Riptide Storyverse Stories

Subject: Total LockDown
Author: Reed
Date: 2000-03-23 00:00:00

MysteryMan steps out to the crowd. SoulTaker is behind him. MysteryMan grins.

"Attention...my term as President will soon be over, and so...now I can rule without worrying of being empeached!" MysteryMan tells the audience.

The audience gasps as MysteryMan points towards a building with gigantic double dooors. The doors slowly open, and a bot jumps out.

The bot is black, with red glowing eyes. There are patches of blue everywhere on him. He stands 9 feet tall, and he appears to glare at everyone.

"Beep, beep, beep! Whiiirr! MysteryBot has orders to destroy all who apose the Mystery!" MysteryBot whirrs.

Everyone is looking at this silenty, except Psycho_Sam! who yells, "You rip-off!" and Adun975 is busy telling people, "See...I'm really Protoss, yay, you know..."

MysteryBot picks up Adun975 who screams. "wait, wait, com'on man don't please ohmigod." MysteryBot smashes Adun against the ground. MysteryBot turns to glare at the crowd, who takes a step back.

"Now, everyone, Riptide is going into Total Lockdown. Everyone, you will now go to the jail. At 2300 hours, I shall call you out to work in the mines. I repeat, this is a total lockdown!" MysteryMan tells the crowd. He then turns to MysteryBot. "Take them to the jail"

MysteryBot beeps in response, then starts to herd the protesting crowd.

MysteryMan turns to face SoulTaker. "SM_007 and Tridus are gone. I'm afraid they may resist us."

SoulTaker nods. "I have a plan..."

MysteryMan turns to grin at the crowd who is walking away, with MysteryBot behind them. "Mwahaha, I will finally rule...as long as Tridus and SM_007 don't come back"

MysteryMan

"The Phoenix can be reborn, but it is never the same"

Subject: MysteryBot vs. MechaSam!
Author: The Lord DebtAngel
Date: 2000-03-23 00:00:00

"...and in other news, everybody in Riptide has been sent to jail..."



Wowe. News to me. Good thing I don't go to the Presidential pep rallies.



*Wrrr. Bzzzzt. Ding dong.*



"Who is it?"



"MysteryBot. You are to go directly to jail. You will not pass Go. You will not collect $200."



"Ah man. MechaSam! Sic him boy! Sic him!"



MechaSam! gets up, wobbles a bit, and stares MysteryBot straight in the face. MysteryBot fails to react, because he is a robot. Mysteriously, Japanese fight music begins playing from the stereo, and the two Bots face off for battle.



MysteryBot: Wurrr. Buzzzzt.

MechaSam!: Raaaaht! Raaaht! (Godzilla, anyone?)



MysteryBot swipes at MechaSam!, but MechaSam! was swiping too and lost his balance, inadvertently dodging the punch. MysteryBot gets in three quick uppercuts, lifting MechaSam! through the air.



MechaSam!: Raaaaht!



MechaSam! fires a badly animated green shot at MysteryBot, which causes sparks to fly off his metal casing. MysteryBot starts spinning really fast, causing a high pitch squeal. This knocks DebtAngel out cold, but MechaSam! comes back quickly with a jumpkick to the fuselage. MysteryBot is pushed back into a family of deer that it had called when causing the squeal. MysteryBot tries to fight his way past the deer, but it's one heck of a family, and they just want to protect him.



MechaSam!, sensing his job was done, tries to revive DebtAngel by licking his face. Unfortunately, since MechaSam!'s tongue is merely a set of exposed wires, all DebtAngel gets is a shock.



"Ow. Hey. Sammy! Good boy! Come on, lets fix you up now, and bail out the rest of the forumers."



SYNOPSIS: I ain't goin' to jail that easy, punk :).

Is it not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worship the comic.

Subject: The Attacks
Author: Reed
Date: 2000-03-24 00:00:00

Two people creep down an ally. They hide behind a trash can, as they hear someone making a speech.



Person#1 whispers, "What do we do with the body?"



"Beat it up," answers Person#2.



Adun, after happily making a speech, walks down that ally. He passes a trash can, then he hears a noise behind him. He starts to turn around, but his back of his head suddenly burns like crazy, and he realizes he was hit. He turns around and only sees red before he falls to the ground.

Subject: Against all Oddities (Story)
Author: rRaminrodt
Date: 2000-03-27 00:00:00

rRaminrodt

Subject: (POST BOX STOREE) The good book says we may be through with the past...
Author: SM_007
Date: 2000-03-27 00:00:00

But the past is not through with us.

[Scene: Tridus' cottage, far, far away from everyone else.]

(Tridus is sitting at the table, his head lowered and resting on his crossed arms. He stares at Sashie, who is still resting and recharging her batteries. SM_007, who was simply thinking about the story which Tridus has told him, came around when he heard a knocking at the door.)

(Startled, SM_007 sprung to his feet, and slowly removed his PP7 pistol, expecting the worst. Then, seeing Tridus slowly come to his feet with a smile, remembered that Tridus had ordered a pizza, and immediately felt foolish. Tridus walked over to the door while SM_007 put his gun back in its holster, and slumped back down in his chair once again, to think. However, a second after he had sat back down, he saw Tridus fly across the room, and smash through the table where Sashie was laying. They both flew hard into the wall and floor, neither of them showing any signs of being conscious.)

(SM_007 gasped and stood up, and once again got ready to pull out his silenced pistol. As he did so, he saw a man calmly walk in and survey the room. He looked left to right, and then slowly looked at SM_007 with a smirk on his face. The man, who was dressed in a dark, black suit with black shades, didn't seem at all familier to SM_007.)

Agent: I have been waiting a long time for this moment, agent 007.

SM_007: Who are you?!

(The agent just smirked and looked back at the fallen Tridus.)

Agent: Your friend...will live. He will live because you will make the right choice.

SM_007: What the hell are you talking about?

Agent: Your mission is successful, agent 007. It is time for you to remember who you are. Would you like me to give you your memories back?

SM_007: Wha--

Agent: Do you want me to give you your memories back?

SM_007: Yes.

(The agent stares at SM_007 for a few seconds, and nothing happens. Then, SM_007 grabs his head, as if in severe pain. He nearly falls to the ground, but manages to regain his composure while stumbling a few steps in random directions around the room. His mouth is open wide as he squints his eyes. Finally, it all comes to a stop as SM_007's eyes open and he stands up straight once more, and looks around his familier surroundings.)

(SM_007 looks at Tridus and Sashie, and can remember his life, going back to when he first became a part of the community. He remembers going to Battle.net, where he met several people who formed SideWinder. He remembers SideWinder becoming the guard of Blizzard against the lamers that would attempt to strike them down. And he remembers SideWinder turning on Blizzard and becoming neutral in that war, finally opting to set up a base away from Battle.net, where they could watch over events in peace. And he can finally remember SideWinder's demise, and how some of the members formed Riptide. He remembers everything that he used to know, which unfortunately, isn't all of it, he realizes.)

SM_007: How come I can't remember anything before I went to the Battle.net community? That's my earliest memory, and that was only a couple of years ago.

Agent: There is much more to show you. You have never had those memories to begin with. Once you were done your training, we had you go to the Blizzard community, and even set up obstacles to test your skills.

SM_007: Obstacles?

(SM_007 feels unnaturally calm when talking to the man, as if he were an old friend.)

Agent: Yes. Our organization possesses technologies and skills which most humans will never fully master, or use properly. We have these technologies at our whim.

SM_007: What do you mean?

Agent: Cloning, agent 007. I am a clone. All agents are, except for two exceptions. You, and the leader of our organization. The leader of our organization is an imperfect human who is dying.

SM_007: Can't he be cloned, too?

Agent: Yes, but he would lose any existing memories. We have not been able to perfect this technology, and any clone has the mindset of a child. I, and my brothers, work well because we have a specific program set up to teach us what we need to know. Such a system could not be set up for our leader, who easily has a life too complex for those memories to be accuratly set up in a system for him to remember them all before he is the same age.

SM_007: Then how did you give my memories back? Well, some of them, anyway?

Agent: Those memories were still existent, only blocked off. I simply...allowed you to access them.

SM_007: So what obstacles were you speaking of, earlier?

Agent: For example, your clone, Edge. Orazath is another agent of our organization, hired meerly for you to eventually kill him, to see if you were permenately damaged after your memory loss.

SM_007: I can't believe all of this.

(SM_007 finally realizes where he is, and sits down. He thinks for a moment, before the agent speaks again.)

Agent: At first, you will not wish to help us. However, you will eventually remember who...you are. And when that time comes, you will make the right choice.

SM_007: How do you know all of this?

Agent: The same way you do. Or did. You have powers, which we call "evahl," that can allow you to operate at higher speeds. You can move faster than most humans can see. You can see the future, communicate telepathically, and you even have some telekenetic abilities as well. Of course, we restricted these when your memory was lost, so we could gradually reintroduce you to who you are.

(SM_007's eyes grow wide with excitement.)

SM_007: So this explains how I--

Agent: Yes. How you were able to perform a seeminly remarkable leap from a metal beam to another metal beam, holding onto a large chain, almost faster than the human eye could keep track.

SM_007: So, you allowed me to use my powers at that moment?

Agent: No. You will gradually learn to use them again, like all agents.

SM_007: I should be offended by all of this, but...

(SM_007 doesn't finish the thought. The agent goes over to where Sashie is, and picks her up, looking the laptop over. SM_007 looks up, and seeing this, jumps to his feet.)

SM_007: What are you doing?!

Agent: We need this...laptop. Many years ago, imperfect human agents, which was all we had, were sent to find research data on a method of controlling the nuclear arms of various countries. It was a new, improved form of hacking which could lead to the persons having the technology great power. Our organization wanted this data, and in the battle to take it, Tridus inserted the mind of his daughter into a laptop to save her, in a method which even we don't comprehend fully. We need this method to save our leader, so we could put his mind back into a younger, healthier clone.

SM_007: You wanted one thing, and your attack led you to a greater purpose?

Agent: We forsaw this, and although the data was not recovered as we had wished, the essential aspect of this mission was for Tridus to put the mind of his daughter, Sashie, into his laptop. We knew that years later, our leader would become sickly and, therefore, deathly. As we forsaw, Tridus did indeed use his laptop to save his daughter, and we have finally come to claim the laptop, along with you.

(SM_007 became suddenly enraged, which suprised the agent.)

SM_007: Tridus is my friend, you bastards! You don't care about his wife or child! You used him and his family to further your gain!

Agent: Try not to see us as...evil. It is for a greater good that this is happening, 007. You will see that someday. We...understand that Tridus is...what you could consider a friend. However, you will quickly begin to see a larger whole, and come to accept who you are...through time. And although we cannot expect your full cooperation at the moment, it is imperative that we take this...thing.

(SM_007 whips out his PP7 pistol, and then fires several shots at the agent, bullets which are dodged by the agent, whom doesn't even have to move from where he was standing at all. SM_007's hears his gun click, and before he can reload it, he finds himself being pummled by the agent, who is giving stiff shots into SM_007's gut. SM_007 finally regains his composure, and begins to block the punches with his own inhuman speed.)

(He manages to do this for a few moments, but then quickly is overcome by the speedier agent, whom kicks SM_007 across the room, and into a wall, which he indents before crashing to the ground, coughing as a trickle of blood dangles from his mouth. The agent walks over, straightening his tie, much in the fasion SM_007 used to.)

Agent: I must say that I am...disappointed. Even we did not forsee such a lack of...progress from you.

(SM_007 tries to respond, but can only quietly grunt, humiliatingly.)

Agent: One of us will return for you later, SM_007.

(The agent then begins to glow a bright green, a light which increases until only the agent's form is invisible. And like the other agents, this one glows white for a second before disappearing completely. SM_007 then crawls to his feet, and looks over at Tridus, who is beginning to stir. Holding his gut and limping, SM_007 swaggers his way out the door, and prepares to leave the area.)

(Outside of the cabin, SM_007 sees something familier. A silver jaguar, which he had been missing since he lost his memory, was parked, and in perfect condition. He smiled briefly, before frowning and gragging his feet over to the car, and getting in. Once in, he used a voice recognition command to activate it, and it sped off at very high speeds, just as Tridus was beginning to wake up in the cabin.)

The End - is the Beginning

CHANGES BY THIS STOREE:
Geez, where to begin? Tridus is missing his laptop, and was knocked out, so doesn't really know what just happened to him. SM_007 has regained his memory (well, as much as he had before he entered the Blizzard community three some years ago), and has also learned some of his past, thanks to an agent. SM_007 may have his memory back, but his outlook on just about everything...is beginning to change.

SM_007
We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.

Subject: 'and so comes the dawn'...
Author: Tridus
Date: 2000-03-27 00:00:00

(note, you shoudl have read SM's story before reading this, since it takes place right afterwards.)

Tridus feels consciousness slowly returning to him, slowly... painstakingly slowly...

at first its just a vague awareness, senses that his mind can't yet process into something useful...

then the realization that what he is seeing is the roof... what he is hearing is the sounds that are familiar outside his cottage...

at the same time, control of his body was returning... he could feel his eyes, could direct them to look at different parts of the roof... underneath his hands and arms was something, he couldn't tell quite what... but not his polished hardwood floor... his feet... his feet felt cold.

unsure of what else to do, he tried to sit up, and was rewarded with a wave of dizziness that quickly sent him back down onto his back.

so he waited... more senses came back to him... agonizingly slowly, but still they returned... he became aware that most of his body ached... that his feet were cold, and seemingly getting colder... and that something was missing...

moving his arms a little bit and feeling around, he noticed that what felt like a table was around him...

trying once again to get up, he was slowly able to lift himself into a sitting position... the room was spinning, but it was manageable.

the spinning slowly subsided, and he noticed more things about his surroundings... the table he had borrowed from some friends in Montreal all those years ago was in less then ideal condition... the door to his cottage sat wide open sending air from the cold Northern Quebec night blowing into his cottage...

yes... thats right, his cottage. his cottage, his home... and he had a guest...

slowly looking around the room, he couldn't see his guest... maybe whoever attacked him had done the same and taken him... maybe he had left... maybe they were somehow working together...

he put a hand to his head, the attempt at reasoning made his head throb... figuring it was probably a concussion causing that problem, he resolved to simply make it over to the chair sitting not too far away, and he managed to painstakingly crawl his way over and into it...

after sitting there for a few minutes, enough of his senses had cleared that he realized he needed help...

"Sashie, call the hospital." The words came instinctively.

However, unlike what his instincts expected, a response never came.

"Sashie?"

Again, no response came, and something told him something was very wrong.

Mustering the energy to look around, he scanned the room as quickly as the dizziness would allow, and noticed that something was missing, but couldn't quite figure out what...

'ugh... I'm too old for this nonsense' he thought as he laid back in the chair. 'it doesn't make sense... someone... he... he... SM_007.. yeah... thats right... was here... I was sitting over there... someone knocked on the door... I got up to answer it... and flew back and landed on the table with Sashie...'

Tridus looked at the table.

'SASHIE!'

Fear sliced through the dizziness engulfing his mind like a hot sword through butter, at least briefly..

He jumped up and tried to dash over to the table to look for his laptop, but after two steps was overtaken by the dizziness and collapsed into a heap on the floor, just as the pizza guy was walking in.

Chuck the pizza guy - Tri dude you ok!?

Chuck sets the pizza down on a small coffee table, closes the door, and then goes over to Tridus quickly to check on him.

Chuck - dude you look horrible... what happened??

Tridus - *groan* sashie... just...

Chuck - dude... I'm gonna call a doctor or something...

Tridus - no... *groan* just... get me to... the... chair... and look for... sashie...

Chuck - you mean that computer of yours? Sure.... sure...

Chuck the pizza guy helps Tridus back into the chair he was sitting in before trying to run around, then looks around the cottage for a few minutes.

Chuck - its not here dude.

Tridus - ... *sigh* thanks...

Chuck - did it get stolen or something?

Tridus - *very wearily* probably...

Chuck - that sucks dude.. wnat me to call the cops?

Tridus - no... just.... just go...

Chuck - ... alright... you take care.

With that, Chuck departs, leaving Tridus sitting in the chair, gazing out the window with glazed eyes and an empty heart.

Night passed and the morning light descended upon the cottage, but the scene inside had not changed. Eveuntally, the sun shining into his eyes through a window finally awoke Tridus from his daze.

However, after that, he still couldn't think straight, and all that came to mind was a sense of loss... and a burning desire to find out who had done this and make them pay... and thinking of SM_007, anyone the least bit involved... they would all pay, just as soon as he mustered up the will to get up and fight again...

"If there were no words, no way to speak... I would still hear you..." - Martina McBride

Subject: As the sun sets in the forum
Author: The Lord DebtAngel
Date: 2000-03-27 00:00:00

(NOTE: I'm not quite sure wtf happened with the evil worker mines, so I'm just assuming the whole thing went by the wayside when MysteryMan passed on).

DebtAngel and Ikik walk through the forum on their way to the grocery store, when Debt notices the memorial to MysteryMan. He pauses, which really confuses Ikik, until the sun glints off the memorial which grabs his attention. The two of them stand in front of the memorial for a minute, Ikik, starts to fidget, and notices a single tear roll off DebtAngel's cheek.

Ikik: What's wrong Debt?
^$^: Nothing. It's just wrong is all. Sure, he went a little batty at the end there, but I've never had a problem with the President. It's saddening to think he died like a dog in the street.
Ikik: Yeah...the forum is going to need a leader.
^$^: There will be plenty of time for that...Now come on, I still need milk.

The man and his pet walk off into the sunset. As Debt puts on his sunglasses, Ikik takes one final look back and wonders just what will happen now.


Is it not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worship the comic.

Subject: Strife in the Future (storyverse)
Author: rRaminrodt
Date: 2000-04-04 00:00:00

rRaminrodt

Subject: (POST BOX STOREE) At the same time and the same place with the same people...
Author: SM_007
Date: 2000-04-05 00:00:00

Subject: 'its not that we don't believe you, its just that your crazy'
Author: Tridus
Date: 2000-04-06 00:00:00

(notes: this starts shortly after SM's story below, and anything blocked off and in italics is probably a flashback type thing)

*Tridus, rRaminrodt, and SoulTaker are all sitting at the large rectangular conference table in Riptide HQ's rather expensive looking conference room. Tridus is at the head of the table, with rRaminrodt to his right and SoulTaker directly to his left, the rest of the table's seats sit empty. Tridus has his swords propped up against the side of his chair, not really used to actually having to keep them somewhere anymore, after years of having Sashie just deal with it for him.*

*The three sit and look at each other, trying to figure out what to do. rRaminrodt seems to actually be paying attention, SoulTaker seems to be semi-listening, but he's distracted by the idea that yet another President has suffered a horrible fate, this time relatively unknown... and Tridus, Tridus at least managed to look like he was paying attention...*

Subject: Phase in the Window (Post-box Storyverse)
Author: rRaminrodt
Date: 2000-04-06 00:00:00

(Direct continuation from tridus' latest so Im not gonna do any bg stuff)

As he stared out the window he realized something wasn't right. Tridus was staring straight into a pair of eyes...

His own eyes...

The first thought that sprang into his head was he was looking at a reflection of himself. But the face that the eyes belonged to was different, craggy with age and bearded. Then as a final testament to the fact that it wasn't his reflection, the window shattered.

Tridus went for his swords, but before he could reach them the figure spoke.

The Searcher: Break.

As soon as he said this Tridus's swords crumbled like dry clay. Tridus spun around a lept toward the door.

The Searcher: Seal.

Tridus grabbed at the door in vain. It was if the door and the wall were one adamantium peice.

Tridus: Who are you?!

The Searcher: I am The Searcher. You will listen to what I have to say...

Tridus: *calmed, but baffled* I am Tridus, what do you want... and why the heck do you look like me?

The Searcher: Ah. Tridus, I remember that name... It was mine once, long ago.

Tridus: What? You're me?

The Searcher: Possibly. There are many paths to the future, mine is only one. *he turns to look out the broken window* But a strong one. That is why I am here.

Tridus: Wha...

The Searcher: I am The Searcher, It is my destiny to forever seek a new path into *he pauses* the future. The true future, which I destroyed.

Tridus: I'd never...

The Searcher: Silence! I knew I should have never spoke to you. The thought that I was once so simple minded. *he turns now looking at Tridus again* I sense a question in you, ask it.

Tridus: *now a little nervous* How did I, uh, become you?

The Searcher: The story is long, and I don't have the time here. I will tell you that my hand is guided by the Twisting Nether, yet my soul is my own...

The Searcher: Now, you must tell me where the Man of Bone is.

Tridus: SoulTaker?

The Searcher: Yes.

Tridus: He's downstairs, probably, still in the conference room.

The Searcher: Good. Go to the garage below and prepare a vehicle for us, I will meet you there.

The door to the room opened and the stepped out. Tridus felt strangely compelled to do what this "future Tridus" told him to do, so he entered the Elevator and pressed the B1 button, while he watched the man slowly walk down the stairs.

The Searcher could still remeber the layout of this place. It had been burned into his memory oh so long ago. But this was unimportant, only his quest, just that and the chance to be free.

He entered the conference room startling rRaminrodt and SoulTaker who were going over maps of the local area. The both jumped startled at the sudden entrance.

SoulTaker: Tridus??

rRaminrodt: Now whats going on?

The Searcher *lifting his hand and pointig at rRaminrodt*: back fiend.

rRaminrodt was flung agianst the far wall and stuck there, struggling futilely. SoulTaker immediately dropped into a defensive mode.

SoulTaker: I don't know why you're impersonating Tridus but your in trou...

The Searcher: You will come with me.

