futile gesture. Long, gnarled fingers, she counted at least eight on one hand before terror overcame her, wrapped around her, pulled her into the abomination's embrace.

A hot, sticky mass of rough flesh that must have corresponded to a tongue in some blasphemous alternate reality slid greasily along her neck. Something, some sort of brief suction, then burning agony pierced her flesh, April knew she was already long gone.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 2, Chapter 15

"They are poking around... intruding. They found the sanitarium."

"Good... good... all the sooner they can work up the confidence to come back here."

"They could find the back door, they could arrive right in the midst of things and impede progress greatly."

"Then we shall prepare for their arrival, I can't wait to see what they have planned, it's all so exciting."

"I'd rather we simply dispose of them now, before they become a greater risk."

"Such a waste of energy to go out of our way to do that. I disagree. They'll come to us, and if they're troublesome, we will eliminate them. We know what they're capable of, we have nothing to worry about."

"They're after one of the subjects, it will make them act... irrationally, they may do something unexpected."

"But of course. And just in case the unthinkable occurs, we will have the subject on hand, ready to bargain with."

--------------

Lexx awoke, clutching her chest and gasping. Verifying that her pounding heart was still in place, her hands transferred to her knee, which had commenced a vicious spasming. The echoes of pain in her mind were somehow more nauseating than the real thing, and she was sent staggering to the bathroom, flicking on the light and collapsing by the toilet. The dry heaves began just as Lexx realized she'd forgotten to put the lid up. Thankfully nothing substantial came up, and a few seconds later she was able to force her convulsing gut into compliance.

"Nightmares?" Mael asked from the doorway, rubbing her eyes.

"I can't do it..." Lexx said, wiping away tears, "I can't fucking do it."

"Do you want to back off?" Mael entered the bathroom, "We don't have to rush things you know."

Lexx shuddered, trying to bury memory of the nightmare, "No... not that! I can't live like this. Even if we did, if we could somehow take a vacation, my mind won't let me rest. Every fucking time I go to sleep I see it."

Mael didn't say anything, merely kneeling beside Lexx and hugging her as she hugged the toilet. Lexx rested her forehead in her palm and realized she was sweating. "I'm probably not very inspiring right now."

"Who gives a shit? You're still here, that's something I never want to take for granted."

"I don't like myself very much at the moment."

"You were tortured and traumatized, seeing that bitch probably brought it all back up."

"I don't know if I can do this, if I'm strong enough for it. Remember what I told you about what happened to me? About being kidnapped and my knee getting broken? I didn't tell everything. I just told you what happened to me, not what I was actually doing at the time. You want to know?"

"If I remember correctly, you said you were cuffed to a chair for all that... there's not really a whole lot you could have done-"

"I cried. I fucking blubbered and begged. I broke down and offered anything to them, teared up like a baby and humiliated myself just so they wouldn't hurt me. I broke even before they brought the crowbar in, I was completely fucking pathetic. I felt... I feel worthless for it, I was nothing, offering anything just to avoid whatever might have been coming," Lexx was sobbing now, "Fuck... there I go again. I mean, what good am I if I just break like that? Look at me, I'm squatting by a toilet bawling my eyes out just talking about it!"

Mael turned Lexx's face to meet hers. She delicately wiped away a tear, her voice full of compassion, "Lexx... Jesus baby-raping Christ, listen to yourself, do you have any idea how stupid you sound?"

"What?"

"You were tortured, Lexx. Fucking tortured. They did things to you that were designed to break anyone. They're goddamn demons, and they were doing what they do best, and you're worried that you're weak because... what? Because you didn't go all uber-gritty commando and take having your kneecap shattered with a defiant grin? Fucking hell, Lexx, you didn't even know what was going on then, I can't think of anyone I know that wouldn't break long before the actual pain started. That's a sucky situation for anyone to be in."

"Yeah... but..."

"Yeah but nothing Lexx. You were tortured and you reacted to it like any human would. That's not a bad thing and it doesn't mean you're weak, it means you're fucking human. And like any human, you're reacting to a highly traumatic experience by having nightmares. Now I can't promise that killing the fuckers responsible will end that... hell, I'll be blunt, it probably won't end it. But it will give you some visceral pleasure and the joy of retribution... and it will stop them from doing that sort of thing ever again, to you, me, or anyone else."

"You're a bitch," Lexx said, alternating between silent laughter and sniffles.

"It's four in the morning and I'm half-awake," Mael said, "I apologize in advance if I end up falling asleep on you, but I'm not going back to bed until you're ready to."

-----------

Lexx felt like she was being watched. Granted, several of the security cameras of the estate were trained on her, but it felt like more than that. Someone else was intently focusing on her, questioning without a noise. Lexx shook the feeling off as the gate buzzed open and she walked up the long driveway to the Parker Estate. Thomas was waiting for her by the front door, "Lexx... hi hon, thank you so much for coming."

"Don't worry daddy, I've been wanting to talk to Alice too."

"I knew something was wrong when you said you hadn't seen or heard from her since your last visit. She had told me a few times she was hanging out with you... and if that's not true..."

"I think I know what's going on," Lexx said.

"Do you? What is it? Can I help... no, no actually, you don't have to say if it's awkward, just as long as Alice is okay."

"Daddy, it's okay, I just need to talk to her first, to find out if my suspicions are correct."

"Okay, okay. She's upstairs, I didn't tell her you were coming."

Lexx nodded, ascending the massive staircase. The four days since the events at the disused sanitarium had been busy, but more in a busywork sort of way, rather than a life-threatening and traumatizing sort of way. It had actually seemed to put Lexx's mind at ease, she wondered if this was the closest thing she'd get to a vacation now. Going out and filling out job applications, beginning to put together an outfit to wear to the Summer Renaissance Festival, things she considered normal a month and two years ago.

It hadn't just been that, though. She had also been in contact with Micheal. Several long phone calls, cruising over his Facebook, and a few very long and informative emails. He seemed like a really cool guy, if stereotypically goth. From what he told her, the 'Foundation' was actually a group of people, 'Gifted' and normals alike, dedicated to studying, categorizing and if necessary, fighting the supernatural. A sort of grassroots ghostbusters movement. From the sound of it, they seemed a little too corny and activist for Lexx's tastes, but she immediately saw the benefit of getting to know them, if not outright join them. It was the exact sort of thing she had been looking for for a while.

Maccadyne had not come up in their conversations. In fact it had been avoided and any suggestion of it ignored. At one point Micheal had suggested a get-together with her to discuss some other things on his mind. Lexx agreed, partially because she guessed that Maccadyne would be one of the topics of the discussion, something he was apparently uncomfortable talking about over phone or internet, and partially because 'get-together' could be redefined as 'date' when the other person was cute enough.

Alice's door was partially open. Lexx pushed gently on it and it opened all the way. April was facing away, chatting with someone on her desktop. Lexx realized she hadn't really planned out how she was going to confront April. She decided to be as blunt as possible. "April."

The woman jumped and spun in her seat, glaring in mixed fright and anger at the intruder. Her eyes looked tired and glazed over, and recognition was slow. Finally a strained smile, "Lexx... oh god, I wasn't expecting you, why didn't you call?"

"I did call, you never answered."

"Really? Wow, I'm sorry I... I must have missed that. I've been so busy and-"

"I know, with school and stuff, and testing whatever the hell that stuff was we found."

"What? Oh, right, that stuff, the blood. Yeah I did. It's, um... I'm sorry Lexx, I tested it out, ran it through a microscope, dyes, everything, it's just ordinary blood. Nothing special, no hidden diseases or unknown elements or anything like that. Maybe it belonged to someone special but-"

"Can I have it back then?"

April gave a guilty start, "What? No... I mean, I can't, it was all used, for the testing."

"You didn't test it, did you?"

"Excuse me, I think I'd know if I did or not."

"You drank it, didn't you? Or did something like that?"

"What? No!"

"Surely you saved some of the results, right?"

"My dad put you up to this, didn't he?"

"Why are you so defensive?"

"Because when a good friend comes over, I'm not exactly expecting a Spanish inquisition."

"No one expects the Spanish inquisition."

"Oh shut the fuck up, this isn't a joke, Lexx."

Lexx nodded, "No, it isn't, I'm worried about you, April."

"Yeah? Well I can take care of myself. Now you came at a bad time, I've got a date in a few minutes."

"You sure you're up for it? You're not looking too healthy."

"I'm fine! And no one asked you!"

Lexx sat on the bed, "Is it college guy?"

April sat on the bed next to her, running a brush through her hair, "No, new guy, Steven. A stupid geek, but he has access to resources I could use."

The name rang a bell. Lexx looked over at April suspiciously, "Steven... not too tall, kinda greasy long black hair, for a guy?"

She noticed what was bothering her so much about April, aside from the generally paranoid activity. She was wearing a scarf, in an air-conditioned house, during the rise of summer. April looked back at her. "Yeah, you know him?" April looked hopeful that Lexx didn't.

"I... we've met, April, how much do you know about this guy?

"It's just a date," April said, "And really, it's none of your business, I need to get ready."

"Wait, what the hell's that?"

Lexx took a gamble, creating a fictitious blemish barely visible on April's neck and using it as an excuse to pull April's scarf down and examine the flesh beneath. If there was nothing there, Lexx would claim she thought she saw something, but was obviously wrong. If not...

...there was something there. April pulled away with an angry, frightened, "Hey!"

Lexx sat back, staring at April in fright and concern. April looked away, continuing to brush her hair. "That's that nastiest fucking hickey I've ever seen," Lexx said.

"It's nothing," April said, not looking at her.

"Nothing? It looks like a goddamn lamprey was sucking on your neck!"

"Who the fuck asked you? Lexx, just... just get the fuck out of here!"

"April, what's going on?"

"Get out! You don't know what you're dealing with here!" April was trying to drag her off the bed. Lexx noticed her skin felt a little clammy, feverish almost.

She allowed herself to be led to the door, but no further, "I probably know more than you'd think, April. What happened? With the blood? With this Steven asshole? April I... I've kind of made a lifestyle out of dealing with weird shit lately, I don't want you getting mixed up with this sort of thing."

"Maybe you should have thought of that before you gave me the Blood," April was leaning through the doorway, glaring daggers at Lexx. Her expression softened a little when she saw the impact her statement had, "Lexx, just go, get out of this while you still have the chance."

The door slammed, locks clicked in place. A second later loud music started up.

-----------

The curb seemed as good a place as any to sit and mentally sort a few things out. Lexx wasn't crying, though the urge was there. April was right, Lexx knew that suitcase was obviously something of importance to Maccadyne, and yet she still made the choice to drag April into it. Then again, April knew the situation and she still agreed. ...no, she didn't. Lexx hadn't told her the truth about where she got the suitcase. Still, there was nothing that could be done now to change what happened. Lexx would just have to work harder to see if she could undo some of the damage.