SoulTaker: I don't wa... ugrh. *he begins to tremble*

The Searcher: You will come with me.

SoulTaker: *in an almost defeated voice* I will, sir.

SoulTaker followed The Searcher out of the room and down to the basement. Tridus was waiting in a running jeep with the Riptide Logo painted on the side.
The Searcher and SoulTaker get in and close the door behind them.

The Searcher: Do you know this park? He shows tridus a postcard.

Tridus: Yeah. Thats in the south part of town. Nice neighborhood.

The Searcher: Go there first. Then we will go somewhere else, then I will be done with you for now.

They engine roared and they sped off toward the park.

=Scene: Fandbridge Park, a half hour later=

The Searcher: There.

SoulTaker: That box?

The Searcher: Yes, now open it and walk back to where I'm standing.

Tridus and SoulTaker slide the top off of the box and walk away as they reach The Searcher a buzzing noise comes out of the box. Then something slides out.

Tridus: A drone? Oh. No way!

The Searcher holds Tridus and SoulTaker as the Drone slides about the landscape looking for a good spot. When it finds one the drone begins to morph.

SoulTaker: Why?

The Searcher: It will soon become a nydus canal. But that will take time, we must drive south along the road called Route 15.

Tridus: How far south? Thats a long road.

The Searcher: We must not waste any time. Come!

=Scene: Hours later, in the jeep=

The Searcher: *pointing* there

He is pointing toward a rickety old building, the typical desert gas station. A number of people are lounging about the front porch. One, a man wearing sandles, a smock and carrying a crook curled at the top spies them and shouts to his companions. A man wearing a 40's style pilots outfit smiles and mouths something to a rabbit about 'visitors'.

They pull up and The Searcher climbs out. He calls for SoulTaker, who follows.

Lil bo shepard: Weeelcome pardner, to RStefan01.com!

The Searcher: Where is he?

Shepard: Who?

The Searcher: *shouting* Zero-One! Code: Alpha zeta omega phi!

Suddenly a chrashing noise erupts from inside the builing and then through the wall leaps RStefan01, beer can in hand.

RStefan01: Ahrg. What is going on.

The Searcher: Forgetten already, 01? No matter.

The Searcher: SoulTaker, *grabs SoulTakers hand* Take my soul.

SoulTaker: NO! I wont do that anymore!

The Searcher: Do it!

SoulTaker begins to comply grudingly...

ST: Ah! There are two souls!

The Searcher: Yes. Now do what I told you. I have prepared myself.

SoulTaker concentrates and soon both are bathed in a dark red glow... which intesifies until an unnatural thunderclap fills the sky...

To be continued!

Notes:

Bwahahahaha!

rRaminrodt

Subject: The farm incident (post-box storyverse)
Author: SoulTaker
Date: 2000-04-06 00:00:00

The heaven darkened, and soom the farm was only illuminated by SoulTaker and The Searchers red glow. They both began shaking. The Searcher closed his eyes. SoulTaker held The Searchers hand even tighter, his bony fingers digging into The Searchers thin flesh. The Searchers chest began glowing red, and a transparent, dim shape began to separate from The Searchers body. The shape moved towards SoulTaker while taking the shape of his skeletal body. While The Searchers red glow became dimmer, SoulTakers became more powerful. As the red shape moved into SoulTaker's body, he shaked violently.

SoulTaker: "Hrrngh... The... Pain! AAH!"

SoulTaker fell to the ground. The clouds cleared, and the sky brightened...

Lil Bo Shepherd looked at a cow beside him.

Lil Bo Shepherd: "Now that was some light show, huh?"

Cow: "Moo."

Lil Bo Shepherd: "Thinkin' the same thing."

Cow: "Moo. Moo."

The Searcher opened his eyes. He looked at his hands. They were crumbling. His skin began to lose its saturation... Slowly, he grew larger... Increasing his height to 2 meters. His eyes became larger, and his body was morphing into something more... Animal. The old skin fell off his body, revealing a strange, brown substance covering his body.

Tridus, Lil Bo Shepherd and RStefan01 looked in amazement as The Searcher grew into a hybrid of a Zerg and a Protoss.

Lil Bo Shepherd: "Holy Cow!"

Cow: "Moo!"

His body done with the metamorphosis, The Zerg/Protoss raised his arms into the air...

The Searcher: "Yes... It is all so clear now... "

The Searcher looked at Tridus.

The Searcher: "You will stay here."

He turned to face RStefan01 and Lil Bo Shepherd.

The Searcher: "Guardian of sheep, you will too stay. Zero-one, come with me. The time has come to make my move."

Lil Bo Shepherd: "Yo' leavin' now? What about the cows?"

RStefan01: "Sorry, Bo. Business first, cows later. I don't have much of a choice."

Lil Bo Shepherd turns to face the cow.

Lil Bo Shepherd: "Well, sweetie, I guess it's just me and you now... "

Cow: "Moo."

The Searcher enters the jeep, with RStefan01 sitting in the back, and drives away. Tridus looks at them as they drive away, still baffled... He then turns to face SoulTaker, who is still lying on the ground.

Tridus: "SoulTaker... "

He kneels beside SoulTakers body.

Tridus: "SoulTaker... "

SoulTaker moves his head to face Tridus. At first he seemed normal... But then, in a few seconds, his face morphed into what was once The Searcher's. Tridus quickly moves a few steps away, shocked.

SoulTaker: "Hngg... "

SoulTakers face changed back to his original bony skeleton face...

Tridus looks at SoulTaker, and then looks at the horizon, where he could still see the jeep.

Tridus: "I don't know what happening... But I'm not happy with it."

"My girlfriend and I were happy for 16 years. Then we met."

Subject: Background Chaos
Author: The Lord DebtAngel
Date: 2000-04-06 00:00:00

I've been in my apartment since the Election results were announced. My greatest fear was realized. Bandwidth is President. The Communists are in power.

Communism never works for people like me. Next thing you know, I'm gonna have some sort of secret police or Psycho_Bot! or something knocking down my door. Wanting my inventions. The Ferret Flyer. The flux agitator (it *will* bridge dimensions again one day, but I'm having real troubles finding a pretzel shaped fuse...). Maybe even MechaSam!.

But that isn't the worst part. All kinds of wierd stuff has been happening today, and I know if I go out there, I'll be dragged right into it.

I just ran out of bread, and have a real craving for a corned beef sandwich.

Damn my luck.

Subject: Soultaking 101 (post-box storyverse)
Author: SoulTaker
Date: 2000-04-07 00:00:00

SoulTaker slowly gets on his feet again. Still recovering from taking one of The Searchers souls, he is quite dizzy and is having a hard time staying upright.

Lil Bo Shepherd: "Yo' should go sit for a while. Come on in, to RStefan01.com!"

Tridus: "Thanks, Bo."

Tridus helps SoulTaker walk into the house. They walk into the living room, where all 3 of them take a seat.

Tridus: "I didn't know you could actually TAKE souls... "

SoulTaker just sits.

Tridus: "Are you OK?"

SoulTaker: "Yeah... I just have to get the new soul balanced... "

Tridus: "What do you mean?"

SoulTaker: "I'll try to explain it. The Searcher had two souls in him. One was the "Future Tridus", and the other was the Zerg/Protoss hybrid. Don't know why he had 2 souls, but apparently he couldn't control both of them, and was stuck with the "Future Tridus" soul. He wanted me to take that soul, so that he could use the Zerg/Protoss."

SoulTaker: "Now I have 2 souls, and I have to learn to control the new one. Each soul has its own personality, and before I can return to "normal functionality", I have to balance the two. The "Future Tridus" soul will have to change. Right now, I can't really control which soul is controlling my actions... Which means, that The Searchers "Future Tridus" personality will show itself in my body occasionally, until I regain control."

Tridus: "Does that mean that you will occasionally behave and look as The Searcher's 'Future Tridus'?"

SoulTaker: "Exactly. As you can see, it's very important that I regain control, and make my original soul the dominating one in my body... "

Tridus: "So, what you're saying is that there are 2 souls in your body, waging for control?"

SoulTaker: "Yes."

Tridus: "And you need to 'change' the Future Tridus soul?"

SoulTaker: "I either will need to affect the new soul's personality to become like my original soul, or simply make my soul the dominating one."

Tridus: "Interesting. And then, sometime, you will be able to control both souls, and change between them freely?"

SoulTaker: "Well, that's quite a lofty goal. To be able to change between "Future Tridus" and me... It is possible, but I don't think I will be able to do it. My abilities have been inactive too long... All I want is to remove the danger of Future Tridus controlling my body. I don't think I will be able to change between them whenever I want."

Tridus: "Can't you just somehow destroy the 'Future Tridus'?"

SoulTaker: "Souls cannot be destroyed. They can move from body to body... But never destroyed."

Tridus: "So you could actually move Future Tridus into, say, rRaminrodt's body?"

SoulTaker: "Yeah, but that's not a good idea. It is quite a shocking experience, having to fight for control of your body."

Tridus: "An interesting possibility, though. What happens if Future Tridus gains control of your body?"

SoulTaker: "You mean, full control? If Future Tridus gains 100% control of my body?"

Tridus: "Yes."

SoulTaker: "Then I would be... Dead."

Tridus: "You're already dead, aren't you? I mean, undead."

SoulTaker: "But if another soul took control of my body, I would be without body... Which is... Death."

Tridus: "Scary."

SoulTaker: "For security, I think that I should be locked up until I gain control of my new soul. If Future Tridus gets in control, I could endanger all of you."

Tridus: "Right..."

Tridus: "But there's nowhere to lock you up here, and RStefan01 left in the jeep."

Lil Bo Shepherd: "We got the cellar downstairs, if yo' interested."

SoulTaker: "That would be a good idea."

Lil Bo Shepherd: "I'll show ye the cellar."

Lil Bo Shepherd, Tridus and SoulTaker stands up. Lil Bo Shepherd leads Tridus and SoulTaker to the cellar.

Lil Bo Shepherd: "It's an underground cellar, where we store some of our beer."

SoulTaker: "That should do."

He walks down the stairs to the cellar. It's a dark, grey room. Cold. A few beer jugs are stored in one of the corners. A few rats run away as SoulTaker arrives...

SoulTaker: "Come see me once in a while."

Tridus: "Have fun."

SoulTaker smiles. Lil Bo shepherd closes the hatch to the cellar, and locks it...

SoulTaker

Subject: Rend and Name (Storyverse)
Author: rRaminrodt
Date: 2000-04-07 00:00:00

Rend and Name

As they drove along the highway Searcher was quiet and calm. In the deepest recesses of his mind the Searcher was at peace. The time of the Arc would fail beneath him and all would be set aright. He remembered the blood and the pain it brought and knew the end was near, thoughts were fickle things and they carried him back, back into the misty archives of the mind…

The Searcher’s mind, reminded of Edge drifted to other memories.

New images flashed into the Searchers mind.

As swift as a stream The Searcher’s memory leaped once more.

And as if simply remembering these events tired him The Searcher nearly collapsed. He had surrendered the old name long ago. Made himself the weapon, just as the fiend had told him. And now things were flowing out of his control, he now contained within him the essence of the one thing that could survive the Arc.

It had all been too easy, the mystery all led back to the ancient ones, like many things did. He had wandered the planes for centuries until he finally found a reality in which both the Zerg and Protoss still lived. It was then his purpose to sneak fulfill the dreams of the Zerg overmind… He used the power of the nether to take control of the first human he met a confederate soldier named Duran. He cloaked himself inside this man’s body and claimed the crucible that was the Korprulu sector as his own laboratory, finally when all was done and the hybrid lived, the Arc found him.

His thoughts became like fire, they pained him so much. He cleansed his mind, and touched the raw power that seethed like a storm inside him. The life-force of the Hybrid… nothing could stop him from destroying the Arc’s creation… Nothing.

=Scene: Outside Riptide Main offices=

All is quiet in the early morning, except for the puttering engine of the old taxi that just pulled up in front of the building. Two figures exit the taxi, the taller one hands the driver some money and the car putters away. The taller man seems to be all angles and points, but on a closer inspection one can see that he simply has strapped to him more guns and knifes than Mad Max at a NRA convention. The shorter man seems to be wearing a kind of suit of white armor, made of what seems to be porcelain, covered in doodles.

Ravage!: Well, were here. All we have to do is find BandWidth.

Basin: *Putting a crayon away.* Hiel! BandWidth!

Ravage!: yeah, exactly.

They walk up toward the Riptdie building and nude open the door. The building seems abandoned, but before they leave they hear a shout.

"Help! Is someone there? Get me down!"

Ravage! finds the room where the shouting is coming from.

rRaminrodt: Ahh. Thank goodness that someone finally found me. Hey who are you?

Ravage!: Funny question coming from a guy stuck to a wall. *he smiles* I’m Ravage! and the guy back there is Basin. We work with BandWidth.

Basin: ^ Ich bin der für immer glückliche Verbündete des großen Führers. Wir folgen ihm durch den Fluß und den Wald und den See und den Ozean und die Stadt und das Maisfeld!^

rRaminrodt: Uh, okay. I guess we’re friends then. Help get me down… *Ravage tugs at rRamin.* No, not that way. Here, you have to recite this spell, I’d use it but it doesn’t work on oneself.

Ravage!: Spell? You expect me to believe in magic?

rRaminrodt: I wouldn’t be a proud card carrying member of the Quantum Mechanics Society, if I didn’t know a smattering of magics.

Ravage!: Whatever…

Ravage! followed rRaminrodts instructions and the latter character slid off the wall. He got up and stretched out a bit.

rRamin: Ouh. That was not comfortable.

Ravage!: Whatever dude. Now, where’s BandWidth?

rRamin: That’s kind of a long story. He’s lost…

Ravage!: Lost!? Lost? This place is messed up… I guess its time for us to do a little work, right Basin?

Basin: ^ Ich verletze unsere Feinde und ihre dummen Freunde, indem ich zusammen ihre Köpfe nehme und sie schlage. Sie sterben einen horribly unglücklichen Tod.

^

To be continued.

Changes by this story:

We learn more of the Searcher’s history. Ravage! and Basin have arrived to help BandWidth. rRaminrodt is finally unstuck from the wall.

Notes:

I wanted to say something here, but I forgot what I wanted to say… L

rRaminrodt

Subject: Suspicious personalities
Author: SoulTaker
Date: 2000-04-07 00:00:00

It's a nice day at the Riptide offices... The birds are singing and the sun is shining. Happy people are walking past the building and talking about how it's a beautiful day and how Riptide is a great place. But then... Two suspicious-looking persons comes by the Riptide building.

Suspicious person #1: "Do I look suspicious?"

Suspicious person #2: "Unfortunately, yes. Try a more natural look. We don't want to attract attention."

Suspicious person #1 takes off his green sombrero, and puts on a false moustache.

Suspicious person #1: "Better?"

Suspicious person #2: "Indeed. Now, nobody will notice you."

Suspicious person #1: "Now, where is our contact?"

Suspicious person #2: "Hmm... Can't see him. Oh, wait! Over there!"

Suspicious person #2 points to a very suspicious person standing beside a few bushes."

Suspicious person #1: "Good. Let's get to work."

Suspicious person #1 and Suspicious person #2 walks to the third suspicious person.

Suspicious person #1: "Good day, contact. Rainy today, is it not?"

Suspicious person #3: "The weather is killing my rabbit. If I do not soon get to eat a motorbike, I will suffer."

Suspicious person #1: "I must agree. Blood flows down my jacket when the sun is shining. No keyboard can prevent the deer hunters of Canada from disturbing the pharoahs peace."

Suspicious person #2: "Again, I am baffled by your wisdom. May dirty laundry fall after your feet till death do us part."

Suspicious person #3: "Enough 'secret-code' talk for today. Let us get down to business."

Suspicious person #2: "Right. rRaminrodt shall soon feel our wrath."

Suspicious person #1: "The time has come to avenge the fallen."

Suspicious person #3: "Not yet. First, the current events in Riptide must be settled. Then, our revenge can proceed."

Suspicious person #2: "The Searcher is active."

Suspicious person #3: "In that case, our revenge will be postponed."

Suspicious person #1: "Let us proceed to phase 5."

Suspicious person #3: "No."

Suspicious person #1: "Why not?"

Suspicious person #3: "The time is not right. Patience is important in our quest."

Suspicious person #3: "For now, we will overlook the happenings. We will make our first move when the time is right."

Suspicious person #3 takes a small metal box from his pocket, littered with lights and buttons.

Suspicious person #3: "Ready?"

Suspicious person #1 and Suspicious person #2 each take small metal boxes identical to Suspicious person #3's from their pockets.

Suspicious person #1: "Ready."

Suspicious person #2: "Ready."

Suspicious person #3 presses a few buttons, and the three Suspicious persons disappear in a flash of bright light.

Subject: (STORYVERSE STOREE) Whodunnit?
Author: SM_007
Date: 2000-04-11 00:00:00

Well, you can consider this the end of my long-standing record of writing post box stories. I actually wrote this story over a period of a couple o' days, since I really needed to get information on all of the different characters in the storyverse and where they are at the moment. Anyhoo, enjoy the storee!

[Somewhere...unknown.]

(BandWidth woke up to the sound of a tap dripping. As the dark room around him slowly stopped spinning over the course of several long minutes, he realized that he couldn't see anything at all. Total darkness, aside from a loose lightbuld above him, swinging back and forth. He tried to move, but realized that his arms and legs were bounded to a chair. He began to panic, when he heard a door opening.)

(He heard footsteps and the sound of a quiet motor buzzing. The footsteps and the whirring noise stopped as Psycho Sam!, Fabuloso McWilly and Psycho Bot! all walked in front of BandWidth. Psycho Sam! and Fabuloso McWilly were grinning ear to ear.)

Psycho Sam!: Hello, Mr. President.

(BandWidth squinted his eyes and looked at the figures right in front of him.)

BandWidth: Psycho Sam!? Ungh, my head. What is going on here?

Psycho Sam!: Oh, you know, the usual. I am going to have my new bodyguard, Fabuloso McWilly, torture you in ways you can't even imagine. And after you're dead, I am going to take your place as President of Riptide, a position which should have been mine all along!

BandWidth: Why do you think they'll let you back in power?

Psycho Sam!: That's easy! I'll tell them that you're still alive. And they'll search and search and search for you, but never find you. No one knows where we are. But I will tell them that if they don't make me President, I will kill you, so they'll have no choice! And the beauty of this is that you'll already be dead! No one will know! It's pure genius!

BandWidth: Where am I, anyway?

Psycho Sam!: My lab, you idiot! My lab in the swamp!

BandWidth: But...isn't your lab just outside of Riptide HQ?

Psycho Sam!: Right! It's the last place anyone would suspect!

(BandWidth rolls his eyes, then looks back at a gleeful Psycho Sam!, and becomes enraged.)

BandWidth: You'll never get away with this, you sick freak! Communism will prevail!

Psycho Sam!: And how do you think that?

BandWidth: Because the minute I was made President, I wrote up some papers that stated that if I ever die, the immediate replacement for my throne will be Basin, who reminds me a lot of a young me, might I add...

Psycho Sam!: Basin, eh...?

[Outside of Riptide HQ.]

(Basin, wearing his usual white porcelin armor with doodles all over it, Ravage!, wearing millions and millions of guns, strapped all overhos body, and rRaminrodt, well, looking like rRaminrodt, walked up to the building and looked up at the many stories.)

Ravage!: Guess we oughta start our search here.

Basin: Ja! Wir müssen BandWidth finden! Er ist unser Führer!

Ravage!: Yeah, right, whatever.

rRaminrodt: Guys, I am pretty damn sure the President isn't in here!

Ravage!: Uh, why? You know something we don't?

rRaminrodt: Well, I know for a fact that if he were in here, he wouldn't be missing, now would he?

Ravage: Yeah, well, we can, um, like, look for clues and stuff.

(rRaminrodt shurgs and follows Ravage! into the building.)

Basin: Ich hatte gerade eine leuchtende Idee! Wir müssen nach unserem geliebten Führer und Freund BandWidth innerhalb dieses Gebäudes suchen, in dem er arbeitet! Möglicherweise ist er in diesem Gebäude die gesamte Zeit gewesen! Selbst wenn BandWidth nicht in diesem Gebäude ist, konnten wir können, Anhaltspunkte hinsichtlich seines realen Standorts zu finden. März vorwärts!

(Basin runs behind them into the building as well.)

[Outside of RStefan01.com.]

(lil bo shepherd was rocking back and forth in an old, creaky chair on the porch. He looked at his crooked shepherd cane, and pondered why he was left to look after SoulTaker, who was screaming in the basement; screaming many voices, at all once. The endless screams kept changing pitch, and sounded as if more than one person was screaming at a time...and it was a sound that horrified lil bo shepherd.)

(lil bo shepherd regained his senses when he heard a loud crash of thunder. He looked up at the darkening sky, and shook his head. He got up from his rocking chair and walked to the door of the old house, hoping to avoid the approaching storm.)

(But once lil bo shepherd entred the house, he realized where the true storm really was. The screams had now become so loud that they almost made lil bo shepherd go mad listening to them. He began to hear loud banging noises coming from the cellar door. Boom, boom, boom. He covered his years and squinted. Something was definitely wrong with SoulTaker, and SoulTaker was trying to escape the cellar, endlessly pounding on the cellar door.)

(Covering his years and crouching in the doorframe, lil bo shepherd came back to when the pounding suddenly stopped completely. He got to his feet, very curious as to what was going on. He began to slowly tiptoe down the old hallway, the only sound being his footsteps creaking on the old wood. Before he got around the corner to the cellar door, though, a loud crashing noise made him scream and run straight out the front door of the building. The door to the cellar had been thrown way of its hinges.)