'If' being the operative word. Some of what had been happening was confusing Lexx. With the evidence she had to go on, it looked almost like the Blood actually had little to do with Maccadyne, if not for the fact that she had come into its possession by stealing it from a Maccadyne employee. There were too many unanswered questions, maybe Micheal would know more, she'd get the chance to find out soon. Lexx found herself looking forward to that, he said he knew a place where they could be safe and talk. Lexx wanted that, she wanted to talk with someone new, take her mind somewhere it wasn't normally, yet not be under threat of life, limb and sanity at the same time.

"Fancy running into you here," a voice behind Lexx said.

Lexx jumped, she had the simultaneous images of Micheal, Terrance, Veronica and, of all people, Prince Radomir standing behind her, remarking what a coincidence this meeting was. The person behind her was none of those, it was someone she was simply not expecting, not even thinking about at the moment. One, though, she had thought about quite often over the past several weeks. Lexx tried to compose herself. There was really no non-awkward way to go about this.

"Hi Rose..." Lexx offered a weak smile.

"You've changed since last time we ran into each other... I'm digging the new style," Rose indicated Lexx's hair.

"Yeah, at first I was thinking it was a mistake, but I'm kind of growing into it," Lexx shrugged nervously, wishing she knew how to approach what she wanted to say.

"There's a lot more about you that's different though," Rose said, scrutinizing her. Lexx shivered, she wondered if she were on Rose's list of kill-able people. Did Rose even have a list, or was it just random fast-food establishments?


"Rose..."

"Yeah?" Rose cocked her head, giving a slightly smug look that implied she knew exactly what was coming.

Lexx went for broke, "You're a serial killer."

Rose laughed, "No... no I'm not. I'm a mass murderer, it's very different."

"Really? How?" Lexx felt she was rapidly slipping into wholly surreal territory.

"Well... serial killers usually have some sort of personal attachment to their victims, even if that attachment's just in their heads. Me? I just kill people who annoy me... or get in my way."

Lexx took a step back, already knowing how obvious her discomfort probably was, "Am... am I on that list?"

"You haven't annoyed me, and so far you're not in my way. I think you're safe for the moment."

"Is that why you stood me up that one day?"

"It was easy enough to set up on the spot, you seem like one of those people I can hope to be tolerable, I didn't want you blundering into your own death."

"Great... erm, thanks for not killing me?"

"It was nothing."

"Okay, next question, though I've never had a conversation with a mass murderer before... so I'm a little worried about saying the wrong thing and suddenly, um, getting killed for it. What are you doing here?"

"I was actually going to ask you the same thing. I'm here on business. My employer wants me to keep an eye on a certain person," Rose took a step towards Lexx, "So why are you here?"

Lexx held her ground, though the other woman's aura of self-confidence was rather intimidating, "I was checking up on a friend, I've been worried about her."

"Yeah? I doubt she's fallen on hard times, considering the neighborhood," Rose cast a few glances at the affluence surrounding them, "I'm guessing this is the sort of problem that is really hard to explain?"

"I... I get the feeling if anyone knows about this sort of thing, you would," Lexx said, "I'm worried that she's involved with some sort of blood cult."

"Vampire," Rose said bluntly.

"What?"

"She's involved with a vampire. I'm currently keeping an eye on the guy who initiated that relationship. Small world, considering you're tied in with this too."

"Hold on," Lexx rubbed her head, "Okay, you do know about all this crap, the stuff that's going on with this city, I kind of thought you might. But, vampires? Maybe I'm just weird, but even after everything I've seen, I refuse to believe there are vampires running about biting people. It's just so depressingly cliche."

"Cliche? How so?"

"Vampires, you know. People go out LARPing and dress vaguely goth, pretending to be angsty creatures of the night, noble monsters who pull the strings of mortal society while pursuing age-old grudges and seeking redemption from their cursed immortality and all that crap. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good RP session, I'm more of a werewolf person myself, but it just doesn't mesh with reality. Not with the prosaic reality I used to be a part of, not with reality as I know it now. Everything I've seen suggests that 'reality' is a very scary fucking place that humanity is damned lucky to have a tiny little habitable niche carved out for them to live in. There are no 'noble monsters', there is just the thin shiny semblance of order people plaster over the world to keep themselves sane, and there is a huge pile of really scary shit that does not conform to any preconceived notions of what should or should not be that people willfully ignore for the benefit of their own mental stability."

"You good?"

"I think," Lexx pursed her lips, "Wow, I guess I needed to let lose a rant on something."

"You're right though, the world's a scary place, and that's just the parts that most people can see. The underside's a lot worse. That being the case, why should 'vampires' be any different? I never said they were the poncy little faggots that think being emo is showing deep character traits. Way back in the day, the word 'vampire' stood for hideous, monstrous creatures that were so vile and evil that the very light of day spurned them and refused to tolerate their disgusting forms. With everything you've seen since your eyes were opened, what version do you think is closer to the truth?"

"I still object to the concept though. Ugly or not, I very much doubt there's any direct version of a 'vampire' in this world. Reality's just not that neat. There are no vampires, no werewolves, no witches and wizards. The things we call demons are probably not from anything we'd recognize as 'hell'. There might be things out there that have some traits that we associate with monsters we're more comfortable with, but that's more a coincidence than evidence that things conform to any attempt at rationality and order."

Rose shrugged, "I call them as I see them. From what I know, this thing lives underground, burns in daylight and spreads its power through blood, giving and taking. That's enough for me to label it 'vampire' until I find something more fitting."

"Right," Lexx said, closing up a little as she remembered she was talking to someone with a lot of blood on her hands, "So... er, are you some sort of vampire hunter or something? Or is your boss a vampire with a grudge against another?"

"No... no, not exclusively anyways. My... employer is in the process of... well, he has ambitions for this city. To see those ambitions come to fruition, he's got to arrange things, clear away undesirables, sweep away the riffraff."

"Like a bunch of people whose only crime was to choose the wrong day to eat at a Burger Blitz?"

"Lexx, please, are you seriously suggesting the average person is that special? I could see it in your eyes then, and I can still see it now. You hate people, maybe not as much as I do, but you hate them. You hate what they've done to the world, you hate the self-destructive, insular culture they've walled themselves up in and you hate the veritable sea of stupidity they've created around themselves, a sea that until recently you were helplessly drowning in."

"Fine! But just because the average person's a stupid mindless zombie doesn't mean they deserve death!" Lexx shouted.

"I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree," Rose said, "Anyways, it was awesome running into you again, and really awesome that you've managed to open your eyes to a wider world."

"Hold on, you said you were keeping an eye on April? Listen, I-"

"No, April? Is that her name? No, I'm watching Steven, he's the only lead we've got so far on the vampire, and once we get a better idea of the thing's network, we can take it down by the weak points."

"Listen... I don't know what I could offer to tempt you, but... if it comes to it, please don't hurt April."

Rose thought about it quickly, "No promises, but I'll make an attempt, should it come to it."

"Okay," Lexx said, "Er... thanks again for not killing me?"

"Well... the way you are now, I think it would actually be kinda interesting to see which one of us would come on top in a fight... though that bad leg of yours would probably be a liability."

"Don't be too certain," Lexx said, "I'll have you know I'm handi-capable. I... hold on, just thought of something. Your boss... is he, she, it or they involved with Maccadyne?"

"Maccadyne? Good god no, I'm not a corporate whore. In fact my boss has plans for Maccadyne, big plans that don't end well on the corporate end," Rose gave a nasty smile.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Wow. I know I'm pushing my luck with this, but could I ask a favour of you?"

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 16

Sera followed Mael to the door, "Are you sure you have everything ready for work?"

"I'm fine mom, I really have to go," Mael said impatiently, "I'll be running late in a minute."

"Hold on, before you go, give me a hug."

"Of course mom," Mael waited patiently while Sera hugged her tightly.

"I'm proud of you hon, I really am. So proud of both of you, I, I just want you to know that."

"Mom..."

"No, really. Despite everything, despite all the setbacks and," hesitation, "...all the losses, you're still fighting on, do you know how much it means to me? I mean, you're my children, you're my biological child and Lexx, she's a daughter to me in all the ways that matter. Children shouldn't have to help support their parents in such a way, it should be the other way around."

"It's a hard time, mom, everyone's having trouble finding jobs, we have to support each other. Besides, you're still working despite the disease. That's far more admirable in my opinion."

"Ever since we lost Aaron, I worried myself sick every night-"

"Please mom, don't start on that-"

"I feel like I'm the one living in a delusion... I still can't accept that he's gone."

"He was a good man, mom. There aren't many people I can say that about, and if I had the chance, I'd give almost anything to get him back."

"Not anything... not if it involved losing you in the process."

"Being willing to sacrifice yourself for the betterment of someone you love, isn't that the greatest expression of love? Haven't you said you'd do the same for me?"

"I just... oh god..." Sera's expression became suddenly pained as she clutched the doorway for support.

"Mom? Mom?!" Mael dropped her bag in the stairwell and helped guide Sera back inside, "It's your back, isn't it?"

"Just... just a muscle locking up," Sera breathed through clenched teeth, "I just need to lie down for a bit, you're going to be late for work."

Mael helped Sera onto the couch, "Just a muscle ache?"

"Yeah, what?"

Mael was staring intently at Sera, "You've been like this for well over a week, that I've seen. Who knows how long before I actually noticed?"

"It's nothing... just stress. I'll get over it. Go on hon, I don't want you getting in trouble at your job."

Mael nodded, accepting that nothing new would be revealed, at least not at the moment. "Alright mom... I love you."

---------

The Dark wasn't all claustrophobic repression of the senses, Lexx had found. More accurately, Micheal had found it. They had met up on Peterson, just outside Wolfy's restaurant. Less than two blocks from the apartment. From there Micheal had driven north to Devon Avenue, then east almost all the way to Rosemont, to the forest preserve. They took the Des Plaines River Road south, over three miles, to the thickest, most remote section of the preserve. Parking was relatively easy to find, and the hike through the trees, further and further away from the sounds of society, was invigorating.

At some point Lexx realized that if this Micheal guy she had physically met all of once was a psychotic killer, this was the perfect set up to get rid of her body with none the wiser. She decided not to worry too much about it, there were enough other threats in her life that sadly, this didn't warrant too much concern. There had been some talking done on the drive over, but Micheal remained tight-lipped about Maccadyne and quickly diverted the topic whenever Lexx brought it up. She quickly realized that he had quite a paranoid personality. During the hike into the preserve talking had dwindled to nothing, it was more important to funnel all available energy to putting one foot and one cane in front of the other foot.

Deep in the preserve Lexx began to get that slight chill and minor dry, static itch that indicated the wall between this reality and the Dark was a little thin. The sun was already mostly below the horizon before Micheal indicated the abandoned groundskeeping shed a short distance off the trail. Lexx knew the drill from there. Both crammed inside, it was a bit of a tight fit, and a little frightening, Lexx was afraid of disturbing the wasp nest she saw hanging in the doorframe. With the door shut and the rusted remains of a rake digging into the back of Lexx's knee, they managed to achieve complete darkness. From there it was only a matter of accepting that strange, falling sensation that accompanied one's transition over to the Dark.