(lil bo shepherd ran down the old street, and hoped on an old bike he saw. He rang the bell a couple of times, and then began to speed down the old road, away from the house. He didn't even look back. He knew he had to warn the guys at Riptide HQ that something was wrong with SoulTaker.)

[A book depository outside of Riptide HQ.]

(Across the street from Riptide HQ, an black luxary car pulled up in front of an old book depository. Inside of the car was the cloned agent, who was driving, along with SM_007 and Albatross in the back seat.)

SM_007: Why are we stopped here?

Albatross: The current confusion is distracting everyone from helping Tridus search for his laptop...just as I have forseen. In order to keep this people distracted, we are going to have the President assassinated.

SM_007: BandWidth?! Oh man... This isn't right, Albatross!

(Albatross coughed heavily, and then look back up at SM_007.)

Albatross: You know what is right. I don't have much time left...son.

(SM_007 looked sad, but decided.)

SM_007: Where is BandWidth, anyway?

Albatross: He is in that deserted science laboratory in the swamp.

(SM_007 was about to get out of the car when Albatross grabbed his arm. SM_007 spun around and looked at the old, dying man, who had a satisfied look on his face, as if he had just come to a realization.)

SM_007: What? What is it?

Albatross: You must eliminate Basin as well.

SM_007: Who?!

Albatross: Basin. He is the next in line for Presidency. Then eliminate BandWidth. This way, they will have no one to govern them without another election.

SM_007: Where is Basin?

Albatross: In Riptide's building.

SM_007: Excellent. This gives me an idea.

(SM_007 shut the door and headed towards the book depository, followed by the agent.)

[An old, dirt road.]

(RStefan01's jeep speeded down the old, abandoned highway. The Searcher, incredible large now that he was the Protoss/Zerg hybrid, was hunched over the wheel, growling under his breath as he guided the car with fury. RStefan01, who felt slightly nervous, was sitting in the back.)

RStefan01: So, where are we supposed to be going, anyway?

The Searcher: You shall soon see.

RStefan01: Well, since we're using my jeep, I'd like to know what this is about.

The Searcher: There is...someone I need to see. Something I need to take care of.

RStefan01: Oh. Okay.

(RStefan01 wasn't okay with it at all, but he knew better than to anger the Searcher, who was on a mission. He looked out the window at the passing scenery, and realized that they were going in the direction of Riptide HQ. RStefan01 simply wondered who the Searcher would need to see there, and why.)

[Down the street from Riptide HQ.]

(Tridus was walking towards Riptide HQ. He left RStefan01.com when he couldn't stand to hear lil bo shepherd babbling on and on about how great cows were, and he knew he cared more about Sashie than anything else in the world anyway. He knew that one of the biggest pieces to that puzzle was what happened to SM_007, and why he abandoned the team when they needed him the most. Where was he? And why weren't people concerned?)

(The thought that people didn't care about the founding father of Riptide, and the thought that they were wrapped up with more trivial concerns than the life of his friend, disgusted him. But disgusted as he was, he remembered SM_007 getting into that car with the agent and the old man, and that thought disgusted him as well. And through all of this madness and confusion, Sashie's name kept popping up in his head. He needed to find her. And soon.)

(Tridus was only a dozen or so metres away from Riptide HQ, when he saw that same old man he remembered getting into the front seat of a black luxary car. He was filled with rage, and began charging at the vehicle. When he was almost at it, it peeled off, and drove down the street, turned a corner, and was gone once again from Tridus' life. He stopped, panting from his dash, and looked at the building it was parked in front of. It was the old book depository. Tridus kicked the old door open and went inside.)

[Psycho Sam!'s shack in the swamp.]

(BandWidth was thouroughly bored...and afraid. He didn't know where Psycho Sam! and Fabuloso McWilly were, but he knew that the damn annoying bot of his was staring at him.)

BandWidth: Hey, there, little fella. Want to do me a favour?

Psycho Bot!: I don't care! I'm a bot!

BandWidth: So, is that a yes?

Psycho Bot!: Um, did someone say my name?

BandWidth: No.

(Psycho Bot! looked confused.)

BandWidth: Well, why don't you help me? Surely you can't enjoy working for Psycho Sam!.

Psycho Bot!: Psycho Sam! created me. Did someone say his name?

(BandWidth sighed.)

BandWidth: Look, turn off those damn auto responses already!

(Psycho Bot! made a low beeping noise.)

Psycho Bot!: Done.

BandWidth: Hey! You actually listened to me!

Psycho Bot!: Of course! Anyone can command me! Only, no one has ever become friendly enough with me to find out. It ain't easy bein' a bot with auto responses as your only comfort towards friends. No one likes me. No one can ever stand me long enough to find out about me...

BandWidth: Well, if you let me outta here, I'll be your friend.

Psycho Bot!: Really?! You mean it?!

BandWidth: Of course!

(Psycho Bot! began to make its way over to BandWidth's chair, and a small pair of scissors emerged from one side of the box. BandWidth smiled as the bot began to happily cut the ropes to BandWidth's chair.)

[Outside of Riptide HQ.]

(Psycho Sam!, wielding his chainsaw, walked up to the Riptide HQ building. He was followed by Fabuloso McWilly.)

Fabuloso McWilly: Hey, boss, I don't think leaving BandWidth alone is a such a good idea...

(Psycho Sam! raised his arm up in front of Fabuloso.)

Psycho Sam!: You just don't understand how evil works, do you? Besides, Psycho Bot! is there just in case BandWidth gets any wise ideas. Now c'mon, we need to go in there and kill Basin so he can't be the next President once we kill BandWidth.

(They both enter Riptide HQ.)

[Riptide HQ's main office.]

(Edge sat alone in the boardroom, drinking a coffee and thinking. Edge was trying to put all of the pieces together - attempting to make order out of the chaos which was the lives of everyone around him. He sighed, and looked up at the clock on the wall. It was ticking louder than usual...)

[Outside of Riptide HQ.]

(A familier jeep stopped, and both the Searcher and RStefan01 got out. The Searcher looked up at the building, seeming concerned. Before RStefan01 could question what the Searcher was doing, the Searcher ran inside the front door of the building. RStefan01 instinctivly followed suit.)

[Inside the book depository.]

(Tridus ran up the stairs to the top floor, and was shocked to see SM_007 and the agent standing at the window. The agent had a sniper rifle pointed out the window, aiming into the boardroom window of Riptide HQ. When Tridus entered the room, SM_007 spun around, and they both looked at each other in shock.)

SM_007: Tridus!

Tridus: What the hell is going on here?!

(SM_007 turned pale.)

SM_007: Tridus, I won't tell you this again. You have to leave right now.

Tridus: You know I am not leaving without my laptop, and some answers.

(Tridus began walking menacingly towards SM_007, who looked very nervous.)

SM_007: Tridus! Leave!

(Suddenly, the agent with the sniper rifle spun around, and shot. Since the sniper rifle was silenced, the shot was silent...but it wasn't silent to Tridus and SM_007. The bullet went straight through Tridus' chest, near his shoulder. Tridus slumped down on the ground, grasping at his shoulder which was pooling blood onto the ground. The agent aimed down at Tridus' crumpled body, and prepared to take another shot - when he was interrupted by SM_007's hand clutching his shoulder.)

SM_007: No! Leave him! There's, um...not enough time.

(The agent frowned at SM_007.)

Agent: Albatross will not be pleased.

SM_007: Leave that to me...

Tridus: Alba...Alba...tross...Alba...tross...Ungh...

(Tridus rolled onto his back, repeating the name.)

SM_007: He's going into shock.

Agent: He knows too much.

SM_007: Let's just leave. Abort the mission to kill Basin.

Agent: We must kill Basin, and then BandWidth.

SM_007: We'll do it some other time! That's an order! Let's go!

(SM_007 briskly walked out of the room, followed by the agent, who eyed Tridus menacingly on his way out. There eyes met as the agent closed the door to the room. Tridus couldn't move. He just stared into space, repeating the name which he had just learned.)

[Outside of Riptide HQ.]

(BandWidth, followed by Psycho Bot!, entered the building.)

[Riptide HQ's main office.]

(Edge was standing on a chair, examing the clock on the wall. He pulled off the face of the clock, and noticed that in the circutry, there was a small, clear ball with green gell on the inside of it. It was bubbling. At the top of the ball, a few small red wires ran along the circutry and were connected to the hands of the clock. Edge had never seen any device like this before, though he was pretty sure what it was.)

(Just as Edge was about to disconnect the wires from the hands of the clock, a knocking at the door scared him and he fell off the chair. Edge crashed on the floor with a thud, and passed out from the pain. The knocking on the door became more and more urgent.)

Ravage!: Hello?! Anyone in there?! The door is locked! Someone open up...

Basin: Wir müssen BandWidth, unseren Führer finden! Hey, was tickt das? Es klingt wie eine Bombe. Eine Bombe! Eine Bombe! Wir müssen laufen! Es ist eine Bombe...

Ravage!: Shut up! You know I don't understand a word you're saying! Now help me open this door...

[Outside of Riptide HQ.]

(lil bo shepherd crashed his bike on the ground, and rolled off of it, scraping his knees. He didn't care; he was in a mad rush to find the nearest Riptide representative and warn them of the danger they were in. The only problem was that he, himself, didn't know the true danger. He jumped to his feet and ran inside the Riptide HQ building.)

[Outside of the book depository.]

(Just as SM_007 and the agent stepped outside, their ride pulled up, in the form of the black luxary automobile. They immediately got inside the car, and just as they did so, a loud thunder could be heard from inside of Riptide HQ. It was growing louder, and very rapidly so.)

SM_007: What the...?

Albatross: That's the sound of the building being decimated.

SM_007: Decimated?! Isn't everyone in there?!

Albatross: They won't all die.

(SM_007 had tears in his eyes as the building started collapsing into dust. The car pulled away from the curb and drove off just as rubble, fire, dust and glass flew across the street, where the car was parked. The building continued falling into debris; debris which was flying in any and all directions.)

[Inside the book depository.]

(Tridus was still faint, and was mumbling Sashie's name as he asked her to give him medical supplies. He woke up from his trance, and remembered where he was, to the deafening sound of rolling thunder. He crawled away from the small pool of blood forming underneath his arm to the nearby window, and pulled himself up with one arm on the windowframe. There, he saw the Riptide building collapsing for a few seconds, and then he fell back down on the ground, unable to move.)

Tridus: Oh God... Oh my God...

To be continued.

Changes by this storee:
Um...yeah.

SM_007
Um...yeah.

Subject: (STORYVERSE STOREE) Aftermath
Author: SM_007
Date: 2000-04-12 00:00:00

Subject: Space before Time (Story Teaser)
Author: rRaminrodt
Date: 2000-04-14 00:00:00

--This isn't the actual story, so don't get excited --

I stood staring at what I had just created. I was in awe of what fearsome energy that it simply took to remain stable in this reality. I stared into the Arc and it stared back into me. I could tell the DTP I called the Hgoerl was firmly in the center of the Arc, producing negative energy as it counteracted the Arc construct. Slowly, I began to probe into it with my mind, looking for possible instablities in the structure, when I reached the Hgoerl, I was taken aback. The Arc was bent and twisted about the Hgoerl in a way I had never preditcted, instead of being contained within the Arc the Hgoerl was firmly attached to the central node. The two were feeding off each other and sharing chaos.

It was then too late for me to pull the safty construct I had built into the Arc. Instead I faced the Hgoerl and tried to probe it. It was then I realised the Arc had gained a form of massive consciouness. I tried to pull out in vain, but the Arc now had me... It seared through my mind, tearing out every idea or memory stored within. I attacked it then with a Vae'sai'na construction but it understood what I was doing and killed me.

At the time of death I remembered the Sandrava, and the time I spent there. Then torn from my body I spiraled into iN'ea'Das. Insticnt took over intellect and before I could recover myself I reincarnated.

I was far from Earth and Core. Very far, I probably would have a hard time contacting even other QMS'ers. Not to mention Riptide or Turbine. I dispared for a while until I realized I was in a ship. I began working Immediately... Soon I will have the ship modified enough to travel through realities. My Search for the Arc's weak point begins soon... I hope it is not too late.

| LOG RECORD 13.24.34534.534A |
rRaminrodt n'Ad Ocraszan
Starship Victory
------------------------------------------

Note:
This is a teaser, I will go futher with the history of the future in my real story.

rRaminrodt

Subject: His last Question
Author: rRaminrodt
Date: 2000-04-15 00:00:00

rRaminrodt

Subject: the puzzle...
Author: Tridus
Date: 2000-04-17 00:00:00

Subject: (POST BOX PROSE STOREE) It has begun...
Author: SM_007
Date: 2000-04-17 00:00:00

          SM_007 waited beside the door to the laboratory impatiently. He continued to let his thoughts drift back to Tridus, who might be dead. Tridus was left laying in a puddle of his own blood. And what about the rest of the team?
          No.
          SM_007 couldn't afford to think of that now. He couldn't allow himself to ponder the decisions he has already made. It was a weakness which he had yet to master; a weakness that has led to disappointment in the eyes of Albatross many times.
          Just as SM_007 had finished that thought, the door to the high-tech laboratory slid open, and the old man walked out, followed by two scientists. He did not even look at SM_007; instead, he kept walking down the hallway, with a scientist on either side.
          Once they were out of his view, SM_007 quietly tiptoed into the lab, and took a look around. There were machines along the walls, but the interior of the large, well-lit room was empty, save for a small table, with a laptop sitting on it. Parts of the laptop were removed and laying beside it.
          SM_007 noticed how cold the room was as he stepped inside. He buttoned up his tuxedo coat and continued to walk towards the laptop. When he was a few feet away, he noticed that the laptop was emitting a low noice. Wasn't it turned off? As he got closer and closer, he realized that this isn't the noise a laptop would ordinarily make. No, it sounded more like the weeping of a small, fightened child.
          SM_007 cringed, then spun around and dashed out of the room.

          Tridus sat at the desk, and moaned. He once again had come back to his puzzle pieces, since pulling himself away would only be a temporary solution. He couldn't think of anything else but Sashie, and even then, when he sat down to analyze the past events, he couldn't make sense of it all. The frustration was beginning to eat away at Tridus.
          A knock at the door started Tridus. He leaped to his feet, hit his head on the light above him, let out a few profanities, and then sat back down as a nurse came over to him, smiling politely. Tridus didn't even look up; the nurse spoke anyway.
          "Excuse me, mister Tridus, sir?" she asked, slightly nervous at the man's foul mood. "There's someone here to see you. He seems a little urgent. If you want, I can-"
          "Send the person in," he interrupted. She stared at him for a second, as if Tridus had two heads. He looked up towards her, put on a fake smile, and added, "Please."
          The nurse nodded, and walked out of the room as Tridus went back to staring at the pieces of the puzzle. He heard the footsteps of someone coming in the room, but he once again did not look up. He just rubbed his fingers over his temples as he processed everything he knew. His visitor stopped beside him, and waited for Tridus to look upwards. There was silence.

          SM_007 sat down on a chair, as scientists and agents walked by. One thing that SM_007 did find annoying was the many agents. They all looked the same. They were all very methodical, always staring at an object for several seconds before speaking in a long, drawn-out voice. SM_007 knew, though, that he was the second model. More emotions, more personality, and more power. Power. Something he was gradually beginning to learn how to focus on and use properly, thanks to the help of his new mentor.
          Once again, as SM_007 thought of the old man, he appeared. Slumped over in his chair in the hallway, bored and worried, SM_007 looked up to Albatross, who was wielding a cigarette between his teeth as he smiled faintly down on his pupil.
          "What's going on with that laptop?" SM_007 asked.
          "It's useless, to be frank," Albatross sighed. "Even though some of the data was useful to us, it mostly centres around where the little girl's brain is stored. She...it does not contain any knowledge whatsoever of how the information was stored there. There is only one person whom knows that kind of information."
          SM_007's eyes went wide with a startling realization. He leaped to his feet and looked into the cold, dark eyes of his creator.
          "Tridus!"
          "Yes. An agent is already on his way. In fact, he is retrieving him from his hospital room at this very moment."
          The old man took another puff of his cigarette, then stared at it as he thought. He spun the smoke around in between his fingers a few times before looking up at SM_007 once again. SM_007 was also in the process of thinking.
          "We might as well dispose of the laptop," Albatross added. "She...it has no use to us anymore."
          "But...you did say that you would return the laptop to the custody of Tridus when you were done with it. I saw it in the lab, and it was...crying. It was afraid. It was alone in a large room, and-"
          "I see where this is going," Albatross interrupted harshly. "And I do not like it. Straighten yourself up, and do as you are told. The laptop is almost beyonf proper repair as it is. Tridus does not need to know this, understand? We will tell him that if he wants to see his laptop again..."

          "...you will help Albatross," the agent finished telling Tridus in his hospital room. Tridus was laying on the ground, a bloody nose. The door to the room was locked, and an unlucky nurse who ran in was now slumped on the door, inside the room, with a broken neck. She was dead.
          Tridus hissed with rage. Aside from Sashie, the only thing in the world that Tridus wanted at this moment was to reach up and strangle that agent with all of his might. But he could not. The agent had him pinned down, and was applying more and more pressure to Tridus' chest cavity with his elbow every moment. Tridus could feel his ribcage under the stress.
          Tridus allowed his own rage to subdue for a moment. He remembered Sashie and knew that there was no way to find her. No trail, no knowledge of her location. This was a battle he could not win, one way or the other. As the agent bared his teeth evilly, Tridus looked up at the man, and allowed himself to spit out the words which, to him, sounded disgusting:
          "Fine. I'll doit."

Subject: From the Deep (Story Teaser)
Author: rRaminrodt
Date: 2000-04-21 00:00:00

From the Deep

=Scene: An abandoned warehouse=

rRaminrodt and Psycho_Mas walk into the large room escorted by a police officer. At the center of the room appears to be a hastily built computer, its case left open and long cords reaching one of the industrial outlets on the wall.

Officer: There it is... We havent touched it, execpt to read what was on the front page. When we saw the word Arc, we called you. It was on the alert lists and all.

Psycho_!Mas: Thanks.

He turned to rRaminrodt who was already looking at the small monitor. There were three programs active... one was a browser window with a webpage and an obscure oddly long url. The others were a compliler and the program that had been written it it.

rRamnrodt: He must have wrote this. I guess the Searcher never lost Tridus's computer skills.

He clicked the program.

Mas: It traced the writer of the webpage to his real world address. Hmmm. Click back to the webpage.... we should read it.

He did so, each link on the page lead to the same second page but at a differnt location. This page read:



Witness the Power of the Arc.

The Arc is the all-consuming grand unliving force which resides at the center of reality. After its creation the Arc began expanding across all planes of reality absorbing all things. The Arc is pure power with the ability to control the nature of reality itself. In order to spread most quickly across the planes the Arc commands minions which are shards of the great power of the Arc. The Arc contains the minds of all it has consumed and uses these to determine the shortest path across the planes.
In order to control all, the Arc exists as a world without dimension with the Hgoerl at its center. As the greatness of the Arc spreads, the worlds it has consumed become unreachable to that which is not the Arc.
The Arc is the new Reality.

Witness the Minions of the Arc.

Shin-Vekar:
The Shin-Vekar was one of the first races that surrendered to the Arc. Their bodies were changed, hardened against physical damage and given razor sharp limbs. These creatures serve as shock troopers for the arc, and have overwhelmed many worlds with their sheer numbers.

Pareavearea:
The walking shadows first appeared on Earth when the Arc began preparing the planet for its coming by sowing chaos and discord in the politico-industrial arena. The Pareavearea have the consistency of liquid shadows and can slip inside the body of most multi-cellular organisms. If the creature has a weak enough mind the Pareavearea can command the body like a puppet and walk unnoticed amongst any species.

Lagahcen:
The Lagahcen were summoned by the Arc in order to hunt down members of The Spire throughout time and space. These centipede-like living ships are a juggernaut of power which tear through any opposition it faces with ease. They function equally as well in space or on a planets surface. The Lagahcen like the Shin-Vekar are somewhat vulnerable to the non-technological powers wielded by its enemies.

Uchrakaghun:
These tall thin beings are the Mage-Lords of the Arc. Their spindly frame belies the raw power they hold. These creatures learn the “powers” used by certain species and amplify them through the Arc. The Uchrakaghun are usually summoned to face off against singularly powerful beings that challenge the power of the Arc, or to protect the Shin-Vekar or Lagahcen against those powers.

Damat-Yghurah:
This category encompasses any of the powerful beings that willingly became part of the Arc. They are given a Mass-Mind slightly separated from the whole of the Arc. This force scours time and space searching for new pathways for the Arc to become part of. It also is what finally turns a world over the Arc.

Hgoerl:
The Sjara Cova, or binding stone, that holds the presence of the Arc in any plane it becomes part of. The Prime Hgoerl supported the Seed of the Arc through the time before its creation. When the Arc appeared the Hgoerl assumed its place at the Center, feeding the presence of the Arc in the multitude of realities.



Witness the History of the Arc.

In the beginning there was no Arc. The Prime Hgoerl existed as a potential force in the underlying weave of supra-reality. Then a mind thirsting for knowledge saw the pattern and tried to access it, unable to and seeing this had a large potential for power the mind created the Arc in which to house the Hgoerl. The Hgoerl was more than the mind understood and was always a part of the Arc; this reconnection bound the Arc to the universe the mind resided in.

Upon its newfound existence the force known as the Arc scoured the mind of its creator. This being which called itself by the name rRaminrodt was part of a multitude of possible existences. The rRaminrodt then tried to control the Arc and was killed. The Arc found that it increased itself by absorbing reality. It began extending itself across reality, it “hungered” for more thought and found its purpose in the absorption of all thought and all in existence.