When they stepped out of the shed, Lexx thought the process of crossing over hadn't worked, then she saw the lights. The cloaking fog and choking darkness that covered every other portion of the Dark wasn't here. The trees were still there, though now they lacked leaves. The ground followed most of the same topography as normal reality, but the strangest part was that the sky was visible. Visible and... odd. Lexx didn't quite know how to describe it, even to herself. It didn't hurt to look at, it just confused the eyes. There were colours up there, coming out of the darkness in strange waves and patterns. They funneled into the tips of the trees, which were much taller than their real-world counterparts. The trees themselves seemed to thrum with the colour, shimmering and sending what they received from above into the ground.

It wasn't exactly psychedelic, just... unearthly. Frightening in its alien presentation and unavoidable feeling of falling eternally upwards into the coloured depths above, but strangely relaxing in that the intensity of the dim light seemed to breach the barriers between senses and visual images became vibrations and gentle rumbling sounds.

"It's isolated here," Micheal explained as they both lay back on the blanket he had brought with him, "Everywhere I've gone in the Dark, this is the only place that seems completely cut off from everywhere else. I'm sure there are more like it, but this is the only one I've found so far. Here I can actually feel safe talking about things."

"I kind of got that about you. You're worried that... what, Maccadyne's bugged your car? Is checking our facebooks?"

Micheal laughed, Lexx liked the sound of it. She admitted she was getting a little bit of a crush on this guy. "You want to know something funny?" he asked, looking up at the colourful sky, "It's... it's a little embarrassing, actually."

"Yeah?"

"Before I awakened, I used to run a website. Well, I guess I still do, I only update about once a month now and most of the traffic's gone away."

"That's embarrassing? Hon, I'm kind of a big geek, you'll have to try harder than that."

"No, the embarrassing part is the site's content."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"What is it?"

"Guess."

"Porn?"

"No."

"I give up."

"Come on, try harder."

"A sci-fi debate forum?"

"Nope, though that's sorta close."

"Fine, give in, tell me."

Micheal sighed, "Okay. I run a conspiracy theory website."

Lexx stared at him, "You what?"

"Back in the day... I was sort of a hardcore conspiratard. 9/11, UPC codes, national IDs, the whole thing. It was pretty bad, I was so convinced that I was right, and that it would only take others' recognition of my devastating insightfulness to propel me to greatness."

Lexx had rolled onto her side, laughing herself to tears, "Oh god... you were a truther?! That's... oh dear... that's just... wow, you have such an awesome disguise of respectability and intelligence, I never would have guessed!"

"Yeah, well, since then I've grown up... a little."

Wiping away a tear, Lexx sat up and wiggled her feet, "Yeah... a little. I guess I shouldn't laugh too hard. I mean, I'm intending to take down a company that I believe has secret mind-control experiments going on in its basement, run by demons."

"That's simplifying the situation, but yeah. It's one thing to be certain there are evil secret societies behind everything. It's sort of a rude awakening when one day you open your eyes and realize you were totally right... but completely wrong at the same time. It turned out that Mulder was right, the truth was indeed out there. Unfortunately he really didn't want to know what that truth was, and thus cloaked it in theories about little gray aliens and bad men in suits. That's a lot nicer than a bleak, cold universe full of things that, when we're lucky, don't give a shit about humanity."

"And when they do... you get a mega-corporation run by unholy things that tear holes between dimensions," Lexx said.

"Yeah, basically," Micheal leaned backward, "Just have to keep fighting the good fight, day after day."

"Sounds so simple," Lexx leaned back herself, scooting a little closer to Micheal, "Question: What's your thoughts on revelation? On trying to expose people to the true nature of the world, the existence of the Dark, all the things that we're privy too, but most people would just rather ignore?"

"I'm all for it," Micheal said, "I've always held the belief that people can handle the truth. When I awakened, it was sure as hell a nasty shock, but I got over it. I don't think it was from any supernatural mental powers of coping I gained, but rather just the fact that I'm human and have that capability. I feel it's practically an obligation to try to make people aware of the true nature of the world around them."

"Even if such awareness opens them up to influence by things we can handle by virtue of being Gifted, but they can't?"

"Look at it this way: Maccadyne. People are already under the influence of nasty shapeless things from beyond the stars. I just want to give them knowledge, hope, the ability to fight back."

"You have a lot of faith in people."

"I do. People as a mass are a stupid, dangerous animal. Yet at the same time, they've erected cities, explored the entirety of the world and sent their touch across the solar system. I can always trust people to be people."

"You trust them to be untrustworthy and violent?"

"Of course, but when you compare them to some of the other shit that's out there, they seem pretty level-headed in comparison. I'll take the SUV-driving devil I know over the reality-fucking devil I don't."

Lexx smiled and rolled, ending up nearly on top of Micheal. "Do you trust them to be impulsive and irrational?" she grinned down at him.

He smiled back, "Is that a challenge?"

Lexx responded by kissing him. The kiss lasted for quite a while. When they finally parted, Lexx was a little confused. "Something was missing from that," she said.

"Well, it was a little impromptu," Micheal said.

"Yeah... but, I don't know. It felt good, but that was about it, just physical, no real emotion behind it."

"To be honest," Micheal looked a little bashful, "I generally don't get my kicks from the purely vanilla."

"Ah, that might be it then," Lexx rolled off of him, "I doubt we'd be able to get a wooden pony set up out here."

"Are you offering?"

"Hypothetically. Practically speaking, I don't think it would be workable."

"Really? I mean, I think you're really fucking hot, and the thought of both of us wrestling to get on top is... whew... sorry. Is it... are you and Mael...?"

Lexx giggled, "I'm flattered, and we are. But it's not... it's more open than anything. She really wouldn't have a problem if we did stuff together. Hell, under the right circumstances she might even work up the energy to join in. No, I meant it's not practical in that for the foreseeable future, I'm going to be way too fucking busy to dedicate time to a full-throttle BDSM session."

"Maccadyne."

"Yeah, not like it's hard to guess, but I've been wanting to talk about that."

"Me too. I've had a plan I've wanted to pull off for a while now, if you guys are game, I might just have the numbers to do it."

----------

"You're late," Viktor said.

"Bullshit, I'm perfectly on time," Mael countered, "So is that Schindler kid here?"

"No, I killed him."

"Oh, right."

"So he shouldn't be back for a few weeks at least."

"Because death is such a temporary problem."

"For him it is."

"I'm morbidly curious... but I'm not going to ask for details."

"You seem a little short tempered."

"I'm missing work to do this, again. Not that I particularly enjoy my job, but I'm kind of addicted to having money now and don't want to lose the source of it."

Viktor nodded, "Is it my fault your schedule is this shitty?"

"Minimum wage will do that to you. Don't worry, the anger will pass, you have anything to eat?"

Mael explored the apartment while Viktor went and sat on the couch. She pulled a can of Mountain Dew out of the fridge and claimed the recliner for herself. She gazed levelly at Viktor, "Something's been on my mind. We've never really discussed payment for this."

"For you or for me?"

"Since I'm the one getting operated on, I'd assume it would be going from me to you," Mael said.

"You going into Maccadyne and using what I give you against Ose-Dantalion is payment enough, I'd reckon. There's something else that concerns me more," Viktor said.

"Wait... Ose? I've heard that name before. Isn't he a demon of the Goetia? Some cat thing that's supposed to be a huge liar?"

"Ose, fifty seventh demon in the Lesser Key of Solomon, a greater President of Hell with three legions of demons under his command. Dantalion, seventy first and great Duke of Hell. So far all I know is that this thing has taken their names for itself. How much else? Well, I intend to use you to find out for me."

"You realize my intention is to kill them, right?"

"Of course, but what information you milk from them during that process, about where they come from, who else they know... money simply cannot buy that sort of thing."

"I see."

"But again, I am a little hesitant. You've seen what I can do to the human body downstairs, the molding and corruption of flesh, and you are willing to undergo something like that to help you out, yes?"

Mael nodded.

"Okay. Here's the thing though: What I intend to do to you... I've never done to anyone before. It requires a voluntary body, which I have for many things, and a voluntary mind. But it goes beyond the simple corruption and altering of flesh. Basically, I intend to essentially install a secondary mind into you, something which will be attached to the mind you already have, and when the time is right, will activate and run its own programs, using your own body to enforce its dictates."

"So... if I'm getting this right, you're planting a sort of symbiote that can take over my mind at will? My question is: Will it stop me from killing these fuckers and making off with something that doesn't belong to them?"

"No. Back when we met at the club, when... well, when I mindfucked you, I was also testing your brain out. As far as I can tell, it's compatible and would be receptive to the sort of complete altering I intend to do to you. But like I said, I've never attempted anything this complex before. I feel obligated to warn you that there is a palpable chance that things might not work out right, I may make a mistake in implementation and end up damaging you, big time."

"How likely?"

"It's a small enough chance that I still want to press forward with it, but you might see things differently. I need your full, voluntary cooperation with this, so if you're feeling unsure, you can back out, no hard feelings."

Mael nodded again. She pursed her lips and thought about it for a second. Finally she seemed to reach a decision, "Okay. If you're confident about it, I'll trust you. I... let's just say there are things that are worth taking this sort of risk for."

Viktor smiled, "You're foolhardy, Mael."

"Fucking desperate is what I am."

"I could take advantage of you here, I could be lying about all of it."

"I trust that you're sane enough not to go through all this trouble for such an anti-climactic end."

"I like you, I admit. There's a sort of purity of purpose, I felt it when I was tasting your brain back at the club. Something about you is... I don't know how to put it... incorruptible. No matter what may happen to you, you will always remain, in your core, Mael. It's almost... I see it as a challenge, I kind of want to press, to see if I can completely dismantle you, if I have the skill to strip you down and remove parts of your soul until I can alter your very core, without destroying you in the process."

Mael smiled, "Bring it."

Viktor shook his head, "Not now, we both have other priorities. Now is the time to see if we can optimize you to take on a demon. We can start by having you strip, all clothes off, and then we'll go from there."

Mael nodded, somehow she knew that even though she was about to get naked, sex wouldn't enter into this scenario at all.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 17

The Observer returned that night, courtesy the same thunderstorm that had cut the 'date' with Micheal short. After she had been returned home, Lexx had spent most of the night giddily trying and failing to get to sleep. At two in the morning, with no end of the storm in sight, and Mael still not home, Lexx gave up and found her way up to the roof. It was the first real storm since the night she had found herself on top of Maccadyne's roof, and like always, the cacophony filled her with a nervous, jittery energy.

Lightning danced through the sky as Lexx danced across the roof. Her cane lay unneeded on the parapet, something which had come as a pleasant surprise to her. She could feel the energy of the storm, could feel her own body greedily sucking it up. For a moment she could exist without stress, without the sexual tension of earlier today. Without the draining fear of Maccadyne and confusion as to why it hadn't yet brought some tiny fraction of its massive resources against her. Without festering guilt over the that that her actions had pulled April into this mess, and the hell it would likely be dragging her out of it. Without the brewing self-hatred over the fact that she had actually solicited the help of someone she knew to be a mass murderer.

Sound and fury came down from above, fed her, sustained her. Lexx danced erratically, placing her full weight on both legs and failing to register any pain with her weak knee. Somehow she had always known this was how things were, long before her change, her 'awakening' as Micheal put it. Storms were always Lexx's window into her own preferred reality. One where uncomfortable order imposed by others was shown to be as temporary and fragile as everything else, at risk of being swept aside by whipping rain and tearing lightning.

Lexx collapsed against the parapet, letting her head fall back and panting as tiny rivers formed in her stubbly scalp. She ran a hand over her head, enjoying the slightly prickly sensation of hair that was now somewhere between peach-fuzz and crew-cut. Lightning flashed, and Lexx's peripheral vision caught a glimpse of the tenements on both sides of her. The last time she was in this location during a real storm, she had been expounding on how society needed to have its crutches yanked out from underneath to inject some actual into peoples' fantasies.

Now she had received what she asked for. She had been shown a world far beyond everything she had been presented with so far, a place that could fill the role that was once only the domain of her imagination. A place coterminous with this world, a place that was this world, just with less filters in place, where humanity was indeed a passing, inconsequential fancy. Had she learned anything from this? Did it leave her with a new love and respect for humanity?

No.

Lexx pursed her lips, had she changed at all over the years? Quite a bit more experienced with sexual play, but still ultimately a virgin. Physically fit, but now reliant on a cane, that was a change. Able to leap great distances with a single 'bamf'. But what about mentally? Spiritually? A little self-reflection and Lexx realized if anything, she was just a bit more callous about things. She used to be passionate about her dislike of modern culture, now it could go hang for all she cared. Lexx didn't love people, and with everything she had experienced over the past several years, she found it increasingly pointless to hate them.

She loved individuals. In a way that hadn't changed. What had, though, was now she was beginning to understand what it really meant to give everything for someone you love. She saw it in Mael, and was actually afraid of what Mael might be willing to do to rescue Aaron from Maccadyne. She wasn't really surprised that the source of that fear was because she felt the same way about Mael. She loved and respected Aaron, he was as good a person as they come, and she would fight for him, hell, she was going to quite soon now. But Mael? Lexx thought about it. If it took her being cuffed to a chair and a crowbar being swung through both kneecaps. If it took her being dragged back to the Plant and used as little more than a breeding machine for centuries. If it took her standing in the way of a mass of will-sucking zombies and getting paralyzed while Veronica hammered spikes under all her nails. All of that to ensure Mael lived and had a chance at happiness... Lexx would do it.

And that realization frightened her. She was pretty certain such a mindset was unhealthy and obsessive.

"This is your last chance, Lexx. Do not go against Maccadyne, it will not end well."

Lexx opened her eyes. She stared across the rooftop, at the pale, naked figure standing at the other end. A reflection of herself, rain dribbling down the thin body, certain areas pink with blood. The blood itself came from multiple tears and punctures in the figure's skin, where fingers, toes and all orifices had been crudely stitched shut with chicken wire. Lexx still shivered with revulsion, though she had seen this thing multiple times before. It was a perfect reflection of her, she could almost feel the needle going through her eyelid.

With a start, Lexx realized that the reflection had changed slightly. One eyelid was constantly twitching, threatening to rip through the stitches and open up.

"I don't have much of a choice," Lexx stood up and grabbed her cane.

"You always have a choice, Lexx. Simply don't do it. Walk away. Come with me."

"What are you?"

"I'm an Observer."

"Yes, some alien being that watches over the fate of hundreds of worlds, yadda yadda yadda. With no proof of it, and nothing to offer other than a lucky escape from Maccadyne's labs, cryptic warnings, and an obsessive want to take me somewhere else with you. Why should I listen? Why should I give a damn about your... your unevidenced assertions?"

"From what I've seen of the actions of everyone and everything so far involved in this... I can show you the most likely results of your actions, should you go against Maccadyne."

"Really?" Lexx asked.

"Yes, really," The Observer replied. The eye that had been twitching and straining burst open with a sudden wet plop.

Lexx reactively studied the bloodshot orb behind the tattered reflection of her own eyelid... and she saw.

It was like a sequence of dreams, as they replay briefly in your head moments after you wake up, quickly fading away and leaving you with nothing but the conviction that something had happened in your head while you slept. In this case, though, Lexx remembered it all, every moment of those brief flashes. In that moment Lexx was slammed with enough emotion to force her back a step and wrench an inarticulate sob out of her, and it was still a few seconds before her mind could digest all it had seen and force another shuddering gasp.

Lexx saw Sera. She saw herself leaning over Sera, lips moving, stating something unknown. She could feel Sera's throat in her hands. Feel the windpipe collapsing shut as she put more weight onto it, muscles beneath weakly fighting to keep the airway open. She could feel the very moment the fighting stopped, the muscles went slack. When Lexx pulled her hands away, Sera did not start breathing again.

In another flash she saw Mael standing before her. A look of fear, desperation. Suddenly the world fell on her, at least it seemed that way. Mael's body was split open and crushed by something unseen, massive and sharp. The last thing Lexx saw were her eyes, falling downward as the body went limp, blood and ragged lumps of flesh falling away.

"This is what will happen should you continue to go against Maccadyne," the Observer said calmly.

Lexx turned away, now breathing heavily for a completely different reason. The visions had been nightmares made hideously real for just that moment. Scenes of physical and emotional devastation that could not fail to bring about a strong aversive reaction in her.

Almost as if it were designed to do just that.

Wiping away tears mixed with rain, Lexx forced herself to stare at the Observer. "That was horrible... will that really happen?"

"Yes."

Lexx nodded, took a deep breath. "Alright then... I'll ask the question a second time: Do you have any proof? Anything at all?"

"You aren't convinced?"

"You made me hallucinate!" Lexx exploded, "You showed me scenes that were guaranteed to get a strong reaction out of me! But that doesn't fucking matter because there's still no context behind it."

"A pity."

"Yes, a pity for you, you stupid little creature. Yeah, I would do everything in my power to prevent what I just saw happen. But you showed me noting but snapshots. You never explained how this would come about or why. You just showed me a picture and said 'No! Bad!' That's not proof, that's not a demonstration of what will happen if I don't do as you say. In fact it's nothing more than proof that you can fuck with my mind," Lexx's voice had slowed down, now approaching a far more dangerous calm, "If you could actually produce any evidence for your claims... I would do as you say. But you have nothing. I've said, many times, that I would be more than happy to go along with you if you could actually provide some proof. Yet... no, you're just as pathetic as any other wannabe deity. You're nothing to me."

"A pity, you would actually have to be stupider to make the intelligent decision."

"Shut up, fuck off and leave me alone. I don't know what you are, but I do know that I'm no longer interested in what you have to offer, because you've shown that it's nothing much."

"You will still take it," the Observer said, infinitely calm, "Your idiocy just delays it for a while."

Lexx stopped, a wicked smile playing off her lips. She walked up to the figure, feeling a little strange standing so close to a mangled version of herself. "Okay, you made your offer. Here's my counteroffer. I'll go with you, completely voluntarily. No questions asked. In return, you ensure that Mael and Sera do not die, and have a chance and finding happiness in life, and you provide enough evidence to convince me that you've done so. That is all I ask, surely it's within your power to do so, right?"

"No, I won't."

"And why not?"

"Several reasons. First, because it's difficult to fine tune causality around specific individuals, rather than general trends. Far better to let the individuals do it themselves. And as it is at the moment, you and currently running along threads of probability that almost all lead to the same conclusion, with you following me and being accessory to my own plans. Second, because I don't really care to. There is no reason for me to expend energy on it, and the worst that will happen from my inaction is that you will die and things will be slightly delayed."

Lexx nodded. She looked up at the Observer. "Very well, then you have no use to me," as Lexx finished the statement, she lunged forward and shoved her reflection off the end of the roof.

Watching the figure fall four stories and crunch messily against the sidewalk below, the sound thankfully covered in another rumble of thunder, Lexx realized what she had done. The body didn't disappear in a cloud of smoke. It didn't fade away or twist reality around it to disappear into the scenery. It didn't get up, zombie-like or otherwise, and walk away. It simply lay there, exactly the way you'd expect someone to if they had just been shoved off a four-story building. Broken and twisted.

Lightning flashed and the sky exploded. Lexx cringed at the sudden noise, the storm had been dying down up until this point. As she blinked away the after-effects of the actinic blue light, Lexx noticed the body was gone. Disappeared without fanfare, quite possibly nothing more than a hallucination. Lexx waited for any feeling of resolution, of success to come from this action. Some metaphorical confrontation with her own doubt and escapist fantasies. She felt nothing but an increasing chill to the rain as the rush from the storm slowly drained away.

With a tired sigh, Lexx made her way back into the apartment.

------------

Somehow two hours had passed while Lexx was on the roof. During that time Mael had come in, burrowed under the blankets, and fallen asleep. After changing and drying herself off, Lexx joined Mael under the covers. As Lexx slowly wrapped her arms around the other woman, Mael shifted and mumbled something incoherent. Lexx smiled, unseen in the darkness of the room. "I'm glad you're back, I was afraid you'd be gone all night."

"I was... delayed," Mael muttered.

"I've been thinking about things," Lexx said, "Sort of planning for the future... in a way."

She could feel more than see Mael nod, encouraging her to continue. "Depending on how we do with Maccadyne, I think I want to start doing this full time."

"Full time?" Mael turned to face Lexx in the bed.

Lexx nodded again and yawned, "Yeah, full time. Find a way to make sure Sera's supported... maybe Aaron can help with that once we've got him back-"

"If we get him back."

"I'm being stupidly optimistic here, bear with me-"

"No, I think I see where you're going with this. I just want to... um... throw my two cents in there, as it were."

"Yeah?"

"You know me Lexx. I've never been the most ambitious person in the world. I'd kinda like to do college. But at most all I really want is to learn how to fuck around with computers a little more so that I can land a comfy programming job. And then I could file that whole 'worrying about surviving financially' portion of my life away and concentrate on the stuff that's actually important to me," Mael took a moment to yawn.

"Yeah, and I was planning on going to school for art, and then likely failing to find anything worthwhile after that because art is such an unreliable field as far as money is concerned. But in the end it's still the same idea, it's an escapist fantasy."

"So anyways, that's the thing. It's just insurance to make sure culturally malfunctioning people like us can survive while we focus on the things that actually appeal to us. Except with this, with what's happened to us, that's changed, hasn't it? All of a sudden the things that used to be solely in our fantasies aren't anymore. It's no longer 'escapism', it's accepting and participating in a greater reality that lays around and is woven through the one we've occupied our whole lives."