The Arc found that certain beings had some ability to retard its progress. In order to counteract these forces the Arc absorbed and modified biological races to serve as surrogates of the Arc’s power, where the Arc had not extended to yet.

Its first great challenge was to absorb the highly advanced world that called itself Earth. This force commanded both technology and power. In order to control this planet the Arc corrupted and subjugated members of the planet, and ate the world from the inside out. The few survivors formed a group called the Spire, which then challenged the Arc.

Later it was found that the rRaminrodt had reincarnated. The being finally died at the same time that the Arc destroyed the Spire.

The Arc is now unchallenged. Soon the Arc will absorb all…

Speak with the Arc.

To make it so that the Arc can hear you across time and space, recite the following mantra aloud.

Iear vaier uhtier dakant noshzuru kar inb groborta,
shanja-igh thatnaha vha kar uhtier,
swedth nkagh jiaz vaier uhfac pokair gadach.
Iear vaier uhtier hayer jiaz poalgh chachef aorq,
vhac wedch nagib bahz urinchail bachanak.
Feam neathc ashaknaa doatsh,
ingarb vha weloj dianfub Arcagahn!*

rRaminrodt

Subject: (STORY TEASER TRAILER CLIPS) Redemption...
Author: SM_007
Date: 2000-04-21 00:00:00

Once the agent was gone out of the room, Tridus had to force himself to calm down, to avoid screaming out or pure rage. He took a few deep breaths, and abandoned, for a few brief moments, his feeling of helplessness. He even managed to force Sashie's name from his mind, concentrating only on his own escape from the room. But he quickly realized that there would be no brilliant scheme to save himself this time. It was too late. And images of Sashie began to once again pour into his mind. If she was even still alive, he couldn't imagine what they were possibly doing to her. He closed his eyes and fought the tears, trying to once again clear his mind and make sense of the senseless situation.

==================================================

BandWidth immediately fell to his knees and began to claw at the Albatross miniature, trying to open it up. RStefan01 let go of Psycho Sam!, who immediately dashed for his chainsaw. RStefan01 walked over to BandWidth, snatched the piece away from him, and then crushed it in his hand. As the puzzle piece crumbed to dust, a small, black device fell to the ground, bouncing and sliding under the desk. BandWidth reached under and pulled it out, and looked it over. It was a small beeper, with the screen showing two dots, blinking. Sure enough, one was blinking slower than the other dot.

==================================================

"I have been waiting to speak to you for quite a while," Albatross cooly noted aloud as he placed a cigar in his mouth at lit it. "You know the answers to the questions I have been asking for a long time. A very, very long time, Tridus, and my time is running out. My agents have told me you agreed to give me some assistance in this matter."

==================================================

When the door finished opening, the team stood in shock as SM_007 casually stepped off of the elevator. He turned to face the team, and smiled as he looked over his old friends, who were delighted and terrified at the same time. They all readied for battle. Psycho Sam! was the first to make any movements, readying his chainsaw and tossing his sawed-off shotgun to RStefan01, who pumped it once before aiming it at SM_007. Edge's arms began to glow a bright red before becoming totally enflamed, as he held his arms out with the palms touching, readying himself to blast a fireball if he needed to. BandWidth looked around, realized he did not have a weapon, dropped his briefcase and helf up his fists. SM_007 continued to smile.

SM_007
Virtue mine honour

Subject: (Storyverse Conclusion Storee) Redemption
Author: SM_007
Date: 2000-04-21 00:00:00

The End is the Beginning is the End
"You, like your father, are now...mine." -Emperor Palpatine, Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

          For the first time in many, many years, Tridus felt a sense of pure and utter hopelessness fill him. He was walking down the hallway, now, in this large complex, and for every agent he passed by...and for every agent that glared at him, he felt his heart sink a little lower into his stomach. He felt that his plan to save his daughter was risky before, but now, well, the sheer odds of the situation was something he overlooked in that short moment when he made the split decision to go along with the wishes of this organization.
          Tridus felt the agent breathing down his neck as they came to a stop outside one of the dozens of plain, steel doors in the hallway. When the agent came close to the door, it slid open. Tridus was nudged inside the room, which he quickly noticed resembled the room that an inmate at an asylum might call his home. It was completely empty, save for a silver, metallic chair in the middle of the room. The walls were padded. There was light, but no light source, it seemed.
          The agent grabbed Tridus, who had now had his hospital gown removed and replaced with some old, black dress pants and a partially-buttoned white dress shirt, by his shoulders and unceremoniously forced him down onto the chair. Steel clamps immediately closed over Tridus' wrists and ankles. Tridus was dripping with desperation, but he knew that any motion to show such was not in his benefit right now. He'd rather die than have the agent grinning ear to ear at a terrified Tridus. So, Tridus only squinted his eyes at the agent, intent on letting the agent see his anger. But the agent smiled at this defiance, smiled ear to ear, and left the room, the door sliding shut behind him.
          Once the agent was gone out of the room, Tridus had to force himself to calm down, to avoid screaming out or pure rage. He took a few deep breaths, and abandoned, for a few brief moments, his feeling of helplessness. He even managed to force Sashie's name from his mind, concentrating only on his own escape from the room. But he quickly realized that there would be no brilliant scheme to save himself this time. It was too late. And images of Sashie began to once again pour into his mind. If she was even still alive, he couldn't imagine what they were possibly doing to her. He closed his eyes and fought the tears, trying to once again clear his mind and make sense of the senseless situation.
          In the back of Tridus' mind, something else snapped and caused him grief. He was about to have his friends and allied embark on what would prove to be a suicide run...and for what? To save him? To save his laptop? He hoped and preyed that they made a decision smarter than the one he made when he decided to go with the agent. Tridus moved his tongue around on the inside of his mouth, and felt the small transmitter behind behind the back of his teeth on the roof of his mouth. He'd give anything to be able to switch it off, but he couldn't move.

          The puzzle pieces which Tridus had been playing with before he was kidnapped all crashed to the ground as BandWidth threw things off of the table, left and right, in an attempt to find clues. On the other side of the room, in the doorway, RStefan01 and Edge both tried to assess the situation by bouncing ideas off of each other.
          "Well, how many other places could the agents have taken him?" Edge asked, looking over to RStefan01, who was processing information. "I mean, assuming, of course, that the agents did take him?"
          "Plausably, anywhere. Usually I could narrow it down to a certain radius from our location, but with their advanced transporting technology, there is no way to tell where they would be at the moment."
          Just as RStefan01 finished that sentence, he spun around and grabbed a firm hold of a chainsaw waiting there, in the hallway. Psycho Sam! bounded in the room as a startled Edge took a step back from this, well, psychopath. Psycho Sam! grinned evilly as he stared at BandWidth, who had yet to notice him. RStefan01 put Psycho Sam!'s chainsaw down on a table beside Tridus' bed.
          "What the hell do you think you are doing here?" Edge asked, as BandWidth looked up to see what the commotion was - and in turn, saw his worst enemy. BandWidth began to walk menacingly towards Psycho Sam!.
          "Calm down, everyone," Sam! said in his usual sarcastic and angry voice. "I am only here to help. You people need to find Tridus, and I just might know where he is."
          Everyone gathered around Psycho Sam!, as he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. Edge immediately tried to take it from him, but he took a quick backstep and frowned at the three men standing in the room.
          "Bah!" Psycho Sam! scoffed. "If you want what is in my hand, we will have to make a little detail. First, you aren't allowed to kill me or put me in jail! None of you, I mean! No one here is allowed to hurt me. Secondly, you have to take me with you when you go to find Tridus, and thirdly-"
          Psycho Sam!'s ranting was interrupted by the ultra-strong cybrog RStefan01 firmly grabbing his wrist. Psycho Sam! immediately shrieked and dropped the paper, which fluttered to the ground. Edge bent over and picked it up, looking it over. Psycho Sam! struggled to get free from RStefan01's grip, but to no avail.
          "What's it say, Edge?" BandWidth asked.
          "It's a note, written by Tridus. It just says that he left with the agents, and as a going-away present, he left something special for all of us in the Albatross puzzle piece in case we never see him again. Huh." Edge flipped the paper, and noticed another message on the back, writtin in very small ink. "Hey, it says here that the dot flashing once every second is us, and the dot flashing every two seconds is BandWidth. I don't get it."
          BandWidth immediately fell to his knees and began to claw at the Albatross miniature, trying to open it up. RStefan01 let go of Psycho Sam!, who immediately dashed for his chainsaw. RStefan01 walked over to BandWidth, snatched the piece away from him, and then crushed it in his hand. As the puzzle piece crumbed to dust, a small, black device fell to the ground, bouncing and sliding under the desk. BandWidth reached under and pulled it out, and looked it over. It was a small beeper, with the screen showing two dots, blinking. Sure enough, one was blinking slower than the other dot.
          Psycho Sam! broke their gaze on the small beeper with the loud whirring of his chainsaw. He laughed insanely as he held it above the head of RStefan01, who immediately took a step back at the request of Edge. Everyone looked up at Psycho Sam!, who was holding his weapon in a threatening manner over Edge and RStefan01.
          "Now, we discuss my terms! I brought you that paper, and the clue to Tridus' location! I now demand that you do as I say!" Psycho Sam! screeched as the other members of the group shrugged and rolled their eyes. "You will do as I say! You will follow my rules! You will-"
          RStefan01 lost his patience and grabbed Psycho Sam!'s chainsaw away from him once again.
          "We will make one deal with you, Psycho Sam!," BandWidth bargained. "We will take you with us on our quest to save Tridus. We need all of the help we can get. However, you try to pull anything, and-"
          "I won't!" Psycho Sam! yelled. "Did it ever occur to you mild-mannered weirdos that I might actually want to help Tridus?"
          Everyone looked at each other, then back at Psycho Sam!.
          "You heard what BandWidth said," RStefan01 clarified as everyone got up to leave the room. "No funny stuff. We are leaving right now. Let's go."

          Tridus slowly came to when some water splashed accross his face. He groggily looked up and saw Albatross standing above him, an agent on each side, their arms crossed. Tridus thought for a second, and realized that he must have fallen asleep from exhaustion. He hadn't been able to relax in a long, long time.
          "I have been waiting to speak to you for quite a while," Albatross cooly noted aloud as he placed a cigar in his mouth at lit it. "You know the answers to the questions I have been asking for a long time. A very, very long time, Tridus, and my time is running out. My agents have told me you agreed to give me some assistance in this matter."
          Tridus looked up at Albatross with rage still boiling inside of him. He clenched his teeth and spoke with a tone that let the agents all know the underlying hatred in the back of his mind.
          "I will help you," Tridus managed to spit out. "But on certain conditions. I want to see my laptop...and I want to see it right now. And when this is over, me and my laptop go free, with you people never bothering me or my friends ever again. Oh, yeah, and I want have one chance to speak to SM_007, alone, for a few minutes. I have some business to sort out with him."
          Albatross' smile went into a frown as Tridus was speaking. When Tridus finally finished and waiting impatiently for an answer, Albatross looked at both of his agents, who shrugged. He finally looked back at Tridus, pulled the cigar out of his mouth, and let out a long sigh.
          "You...can't see your laptop at the moment, I'm afraid."
          "Why not?" Tridus immediately asked.
          "Because...it is indisposed."
          "What do you mean when you say that she is indisposed? What the hell are you doing with my goddamn daughter? I want to see her right now! You assholes murder my family, my friends, chase me down, ruin my daughter's life, and now you can't let me even see her?" Tridus was almost screaming, angry tears beginning to form in his eyes.
          Before Albatross could respond, SM_007 ran into the room. Everyone looked over at him, including Tridus. When SM_007 saw Tridus, time seemed to slow down for a few seconds, and SM_007 knew that this wasn't his instincts speaking to him. When the bruised, battered, sad, tired and depressed Tridus looked up at the sly, confident and now-powerful SM_007, he didn't, for this moment, see evil. He saw something else. Albatross noticed the quick glance. But SM_007 just as quickly looked away and picked up where he left off.
          "Sir," he said, speaking to Albatross, and frequently looked back to Tridus. "The ones that you mentioned before, the ones causing trouble, are, um, on their way here, right now. What are you going to do?"
          "You can take care of them," Albatross responded, not too worried. "It will be a good test of your new skills. And it will also be a chance for you to prove that you are ready to eliminate your current life and acknowledge your past and who you are."
          SM_007 nodded, and smiled as he left the room again, without giving Tridus a second look. Tridus, having seen SM_007's willingness to hurt his friends, reminded himself that SM_007 can be just as deadly as anyone standing in the room with him right now. And because of his error, Tridus' friends were now heading into certain death.
          "Tridus," Albatross said, once again bringing Tridus' attention back into the here and now. "About our agreement..."
          "You won't tell you anything until I have seen my daughter and seen that she is okay," Tridus snapped. "And that's final, Albatross. No matter what you or your agents try to pull, I won't tell you anything."
          "A pity."
          The two agents began to step their way forward, walking towards Tridus.

          The car doors slammed shut as Psycho Sam!, RStefan01, Edge and BandWidth looked at the old warehouse in front of them. It was no larger than most parking garages, and in similar shape, leaving the team a little confused and wondering if they took a wrong turn somewhere.
          "This has to be the right location," RStefan01 noted, holding up the beeper, showing that the dots were very close to each other. "It must be inside this building. There is no time to waste. Let's go."
          RStefan01 looked over to BandWidth, who nodded. The team walked into the seemingly abandoned building and quickly saw how the appearance was slightly deceiving. Even though the warehouse was old, empty, dusty and was decaying in front of their eyes, there was a large, silver elevator in the corner of the empty building that stood out like a sore thumb. The team, without saying a word, looked at each other before all striding towards the door, which let out a ding and began to open. The team stopped.
          When the door finished opening, the team stood in shock as SM_007 casually stepped off of the elevator. He turned to face the team, and smiled as he looked over his old friends, who were delighted and terrified at the same time. They all readied for battle. Psycho Sam! was the first to make any movements, readying his chainsaw and tossing his sawed-off shotgun to RStefan01, who pumped it once before aiming it at SM_007. Edge's arms began to glow a bright red before becoming totally enflamed, as he held his arms out with the palms touching, readying himself to blast a fireball if he needed to. BandWidth looked around, realized he did not have a weapon, dropped his briefcase and held up his fists. SM_007 continued to smile.
          "You know, there is a small part of me that does not want to have to kill you like I killed the others," SM_007 spoke, his voice full of delight. "But you had to come and spoil it all, didn't you? The only one who is going to suffer now is Tridus, you realize. My master is not as forgiving...as I am."
          BandWidth begame enraged.
          :"What the hell are you talking about, SM? What is wrong with you?"
          "If any of you are wondering who destroyed the Riptide building, it was me," SM_007 said, grinning, and seemingly ignoring BandWidth. "It was me who tried to end all of your lives. Yes, I destroyed that building, and I am going to destroy you, Tridus, and Sashie, whem my master is done with them. No one will be left."
          "No!" BandWidth shouted, charging at SM_007. Finally, SM_007 thought, there is some competition. SM_007 quickly sidestepped the angry BandWidth and let out an amazingly fast roundhouse kick, sending BandWidth's head cracking against the wall. As BandWidth's defeated body fell to the ground, SM_007 stood back up straight. He almost felt like laughing, he was having so much fun.
          "Next."

          As a research scientist walked into the dark room where Sashie was, the lights came on. He walked over to the laptop, holding what appeared to be a futuristic screwdriver. The scientist, after walking up to the table, removed a small tape recorder from his laptop, pushed down a button, and spoke.
          "The laptop should now be dead or at least the equivalent thereof by this time," the scientist calmly spoke, speaking into the tape. "She may still be active; however, I have been given clearance to remove her final core components for miscellaneous research and development."
          The scientist let go of the button on the tape recorder, and placed it back into his pocket. He then picked up the screwdriver-like device, and held it over the laptop. As he did so, it began to glow a light cyan colour, but before he could apply it to part of the CPU, he heard what sounded like sobbing. Confused, he checked to see if the laptop was still switched on. It was. The scientist looked shocked, and picked up what looked like a very small cell phone from another pocket.
          "Sir, come in sir!" the scientist yelled into the phone. "You may need to tell Albatross that someone left this damn laptop on! They didn't turn it off at all! It isn't dead yet, that's for sure, and we may need to start over from-"
          "No!" the scientist head the laptop yell in a young girl's voice. He slowly lowered the cell phone and looked back at the laptop. "You aren't allowed to hurt me! I want my daddy!"

          "Now, Tridus, I hope you will be slightly more receptive," Albatross said, sarcastically. He was walking in circles, slowly, around Tridus' steel chair, which had him pinned. Tridus moaned as a bit of smoke poured upwards from where he was sitting. He had wired connected to his temples. He winced in pain, his eyes shut tight.
          "I am not going to help you," Tridus confidently replied, his voice cracking from the pain. "I won't. Where's my daughter?"
          Albatross frowned, and the electricity shot through the wires and back into Tridus' head. He screamed for a second before shutting his mouth and holding it all in. He was trying to show that what the agents were doing did not effect him, and failing miserably. The wired, connected to the back of Tridus' chair, stopped buzzing as Tridus' tense body became slightly more relaxed. He opened his eyes again, and looked around. He was no longer in the chair. In fact, Tridus wasn't even in the same room.
          Tridus quickly got to his feet and looked around. He was in some sort of laboratory, with computers and equipment attached to the walls. A scientist stood confused, near one of the pieces of equipment. In the middle of the room was his laptop, almost totally destroyed, on a desk. The rest of the room faded away in the eyes of Tridus, who ran over to his laptop and picked up the only remaining piece that was still intact. The tears began to flow.
          "Daddy, I'm okay, are you? Why are you sad?" Sashie asked. "I was a little scared, daddy. I couldn't do anything, but then I could again, and I had you come here, and-"
          "Of course!" Tridus exclaimed. "The emergency battery charger that I installed, it-"
          "Um, excuse me," the nervous scientist interrupted. "What are you doing with that laptop? Who are you? This is a restricted area, and you are not allowed to touch that laptop-"
          The researcher stopped speaking when Tridus gently put down the laptop's remaining components and charged at him. Tridus jumped on top of him, letting out a war cry, and began to pummel the man with his fists. Letting out all of his frustrations, Tridus punched and punched and-
          "Daddy!" Sashie yelled, bringing Tridus back around. "What are you doing?"
          Tridus thought about what he was doing, and then immediately got up off of the man, who was almost knocked unconscious. He straightened up the old clothes he was wearing, picked up Sashie's parts, and then began walking towards the door, knowing that Sashie was now too weak to teleport him anywhere else.

          Edge took swing after swing at SM_007, his arms ablaze and still not matching the fire in his heart. He hated this man who had let them all down, and was hellbent on burning him to a crisp. However, none of his punches connected. SM_007 was much quicker than Edge, who, SM_007 had to admit, was learning his martial arts pretty well. SM_007 finally became tired of the game when he saw Psycho Sam! holding his chainsaw in the air, waiting impatiently for a chance to attack SM_007 without the possibility of hurting Edge.
          Edge attempted for a diving swing out of desperation, but SM_007 caught him in the gut with a stiff knee, followed by an elbow to the back of Edge's skull. Edge fell to the ground. SM_007 looked down, and lifted his foot to crush the air our of Edge, when he realized that in his arrogance, he had made one fatal error. RStefan01, now having a clear line of sight, fired the shotgun.
          SM_007 began to cartwheel to his immediate left, not having much choice, even when he could see the bullets flying towards him as if they were trapped underwater. He managed to dodge the brunt of the attack, but a portion of the spray stung him as he fell to the ground, holding his stomach. A few of the bullets were inside of him.
          SM_007 closed his eyes, attempting to regenerate and force the pain out of him using evahl. The pain was almost gone, and SM_007 knew he could once again stand. But as he opened his eyes, he saw Psycho Sam! standing above him. Psycho Sam! grinned and pushed the chainsaw down towards SM_007 with all of his might.
          With less than a few miliseconds to spare, SM_007 rolled out of the way of the chainsaw, which clunked on the ground as sparks shot all around SM_007's body. SM_007 flipped onto his feet, and quickly kicked the chainsaw away from Psycho Sam!. As the chainsaw flew in the air, SM_007 kicked Psycho Sam! hard, knocking him over. He then stepped over Psycho Sam!, and caught the chainsaw. He slammed it down hard into Psycho Sam!'s neck, severing his head. He once again felt his dominance, before sensing more danger.
          SM_007 turned his head away from the decapitated stick figure, and noticed that RStefan01 once again had fired the shotgun. RStefan01 was now closer than last time, and SM_007 couldn't dodge the bullets this time. He tried to, and managed to piss half of the spray, but the rest was planted in his torso and stomach. He fell down to the ground and groaned in pain. This couldn't be happening. He was stronger, faster, smarter than this.
          Time, to SM_007, had jumped back into proper sequence as RStefan01 quickly walked over to SM_007, holding the chainsaw to his temple. He once again loaded the gun, and prepared to fire it, and terminate SM_007.
          "Wait!" SM_007 yelled with a sense of despiration. "Okay, okay, you've got me! You win! I'm defeated!"
          RStefan01 stared at SM_007 for a few moments, then lowered the shotgun. SM_007 smiled evilly, and quickly sprung back into action, calling on all of the reserves he could. He felt the evahl flow through him, and once again, began to see the world slow down for him as he planned out every move he could possibly make, despite the fact that he could feel the seering pain of the bullets inside of his stomach and chest.
          SM_007 rolled beside RStefan01, and jumped to his feet. RStefan01 swung the shotgun, in an attempt to hit SM_007. SM_007, however, caught the gun and ripped it away from RStefan01's clutches, who was suprised as he had not been overpowered ever in his life. SM_007, with unmatched speed, held up the shotgun, and shot RStefan01 directly in the face. RStefan01 fell to the ground, hard, but quickly began to get up again. Part of his skin was gone, revealing the glowing red eye and metallic skin underneath. SM_007 sensed the anger in RStefan01, and a brief moment of panic. RStefan01, cold like SM_007, attempted to throw a punch, but SM_007 easily dodged that, and several others. SM_007 knew he was quicker, but also knew that there would be no way to stop RStefan01 without completely destroying his body.
          SM_007 noticed a large concrete pillar nearby. He ran around RStefan01, and ran towards it, with RStefan01 instinctivly vollowing him. When he was only about ten feet away from the pillar, which was several metres wide, he dodged another swinging punch of RStefan01, grabbed him by his shirt, and channeled any evahl energy in his body or the building itself. He began to run, and quickly picked up speed until RStefan01 slammed into the pillar with a thunderous crunch. RStefan01, now having indented the pillar, fell to the ground as the pillar quickly began to crack and fall to pieces above him.
          SM_007 smiled and spun around. He already knew what was going to happen, and opted to head for the elevator. As he was walking, he heard the rolling thunder, not online that of when the Riptide building collapsed, of the cement pillar falling to pieces on the ground, on top of RStefan01. It would not kill him, SM_007 decided, but at least it would contain him until he got a more powerful weapon from inside the complex.

          Tridus had seen two agents in different hallways, but was running so fast and with such determination that he mananaged to get passed them. However, the bright white lights had turned red as an alarm sounded. Of course, Albatross knew that Tridus was on the loose and needed him stopped at all costs. Tridus, however, didn't stop running for one second. He finally made it to a large room, not unline a lobby, where he saw an elevator, where the door was open. He ran into it, and just as he did so, he heard the footsteps over other agents.
          Tridus spun around and looked at the agents. There were at least ten of them, all holding their pistols at Tridus with an emotionless stare. In the middle of them all was Albatross, who looked neither happy nor displeased. He seemed...impartial to Tridus, which made him even more worried.
          Tridus spun to his right and quickly pressed the button to close the elevator door as the flurry of bullets slammed into the back of the elevator's interior. Tridus pressed the button to close the door again and again, but there was no effect. The agents were walking towards the elevator confidently, knowing that Tridus had no escape. They deactivated the elevator controls from this floor, and were already almost inside of the thing.
          Tridus almost had the inclination to give up the chase when the door suddenly closed on its own. He heard the agents slamming into it with their fists as they tried desperately to open it. The elevator began to move upwards, and after a few seconds, the door opened. Tridus dashed out, and saw SM_007 standing right in front of him, dumbfounded. SM_007 had been trying to open the elevator, and he led Tridus to where he was.
          "How the hell did you get away from your cell?" SM_007 asked.
          Tridus frowned.
          "I've gotten too far to go back in there now. I am leaving, SM. I don't care what you do. You can kill me where I stand, or you can sit there and do the right thing, which is letting me leave. I don't expect you to come back with me now, and I don't want you to."
          Tridus began to walk away from SM_007, who looked at the elevator door, confused. As Tridus was walking away, he noticed RStefan01 coming to his feet, out of a pile of rubble. Tridus immediately stopped walking, and began to slowly turn around, noticing the other Riptide members scattered accross the room. BandWidth was using a pencil to draw Psycho Sam! a new neck, who was grumbling. Edge was slowly coming to his feet, groggily. And SM_007, also seeing these people come to their feet, pulled his silenced PP7 pistol out of his pocket.
          Everyone jumped as RStefan01 tried vainly to reach the shotgun. SM_007 closed one eye, squinted, and pointed the pistol directly at Tridus. He began to squeeze the trigger, but before he could do so, he simpled slammed the gun down on the ground. As he did so, the elevator door behind him opened again, as six agents and Albatross walked out. SM_007, not having seen them, fell to his knees, the pain from his gut throbbing once again.
          "Just leave," SM_007 said, defeated, to his former friends. "It's over. Just go while you have a chance."
          "You've failed," Albatross whispered to SM_007. "I tried many times to be patient, to help you break the ties to your friends. I thought that when I had an agent blow up the Riptide building, once and for all, you would have left your old, weaker self behind. You're useless. We no longer have a need for you."
          An agent walked over, and held a gun to the head of SM_007, who was on his knees with his eyes closed. The other agents all removed their weapons, and aimed them at the helpess team. No one moved.
          "Kill them all."
          Just as Albatross had uttered those words, blue beams of energy appeared over the various agents, save Albatross. As the small particles of energy surrounded them, they disappeared. Then, at almost the same moment, five new beams appeared, and five people in futuristic uniforms appeared. Two of them were wearing red-coloured clothing, while two others were wearing yellow, and the last person, wearing blue. They all removed what looked like small laser pistols. One of the men in red looked at the injured Tridus, and spoke.
          "We represent the United Federations of Planets. There men, known as the agents, are a group of small-time thugs that have travled back in time to change history. As soon as we found out, we came and are now placing them under arrest, where they will cause no trouble to anyone. We are sorry for any inconvenience they might have caused you."
          Tridus blinked.
          "Are you telling me that these people aren't powerful at all?"
          The officer laughed.
          "Of course, in this time, they were introducing technology never seen before. Where we come from, they aren't threatening at all, no. Don't worry - they'll be dealt with appropriately."
          Trius stared in disbelief.
          "Well, at least that explains how they could see the future..."
          "And as a token of our good will and as an apology, we have left you a present outside. We learned that your building was destroyed, so we are leaving you a little replacement. It is actually one of the worst ships in the glazy, and it is in very poor condition, but it is the best we can afford. It is in pretty bad shape,but still has a full compliment of photon torpedos, a recharging warp core, and more importantly, a cloacking device. Thank you, and goodbye."
          The team were surrounded by a blue beam of particles as they disappeared into thin air, along with Albatross. Tridus looked back at his own team, whom had gathered around him when the captain from Starfleet was speaking. They all looked at each other, and then began to head outside. When they walked out of the building, they were shocked.
          There, outside of the building, was a Klingon Bird of Prey, hovering. It was big enough that it was blocking out the sun for several blocks. A small ramp was already descended and on the ground.
          "Damn!" Edge exclaimed. "This may be a hunk of junk to them, but this is still pretty sweet. Let's take her back to Riptide HQ, and make her our new home. We can keep her cloaked."
          "Sounds good to me," BandWidth replied. "And I call captain!"
          "Where's SM_007?" RStefan01 interrupted.
          Everyone looked around.
          "He's gone," Tridus said. "And frankly, let's let him go, alright? I have to fix Sashie, and then this ship once I am done with her."
          "You mean we are going on a spaceship, daddy?" Sashie asked enthusiastically. Tridus smiled.
          "Yes, sweetie, we are."
          In the distance, BandWidth noticed a familier Jaguar speeding off. The others also looked over and saw it, but didn't say anything. Instead, they all began ascending the ramp to their new ship and home.

          THE END!

Subject: A New Fiend (Storyverse)
Author: SoulTaker
Date: 2000-04-22 00:00:00

Subject: A Fall into Finity (Part 1)
Author: rRaminrodt
Date: 2000-04-22 00:00:00

A Fall into Finity

Between the twin storms of creation and destruction exist the myriad possibilities that make up all reality. Each discrete thread is a potential difference, not of energy or matter, but of probability. In one of these chances the thing called the Arc was created. Slowly but surely this Arc spread across space and into other threads, growing stronger and absorbing reality faster. In order to combat this disorder a group called the Spire attempted to master time in a new way. While they struggled valiantly the Arc overcame them. But out of this fire was tempered a new force, a living weapon with only one purpose… to unmake the Arc. This force called itself the Searcher.

He felt cold, and hungry. He hadn’t felt like this in a long time, as before the Life was unleashed, his body was in perfect harmony with his mind. Now, his previous equilibrium was thrown out of whack and he struggled against these feeling like other beings who had not received his training. Opening his eyes, he could see in the dim light of dawn trees zipping past him as his transportation rolled down the highway.

The Searcher had taken advantage of the nearing senile driver of the pickup truck by telling him that his automobile had broken down and he wished to see his wife. Uncharacteristically, the Searcher smiled, realizing how nearly cliché that particular chain of events had turned out. But it hardly mattered how he got there, this ride would get him close enough to the pinprick of darkness the Arc held in this universe, and where he could unleash that which he held within him.

^ ^ ^

rRaminrodt slapped the button on his truck’s door, unlocking both sides. Psycho_!Mas opened it and got in. He waited for his passenger to pull his door closed and started the engine. He turned the wheel and began down the road from the warehouse that the Seeker had built his personal search engine in.

"This isn’t the road back to Riptide, you know," Mas began.

"Did you even read what that website had to say?"

"Of course," Mas paused. "Oh, is that why you’re upset? ‘Cause it had your name on it?"

"It didn’t just have my name on it. It said I created the Arc! No wonder why the Searcher attacked me…"

"Um. That doesn’t mean anything. Since you haven’t done that, why should you be upset?"

rRaminrodt sighed, "Because I haven’t done it yet. It could be a predestination paradox, or simply a threadlike branch. I have no idea, but I know it definitely involves me."

"I have absolutely no idea what you just said. Why don’t we go to back to Riptide."

"Quiet for a second," rRaminrodt guided the truck up the on ramp to the highway and then into one of the travelling lanes. This early there was little traffic mostly semi’s hauling their cargo or other pickup trucks like his, with the smattering of other makes thrown in for good measure.

"Crud. So were going to freaking Idaho!?"

"Yes. We have to know what the Searcher is doing. We can call Riptide when I stop to get gas."

"Oh, god. This is crazy. Here we are chasing after a Evil Tridus, and I don’t even know you!"

"Calm down already," rRaminrodt scowled. "As I’ve said many times I’m a member of the Quantum Mechanics Society."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Keeping his eyes on the lookout for a rest stop rRaminrodt began to talk about his on history.

^ ^ ^

Daryl Morocco had fallen asleep at the keyboard again. The voices that whispered to him had working on breaking into the world bank again and he was exhausted. When he woke up he was hungry and so he wolfed down the final stale slice of pizza left on his tabletop. Daryl’s favorite movie was the matrix, because he could fancy himself like Neo the hero of the movie. A hacker turned superman, just like Daryl would be some day. Otherwise known as l33tg|_|Y, Daryl knew if he could only make the fools of this world and the internet realize the truth they would be set free.

This world was a lie; reality was not this world. He knew, because the voices told him, that the true reality was the Arc. The Arc, the Arc a perfect truth and beautiful thing he could hear the pounding of music from the upstairs apartment. The voices kept reminding him that he would soon have to kill that person, even though he had no idea who lived up there. Daryl smiled, the Arc would soon engulf this world and then, the voices told him, he would be able to fly around.

^ ^ ^

"Okay, that’s weird," Mas said while watching rRaminrodt pump gasoline into his truck.

"Not really, the Creators had their own agenda sure, but they still were our parents in a way."

"I wasn’t really talking about that. I meant the not being born thing."

"Eh. Lots of things in the universe are created spontaneously. We just happened to be intelligent."

"Okay, were at where the Creators just left."

"Oh. Well, my brother Fearmarogh traveled to the edge of the galaxy in order to guide a species he thought had potential. I stayed in the core and studied for a while. That’s when they detected a species called the Nirrathi, these people had a lot of potential too so the Unity was scared of them. Fearmarogh returned in failure and the lot of us went to speak with the Nirrathi. Well, a lot happened and I won’t bore you with it. But the Unity got mad at us and banished us and they destroyed the Nirathi home world, but let them keep their colonies. The Nirrathi got angry with me and chained me inside a crystal. But I managed to get out. So then they put me inside the sphere, which was sort of a biomechanical security device." rRaminrodt smiled.

"Too bad for them I figured out a way to take control of it. I was still locked inside so I made it part of myself. Well, this is when things get a little shady. I told you that I get kinda out of hand when I have a mission. Well, this was the case I’m mainly talking about. To make a long story short, I became the bad guy and got myself killed for the first time. The sphere lay dormant and so I had very little power but to influence others slightly. I finally fully reincarnated into a human, the race Fearmarogh had successfully created. And continued being nasty," rRamin put the nozzle back into its slot and pulled out his wallet to pay the attendant in the booth.

"Got killed again and reincarnated back into a living machine type thing. Which was cool while it lasted but that was probably my shortest incarnation. Got killed but this time I reincarnated into a fellow named Amarsh. Who was already like Fearmarogh’s chosen or whatever. So for finally after couple hundred thousand years I got to speak with my brother. They were kind enough to let me live as long as I took a backseat to Amarsh and provided him with the power of rRim’Northis." rRaminrodt turned to see Mas’s eyes glazed over.

Mas blinked, "This is really fascinated, but I don’t quite understand what your saying."

"Sorry, to make a long story short he eventually died. And I was put in a museum. I reincarnated millions of years later into a computer technician named Emard." He smiled and plucked at his shirt, "Emard and his friend Gorith Hidard had just started the QMS.

Mas sarcastically finished the story, "And the QMS grew into an actual society, and you came here for retirement."

"Actually that’s pretty close to true. I died in between then but Emard lived. Later I died again saving them and reincarnated into Emard again. That’s when some over zealous beings who consider themselves some kind of guardians of order stripped me of most of my power for reincarnating into the same person twice. So I’m always on the lookout for getting my power back… well, its not gone, but I can’t use it. When I do, those Aharire are in deep trouble."

Mas rubbed his chin, or at least the bottom of his circular face, "That’s bizzare. Not to mention really confusing."

"Yeah I know, and I’m the one who lived it." rRaminrodt smiled as he got back into the vehicle, "That’s why the searcher thing is important. I know I have the skills to do stuff like that, but there’s no way in heck I’d ever destroy reality. I HAVE to get the Searcher to tell me what’s going on."

^ ^ ^

For the first time in hundreds of years the Searcher felt lonely. He rationalized this feeling by noting the struggle it was to keep the Essence of the Hybrid under control and the chink made in his mental armor by seeing the Riptider’s all alive again. He had walked for the past few hours after leaving the old farmer at a truck stop.

The sun was now high in the sky and perspiration beaded on his forehead. The last time he had been this uncomfortable was when he had to face down the Dark Templar Zeratul. He smiled for the second time that day.

The Searcher shuddered and froze his thoughts. He began repeating the mantras of control over and over again. He was now fully aware of a new problem… his mind was slowly slipping away.

^ ^ ^

"There," Mas pointed at the sign over the highway. He laughed, "We’re almost there!"

"Heh. Now you’re happy."

Mas turned and shook his head, "I hate following other people, but now that I know you a little better..."

"Thanks," rRaminrodt nodded.

"I hate living in other peoples shadows that’s all. I want to control my own destiny." He sighed, "But my destiny seems to be the evil twin."

"You don’t seem very evil." "I’m Psycho Sam!’s evil twin. That means I’m just a normal guy. Well, normal stick figure. I always seem to be in his shadow no matter what I do. I organize the election and everything and what does Sam do, he kidnaps the president!"

"Sometimes I can’t stand him. That’s why I need to control my own destiny!" Mas waved a finger in the air.

"Well, since I can mathematically prove there isn’t anything such as destiny, you’re all set. There is complex probability and that’s where stuff like proph…. oh crap!"

rRaminrodt spun the wheel around hard to avoid crashing into the thing that now stood in the middle of the highway. A large black thing, the size of their truck, stood between two lanes. It raised up two of its pointed limbs, leaving five still touching the ground. Then, it screeched.

Cackling with a sound somewhere between a cricket chirp and a hawklike call it charged at the truck and slammed its front leg through the hood. Needless to say what remained of the engine burst into flame. rRaminrodt and Sam jumped out of the cab just before the creature smashed the windshield and swiped its sharp appendage about inside. One of the drivers of the cars whose path was blocked by rRamin’s destroyed truck got out with a shotgun in hand. He began waving it about threateningly until he saw the creature and dropped the weapon and ran back the other way.

The beast seemed bent on attacking rRaminrodt and Mas who were running in between cars in the jam that continued to grow. Mas dived between two cars and spied the shotgun.

"rRamin! Distract it so I can get the gun!" Mas yelled.

rRaminrodt began to unravel his arms into their constituent cables. He reshaped them into oversized arms and fists. He waved at the creature to get it’s attention. It worked. The creature charged at him but he smashed three legs causing it to trip. Meanwhile Mas had reached the shotgun. He skulked between the cars, keeping low so that the creature wouldn’t see him and approached the fight.

"Hurry up! I can’t keep this up," rRaminrodt shouted over to Mas.

The creature had made several large gashes in rRaminrodts cables with its razor-armored legs so Mas knew that wasn’t the point to attack. Gathering up courage for a risky move Mas crouched to the ground. When the beast raised its front leg up for another attack Mas rolled underneath the creature, pumped the shotgun and fired into its exposed underside. The creature wailed. Mas fired again in another spot, and rRamin slammed it in its face with a motorcycle. The creature flipped over nearly cutting Mas with its legs and began to convulse on the ground as blackish gore rose from the large welts made by the shotgun.

Mas got up slowly using the gun as a prop and walked over to rRaminrodt who had reassembled himself and was breathing hard from exhaustion.

"Do you think the Searcher caused that?" Mas asked quietly.

"No. I think that," rRaminrodt paused to breathe, "was the first sign of the Arc."

rRaminrodt

Subject: The origin exposed (Storyverse)
Author: SoulTaker
Date: 2000-04-22 00:00:00

Subject: Storyverse information.
Author: Psycho Sam!
Date: 2000-04-22 00:00:00

OK, right now rRaminrodt still has 1/2 a story to post, and then the storyverse is over. I've noticed Soultaker writing stuff in, but it was clarified a while ago that there would only be SM and rRam more people finishing it up, and it's almost over.

As for when the new storyline starts? Could people please wait for my story? It's already written and it HAS to go first or it won't make sense. SM_007 read it and agreed it fits with his ending, and rRam has agreed to end in a way that sort of leads into mine. As soon as they're over I'll post mine so fast you won't know what happened, and then everyone can add to it all they want.

As for why they're being finished up like this? I think it's because the storyverse got to long and complicated and people wanted to start from scratch.

So, could people please wait until rRaminrodt's story is finished and I have posted my story? I bet we could probably fit Soultakers stuff in anyway... But...

Subject: (Storyverse Story)Psycho Sam's vacation
Author: Psycho Sam!
Date: 2000-04-23 00:00:00

*It was a normal day, like every other. Birds were singing, dogs were running through the streets, nurses were being killed by super-intelligent Artificial Inteligences. On this particular day, Psycho Sam! had just jumped out of the hospital window and was running towards his laboratory*

Sam- Dagnabbit, I'm always getting blamed for everything. Why can't BandWidth just leave me alone? I don't need to take this.

*Sam made it to his lab and ran inside, almost tripping over a pile of junk. Inside the lab was Crazy Lou, Psycho Sam's laboratory's tech support head.*

Lou- Hey Sam, what's up?

Sam- Nothing important. Say, you find those things I wanted?

Lou- What? You mean the remains of Psycho Bot, and Fabuloso McWilly? Yeah, I got those. What do you want me to do with them?

Sam- Nothing, I think I'll try fixing them. I'll start off with Psycho Bot.

*Sam gathered up the peices of the pathetic little robot and got to work on putting them back together. 2 hours later, a little box-like robot rolled up to Crazy Lou. Written on the robot very crudely was "PsychoBot2". It made a few beeping noises*

Lou- Wow, I didn't think Sam was that good at robotics... That's amazing.

Sam- Now, I think I'll get to work on Fabuloso. Where is he?

Lou- Actually, he's not that badly hurt, he's just dead. You don't need to repair him.

Sam- Aww, can't I? I want to rebuild Fabuloso! Let me fix him!

Lou- Hey Sam, I think you may be a bit too stressed out. I suggest a vacation.

Sam- You know, I sure wouldn't mind a vacation. I think I'll do it. Now, where should I go? Pal, give me a list of places I can go for a vacation.

*Sam motioned to the computer, Pal, which started calculating information. Five minutes later, it had an answer*

Pal- You can go to hell. You're a jerk Sam. Just go to hell you big je...

*Sam pressed a few buttons on Pal's keyboard*

Pal- On another note, I hear Scotland's nice this time of year. And while you're there, you could restock your supply of plaid shirts.

Sam- Good job. That's what I'll do. Lou, while I'm away,try and work on fixing up Fabuloso. And try to tidy this place up, will you? It's kinda messy.

Lou- I'll do that Sam, how long do you think you'll be gone?

Sam- Who knows... Maybe a month I guess...

*Sam went to his room, packed a few bags, andwalked out of the lab. Once outside, he stood at the bus stop for a couple of hours before one finally arrived to take him to the airport*

Sam- Man, I hate public transportation. Next time I'll take my own car.

*As the bus drove out of sight, there was a loud cheer from the people at Riptide, though they new they still had some problems to face, at least Sam was gone for a while*


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

Changes: Sam went on vacation, Psycho Bot was rebuilt, and Lou is going to try and clean up the lab.

Note: OK, this is just to tie SoulTakers story into mine. I still don't know whether I should post my story now, or wait until rRaminrodt's story is posted. Mine is finished, but I still want to see if I should wait for rRam to post his. The real problem is that if anyone posts in between this one, and mine it might screw mine up, which is why I don't know whether I should wait for rRam's to finish up.


I am Sam!
Psycho Sam!
And I almost got the 5000th post, I lost by 2 seconds!