"Yes!" Lexx said, excited now, "And what I want is to do it full-time. Up until now we weren't allowed to do that. If we wanted to survive, we just had to grit our teeth, keep our heads down and at least give some minimum participation in a culture we both are ambivalent towards, at best. Now our horizons have expanded. Now we can see there are a lot more opportunities out there, and I for one do not want to be restrained while trying to make a grab at them because I feel I somehow have to live a 'normal' life while doing so."

"The anti-superhero," Mael grinned in the darkness, "Saying 'fuck you' to leading a double-life and fully indulging in what their natural capabilities have made them. So long as we can make sure Sera is not wanting, we could theoretically live our dreams, twisted and corrupt though they may be by other people's standards."

Lexx grinned back, "You'd... you'd really do that with me? Maintain only a ghost of societal ties for the sake of fully devoting ourselves to a world beyond the perception of a majority of the populace? Give up almost everything that ties us to the bulk of human society?"

"On my own, I would consider the idea," Mael said, "With you... I'm all for it."

Lexx giggled and hugged Mael tightly, "That... that may be the single most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me."

--------------

Lexx didn't get to sleep until long after Mael was gently and quietly snoring. The storm still grumbled and protested outside, but that wasn't what kept her awake. It was nearly five in the morning before Lexx finally risked further investigating that which had caught her attention when she hugged Mael.

Her hands slowly brushed over the other woman's body, getting a feel for the curves, bumps and ridges. She started at the small of Mael's back, slowly and methodically seeking for what she had found when she hugged Mael. She found it again, her fingers played over it. A lump under the skin, something other than bone, sinew or muscle. From the feel of it, it was distinctly rectangular.

Further exploration revealed more discrepancies. In some areas there were more bumps similar to the first, sometimes different sizes and shapes. In other areas there was what felt like thin, but tough wiring snaking just under the surface of the skin. In the slowly increasing morning light, Lexx could actually see a little of what she was feeling. She stared at Mael's closed eyes, wordlessly asking what the woman was doing to herself in the name of saving someone she loved.

With a debilitating yawn, Lexx accepted it. She loved Mael, and now she realized she could trust Mael's decision, whatever it was, to alter her flesh. She wouldn't question Mael when she woke, wouldn't press. They were of one mind at the moment, agreed that harming Maccadyne and taking back someone that was taken from them was the top priority.

It was going to happen very soon now, for better or for worse.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Part 3, Chapter 18

Lexx stood with Mael in front of the Maccadyne building. This time at night, and this time with an actual rehearsed plan of how they were going to go about things. She checked the clock on her phone, specially synchronized for just this occasion. This was where they would find out if everything would go down properly.

The four of them, once general contact had been established, had spent three days rehearsing this event. It was a simple enough plan on all points, but it required everyone doing certain things at certain times, with limited communication between each other during the entirety of it. It was likely the closest thing any of them could get to a military operation at this point. Planning and direction had gone mostly to Micheal and Rose. Micheal because he had actually spent a little time in the national guard and went through basic, Rose because this was far from the first time she had been required to sneak in somewhere, doing something highly illegal and cause general chaos.

Lexx and Mael were waiting for midnight to hit, about six minutes from now. Once that happened, Rose was supposed to take out power to the building. Predictably, generators would likely kick in. Whether or not Rose could take those out as well wouldn't matter, the brief interruption of power and the discord it cause would be. Within seconds of that, Micheal would put his part of the plan into effect, hopefully giving Mael and Lexx enough time and distraction to get inside and seize what they needed.

Thirty seconds to go, according to Lexx's phone. Everyone's timepieces had been synchronized earlier that day. The ground rumbled and Lexx felt the heat and pressure of a sudden concussive force somewhere around the corner of the building and above. The walkie talkie crackled. "Sorry guys, had to set things off early, power's down, hitting the backup generators now," Rose's voice informed them.

A second later another, smaller explosion went off. "We're good, ball's in your court now, over and out," Rose's voice faded away.

They had both been standing in the near complete shadow of the generous, scenically place foliage in front of the building. Mael now ran out, covering the distance between the plants and the locked glass doors in a few seconds. Lexx waited, timing it so that Mael reached the doors at exactly the same time she bamfed over. Mael tried the door first, just in case. It rattled securely. "Locked," she said, noting the obvious.

Lexx nodded and both raised their weapons. A pair of rock hammers. Hardened steel points designed to chip their way through granite. The first two blows caused the glass to spiderweb. A few more and the entire pane was sagging within the doorframe. Mael indicated for Lexx to stop. She then held one hand up to the shattered glass and concentrated. A force equaling an exceptionally hard shove passed from Mael to all four corners of the glass frame through no visible means. The pane exploded inward, crashing loudly into the main lobby in several pieces.

Now it was time for Lexx to work.

"Bamf," she appeared behind the security guard crouched behind the main desk and planted the tazer in his back, squeezing the trigger.

"Bamf," again, this time behind the two that were now running into the lobby to assist.

One was immediately tasered down. The other reacted fairly quickly, forcing Lexx to duck beneath a poorly aimed swing of a baton, twist the guard's arm behind him and give him a good shove forward before again using the taser. Mael was already done fixing the zip-ties to the first downed guard and heading over to take care of these two. "Watching you fight is kind of hot," she admitted as she went to work on the second guard.

Lexx was currently restraining the last of the front area security, keeping an eye out for any more. Their walkie-talkies buzzed with confused chatter. Guards trying to regroup without use of elevators or ambient lighting. Frantic questions about the security of the front area and reinforcements. They didn't have much time before more of the curious would come exploring. "Well," Lexx said as they finished up and headed into the guts of the building, "Radomir trained me, and he had the hots for me. I'm pretty certain he made sure I looked good while fighting just so he could enjoy watching more."

They found the stairwell by flashlight. Rose had done quite a number on the building's power, there was nothing on that wasn't battery operated. The way up was clear, the way down was blocked by a heavy locked door. Thankfully the lock was mechanical, rather than electric. "Go for the keys or try your new trick?" Lexx asked.

"I'm pretty confident in myself," Mael said as she placed her hand against the lock. As she concentrated, she spoke, "And you're still not convinced you actually did spend a few years in a place where time doesn't pass the same way it does here? I'm sorry Lexx, but no one learns to fight like that in a week and a half."

The lock rattled for a few moments, then finally clicked into place as Mael closed her eyes and felt out the interior workings with some form of physical pressure that extended a number of feet from her own body. A second, louder click and Mael stood up, trying the door. It opened up to stairs leading further downward. A light other than what came from their flashlights filtered up from below. "They must have separate generators down there," Lexx said.

"Are you ready for this?" Mael asked, "Confronting what got you into all this?"

"Fucking giddy," Lexx said as they went into the stairwell and closed the door behind them. She checked her phone, "Micheal should be-"

"I'm in guys!" Micheal's voice sounded urgent, but in control, "Oh shit, I've brought some company... lotsa company."

"How much?" Mael asked, "Is it working?"

"A lot more than I originally thought would follow and... here comes trouble, hold on..." Michael's voice cut out.

"Should we go?" Lexx asked Mael.

"Give it a moment," Mael said.

"Back," Micheal said. A strange moaning could be heard in the background, then what sounded like smaller explosions further away. Gunshots. "Safe for the moment, looks like sheer numbers is working for our side, you've got your distraction, get Aaron and let me know where to meet up."

Lexx and Mael nodded to each other and went down the first flight of stairs. No map of the place could be found, all Lexx had to work on was her sketchy memory of the area. Getting down to where she had escaped to the Plant was highly doubtful, as that had been rather highly secured. But the cells should be accessible from where they were.

"We need to remember that," Mael pointed to a sign that stated the nearby double-doors would lead to the 'docks', "That might be our only way out."

"Oh, there's another way out," Lexx said as they moved, "It's just a bit more round-about."

So far the plan was going exceptionally well, which is rather scary considering it had been conceived and executed by, largely, untrained rookies. Micheal's original plan involved something he had found in the sanitarium. It turned out his hatred for Maccadyne wasn't exactly personal, but no less intense that what Lexx and Mael felt. During his studies, he had found out that Maccadyne was often the chief source of funds behind a large number of the more corrupt and harmfully conservative politicians on both a state and national level. It didn't matter that, as far as he could tell, the company didn't directly endorse racism, blocking civil rights, and religious persecution. Merely that those who supported such things seemed to also be the most pliable with money and therefore also willing to represent the company's interests on a governmental level.

After his awakening, Micheal had gone further in his research of Maccadyne, and found out that despite its position as one of the world's largest financial giants, its focus seemed to be on experimental physics and electrical research. Something that never seemed to make the papers, or the documents, or anything that didn't require a great deal of digging to get to. Micheal's research also showed that not only did a strange number of deaths and disappearances occur on Maccadyne property or with Maccadyne employees, but also that similar disappearances seemed to happen disturbingly often around 'charitable' homeless shelters set up and maintained by Maccadyne for PR boosts.

In Micheal's mind, the logical conclusion was that Maccadyne was doing something bad. Something that required a large number of possibly involuntary participants. Somehow, through sheer luck, he happened to be right. Through his study and newfound knowledge of the Dark, Micheal had learned that Maccadyne also make extensive use of that strange other world in its own research, and that a sort of 'back door', a direct path between Maccadyne's labs and another point in that world existed and, if found, could possibly be exploited. Now that it had been found, and other people willing to go along with his destructive plans had shown up, he was ready to try something.

Mael and Lexx had laughed at the plan when he presented it. Not so much because they were certain it wouldn't work, but due to its reliance on a 'tactic' that had been repeated countless times in various MMORPGs. Micheal was intending to 'train' Maccadyne. Rose had done her job, knocking out the main power and creating enough of a disruption so that the other two portions of the attack could unfold. Lexx and Mael were already in place, and now Micheal had verified everything was going off exceptionally well.

While the other three had remained in the reality they had been born in, Micheal had been in the dark, all the way back at the sanitarium. His portion of the attack consisted of actually going about that building, getting the attention of as many zombies there as possible, then leading them through the 'back door' directly into the Maccadyne labs. It all hinged on being lucky enough not to run into Veronica along the way and Micheal's limited research suggesting that the large number of dark portals that led to the labs would be kept active at all times, allowing the zombies to follow him directly into the heart of Maccadyne.

From there things would be a little sketchy. The main goal was to find their way to the holding cells, spring Aaron out if it was possible, drag him to the surface if necessary and get gone, all three of them in one piece. The whole way fighting their way past security and quite possibly zombies. That had been Lexx's biggest objection. She had repeated what had been said before, that they weren't trained soldiers, and that it didn't matter if they had a few neat tricks up their sleeves, they'd still be steamrolled by any competent force.