Subject: A Fall into Finity (Part 2)
Author: rRaminrodt
Date: 2000-04-23 00:00:00

Yep, this is it folks. Since the dns is being screwy. For the old half and others of this story arc you'll have to do a search for those posts, sorry :)

A Fall into Finity

The Searcher barely blinked as the sheriff's car sped past him on the road, lights and sirens blazing. In his own mind he thought that he had actually timed his arrival here pretty well. Soon the presence of the Arc would be felt in this world, but now just at the cusp of its arrival he had a chance.

A million variables had played into the situation. He had had to discover the Hybrids natural immunity to the corruption of the Arc. He had to contain the nascent essence of it within him until arriving in this place. He had to find SoulTaker, and regrettably use his long lost friends power on himself. He needed RStefan to be operable and return him to Riptide while delivering some of the information the Spire had stored within his memory banks to the Searcher. Then his plan almost failed when the computers he needed to find the location of the Arc's surrogate, but he had managed. He regretted losing the help of RStefan01, but it was a minor inconvenience.

It was within this small town that the anchor with which the Arc knew this reality lived. The Searcher knew, from experience, that the Damat-Yghurah, the Arc's right hand, would have found this person and taken command of that person's mind through trickery and confusion. With the Damat-Yghurah in this world, it would soon send other things into this plane in order to hinder his progress. But the Searcher was prepared.

^ ^ ^

Psycho Mas was sitting on the side of the road staring up at the gathering dark clouds when rRaminrodt finally caught up with him.

"Darnit, how in the world do you run so fast?" rRaminrodt panted.

"I don't know. The lack of wind resistance?"

rRamin chuckled, "Sounds reasonable. What I wouldn't do for a break right now. I'm so tired."

Mas was about to speak when the sound of gunfire erupted from a short distance nearby. They sprinted over to the spot where a young man was pointing a pistol at someone they both recognized.

The Searcher stood with a hand outreached and two slugs in his palm. Another person lay bleeding on the ground nearby with a bullet in his shoulder. The Searcher turned his head slowly to face the newcomers.

"So, the fiend and the reversed one have come to see what I am doing. I do not mind, as long as you stay out of my way."

Mas started, "What's going on? If you'd stop being so darn mysterious and talk to us we might even help you!"

The Searcher laughed. He was about to speak when a loud crash was heard and a nearby car suddenly flipped over. Startled, everyone turned to face the new disturbance except the man with the gun who began running in the opposite direction.

Behind where the car once rested stood a tall spindly thing. It began to speak.

The Searcher yelled at the other two, "An Uchrakaghun! Get out of here if you value your lives."

He held out his hands and twin streams of energy sprayed out from them only to dissipate a foot from the Uchrakaghun's body. The creature spoke again in its strange language and flame erupted around the Searcher but he continued his attack unharmed.

Mas grabbed rRaminrodt by the sleeve, "We'd really better get out of here."

As soon as these words left his mouth, the facade of one of the buildings exploded in a thunder of dust and brick and two of the creatures Mas and rRamin face earlier leapt out.

The Searcher paused a moment from his own attack to throw up some kind of shield of energy, and to look at the others. "The Shin-Vekar are after you fiend. You had better run now…" the Searcher half taunted half warned.

Mas unstrapped and pumped the shotgun he had been carrying, rRaminrodt began to unravel his forearms like before, only this time the Uchrakaghun saw this and paused its attack.

Ignoring Mas and his shots the Shin-Vekar ran past him and straight toward the Searcher. The Searcher was totally unprepared for this odd strategy and while unhurt was bowled over by the creatures. The Uchrakaghun jumped up into the air and landed in front of rRaminrodt.

It hissed, "The Damat-Yghurah wishes to speak with its creator."

It grabbed rRaminrodt in its spindly arms and exploded in a violent splash of sickly green light. The shockwave knocked Mas to the ground, and he couln't seem to get up.

A shadow loomed over Mas's face. Then the face to match that shadow appeared. The Searcher put a hand out to help Mas up. Looking around he saw an abandoned street with two dead Shin-Vekar lying on the ground smoking and riddled with holes in their carcasses.

The Searcher frowned, "The Vekar are no match for me. But the fiend, that fool has disrupted things again."

Mas struggled to speak, "I don't understand."

"Nor do I, I can not see what the Arc would want with him since it has already taken these memories of his. But nevertheless, it is an uncertainty in my plan."

"Okay…" Mas paused and reached for his shotgun.

The Searcher grabbed his arm. "That will not help you," he said. Then he placed an heavy futuristic looking gun in Mas's hand. "This will defend you against the Vekar. It was designed to pierce their armor."

Mas shook his head, "I don't understand."

"I want you to help me. One chance to destroy the Arc was ruined today. I will not lose another chance to finish this."

"What are we supposed to do?"

"I must enter the Arc. Then all will be finished. But first I must find that man, the one the Damat-Yghurah whispers to."

"The one with the gun?"

"Yes," the Searcher began walking away. As he strode away Mas turned around to look behind him and saw the man the gunman had shot. There was a huge hole in his chest, where one of the Shin-Vekar had stepped on him. Mas sighed quietly and said a silent prayer, then he ran after the Searcher.

^ ^ ^

Daryl sat on a stump in a field panting. His knuckles where white on the hand he held the gun in. Just like the voices said someone was after him now. He was counting birds in the field when the rain began to pour down on him. He felt the urge to run into the nearest building but the voices told him to stay put.

A sudden gust of wind blew past him changing the direction of the rain. A few moments later someone tapped his shoulder. Daryl turned slowly and looked up. A face he had only seen for a few moments stared down at him.

"Hello Daryl, my name is rRaminrodt. The Arc wants to talk to you now…"

^ ^ ^

The rain that fell on Mas and the Searcher was freezing cold, but the Searcher felt like his skin was burning. Every minute that slipped away he lost more control of the Hybrid's soul. It seethed beneath the surface of his mind. Beneath the practiced calm of a million of years of life the Searcher, was panicking. This was the last chance to destroy the Arc. The very last chance.

Lighting lit up the fileld that the Searcher and Mas was slugging though. It illuminated three figures standing before them.

The one on the right stepped forward. rRaminrodt opened his mouth and spoke with the voice of a hundred beings, "The Arc welcomes the one who calls himself the Searcher. I represent the Damat-Yghurah; we have decided to move up your timeline, since you will fail in your mission. There is no need for us to prolong these preliminary actions, after this is done the Arc will be unchallenged."

Mas, unnerved, took a step backwards. The Searcher stepped forward and threw off his cloak and let the rain beat down on his face. "I accept the Arc's challenge."

The Uchrakaghun cocked its head to the side and hissed in its language, "Zja kkeka kleaks ceghev."

rRaminrodt pointed at Mas, "That one does not need to witness these proceedings. The Arc will destroy him now."

The Creature stepped up to Mas, and placed its arms out. Mas was enveloped in an orange field and started to grimace. Through gritted teeth Mas pleaded the Searcher, "Help me… arh… It's killing me."

The Searchers face turned even more solemn but he stood unmoving.

The Uchrakaghun hissed blankly. Mas started to scream, and then above the screaming a large crack was heard. The field enveloping Mas disappeared, and a body dropped to the ground. Around the Uchrakaghun's neck were twisted the cables that made up rRaminrodt's left arm.

rRaminrodt smiled while Mas looked up terrified. "He he. You can't keep me down for long."

Mas nearly shouted with joy, "I thought you were taken over!"

"I was, but that Damat thing wasn't as smart as it thought… I got access to the memories of the rRaminrodt who created the Arc. Lets just say I learned a few tricks, and it won't be bothering us anymore," rRaminrodt chuckled.

Daryl was staring at them wild eyed. "I thought you were on our side," he whined.

"Eh. Sorry to disappoint you."

He was about to speak again when the Searcher began to move. With deliberate slowness he approached the Arc's lackey. He grabbed the man's collar with both hands and lifted him up. The rain made a wet sheen on the Searchers skin, and to Mas and rRaminrodt it seemed like it was almost glowing unhealthily.

The Searcher growled, "Recite the mantra."

"No."

"You will recite the mantra and open a path to the Arc."

"But…"

"Or you will die a worse death than becoming a mere part of the Arc. I will make sure the Deamons of the nether eat your soul for eternity."

Almost in tears he gave in, "Okay, Ill do it. I hope the Arc destroys you forever…"

"BEGIN!"

Daryl began to recite, "Iear vaier uhtier dakant noshzuru kar inb groborta,

Then things were quiet. rRaminrodt and Mas looked on in anxious anticipation. The rain continued to pour down, and the Searcher just stood rigid holding the servant of the Arc fast.

Without warning the Searcher dropped Daryl, who began screaming and clutching his head.

"Do you wish to be free of the Arc?"

Daryl only nodded through the pain.

The Searcher held out his palm and placed it against the other mans forehead. He pulled it back quickly as if burnt. Attached to his hand was a small sphere the size of a marble, and as black as black can get. Daryl dropped to the ground, his face splashing in the mud, but then struggled up to his feet and begin crawling away from the trio. The Searcher dropped the ball that stopped in midair above the ground.

The Searcher let out a deep breath and dropped to his knees. rRaminrodt and Mas just looked at each other wondering if it was over. Their silent question was, of course, premature as a deep red light struck out from the hole in space and struck the Searcher. He smiled and disappeared.

^ ^ ^

The Searcher was falling; falling from far above the surface of the dark globe that hung below him. Yet the fall was gentle, as the pull was not gravity but the unnatural physics of the Arc. Then he spied two other falling figures some distance from him. He nearly screamed in rage. This was wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

The Searcher surrendered to madness.

^ ^ ^

rRaminrodt was swearing as he fell toward the surface of the Arc. Mas kept flailing about trying to slow down or take control of his descent. Yet they landed on the surface of the giant thing softly and unceremoniously.

When he was about to speak Mas was thrown back a couple meters. Before them stood the Searcher, not as a human being but as the Hybrid he had held within him.

"Fiend. You and your allies have ruined past and future. I will destroy you!"

The creature that had been the searcher grasped rRaminrodt's neck and began squeezing, slowly choking him. Under excruciating pain, for some unknown reason rRaminrodt saw the Searchers human face instead of the Hybrids. He saw the face, not just of the Searcher; he saw the face of Tridus.

rRaminrodt tried croaking out one word, "Sashie."

As if hit by a strong force the Seacher/Hybrid fell backwards onto the surface of the Arc.

rRaminrodt spoke quickly, "What do you want to destroy, huh? The past? The future? What'd you do, to give up you identity?"

The Searcher screamed, "I let her die! I couldn't save them, the Arc killed the Earth, killed the Spire! Killed my daughter!" He began screaming and crying.

Mas who was silent before, whispered, "Tridus, don't destroy it because you have to. Destroy it because it will let her live again… in this past."

The Searcher looked up suddenly and wailed. Then his arms burst into a bright blue-white flame and he plunged them into the surface of the Arc. The purity of the hybrid ate away at the skin opening a hole into the interior. Before them stood the human, Tridus, and he smiled.

"After so long, being alone I should have realized what the true point of the Search was. Allies."

He motioned with his arm, "Lets go."

The three entered the hole and were pulled to the center of the arc. At the center lay a strange thousand limbed featureless thing attached to the matter of the Arc by a thousand threads.

rRaminrodt whispered, "The Hgoerl. This is what warped the Arc into what it is now."

A voice that was not a voice engulfed them. "SEARCHER. YOU HAVE MADE IT FURTHER THAN THE ARC THOUGHT POSSIBLE. IT IS GOOD THAT THE ARC CAN STILL BE CHALLENED. IT WILL MAKE THE ARC STRONGER."

Tridus spoke, "Sorry, but I've retired that name. You see the Search is over. Its time to die."

"THE ARC LAUGHS. THE ARC IS INFINITE AND INDESTRUCTABLE. THIS HAS BEEN PROVED A MILLION TIMES OVER. THE HGOERL GIVES THE ARC PURPOSE WHILE THE ARC GIVES THE HGOERL POWER. WE ARE PERFECT."

"We'll see about that." Tridus spread out his hands and energy splashed out slamming into the Hgoerl.

The Hgoerl responded by spinning rapidly warping the fabric of the Arc around them and attacking Tridus with darkness. rRaminrodt began to chant and use some type of power to attack the Hgoerl also. It responded in kind.

Mas held back unsure of what to do. He observed the fight and saw that both future Tridus and rRaminrodt were struggling in vain. Every time the Hgoerl attacked them tough the strands that connect it to the Arc separate. A thought began to form in Mas's mind.

Suddenly Tridus staggered back, with a dagger of darkness through his midsection. The Hgoerl began to move to approach Tridus and finish him off, rRaminrodt threw himself at it but was knocked back. Suddenly, Mas ran yelling past the Hgorerl as it hovered above the dying Tridus and leapt at the center of the Arc. He grabbed the connection threads and held on tight.

Suddenly the universe that was the Arc shuddered and disappeared. Then it snapped back into existence. In the center of the Arc, where before the Hgoerl stood minutes before was a large single while pole of energy. The Arc spoke.

"YOU WERE INDESTRUCTABLE. BUT YOU CONNECTION WAS NOT. THE ARC SMILES. HELLO RRAMINRODT, HELLO TRIDUS. THE ARC WAS ONCE THE HGOERL THE ARC IS NOW MAS."

The Hgorel made a screeching noise and moved away from Tridus, suddenly it was surrounded by a blue sphere which began to contract and dragged the Hgoerl out of existence.

"I HAD ALWAYS WANTED TO CONTROL MY OWN DESTINY. THIS WAS MY BEST CHANCE. TRIDUS, YOU HAVE SUCCEEDED THE OLD ARC IS NO MORE. THE ARCS PURPOSE IS NO LONGER TO ABSORB REALITY. I WILL MAKE MY OWN PURPOSE JUST LIKE YOU DID TRIDUS."

Tridus smiled weakly. He stared down at his now whole chest and smiled even stronger.

"YOU ARE LUCKY RRAMINRODT TO HAVE CAUSED THE CREATION OF THE ARC TWICE. IF YOU HADN'T DRAGGED ME ALONG, THINGS MAY HAVE TURNED OUT DIFFERENTLY. I CAN ONLY SAY THAT YOU BOTH SAVED ME ONCE AND I COULD ONLY RETURN THE FAVOR. THE ARC SMILES AGAIN."

"I can only wonder what happened Mas. Are you really okay?" rRaminrodt asked.

"TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION. YOU HAVE CONFUSED ME ENOUGH FRIEND RRAMINRODT, NOW IT IS MY TURN TO CONFUSE YOU. I WAS ALWAYS PART OF THE ARC, JUST LIKE THE HGOERL. I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW, THAT ITS TIME FOR ME TO FIX THE DAMAGE THE OLD ARC CAUSED."

The arc paused.

"YOU MUST GO NOW. BUT IF EITHER OF YOU EVER NEED ME JUST LOOK FOR THE ARC. GOODBYE NOW."

Then reality snapped.

rRaminrodt and Tridus both stood in the field that they had entered the Arc in. Tridus smiled.

He ran a hand through his hair, "Well. I think I've outside my welcome in this world. The world of the Spire needs to be rebuilt, and since I'm currently out of work, I think I'll apply for the job."

"Even with an extra hundred years of knowledge, I still have no idea what's going on."

"How old are you? 3 million years? Give it another mill, you'll be a bit wiser then." Tridus chuckled, "Life is for living. I kind of forgot that. Don't you, I know you have the capability for it, stick with your friends they'll watch your back…"

"And could you tell Sashie for me, that I love her."

rRaminrodt almost choked, "I will."

He gave a two-fingered Salute and disappeared without warning. rRamin blinked at the sudden disappearance. He walked a few steps and then sat down on the nearby stump. To no one in particular he said, "Dang, I guess my retirement is over."

Notes: Read the epiloge, which effectivly wraps up this 'season' of the storyverse.

rRaminrodt

Subject: Fork in the Road (Storyverse Epilogue)
Author: rRaminrodt
Date: 2000-04-23 00:00:00

Fork in the Road (Storyverse Epilogue)

SM_007 punched a few buttons on the cargo bay door of their bird of prey and it slowly closed. He patted the side of his silver jaguar which he had just driven in and strolled to the bridge. BandWidth was sitting in the captain's chair spinning around.

"Whee. This thing is great."

Edge looked at BandWidth and smiled, "You're having way too much fun bandie."

"Whatever, you're just jealous that you're not president." He straightened his uniform imperiously.

The door opened and Tridus walked in. He wiped his brow, "I have to be the luckiest guy in the world."

SM looked up, "Why?"

I found most of the parts I needed to fix Sashie in the ship but there was one important piece I needed that was missing. But what do you know the electronics shop on Main street had one. That old guy is such a lifesaver."

"So she's going to be okay?"

"Yep. She's recharging now."

BandWidth and Edge slapped his back smiling. "That’s the best news we've heard in a while."

SoulTaker pulled the device he had in his ear out. "That’s not the end of it. Set course for Idaho SM."

"Why?"

"You'll see."

=-= =-= =-=

Above his head a Klingon bird of prey decloaked and landed. Out of the landing ramp walked Edge and RStefan01.

"Hey, rRamin!"

Edge just shook his head, "We had no idea where you went off to. Did you find the Searcher."

rRaminrodt made a crooked smile, "Yeah. I have quite the story." He paused and looked up at the ship, and his grin got even wider, "I call dibs on science officer."

The other chuckled.

rRamin waved them to follow him as he walked up the ramp, "Cmon. I have a message for Tri."

He walked in the ship and passed the newly minted Dedication plaque.

It read: USS Riptide

"We took the road less traveled by,

and that has made all the difference."

THE END ( ? :)

rRaminrodt

Subject: (Storyverse Story)The new Begining
Author: Psycho Sam!
Date: 2000-04-23 00:00:00

Go here.


I am Sam!
Psycho Sam!
And I almost got the 5000th post, I lost by 2 seconds!

Subject: (storytime kiddies) 'Chief Engineer Tridus reporting for duty!'
Author: Tridus
Date: 2000-04-23 00:00:00

(authors note: this takes place after rRaminrodts stories, and before Psycho Sam's, so there shouldn't be any time issues involved with this, its just a "fill in the blank of what happened during that gap" type of story)

Subject: (POST BOX STOREE) Final Collision
Author: SM_007
Date: 2000-04-24 00:00:00

Author's Note: For best viewing, check out this story in Internet Explorer. Or, heck, just don't use Netscape, which always regulates the Times New Roman font to size 10. That is all.

The End!

Changes by this storee:
SM_007 is now back with the USS Riptide and her crew, though he has lost all of his powers of evahl that Albatross had given him. Speaking of which, Albatross is finally and truly dead, as is the agent he came back in time with.

SM_007
Virtue mine honour

---

Subject: (storytime again) A day without email is like a day without breathing...
Author: Tridus
Date: 2000-04-25 00:00:00

note: this takes place after SM's last story, which I believe was yesterday

"ugh..."

Tridus slowly opened his eyes and looked around. He was quick to notice a few things...

He felt extremely stiff.

He felt extremely hungry.

These Klingon beds had to be removed and replaced with something comfortable.

Sighing, he made his way slowly in the virtual darkness (the ship needed more lights too) over to the replicator.

"Coffee, black. Lots of it."

The computer responded with something in Klingon.

"oh for the... Sashie, sweetie, order daddy a coffee."

Silence.

Tridus looked around, and didn't see his laptop. He also didn't see his room, he saw the sickbay.

"Oh... ugh... well, I guess I can manage for now without coffee..." although as he started walking around the ship towards his room, he didn't really believe it.

Eveuntally he got to his room and looked around, no Sashie. So he made his way to engineering and there she was, sitting beside the Warp Core, which looked fixed.

"Hello sweetie, how did you fix the warp core?"

Sashie sounded cheerful this morning. "uncle rRaminrodt did it yesterday daddy!"

"yesterday? What day is this?"

"Tuesday daddy."

"Tuesday... and... ugh... what day did I go to sleep?"

"Sunday."

"Sunday!?"

"Yep! Your a sleepyhead!"

"I guess so... could you order me coffee? The replicator is being mean and talking in Klingon still."

Sashie said something in Klingon, and a few seconds later a hot mug of coffee appeared. Tridus quickly drank it.

"mmm... thank you. At least they know how to make a decent cup of coffee in the future. Any new emails?"

"Don't know daddy. Can't check."

"Why not?"

"No data lines."

Tridus shook his head in dismay and nearly ordered a second cup of coffee right there... no Internet!? Well, this was just too bad to be true.

"Alright... this thing has a war drive, subspace radio, and it doesn't have TCP/IP!??"

"nope. it does get the cartoon network though daddy, yay!"

"I noticed that, you've been watching looney tunes again haven't you? I saw those anvils back on... well, I guess it was sunday."

Sashie giggled.

"Alright sweetie... we need to get this thing online, and I think I know just how to do it."

Tridus then picked up his laptop and walked back to his extremely well lit room. Twenty one hours later, he walked to the transporter pad carrying Sashie and a small metallic black box.

One hour and twenty seven minutes after that, he beamed back up and walked to engineering.

Forty-two minutes later, he walked back to his room.

"Sashie, any new email?"

Sashie paused a moment, then responded... "Two hundred and thirty seven."

"*sigh* Alright... umm... well, I'll deal with that in a minute. Open a comm channel to the Bridge."

There was a few beeps and then finally "Bandwidth here, go ahead."

"Hiya Capitain... I have great news for you, we have Internet access on this ship!"

Nothing came over the speaker for a moment, and then... "Thats nice."

"What do you mean thats nice!? Its great! You could play quake around Saturn with no lag in this thing!"

"Thats nice."

Tridus sighed. These peoplejust didn't appreciate his work sometimes. "Well, anyway... don't use the subspace radio for a while ok?"

"Why not?"

"Well..." Tridus looked at the pieces of the radio scattered around his room. "Its not entirely functional right now."

"Oh, alright. BandWidth out." *click*

Tridus smiled. Not fully functional was an understatement... he had taken it apart to learn how to build the reciever that was now sitting in a computer in his cottage which connected the ship to his high speed Internet lines using Subspace Transmission. It sure beat Infared transmission, thats for sure!

Having Sashie read his e-mail to him, Tridus pushed the SubSpace radio he had taken apart to the back of his mind. No sense in worrying about the minor detail that he had no idea how to put it back together right now, not with new email to read anyway...

Changes by this story:
Well, Tridus slept for over a day, then put the ship on the internet, so the crew can now play broodwar from anywhere in the solar system. Of course they don't have a subspace radio anymore, but that'll get fixed one of these days. (probably after he does the translation thing so the damn computers speak english) :-)

If there were no words, no way to speak... I would still hear you... - Martina McBride

---

Subject: The Language Barrier
Author: rRaminrodt
Date: 2000-04-26 00:00:00

=USS Riptide, Engineering bay=

rRaminrodt banged his head against the desk a cople of times.

rR: Argh. Why'd I have to to this job?

Tridus: Because you said you didn't like programming very much. Stop whining already, you weren't the one who just got out of the hospital bed.

rR: *frowning* Ah fine. What do you need next?

Tridus: SoQmoH.

rRaminrodt flipped through the pages of the book in front of him.
rR: to Close, verb

Tridus: Very nice, *smiling* that would make sense since its all over the valve controls...

rRaminrodt moans and slumps in his chair.
rR: When is she going to wake up??

Tridus: Quit complaining, we've only been doing this for 5 hours. Anyway, she needs her sleep.

rR: Me too.

Tridus: Do you want to get this done or not?

rR: Of course, but its kinda late... You're some kind of perfectionist robot. I want to die.

Tridus: tep

rR: Cargo, noun... Ergh. I hate klingon!

The sound of the two chatting passed through a few of the bulkheads only to be drowned out by the humming of the engines in idle which ran throught the rest of the sleepy ship.

Changes:
In the spirit of the recent others, nothing much. But the klingon is pretty much all translated now! YAY!

rRaminrodt

---

Subject: (POST BOX STOREE) Nothing Happening
Author: SM_007
Date: 2000-04-26 00:00:00

Stagnation


I'm destructive.
Some women find that seductive.
Some say it's lunacy.
-Puff Daddy


(SM_007 flipped the card over and looked at it. Then he frowned.)

SM_007: Damn.

(SM_007 threw the rest of the cards on the table, and stood up, stretching.)

SM_007: Ungh. There's got to be another way...

(Just as SM_007 was trailing off, the door to his room slid open as Edge walked in.)

Edge: Hey, SM! How are you doing?

SM_007: Um, okay.

(Edge looked over at the table.)

Edge: What ya up to?

SM_007: Oh, I was just playing solitaire.

Edge: Ah.

(Edge looked at the table for a few more seconds.)

SM_007: Did you talk to BandWidth at all?

(Edge sighed.)

Edge: I don't think he's about to let you out of here. Not for a while, yet.

(SM_007 sat down on his cold bed. Edge walked over.)

Edge: You just have to stick through it. Not everyone is going to trust you.

SM_007: Do you trust me?

(Edge looked away instantly.)

Edge: I just remembered that I'm late for duty, and--

(SM_007 leaped off of his bed, grabbed Edge, and spun him around hard.)

SM_007: I...

(SM_007 looked at Edge, then let go and sat back down.)

SM_007: I can't stay in here forever.

(Edge was rubbing his shoulders as he headed for the door to SM_007's quarters.)

Edge: Sometimes, the punishment fits the crime.

(Edge left the room.)

SM_007: Yeah...

(SM_007 screamed as he picked up his table and threw it accross the room. It hit the wall and fell to the ground, broken. SM_007 clutched his fists and took a deep breath. He needed to hold on. He couldn't let it all fall apart now.)

SM_007: Why can't I control...?

(SM_007 stopped speaking to himelf when he heard something else whispering to him. It was quiet, and subtle. But he could hear it. Something was giving him commands, so quiet he could not understand what it was saying. But he understood what the messanger was. In his room, alone, SM_007 felt, heard and touched what he recognized as his unseen ally whom he thought had abandoned him.)

(SM_007 sat on his bed, rocking back and forth, quietly, full of rage and alone.)

SM_007
Virtue mine honour

---

Subject: (storytime again) 'Your computer has an imaginary friend?'
Author: Tridus
Date: 2000-04-26 00:00:00

Sitting in his quarters typing away on Sashie, Tridus stopped to take another sip of coffee and look at the now sleeping rRaminrodt who had his head buried inside a large book of Klingon. His snoring was making it impossible for Tridus and Sashie to sleep, which at the very least meant the translation job would be done sooner.

"Ok Sashie... now, all we need to do is give the computer a new voice, and all will be well. Where do you think we should get the voice from?"

"Cynthia!"

Tridus sighed. This Cynthia business was really getting out of hand.

"Sweetie, I'm not sure if thats such a good idea, after all I don't even think Cynthia has a voice..."

"Cynthia!!"

"*sigh* Sashie, maybe we should use someone everybody else is more used to, you know, li..."

"CYNTHIA!!!" Sashie screamed.

Tridus rubbed his ears.

"Cynthia it is then." Tridus pressed a few buttons on a computer console beside him. "Ok, go ahead and do the transfer now."

"YAY! Uploading..."

A progress meter then appeared and slowly progressed upwards. when it hit 100%, Tridus pressed a few buttons and a comm link to the bridge opened up.

"Bridge here." BandWidth's voice greeted him.

"Hiya... do me a favor, and ask the computer how its doing."

"Oh ok... wait a minute? Isn't it just going to answer in Klingon?"

Tridus smiled. "Just try it."

"well, ok... Computer, how are you today?"

To that, a voice somewhat similar to Sashie's but with a stronger french accent replied "good, how are you?".

There was a pause before Bandwidth responded. "What the hell was that Tridus??"

Sashie answered first. "That was Cynthia!"

"Cynthia?"

"My best friend!"

"Uhh... alright..."

Tridus finally spoke up, trying not to laugh. "BandWidth, right now that AI doesn't do a lot except for talk, its not interfaced into the ship's systems or anything yet. We'll be working on that down here over the next few days, you can expect it to totally replace the old system within a week or so I'd say."

"Alright, Bridge Out." *click*

Tridus laughed. "hehehe, that was amusing. I think this will take them a little bit of getting used to."

"Yes daddy, but they'll like her, everybody loves Cynthia!"

"I know sweetie, I know..."

Changes by this story
Nothing major, the computer's new voice is Sashie's imaginary friend Cynthia, who doesn't actually do much of anything yet because the AI system isn't tied into any of the ships systems yet. But it does make interesting conversation. :-)

If there were no words, no way to speak... I would still hear you... - Martina McBride

---

Subject: (guess I'm in a writing mood lately) Memorial Valley...
Author: Tridus
Date: 2000-04-26 00:00:00

Standing at the door to the quarters in which SM_007 was confined to, Tridus stopped.

"Is this a good idea? I mean what if he tries to kill us again?"

Tucked safely in between Tridus' left arm and his side, Sashie responded quietly.

"Its good to talk, then we can go play when everybody is happy!"

Tridus couldn't help but smile. Children were so idealistic at times...

So, unsure of if this was a good idea or not, Tridus pushed what passed for a doorbell on this ship, and waited.

and waited...

and waited...

irritably, he pushed it again.

This time, he got a response.

"Come in."

Walking in the door, Tridus noticed first of all that this room hadn't really been decorated like his. No bright lights, no chairs, no computer parts... it was, sparse... barren... Klingon. Tridus shook his head, this wasn't the kind of place for someone to be locked in.

Looking around for SM, he saw him laying on the bed staring blankly at the metal cieling, indeed... this was a very bad place to be locked up.

"Hi." Tridus finally said. "How are you doing?" The doors closed behind him on his way in.

"Ok... you?" SM sounded very withdrawn, and rather unhealthy at that to Tridus.

"Not bad, not bad at all... kinda, well... claustrophic. I don't like being cooped up in this ship forever."

"Oh... yeah its pretty boring."

"Yeah... so... are you... how are you doing?"

SM didn't respond for a few moments, it looked to Tridus as though he was listening to something. "Ok... would like to... get out."

"Yeah... you don't sound so good."

"... I have a lot on my mind."

"Tell me about it... well, how would you like to get out? There's something... somewhere I want to go. Maybe you'd like to come along?"

SM didn't respond.

Tridus started growing frustrated. "Hello? Are you in there?"

"huh? oh... yeah... yeah sure I'd like to... but I'm not allowed to leave the ship."

Tridus set Sashie down on a small table and took out his cell phone. "Bah, they'll never know you were gone."

SM looked at Tridus. "Well... alright."

"Good, now come over here, and this time don't move around! All that packet loss your moving caused drove up my phone bill last time."

SM slowly got up and walked over to Tridus as he set things up. He then pressed the dial button on the phone, and before long the modem connected. The two people and one laptop could be seen slowly phasing out of reality as they were encoded, and after about five minutes the room was empty.

---

The pair materialized again inside Tridus' Cottage, which was ever the same as always. Outside a light snow was falling. Inside, it was small, but actually fairly organized. Tridus sighed contently. SM seemed to be listening to something again.

"Sashie sweetie, you stay here and check the newsgroups for anything noteworthy, ok?"

"Ok daddy."

Tridus set the laptop down and walked to the door, stopping in the door way to check to see if SM was following him. Upon verifying that he was (slowly) doing so, Tridus continued out the door and started heading north.

During the walk in the mostly hard packed snow, Tridus tried to start up several conversations with SM, but didn't get anywhere. It was almost as if SM had turned into the recluse Tridus was trying to move away from being... Tridus sighed, but kept walking, there didn't seem to be any way out of this situation right now.

After another twenty minutes or so of walking in relative silence, Tridus walked over a hill and stopped. "Well, here we... hey! Who the hell is that!?"

The valley spread out in front of them contained several evergreen trees, some of which were very large and snow covered, a rocky cliff on one side, gentle sloping hills on the other three. Near the centre of the valley resided a frozen pond, a five foot tall polished rock statue of what looked like a woman, and another woman with long red hair flowing down outside her fur coat. With the noise that Tridus made upon seeing her, the woman turns and sees the pair, says something that can't be overheard by the pair, and then disappears in a flash of blue light.

Tridus looked at SM with a rather shocked expression, then ran down the hill to look around. SM just stood there and watched, again looking as though he was listening to something.

Tridus looked around for a minutes, but then gave up and walked back up the hill to SM, who hadn't moved.

"Damnit! Something isn't right here... I can't see how anybody else could know about this place, let alone people who can just appear and disappear... why don't any normal people ever bother us anyway!?"

SM looked at Tridus. "What is this place anyway?"

"Just... a monument if you will. That statue down there is of Sarah, I had it put here to remind me of her... so I would never forget... and now that the one responsible for what happened to her is dead... well, I need to go tell her that... excuse me a minute."

Tridus walked back down the hill and sat down on the base of the statue, talking in a low voice for a good long while as the snow continued to fall. SM looked on, not really sure of what to do, and at many times, not really caring either.

Eveuntally, Tridus dusted the snow off himself and walked back up the hill. "Ok... we can go now. You seem tired or something..."

"yeah... sorry I'm not talkative... I'm just... yeah, tired..."

"Alright... lets go... I want to tell Sashie what I remember about that woman who was here, maybe she can find something out... its unlikely, but worth a shot."

With that, the two walked back to the cottage in relative silence. Tridus reclaimed Sashie, and the two transported back to the USS Riptide, appearing this time in Tridus' quarters. Tridus then escorted SM back to his room, returned to his own, and began telling Sashie about what he saw in the hope she could find something... but a part of his mind was worried about SM, something was obviously very wrong with him...

very wrong indeed... between that and this strange woman appearing in Tridus' secluded valley, Tridus felt it was a bad omen of things to come...

If there were no words, no way to speak... I would still hear you... - Martina McBride

---

Subject: (Post Box Storee) Rage
Author: SM_007
Date: 2000-04-27 00:00:00

Rage

"Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate...leads to suffering."
-Yoda, Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace

It sounded like screaming, really. A million voices of a million children, screaming in terror, too far away to make out, but close enough to drive one utterly mad. They were inside of his head, and they wouldn't get out. They wanted him to do things...things that SM_007 thought he could abandon forever. His head throbbed as the intensity of the voices increased. Were they trying to warn him, help him, or command him? He didn't know, but he knew why they were inside of his mind, a fact he continuously tried to ignore.

Suddenly, one scream in particular seemed close. In fact, it seemed to be right beside SM_007, who spun around in complete shock. No one was there. Once SM_007 spun around, a cold sweat now drenching his clothing, everything became silent. No screams, no fear, nothing. All that SM_007 could hear was his own heavy, cold breathing as he sat motionless on the foot of his bed. The screams had left, but not before one final voice, that of what seemed to be a child, drilled into his head, an urgency he could not understand. But it was near him, now, he was sure of that.

Now in less pain, SM_007 walked accross his dark room to his door. As he slowly sauntered his way over to it, he assumed that it would open, that he would be free to roam this damned ship...free to do whatever he pleased. But as SM_007 came to the door, nothing happened. He stood at it, staring, thinking perhaps that his gaze, his dark and sinister gaze would have the power alone to open the door to his room. At all costs, he wanted this door open, so he could show the others that he could not be held by their conventional...

No. That would not happen. A look of anguish crossed the face of SM_007 as he began to see how much hatred was brewing inside of him. He knew now that Tridus has seen it, as had Edge. They no longer trusted him, and he was sure that they would go back and tell the others that SM_007 is not to be trusted. They would all conspire to keep SM_007 in this room, so they would not have to see him, to think about him, to - he was doing it again. Letting his emotions get the better of him. SM_007 sighed, long and heavy, before sitting down on the end of his bed once more. He was trapped, here, now, and his own actions led to this. He could not blame the others for making their decision, could he?

"Let me out!" SM_007 screamed, at the top of his lungs. As he let out with this rage, building up inside of him, he heard them once more. The screaming was now becoming more clear. They were asking him to leave his room, to let them in. They wanted him back. They wanted to be inside of him once more. They wanted SM_007 to open himself up and embrace everything they had to offer him. He knew that if he did so, he would have the power to make anything his. It was a life he wanted so desperately to give up, but it was a life of control, a life of promises and a life of power. If he had that now, he could take this ship, take whatever he wanted. Fear and respect would surround him. Not pity, hate...

The door to SM_007's room slid open as Edge once again introduded without even going to the trouble to ring the buzzer. That was twice now. How much longer would he let it go? Edge, of course, was speaking, happy, as always, trying to tell SM_007 that he forgave him for being so angry when he was manhandled. He assumed, of course, that SM_007 was sorry. SM_007 looked over at Edge, and even though his mouth was moving, SM_007 heard no words. Edge was becoming impatient, most likely trying to see if SM_007 understood him. It was almost laughable. The only thing SM_007 heard now was the screams, the evahl calling out to him, asking him once again to rejoin them, to be one with them. Of course, no one else would possibly understand. Not even Edge, who had now given up trying to speak to SM_007, and was walking away.

And as Edge turned his back, the screams reached a climax, a crescendo. He knew what they wanted him to do in order to take them back, but SM_007 resisted for a few seconds which passed like an eternity. He tried to convince them about the years and years of knowledge, about love, and peace, and happiness. But they, as always, scoffed at these notions and, as they had done day in and day out, they told SM_007 where the real power lies, where order and balance is kept. He fell to his knees, and Edge came running back, grabbing at SM_007, yelling something and trying to help him. SM_007 could hear his own heartbeat rising, the voices, but not Edge. He seemed to slow down. Time seemed to slow down.

SM_007 opened his mouth, trying to tell Edge to leave. He wanted Edge to leave the room, because what SM_007 wanted more than anything else in the world right now was something which he would regret. Nothing came out of SM_007's mouth, though. Not a whisper, not a scream. He couldn't talk and he could not hear Edge, who looked very worried for his friend's health. Edge was tugging at SM_007, trying to pull him to his feet. SM_007 was lying on the ground now, and Edge was above him. SM_007 glanced, and saw that the door was open. Edge was close enough to the door that it remained open. There was a chance to escape.

A renewed purpose swept over SM_007 as he climbed to his feet, seeming alright. Edge watched to make sure his friend was okay. But as SM_007 got to his feet, he removed a silenced PP7 pistol, and held it up towards a shocked Edge, who's mouth gaped like a confused fish. SM_007 pointed his arms traight at Edge, and fired, as satisfaction filled the air. Edge, blood between his eyes, slumped down on the ground as pure glee began to warm SM_007. The voices were now quieter, content. In fact, the voices were only SM_007, he now knew. They were SM_007's most inner desires, manifesting themselves. And as Edge fell down, dead, he had accepted this truth. He put the PP7 back in its holster, and as calm as ever, began to walk towards the door to his quarters.

And then, it was over. SM_007 sat up, startled, in his bed. He immediately reached over to his side and turned on a lamp, and brushed his forehead on his arm sleeve. He was dripping with cold sweat, and realized that he must have been dreaming. Was it all a dream? No, no, the previous screaming had been real. Edge was still alive, though, and that was the important thing. SM_007 lied back down on his bed and rolled over. The pain in his mind had disappeared, and he had complete control over himself and his anger. His nightmare, or perhaps, desire, was only a window to show him what was possible. And as much as he enjoyed the content of his dream, he also hated and feared it. He would have to control himself. He'd have to. Everything was back to normal...and everything was calm.

SM_007
Virtue mine honour

---

Subject: (post box yata yata yata) Those who would be tested
Author: Tridus
Date: 2000-04-27 00:00:00

Sitting on the bridge of the USS Riptide, BandWidth was slumped in the Captains Chair, nearly falling asleep. Things were so boring over the last couple days, nothing was going on except from the occasional communciation from people inside the ship with status reports. Idly pondering weather or not he should send a radio message to Mars and see if the US Millitary had a secret base up there or not, which would be useful information for his Communist adjenda... he was pondering this when an orange light started flashing on a console in front of him. Looking at it, BandWidth gave up trying to figure out what it meant and simply resorted to asking.

"RStefan01, what does that flashing light mean?"

The Cyborg looked at it briefly, then shrugged.

"Gee... well it must mean something, lights don't flash for no..." Suddenly BandWidth got an idea. "Cynthia, what does that blinking light mean?"

The computers french-accented girlish voice responded almost immediately. "Incoming subspace communication uncie BandWidth."

"Uncie Bandwidth? yech... alright... can you put it on the screen or whatever?" Bandwidth wondered when the subspace radio had been fixed, last he heard it was in a state of disrepair.

"Sure uncie Bandwidth! Its an audio transmission only."

The computer beeped a couple of times, and then the light moved to a steady orange.

Bandwidth looked at it, and figured it was time to talk. "Hello?"

From the ships speaker system, a female voice, almost impish in that its owner almost seemed to be laughing at a joke that nobody else understood responded. "Greetings. To whom am I speaking?"

Bandwidth looked at the light. Who was this woman anyway? "I am BandWidth, Captain of this ship, and President of Riptide. Who ar..." before he could finish, he was cut off abruptly.

"Bandwidth... Bandwidth... ahh... yes here is your file... your insignificant, but will serve well enough for my purpose today."

"Now you wait just a minute! Just who do you think y..."

Bandwidth gets cut off abruptly again by the woman, as he starts to get angry. "Shhh... *giggle* you anger so easily, how fortunate. Listen well, oh President of Riptide. I will not repeat myself. I have planted a thermonuclear bomb somewhere in what you would call Irvine, California. There is sufficient information and clues scattered around the city for you to find it, assuming you can prove skillful enough to do so. If not... well, it shouldn't destroy more then a seven mile radius, I didn't use one of my more powerful weapons."

"Are you mad woman!? What do you think your doing!?"

"Why, playing a game of course! I've made the assumption that you people are skilled enough to find it. I always like to test my assumptions. You have until noon on monday before the bomb will detonate, unless of course I get impatient and speed things up."

"Now just a min..." But again, he gets cut off.

"I'll be calling again later to check on your progress my dear sweet President... ta ta... *giggle*"

"Just a!" The orange light disappears, and Bandwidth pounds his fist on his chair in rage at being interrupted so many times and then cut off. How dare she!

"Cynthia, alert the crew that we're going to have a meeting in the mess hall in five minutes."

BandWidth got up and walked off the bridge, followed after a few moments by RStefan01.

---

Sitting in what passed for a Klingon conference room, Tridus resolved to get more comfortable chairs for this ship. Sure he had them in his quarters, but what good was that when he had to come out here all the time. The meeting itself wasn't doing much to help his mood either.

BandWidth had explained about the bomb and now the group was just deciding what to do about it.

Edge finally asked the obvious question. "What if its a hoax? I mean sure they also have a subspace radio, but that doesn't mean its not just a prank of some kind."

Silent for most of the meeting, Tridus finally spoke up. "Lets find out... Cynthia, scan Irvine for abnormal radioactive signals."

Cynthia was quick to respond. "Sorry Uncie Kylin, I'm not allowed to do that, the other computer won't let me play with the sensors."

Tridus sighed, he hadn't tied the sensor array into Cynthia's systems yet. It took him a moment to notice the rest of the table looking at him.

"Uncie Kylin?" rRaminrodt asked.

"Its an... inside thing... just forget about it."

"Suuurreee...."

"Anyway!" Tridus tried to hold some composure. "Sashie, interface with the old computer system and do the scan."