That was where Micheal countered with his own knowledge. Maccadyne had plenty of security, Micheal admitted, but what they didn't have was soldiers. They were a financial company on the surface, and the contracting and training of a paramilitary force would simply be a little too blatant for the secretive nature of what they were actually doing. Their security was a bunch of guys with a little apprehension and detention training, armed with pistols, batons, tazers and torches, little else.

This was what Lexx and Mael found as they got to the second cross-hall. Four of them moving at quite a pace, not even noticing the two trespassers until the last one gave a confused glance backwards. "Hey guys, hold on, we've got a... hey you two, stop!"

Lexx and Mael ran... well, hobbled and ran, Lexx saved her own tricks for when she was out of eyeshot, no use tipping her hand unless she had no choice. They took the first left available and tried each door down the hall. Lexx tried not to panic at the sound of rushing feet and radio-chatter. Living voices rose, confusion, a quick argument. Mael found an unlocked door leading to, of all things, a bathroom. Lexx heard two sets of sneakers retreating, two still making their way a little slower towards them. Lexx retreated to into the bathroom, joining Mael. "Keep it unlocked," Mael whispered as the door eased shut.

They heard the sounds of security coming down the hallway, trying each door as they went. Lexx and Mael crouched in the darkness, knowing what was coming. Sure enough, the door opened, Lexx saw one guard checking the bathroom, the other remaining at the ready in the hall, neither with guns drawn. Just as the inspecting guard's eyes widened in surprise, the radio crackled to life, gunfire could be heard, along with confused shouts. Mael stood up calmly and pointed her own gun, the laughable replica pirate's sidearm and pull the trigger.

"Shit!"

The guard in the doorway was blown backwards by something that wasn't at all a bullet, briefly stunned and collapsing against the far wall. Lexx poked her head out to see the the second guard turning in surprise and fumbling for his own weapon. She bamfed behind him and hit him with the tazer, by now a well practiced move. Both taken care of, Lexx and Mael removed their weapons. The gun felt oddly heavy in her hands, she found she really didn't want to end up using it. Mael checked her own, making sure no round was chambered and clicking on the safety, Lexx repeated the process with her own weapon. Anticipating possible armed conflict, Micheal had shown them with his own weapon the basics of gun handling, namely about how shooting yourself or your friends was the first thing you wanted to make sure you weren't accidentally about to do.

They left the guards ziptied and disarmed, Lexx and Mael left. "Where are you going? That's where we just came from," Mael asked.

"This is the wrong floor," Lexx said, "I think I've got the hang of the numbering system they use to label rooms, what we're looking for is two floors down. We need to get back to the stairwell!"

The stairwell started out empty, the only interruption at first was three lab technicians running by Lexx and Mael, offering quick worried glances at them before continuing. "Micheal? How you holding up?" Mael asked.

"Hanging out in a... heh, in a morgue. How ironic," the reception was just good enough to make his voice out, "Room 318. I've secured the area, most of the fighting's still going on outside, sounds like the zombies are winning, but that's only until some competent troops hit the scene, you guys need to move."

"318, heh, we're all going to hell," Lexx said as they reached the second sublevel.

"What?"

"John, chapter three verse eighteen. Everyone knows three-sixteen, the whole heaven/everlasting life thing. Well, two verses later Jesus says, basically, worship god-daddy or he'll burn your sorry ass. Everyone seems to miss that when they're spouting platitudes, oh shi-"

The doors to the second sublevel burst open and two guards came through, seemingly more intent on getting away than stopping intruders. Lexx was in front and had brained the standing one with her cane before she even realized what was going on. As he fell with a cry, Lexx turned her attention to the second one... and realized he was on crutches.

His nametag read 'Charlie Pinnows'.

Lexx swept the cane, knocking both crutches out. She kicked the leg he was favouring, knocking him to the floor. The other guard, coming to his senses, received a sharp jab to the gut. "Crowbar," Lexx said, holding one hand out while pressing her cane against Charlie's throat.

"Lexx..." Mael said uncertainly.

"Fucking crowbar!" Lexx screamed.

Mael gave her the weapon. Lexx hefted it twice, getting a good feel for the weight. She grinned wickedly at Charlie, who stared up at her in terror. "Wait... please... wait..."

"You didn't wait for me," Lexx said, and swung the weapon downward.

First one knee, then the second, two blows each. The sound of bones cracking and flesh wetly tearing was quickly drowned out by the sound of Charlie's screams. "Lexx! Wait!" Mael was pulling on her arm.

Lexx glared back at Mael. "He fucking did this to me!" she screamed over the guard, pointing to her knee.

"Wait... we don't need to..." Mael hesitated.

Lexx turned back to Charlie, clutching at his thighs and writhing grotesquely. The overjoyed grin spreading across her face once more, she grabbed his collar and pulled him to the edge of the stairs. Then with a shove, she pushed him down.

"Bamf."

She was now waiting for him at the halfway point, giggling madly as he rolled to a stop against the wall, then pushing his weakly struggling form to the second set of stairs and over the edge. Charlie Pinnows gave a meaty thump for every one of the twelve steps he fell. On the seventh step down, his skull impacted the steel corner with a loud, broken crack. Lexx laughed one more time as the guard came to an unmoving stop at the bottom of the stairs. The laugh died away into little more than panting. She looked up at Mael, who was staring down at her in something approaching terror.

Lexx felt cold as she made her way down the last flight of stairs. She crouched by the guard and placed a pair of fingers at his neck. She waited, then placed them at a slightly different location. "He... he doesn't have a pulse."

"Lexx..." Mael said, putting a shaking hand on her shoulder.

Lexx slowly stood back up. "... I killed him."

"Lexx, you didn't have a choice," Mael sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

"The fuck I didn't," Lexx laughed disbelievingly, "He was an old guy on crutches. He was fucking terrified of me, and with good reason."

"Lexx, you can't think this way, we should just-"

"No! Fucking no... I killed him out of anger. And..." Lexx's voice broke, something halfway between a sob and laughter escape, "... and it felt really fucking good. It... it still does, that's not good. I shouldn't feel this way."

"Come on Lexx... there's nothing we can do about it right now," Mael tugged at her.

"Yeah..." Lexx said, "Yeah, nothing. Maybe before but... oh fuck, I just killed someone."

Lexx turned and walked out of the stairwell, into the third sublevel. She turned back, "I... I don't know... I'm sorry..."

"I know you are," Mael said, "I don't know what to... let's just go."

Lexx felt like she was in a haze of unreality now. Like being woken up in the middle of the night because you need to go to the bathroom, she walked in a daze with Mael down the hallways, slowly threading her memory back to where she had been held. She snapped back to reality for a moment when a familiar door jumped out at her. Mael stopped when Lexx did.

"That's... that's the room they did it in. They tortured me there," Lexx leaned against the wall, "Just... it only lasted a few minutes, really, but... but..."

Someone was walking down the hallway towards them, coming around the corner. He was joined by three others, a slow, unsteady pace that only minutely sped up once they saw Lexx and Mael. Three were wearing stained hospital gowns, one had on a security uniform.

"Zombies," Mael said.

"They work fast," Lexx replied with a giggle.

"They're fucking zombies," Mael said, walking towards the group, "They're slow and stupid, they shouldn't be able to be this effective, come on Lexx!"

They didn't even have to attack the zombies or defend themselves. The hallway was wide enough that even Lexx on her cane was able to skirt around the slow-moving figures and get beyond them. They saw two more in a side hall, both formerly security guards. There was gunfire from further away, the acoustics of the hall made it impossible to tell which direction it came from. "This way," Lexx made her way further down the hall, further down her memories.

The cell block was there, Lexx shivered at the sight of an abandoned wheelchair. She remembered what her own ride in one of those was like. "It's..." Lexx faltered, "One of these doors, I can't remember which..."

"Aaron?" Mael was staring through one of the windows, "Aaron?!"

Mael was down on one knee, doing what Lexx was now thinking of as a 'force lockpick'. Lexx stood, looking up and down the hallway. From the far end came three shambling figures. "Company," Lexx said.

The lock clicked. "Got it," Mael said, her own voice now suddenly unsteady.

"I'll keep watch," Lexx said.

Mael wasn't listening. She all but stumbled across the cell, "Aaron! Oh fuck, Aaron!!"

Lexx spared a glance from the hallway and felt a few tears welling up at what she saw. Mael was desperately hugging the gaunt figure in the cell, full out crying. This was a day full of firsts, Lexx had never seen this from Mael before either. Lexx returned her gaze to the hallway, the zombies were now about halfway down and closing. Forty feet away. Thirty. She raised the pistol, keeping her breathing steady and trying to keep her muscles loose as she aimed down the sights, thumbing off the safety.

Her finger locked up around the trigger, refusing to go any further. Something in her mind rebelled against killing something else, no matter how dead it might have already been. Lexx tried again, her vision blurring with the concentration so much that when she finally managed to force herself to squeeze the trigger the shot went wide. The explosive sound shocked Lexx, causing her to drop the weapon. "Oh fuck," bending over to grab the weapon, Lexx looked between her own legs and saw several guards running around the corner, weapons drawn.

"Oh shit!" Lexx dived into the room.

Gunfire rang out. Lexx cringed at the loud sounds. Being under fire, she decided, was one of the worst situations in the world. She knew those weapons could seriously injure or kill her, but unlike other threats, she would not be able to see the instrument of her undoing, the bullets themselves. When she fought, she could see fists, feet or held weapons coming at her. It was a relative comfort, being able to ascertain and react to a threat. Bullets didn't have that comfort. She couldn't see one coming and step out of the way. There was no way to know if she'd been hit or not until the pain started, or until she found she couldn't move. It triggered a primal fear of unseen danger in her and, for the moment, paralyzed her.

The shots stopped, the sound of the last zombie falling to the ground reached Lexx's abused ears. So did one other sound. Aaron's hollow voice, "...Mael."

Lexx looked up, then turned at the sound of voices in the hallway. "Come on Sheri, let's go!"

"Wait, I saw someone in the room-"

"Who gives a fuck? Everyone's running, let's get the fuck out of here and worry about them later!"

"But-"

"Fine! Die here with them!"

"Okay, okay! I'm going!"

The sound of footsteps running away.

Lexx looked up at Mael, who was helping Aaron to his feet. She stood up herself, "Aaron... are you good to walk?"

"I... I think," he was confused.

"We're getting you out of here," Mael said.

"Come on," Lexx said, "I'll take lead. Mael, want to see how Micheal's doing?"

Mael did. Micheal, it turned out, had left the morgue once it sounded safe, and was now waiting for them at the stairwell. The three of them made their hobbling way, Lexx on her cane, Mael supporting Aaron, to where they had come from. As impeded as their progress was, they still managed a better pace than the average zombie, and made it to the main hallway without having to stop and fight. Gunfire had completely died away by this point, the zombies had won this round. Lexx turned the last corner to the stairwell and, "Aw shit!"

There were several dozen at least, all packed around the doorway. A number turned at the sound of Lexx's voice and started staggering her way. "Micheal?!" Mael barked into the radio, "Where the fuck are you?!"

"This way guys!" Micheal's voice, not on the radio, but rather from behind them.

"You son of a bitch!" Lexx panted, hobbling to him and giving him a hug, "What the bloody hell?"

"Sorry," Micheal was leading the way down another hall, around the corner to where another stairwell was, "I just realized there were two, and you guys might have the wrong one, is this Aaron?"

"Yeah," Aaron reached out his hand, a little dazed.

Micheal shook it, "Micheal, your... um... kids are pretty awesome people."

"Not my kids," Aaron said, "But... agreed on the awesome bit."

They made their way up to the second sublevel, and were halfway to the first when something snagged Lexx's foot. Lexx looked down, half expecting to see a zombie's hand wrapped around her ankle. It wasn't, it was cording, blue and black. "What the-"

The cords pulled tight, yanking Lexx off her feet. The cane skidded to the other end of the stairwell as Lexx cracked her head smartly on the tiled floor. Time and space were thrown into uncertainty as stars exploded in her head. When Lexx managed to blink away the concussive force of the blow, she found she was hanging. Somehow she had become attached to the ceiling, many feet of thick electrical cord wrapped tightly around her arms, legs and waist. Micheal was under her, trying immediately to loosen up the cords, "Lexx!"

"Go!" Lexx said.

"No way," Micheal said, pulling out a knife and starting to saw through the cords.

"No! Do it!" Lexx could feel it, it was already pretty obvious from the unnatural event, there was malevolent intelligence behind this.

"Fuck!" Micheal's hand was suddenly caught as well.

Before anything more could be mentioned he was yanked backward, tied to the wall by more cords, all moving with malign intelligence. "Micheal!" Lexx's eye was already swelling shut from where her head received its knock.

She turned painfully to see Mael and Aaron, neither of them were caught yet. "Go! Run!"

"That was simply fantastic," a jovial voice announced.

Lexx whipped her head around, causing more pain. The CEO of Maccadyne Financial stood at the bottom of the stairs, clapping slowly. Standing around him were over a dozen zombies. "Excellent show, I mean really, my hat's off to you, if I had one."

"You fucker," Mael said, pointing her pistol at the man.

"Not a good idea," said a feminine voice from further up the stairs. Lexx's position prevented her from looking up that far, but she recognized it as Veronica, "Unless you want everyone to die."

"Fuck off," Mael said, and shot.

A moment later both Mael and Aaron were helplessly restrained in more cording. Terrance McNielson walked calmly up the stairs, flanked by zombies, idly rubbing the bullet-hole in his shoulder. "I still stand by my first statement, all of you, that was incredible. I was waiting for the attack, but to actually bring your own horde of zombies with you? Full points for innovation and dedication!"

"They're your goddamn zombies," Micheal sputtered, the cording around his throat interfering with his ability to speak.

"Oh yes? I don't believe I know you but... my goodness, you appear to be Gifted as well," Terrance smiled broadly, "This is indeed a good day."

"Don't know? ...that bitch does," Micheal spat.

Terrance looked disapprovingly at Veronica, who now joined him at the halfway point in the stairwell. "And you say I'm the one who takes risks with security?"

Veronica smiled, "I admit, I have my vices."

"Well..." Terrance permitted a small laugh, "What would we be without our vices? It is what defines us, after all."

"So what do we do with them?"

Terrance looked around, "We'll let them choose."

"What?" Mael growled.

"You want him, Aaron. Quite frankly, you can have him for all I care," Terrance said, "He's kind of a failed experiment anyways. But I can't just let him, or all the damage you've caused, go for free."

"What experiment?" Micheal asked, "What the fuck are you doing here?"

Veronica sighed, "Something for our own benefit, which would also have the benefit of uniting humanity once and for all. We came from Hell to escape the competition and establish something special for ourselves here. We found... this. A rather broken world, one that could be endlessly improved, given a chance at real advancement. Of course we knew you would fight our proposals every step of the way, change is never welcome, after all. But we're almost there, with a little more research we can start truly making things better for all."

"There is no Hell," Lexx said, then sucked in air with embarrassment as she inadvertently ended up drooling.

"But there is, Alexxia my dear. Maybe not what some of your more religious would envision it as, but there is a Hell, and many people most certainly go there after they die," Terrance reached up and stroked her cheek, "I wouldn't advise going there myself, it's not a very nice place."

"Don't fucking touch her!" Mael screamed.

"Oh yes, you interrupted," Terrance said, "My offer."

"Fuck your offer," Lexx said and spat downward, aiming perfectly for Terrance's head.

"If you really want to," Veronica said, "In which case I'll just let my pets have their way with all of you."

"Please, please, there's no need for this," Terrance said, wiping his forehead off, "This entire building is a part of us, we know everything that goes on inside. We knew exactly what each of you were doing from the moment you got here, and only allowed you to get this far so that we could speak to you and make our offer. How else do you think we're keeping you so... calm?"

"What do you want?" Mael asked.

"One of you," Terrance said, "A Gifted. A human of exceptional ability that we can study and run tests on. To fine tune what we have developed so far before we introduce it to a larger populace."

"What... what are you developing?" Micheal asked.

"It's hard to explain, let's just say we're moving into pharmaceuticals," Terrance said, "Now, which one of you is it going to be? In return, you get Aaron, who really isn't that useful to us, and the rest of you get to go free."

"Personally, I'd love to spend a little more time playing with you," Veronica approached Micheal, "Your nails simply aren't pretty enough yet."

"As for myself, I've found I've developed quite a taste for you, my dear Alexxia. There's so much I'd love to do with you, to you," Terrance smiled revoltingly up at her, "But we're fair, we leave the choice up to you."

Lexx opened her mouth.

"I'll go."

Lexx closed her mouth. She stared at Mael. Mael repeated her statement, "I'll go. Let the others go."

"Well... not what I expected, but okay," Terrance said.

"Mael! No!" Lexx shouted, "No... fucking... take me instead, not her!"

"Shut up," Veronica said, "She's made her choice."

"Bullshit!" Lexx screamed, "Mael, don't fucking do this! You don't even know-"

"Just get Aaron out of here," Mael was staring pointedly at Lexx, "Get him back to Sera, she needs him."

"No! Mael!" Lexx was crying now.

"As soon as we have her secured, the rest of you will be free to go," Terrance said.

"I still don't agree with this," Veronica said.

"What can I say? I have my vices," Terrance smiled and reached out to Mael.

He froze, his hand inches from Mael's face. Mael was shuddering, almost convulsing in the wires that held her to the wall. Lexx saw that there were a lot more there than there seemed to be a moment before. Different wires, glowing a strange dull brownish purple. They seemed to be digging their way into Mael's quivering body, pressing up from beneath her skin.

"Mael?!"

No, Lexx was wrong, they weren't digging into Mael, they were coming out of her. From at least six or seven locations that Lexx could see. They were, though, digging into Terrance, digging through his wrist and somehow holding him in place. More wires burst out of Mael's skin, wrapping tightly around, the cutting through the more mundane cords keeping her in place. Several dozen wires from her body shot outward, burying themselves in the walls, ceiling and floor, suspending Mael in place. Even more connected her to Terrance, who now seemed to be grotesquely deflating.

"NO!" Veronica screamed.

She lunged forward, grabbing the back of Terrance's head. Lexx watched, wondering just how insane she had gone, as a white, phosphorescent glow spread from Veronica's hand, enveloping Terrance's head, then the rest of his body, absorbing and dissolving it in a few blinding moments. The wires connect him to Mael melted, the wires holding her to the walls, floor and ceiling whipped back into her body and she fell, unconscious.

A second later Lexx was also falling, she struck the floor hard, bruising her hip badly. Micheal nearly staggered on top of her as he too was released from his bindings. Lexx looked over at Mael, "Bamf!"

She crouched over Mael, glaring up at where Veronica was a moment before. She was no longer there. Lexx transferred her gaze upward, Veronica had changed. Her flesh had stretched and warped, insectile legs bursting through at many locations, at least five different faces glaring balefully down at her. In her brief glance, Lexx couldn't make out any clear outline. It was just an impossible collection of chitinous legs, tormented and maddened faces, torn scraps of bloodied flesh and a pair of glistening wings nearly eight feet long.

"Get that thing out of here!" the insect-thing that Veronica had become screamed at them in a distorted, rasping voice, "Get out! Leave! Take the damn human, just get out!"

With that it turned and scuttled away, on the ceiling.

---------

Epilogue:

Five figures were on the sidewalk, over a block from the Maccadyne building. The chaotic red and blue flashes of the police lit up the lower portions of the building, but didn't quite reach the point where the figures sat. Lexx cradled Mael, who still hadn't woken up. She was breathing, her heart still beat, but she refused to wake up. A car pulled up to the curb, a hearse. The driver's door opened and a huge man got out, "How is she?"

Lexx glared up at the man, "Who the fuck are you supposed to be? The grim reaper?"

"She looks bad. Here, get her in back, I can get her someplace safe."

"No! Fuck that, what's wrong with her and why should we trust you?"

"It looks like there was a crash, her brain needs to be restarted is all. I have the materials to do it back at my place, now come on before the law gets suspicious."

"Who the fuck are you?" Lexx asked, slowly getting up and cooperating despite herself.

"Mael is a client of mine. It looks like you guys only got out thanks to the help I gave her. My name's Viktor."

[Oni Koneko Damien]

And with that, I'm putting Lexx on the back-burner for a bit. From what I have vaguely planned out, this is actually going to be a five part series, and I need to get down a more solid plotline before I go back to work on it.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

I spoke too soon. After getting some outside feedback on the story I realize I've left things on a bit too much of a cliffhanger. Therefore I've taken what was originally going to be the first chapter of Book 2, made a few changes, and transformed it into the last chapter of Book 1, as it wraps some things up nicely and leaves the story on a tense, but not cliffhanger-esque resting point.

Chapter 19 (final chapter/epilogue)

It would be another hour or so before the sun went down. The curtains on the East end of the apartment were open, revealing the street three stories below. The apartment was well placed, looking out over a small park and community center that occupied the adjacent block, rather than more tenements. Inside the apartment there was rapt silence as a princess squared off against a bounty hunter.

The princess squared her feet, adopting a defensive stance as the bounty hunter jumped high overhead, somersaulting and releasing a potent blast of energy. Grass and brickwork scorched as the princess slid deftly out of the way. Seeing an opening for a counterattack she ran forward, culminating in a jump over a ten foot wide pit and nailing the bounty hunter with a roundhouse kick. Stunned by the blow, the hunter rolled off the edge of the massive floating platform, disappearing from sight. Celebration came too soon though, as the skilled hunter vaulted back onto the battleground using imperceptible hand holds in the rock face.

Surprised, but not intimidated, the princess jumped forward intending to meet her opponent and press the advantage she gained. Not to be outdone, the bounty hunter ducked easily under the attack, then flipped backwards into a patch of floating bricks, somehow smashing them apart in the process. A black spherical object fell out of the demolished bricks. Gleefully the bounty hunter picked up the item, lighting the fuse at the end of it. The princess, still unknowing, jumped forward again, her dress billowing outward and creating a floating effect, allowing her to easily cross the distance between them.

The bounty hunter threw the bomb, catching the princess off guard. The weapon exploded spectacularly, flinging the stunned royalty off the floating platform and into the blue void below. A second later the princess' body, still strangely whole after being at ground zero, exploded.

Lexx put down her controller and smiled, "Way to go Kaitlin."

Kaitlin was busy wiggling in place, eyes glued to the TV screen. She managed to tear her attention away long enough to glance over at Lexx, "Again?"

"Maybe in minute," Lexx said, "Too much of this hurts my eyes. I think Aaron's up for a game though."

Lexx gave Aaron an imploring glance. Aaron nodded and took her place in front of the TV, picking up the errant controller. Lexx grabbed her cane, pushed aside the impromptu curtain and left them alone in the family room. She traveled down the short hallway to the other side of the apartment, the kitchen. "How's she doing?" Sera asked, looking up from the potato she was cutting.

"I still can't believe we're really planning on going through with this," Lexx said, "This wouldn't have been possible a week ago."

Sera gave her a look, "Kaitlin needs it, and now we can afford it. Besides that, the adoption center thinks Aaron and I are a model couple. As far as costs, we cashed the check out, just like you said, do you think the money's just going to disappear?"

"I'm still worried," Lexx said, sitting on the opposite side of the counter and picking up her own potato, "It's all too-"

"Hey!" Sera snapped, "Wash your hands first."

"Oh, right, sorry. It's just too convenient to me. I just don't think it adds up."

"Oh yes, I agree," Sera said as Lexx finished at the sink then started helping with the potatoes, "But what can we do at the moment?"

"Be more watchful? More paranoid?"

"And what good would that do us?" Sera sat up and rubbed her back, wincing a little, "Do we really need to stress over that? Anyways, isn't Micheal already working on that?"

"Micheal can't find anything suspicious, but even he admits that he can only snag a few small bits of info from Maccadyne."

"And of all of us, Micheal's the best at that sort of thing, right? So we've already got the best we have on the job, there's nothing more we can really do, so let's stop stressing."

"We were in over our heads," Lexx began.

"Stop it," Sera warned, "I'm not letting you do that, Lexx."

"But Mael,"

"But nothing! Mael's not gone, she's just not awake at the moment! She's my daughter, and if I can accept that and keep going, so can you. I love both of you hon, and I'm not going to see one of you go into depression because the other's not here!"

"Mooomm..." Lexx's voice was tired, full of insincere complaint.

"Oh quit whining, you'll get tears in the potatoes. Now look, I've been really patient with the both of you, okay? I'm... amazed and thrilled at the things you've discovered about yourselves. I didn't try and stop you from your... that raid on Maccadyne, even though I knew you'd be risking your lives for me. Because I knew it was what you really wanted. And in the end you found it, didn't you? Aaron's back, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"And you're all still alive, right?"

"Kind of."

"Not kind of, you are all alive!"

"Jeez mom! Mael's... in a coma, and I'm refusing to take him to a hospital because I was told by a man I've met once that he needs a system-reboot rather than medical attention. And you accept it! Yell at me, tell me I'm fucking up and risking your daughter's life in the process! Quit just... taking it."

"Lexx, look at me," Sera said.

"What? I'm sorry... I've been tense..."

"Of course you have, we all have. It hasn't been easy," Sera said, "But do you want to know why I'm acting this way? Over the past few weeks I've seen too many impossible things happen. I lost you, just like that, then you came back, out of the rain, changed, older, but still you in your heart. I've seen you and Mael suddenly break through the laws of physics, to do things I didn't think anyone could do. And I've seen you two do such good things with that capability, which just cemented my belief that you both are essentially good people. And... and...," Sera hitched a little, "And then, I let you both go, on your word. And true to your word, you both did the impossible, you brought the man I love back from the dead.

"So if you're wondering why I'm just... taking it? That's why, because you've already proven you can keep to your word, no matter how impossible it may seem."

Lexx finished up her potato, "Mom, you're... mom? Are you okay?"

"Fine," Sera said, wincing more and trying to stretch a little, "I've just been having a backache all day."

"Did you take anything for it?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine."

"Mom, look, I just want to-" Lexx jumped as a buzzer suddenly went off, "Oh, shit, that's Micheal!"

"Is he coming in to eat?" Sera asked as Lexx scrambled out of her seat, grabbing the cane and making the trip back across the apartment.

"Best of luck keeping him around long enough to," Lexx called back.

Once again throwing the curtain aside, Lexx hobbled around a surprised looking Kaitlin. Aaron had already opened the window while Calvin gave an inquisitive chirrup and peered out to the world below. Lexx brushed Aaron aside with a smile and poked her head out the window, "We don't want any!"

Three stories down, Micheal looked up at her, "Don't want any what? Black people?"

"We don't need your kind infesting our neighborhood!" the smile didn't fade.

"But I'm here to steal all the white wimminz, ooga boogah!"

"Oh dear," Lexx said with a shocked look, "How can I possibly resist, your cock is so much bigger!"

"Are you going to let me in, or is 'the man' going to keep me down here?"

"I'll be right down," Lexx said, "Hey Aaron, want to open the door for us?"

Aaron nodded and headed for the buzzer. Lexx returned her focus to the sidewalk below. It was a relatively quiet part of town, but it still didn't hurt to make sure there were no 'innocent' bystanders nearby who might see something rather unsettling. No one appeared present, Lexx was open to indulge herself a little. She stared intently at the ground directly behind Micheal. The cracks and texture of the pavement. Even from up here, in the waning daylight, it looked close enough to touch. All it would take is a slight reach, a step of blind faith. Lexx concentrated on that spot, on simply skipping over the fifty or so feet of intervening space, jumping from one point to the other in an instant.

"Bamf."

Lexx reached out and tapped Micheal on the shoulder. He gave a start and turned sharply, nearly losing his balance in the process. "Goddamnit, I should be expecting that by now," he said, grabbing his chest.

"Hey hon," Lexx said and gave him a hug, "You're early, as usual."

"Punctuality is a good thing," Micheal returned the hug.

A sharp buzzing came from the main doorway into the apartment. Micheal stepped forward and grabbed the handle before the lock could re-activate, "You didn't have to come down here, you know, I'll be up there in a minute."

"And have you walk those flights of stairs alone?" Lexx asked, "I don't think so."

"You're on a cane."

"I'm handi-capable!"

"It's still a risk, doing that in sorta public like that."

"What? No one saw me. And besides, I like to keep on the ball with this, don't want to grow rusty or anything."

"Someone always sees," Micheal glowered.

"You're in a delightful mood."

"Still worried about things?"

"It would be foolish not to be. Nothing's truly over yet. Did... umm... did the check clear?"

"Yeah, that's the biggest thing I'm worried about from that direction," Lexx said, "I mean, the police took it well enough, Aaron suddenly returning from the dead. But then again it was all just a matter of misfiled paperwork to them. But Maccadyne? 'Oh dear, we accidentally filed this person as deceased. Here, have him back, and have ten-thousand as compensation for lost wages and emotional trauma, oh yes, and here's a lovely reference for a data entry position for him in a place that has no real connection to us.' It seems just a little too convenient for me. From what I've seen, that's not the way they operate"

"No, it isn't," Micheal said, "I think we managed to hurt them, Lexx. And when they decide to hurt back... well, it's not going to be good."

"Have you found more?" Lexx asked.

"I'd rather not talk about it here."

"Why? Because you think the apartment's bugged? Quit being so damn paranoid and come out with it!" Lexx snapped.

"Hey! Easy, I was just saying I didn't want to dampen the mood as soon as I got here."

"Please, I'll do that before you do, just tell me what's up," Lexx said.

"Nothing concrete," Micheal admitted, "Just a few more people going in and out, the servers seem a little busier, and Veronica's actually showed her face for the first time since..."

"Yeah... that," Lexx said.

"How is she?" Micheal asked.

"Same as before. Alive, all vitals fine, just not awake. Not asleep, or at least not the same sort of mental state as sleep, according to Viktor," Lexx said, "Just... shut down."

"Any more luck on getting her out of it?"

"Same as before, 'We need an energy source' Viktor says. I can run down to Radio Shack and get him however many batteries he wants. He says something else. I ask what. He says he can't explain, but I'll know it when I see it if I'm really all I'm cracked up to be. I then restrain the urge to hit the fucker."

"Yeah, look, I've been asking around about him and... umm... he doesn't exactly have the best reputation," Micheal said, "In fact he has a really bad reputation. He's sort of blacklisted in the Society, actually."

"Woo-fucking-hoo," Lexx said, "Sorry I couldn't make the meeting, by the way, I was visiting Mael."

"Yeah, understandable, but look, everything I've heard, and what I've seen, he doesn't strike me as one of the good guys."

"Good guys? Jesus Micheal, there are no 'good guys' here. There aren't any 'bad guys' either, not really. Yeah, that bitch Veronica? Terrance, before his unfortunate demise? In their eyes, they were the ones doing good and we were the ignorant fuckers getting in the way with our outdated views of the world or something."

"Yeah, I get that," Micheal said, "I'm not one of those black and white idiots. I'm just saying, even in a world full of shades of gray, Viktor seems more on the darker end of things than most people..."

"Can you find anyone else that can help us? Help get Mael back? He was the one who made her like this in the first place."

"I'm not saying ditch him... just saying we shouldn't go blindly into this."

"We never have," Lexx said, "Right now we need him, whatever his own goals are. I need him, and if that's too much for you, then just get the fuck out of my way."

"Whoa, easy, calm down, I wasn't saying-"

"Look at me, this is me calm," Lexx growled, "A week ago I admitted to myself that Mael was the most important person in my life, and now she's in a fucking super-coma and the only one who can bring her out of it is Viktor. So he he wants me to get on my knees and suck his mad-scientist cock in return for Mael, I'll lick my lips and dive right between his legs! Okay? Do you get it? That's how much she means to me, I will do almost anything for that woman. Right now she's next to dead, and her life is in the hands of that man. In that context, I think I'm being pretty goddamn calm!"

"Alright, sorry, fuck."

"No..." Lexx caught her breath, "I'm sorry. Holy shit, did I just do that?"

"You're on edge."

"No fucking shit, give me a moment I might swing to the other end of the spectrum and try to make out with you."

"In front of the family?"

"Are you saying you don't want to make out with me?"

"I'm saying if we take too much longer getting up the stairs they might just come down to check up on us."

"Good point. We should get upstairs, Sera's making dinner."

"Is that a good or bad thing?"

"Haven't I told you about Sera's cooking? She can take a rotten onion and make it taste like ambrosia, let's go."