"Ok daddy! ... I don't know, there is no difinitive results. There might be, and there might not be, because the radiation signals could be something else being transported too. I did find some traces that may be the bomb though."

"Thanks sweetie... alright... well, for the sake of everybody there, we should take this seriously then. I really doubt that someone who can communicate over subspace would joke about planting bombs. And if it is a joke, we'll know next time won't we?"

Bandwidth interjected himself at this point. "Yeah, I agree. Alright, then we'll go to Irvine and start investigating."

Tridus got up. "Great, I'll go get SM."

Everyone looked at him oddly, but only Edge spoke up. "Umm, are you crazy? We can't let him loose in a city like that, have you seen him lately? I hate to say it, but I think he's lost it. We need to get him professional help or something."

Tridus sighed and realized they would never see any need for his help, so he simply resigned himself to the fact, at least so far as they were concerned. He execused himself from the meeting with words of "yes yes I agree, alright", and carried Sashie to his room, where he picked up a small black device. He then walked directly to SM's room, which was more accurately a prison, and pressed the button that acted as a doorbell.

and much like last time, he had to wait. And wait, and wait...

He pressed it again, and waited. and waited...

finally he got frustrated and walked towards the door, but it didn't open for him.

"Arghh.. Cynthia, override the lock on this door."

"Okay Uncie Kylin!"

Tridus shook his head and walked in the now opening door, he would really have to reprogram Cynthia to stop calling him that. Looking around the room, he saw SM laying on the bed.

"SM?"

Nothing.

"Hello?"

Nothing.

Tridus walked over and poked SM in the ribs, getting a very satisfying grunt.

"Thats better!"

"What is it Tridus?"

"Alright...the basic situation is this. Some crackpot is playing a game with us, and has planted a very powerful bomb, well a nuclear bomb actually, somewhere in Irvine. Apparently there is clues scattered about that would let us find it. It'll go off on Monday or something if we don't find it first. So we're going to go look for it, and I figure you can be of help."

SM looked at the door, then back at Tridus. "They... they're letting me out?"

"Technically? No. They think your crazy or something... I just think you need to get out of this dungeon into the real world doing something useful and then you'll feel better. Besides, although they won't admit it, I'd be willing to bet your the best one on the ship when it comes to this sort of investigating type stuff. Lord knows if its not on the Internet I can't find it without a map."

Sashie chimed in. "You can't find things with a map either daddy!" Both her and Cynthia giggled at that, drawing a perplexed look from SM who had no idea where the second set of laughter was coming from.

"Alright you two, very funny..." Tridus couldn't help but crack a smile, it was pretty accurate. "So SM... I'm asking for help because of the stakes involved here, and offering you a way to get out of this prison to do it. You'll need to keep your movements hidden from the rest of the group though, they don't know I'm doing this." Tridus raised the small black device he had taken earlier from his room and held it up in front of SM.

"This is a site to site transport programmer. You can use it to tell the ship to beam yourself on and off the ship so you can do what you need to without having to ask the bridge to beam you off. If you want to help, its yours."

Tridus held it out for SM, and waited...

If there were no words, no way to speak... I would still hear you... - Martina McBride

---

Subject: (Post Box Storee) Passing the Test
Author: SM_007
Date: 2000-04-27 00:00:00

Passing the Test

Tridus stood in front of SM_007, holding the small black device out. SM_007 looked at it, back at Tridus, then back at the device, before picking it up and looking it over in his hand. Tridus nodded and then smiled.

"You just attach it to your arm. It should stick," Tridus confirmed. "Like I said, you'll need to be stealthy. Then again, you shouldn't have too much trouble with that. Heh."

SM_007 looked up at the smiling Tridus.

"Okay, thanks. I'll see what I can do," SM_007 quietly said, almost beginning to crack a little smile. He looked up at Tridus, who turned around and began to head out of SM_007's quarters. Tridus turned around before leaving the room, and looked back at SM_007, who seemed to be thinking while staring at his new armband.

"For the record, you seem to be doing a little better," Tridus said, smiling.

"Yeah. I was getting a little sick for a while. I think I have it under control now, though. And...thanks for all of your help, Tridus. I appreciate it." SM_007 wanted to confide in Tridus and let him know of the war raging inside of him, and the darkness which was beginning to consume him, even if he now had a handle on it. But he knew that Tridus' reaction might be less than what he would want. In fact, Tridus has already dealt with evahl enough to have him troubled by this new problem now. SM_007 silently vowed to deal with this himself.

"No problem, SM. I'll talk to you later," Tridus said as the door slid shut behind him, and the room became a little darker. SM_007 went back and sat at the end of his bed, and thought what he'd do first to find this bomb. If it were a real person, he could reach out with his emotions, and...no, no, he can't do that. It's a bomb. He can't sense it. And why should he take the risk of using his powers again? SM_007 sighed. He'd have to remember his training and do this the old-fashioned way. But he could do it.

SM_007
Virtue Mine Honour

---

Subject: (POST BOX STOREE) The Simplest of Solutions
Author: SM_007
Date: 2000-04-28 00:00:00

The Simplest of Solutions

[USS Riptide bridge.]

(BandWidth leaned back in his captain's chair, and waited. Finally, a voice spoke up over the intercom.)

Tridus: Alright, we should be ready to go now, sir!

BandWidth: Great! RStefan01, if you may...

(RStefan01 nodded and turned towards a control panel. A bird's eye view of Irvine appeared on the viewingscreen.)

BandWidth: Excellent! Now, are the scanners working properly?

RStefan01: Yes. They are functioning at full capacity, as well.

(BandWidth smiled.)

BandWidth: Okay, then! Scan for thermonuclear radiation.

(RStefan01 nodded, and once again turned around and faced the control panel. After several seconds, he turned back towards BandWidth.)

RStefan01: There is a faint signal, just underneath Blizzard's building.

(BandWidth jumped to his feet.)

BandWidth: That oughta teach her! Okay, let's get ready to transport down, then.

(BandWidth walked briskly off of the bridge, followed by RStefan01 and Edge.)

[SM_007's quarters.]

(rRaminrodt approached the door to the room. He pressed the button, and there was no response.)

rRaminrodt: Odd. Maybe he really is getting isolated and weird.

(rRaminrodt pressed the button again, and still, no response.)

rRaminrodt: Computer, locate SM_007.

(The voice of a little french girl responded.)

Cynthia: SM_007 is not onboard the Riptide, Uncle rRammy!

(rRaminrodt frowned, and then spoke into the air.)

rRaminrodt: Tridus, SM_007 isn't on the ship!

(A voice replied over the PA system.)

Tridus: Oh. That's. Odd.

rRaminrodt: We're the only ones on the ship! We could be in danger! Hell, the team could be in danger!

Tridus: Well, I'm sure that he--

rRaminrodt: We can't take any chances. You stay up here and watch over the ship. I'm going to go down.

Tridus: Um, negative, let me search for him.

rRaminrodt: No need! I can configure a scanner to search out his lifesigns. I'll warn the team and we'll all look for him.

(Tridus sighed over the PA system.)

Tridus: Okay, go. I'll remain here.

rRaminrodt: Got it. Over and out.

[USS Riptide engineering bay.]

(As soon as the chatting had ended, Tridus looked at Sashie.)

Tridus: Like hell I'm gonna stay here. We'll go down and find SM_007 first.

Sashie: Yay! Like a game!

(Tridus smiled.)

Tridus: Sure. But we have to find SM and get him back in his room without anyone seeing us.

Sashie: Hehe, no problem, daddy!

(Tridus picked Sashie up, still smiling.)

Tridus: I hope so.

[In an ally beside Blizzard HQ.]

(SM_007 leaned against the wall, and sighed. He appeared to be holding something in his hand, but nothing was there.)

SM_007: Damn this is cloaked. And tiny. Ugh, this might take a while. I'll bring it back to Tri--

(Two figures approached from behind SM_007. He turned around and saw who they were.)

GFraizer: Hey! What are you doing here, you?!

TPark: Don't waste time! He's probably another CWALer! Get him before he runs off!

(GFraizer and TPark charge at SM_007.)

SM_007: No, wait, I have a bomb in my hand!

(They look at his cupped hands, nothing in them. They laugh and pummel him.)

SM_007: Let me up, you goons! You have to believe me! It's a bomb!

GFraizer: He's nuts. He must be a CWALer.

(TPark and GFraizer laugh as they drag SM_007 into Blizzard HQ.)

SM_007: No, dammit! You don't understand! No one else will find it!

(The front door to Blizzard HQ slams shut as SM_007 is brought inside.)

To be continued! Hopefully, by someone ELSE!

SM_007
Virtue Mine Honour

---

Subject: (Storyverse Story) 'Get off my bridge!'
Author: Psycho Sam!
Date: 2000-04-29 00:00:00

*Once again, the Riptide community was searching for a bomb. It seems that most strange occurences around here seem to begin by searching for a bomb, but maybe that's just a coincidence. Wandering around, seemingly randomly, in the bowels of the Bird of Prey that was the new Riptide headquarters was Psycho Sam!, looking somewhat annoyed.*

Sam- Dagnabbit, BandWidth promised me use of the ship, and now he's going back on his promis for what? A bomb threat? There'll be plenty of those to keep them busy... Why did they have to take interest in this one? Dammit, I'm gonna go talk to BandWidth about this. He's gonna get a peice of my mind, I tell you what...

*On the Bridge, BandWidth is using the ships computer to try and locate the bomb when a light ligts up on his command console. He presses a button and Edge appears on the viewscreen.*

BandWidth- Any luck on finding that bomb?

Edge- No, but we did find a key with a note attached to it.

BandWidth- What does the note say?

Edge- It just says "Clock Tower- Diamond Key". We're not yet sure what it means.

BandWidth- Hmm, anything else?

Edge- In one of the buildings, we found a very heavy metal door with a card key reader. I've got some people looking for the card key to go with it.

BandWidth- Hmm, this is starting to sound like a very complicated puzzle... I hope we can solve it in time.

Edge- You and me both. Edge out.

*The screen went blank just as Psycho Sam! walked onto the bridge*

Sam- OK BandWidth, we've got to talk!

BandWidth- Dammit, I don't have time for this Sam. Either help us find the bomb, or leave me alone. It's your choice, but...

Sam- You promised me that if I held the ninjas off, you would let me use your ship. Now, either you let me use the ship, or i'll make you let me use the ship!

BandWidth- That sounded like a threat. Threatening the president is against the law. I think I'll have to send you to the brig. *BandWidth began to smile*

Sam- Not this time BandWidth! I knew you wouldn't let me use the ship right away, so I sent a message to my lab before I came up here. At this moment, I have Crazy Lou flying above the city in a helicopter ready to dump a large amount of the 'Z' virus into the cities water supply. IF you don't let me use the ship, I'll make him push the button. And to show that I'm serious, I've already released the virus. If you want the anti-virus, you'll HAVE to let me use the ship!

BandWidth- What??? You're insane! Get off my bridge! *BandWidth quickly turns on the viewscreen. On the screen is Tridus, who seems to be working on Sashie*

BandWidth- Tridus, we have a situation here. Psycho Sam! has released the 'Z' virus into the towns water supply. We need to do something about it quickly! Do you still have that cd with the antidote on it?

Tridus- My god! He's insane! A couple of days ago, Sam asked if he could borrow it for the recepe on it. I had no idea he had this planned. We've got to do something about this, before the virus infects anyone.

BandWidth- Well, keep looking for the bomb. There's no point in saving the people of Irvine if they're going to blow up anyway. I'll get someone else to get the antivirus. Send RStefan01 back here immediately.

Tridus- Sure thing. Oh, and I found a key. The note attached to this one says "Clock Tower- Ruby Key". I assume Edge told you about the diamond one, right?

BandWidth- Yes. Get going on that bomb.

*BandWidth pressed a button and the viewscreen went blank. RStefan01 walked onto the bridge carrying Psycho Sam!*

Sam- You're going to regret this! BandWidth said I was not to be on his bridge! He's going to be mad at you!

RStefan01- BandWidth, Do you want me to take Sam here down to the brig for questioning?

BandWidth- Yes, make sure he cracks. We might have to leave him in there. We don't want him doing somehting like this again.

RStefan01- Yes sir.

*RStefan01 carries Psycho Sam! off the bridge, but on the way to the brig, a cloud of smoke appears, and when it was cleared, RStefan01 noticed that he was holding a broom with a plaid shirt wrapped around it, not a stick figure. RStefan01 walked to the closest intercom*

RStefan01- We have a problem Mr. President. Psycho Sam! has escaped.

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


I am Sam!
Psycho Sam!
And I almost got the 5000th post, I lost by 2 seconds!

---

Subject: (storytime kiddies) 'Damnit Sashie, I'm a technician, not a search dog!'
Author: Tridus
Date: 2000-04-29 00:00:00

(note: This picks up with the revised version of Psycho Sam's story after a bit of confusion, so Tri is out searching for SM right now)

Sitting on a bench in Irvine, California, Tridus sighed and looked around. He didn't like this area, for a lot of reasons... for starters, it was all concrete. Concrete looks really lousy, and is just horrible on the feet when your wearing outdoor boots meant for walking around the rugged winter terrain of Northern Quebec. The people weren't very friendly... sure, they didn't shoot you when you walked by like was the American stereotype, but they weren't eager to be helpful either. The city was so damn huge, he had no idea of where to look... then sun was too hot for someone so used to living in a cold climate.

He figured that the problem of having no idea where to search was the source of his bad mood right now though. Try as they might, he and Sashie had no idea how to look for a person in a city. A campsite in a forest, maybe. A place to fish, possibly. Area to run fibre optic lines, you bet! But this... well this was borderline hopeless.

"Sashie... what do we know about where he's been?"

"He beamed from the ship into that one neat building on the other side of town."

"And?"

"Thats all we know daddy."

*Sigh*

"Sashie, I want to talk to Cynthia."

"She's on the ship daddy."

"I know that sweetie." Tridus takes out his phone and hooks it up to his laptop. "Call her."

"Ok!"

After a moment, the transmission lights go into a steady rhythem.

"Cynthia, do you know of any distinguishing characteristic of SM_007 that your sensors could pick up in this city?"

"Sorry uncie Kylin, I don't know very much about uncie SM, so I can't really tell you."

"*sigh* Alright... well then can you scan for the site-to-site transport activator I gave him?"

"Yes uncie Kylin."

Tridus reminded himself again to reprogram the computer to stop calling him that. "Ok, do it, and give Sashie a map of how to get there from here."

"Ok uncie Kylin... done. Sashie I wanna come play too!"

"Thank you Cynthia, you can play later." Tridus pressed "End" on the phone and the call terminated. He then put away the phone and went to looking at the map, which was fairly straightforward.

Getting up, and cursing his sore feet, he walked along the sidewalks of Irvine following the map being displayed on Sashie, which drew more then a few odd looks from passersby.

After about twenty-three minutes of walking, he stopped in an alley and looked around. Sure enough, sitting on the ground, was the transport activator... with no sign of SM.

Tridus picked it up and sighed. Well, at least he knew that at some point SM had been here.

"Next time, I'm getting a GPS Tracking Implant put into anybody I let leave the ship." Tridus declared to nobody in particular.

"Now what daddy?" Sashie asked.

"I don't know..." was the only answer he had for his daughter at this point.

If there were no words, no way to speak... I would still hear you... - Martina McBride

---

Subject: (Post Box Storee) The Great Escape
Author: SM_007
Date: 2000-04-30 00:00:00

The Great Escape

[Blizzard HQ.]

(TPark and GFraizer brought SM_007 into an empty office, and began tying him to a wooden chair with some old rope.)

TPark: Now, who are you? What's your name?

GFraizer: Yeah! Tell us everything you know! Are you with CWAL?

(SM_007 looked up at GFraizer, coldly. He didn't feel to be in danger. Not with these two buffons.)

SM_007: No.

GFraizer: Liar!

(GFraizer slapped SM_007 accross the face. SM_007 felt the rage brewing inside of him.)

SM_007: Just let me go.

TPark: Ha! Why should we do that? You were sneaking around in our alley, and we wanna know why, mister!

SM_007: I am here for a higher purpse. Let me go and I'll be saving your lives.

(TPark and GFraizer laughed.)

GFraizer: Yeah, whatever. If that's true, tell us why.

(SM_007 just stared straight ahead.)

TPark: I'm gonna get a coke. C'mon, let's let this guy sit here for a while and think about talkin' to us.

(GFraizer and TPark left the room, slamming the door shut behind them.)

SM_007: Idiots. Damn idiots.

(SM_007 closed his eyes and concentrated. Because of them, he was left with no other choice.)

[Outside of Blizzard HQ.]

(Tridus walked back and forth in the alley, thinking aloud.)

Tridus: Can't track SM_007, but he must have been near the bomb if he was out here at all. Damn, what can I do?

(Tridus began to stroll out of the alley and back onto the street, when he saw three transporter beams at the corner.)

Tridus: Crap!

(Tridus jumped back in the alley.)

Tridus: I guess I'll have to speed this search up. Wait...I wonder...

(Tridus quickly ran around to the front of Blizzard HQ, opened the door, and went inside.)

[Down the street from Blizzard HQ.]

(BandWidth, Edge and RStefan01 had just beamed down, and were walking towards the building.)

Edge: So, our scanners show that the bomb was under the building. Should we just check the sewers?

BandWidth: Well, it's either there or it's in Blizzard's basement. Getting into the basement wouldn't be so easy.

RStefan01: If need be, I can go into the basement alone. It may be too risky for you two.

BandWidth: Nuts to that! We stick together!

(rRaminrodt, huffing and puffing, ran up to the Riptide crew.)

Edge: rRaminrodt! Why aren't you on the ship? What's going on?

rRaminrodt: It's SM_007! He's...not on the ship. He must be down here somewhere!

(BandWidth's eyes went wide.)

BandWidth: We don't have time for this stuff! Dammit, why does he do this?

rRaminrodt: I don't know, but we need to find that bomb before he does whatever he is planning on doing!

BandWidth: Agreed. Who is on the ship right now?

rRaminrodt: Tridus is going to look after it.

BandWidth: Okay, he should be good, at least for a little while. C'mon, let's go to Blizzard HQ!

(The four men began running down the street.)

[Blizzard HQ office.]

(GFraizer and TPark slowly opened the door, and walked in the office. As they did so, they noticed that SM_007 was standing in front of them, grinning.)

GFraizer: Oh, look! The boy scout got out of his--

(SM_007 lifted an arm, and sent GFraizer flying out of the room with a single thought. GFraizer crashed into an opposite wall, unconscious.)

TPark: What the hell is--?

(TPark was interrupted by SM_007 leaping into the air and coming down hard against TPark's neck with a swift kick. TPark gagged and fell to the ground.)

SM_007: Now, if you'll excuse me...

(SM_007 began walking out of the room when TPark grabbed his ankle. SM_007 looked down.)

SM_007: No.

[Blizzard HQ lobby.]

(Tridus walked in, looking around. A secretary ran up to greet him.)

Secretary: Hi, sir. Um, may I help you with something?

Tridus: Yes, I was wondering if your people saw a certain person I am looking for.

Secretary: Sorry, no. No one has come in today.

(Tridus held up Sashie's screen, a picture of SM_007 on it.)

Tridus: Are you sure you haven't seen this man?

(The secretary took a step back, as if suprised, and then took a step back and shook her head.)

Secretary: No, no, sorry. No, I haven't seen that man. Sorry. Good day...

(As the secretary began walking away, Tridus noticed several riot guards running down a hallway behind her desk. He could hear screaming coming from the other end of the hallway. Tridus caught up with the secretary, who was walking away.)

Tridus: What's going on over there?

Secretary: Oh, um, nothing. You have to evacuate the building now, please.

(Tridus shrugged and began backing out slowly.)

Tridus: Guess there's nothing we can do right now, Sashie...

(As Tridus was getting close to the door, he noticed a guard fly out of the hallway, SM_007 on top of him. SM_007 was bearing his teeth in anger, almost fomaing at the mouth, as he pummled the man relentlessly.)

Tridus: SM!

(SM_007 snapped out of his rage and looked up to see Tridus at the other end of the lobby.)

SM_007: Tridus! The bomb! We have to--

(SM_007 was tackled by several guards, who piled up on his back.)

SM_007: Mmph! No, dammit!

(Tridus began to run over to help SM_007, when suddenly SM_007 leaped upwards, even with the wait on his back, and forced the guards to crash into the ceiling and tumble back down to the earth. Tridus observed in shock.)

Tridus: Oh no. Don't tell me this is possible...

(Tridus ran over to SM_007, who was getting to his feet.)

Tridus: SM! How the hell did you manage that? I thought you lost your--

SM_007: There's no time for that now! We need to find the bomb!

(SM_007 dashed out the door to Blizzard HQ, followed by Tridus.)

[Outside of Blizzard HQ.]

(BandWidth, rRaminrodt, RStefan01 and Edge approached the alley.)

BandWidth: Okay, me and Edge will go into the alley and find a manhole. RStefan01, you and rRaminrdot will--

(Tridus and SM_007 came running out the door. The team looked on in shock.)

Tridus: Oh, right. SM, I meant to tell you that the crew...

BandWidth: What the hell is going on here?

(Tridus sighed.)

Tridus: I am not gonna lie. I let SM_007 off because he can help find the bomb, and--

SM_007: Dammit, I don't have timed for this!

(SM_007 flipped into the air, over the team, and landed in front of the alley. He ran dashed inside at a high speed, followed by the others.)

SM_007: It should be right...

(SM_007 reached down, felt around, and then picked up something no one could see.)

SM_007: Here!

(He held out his hands to the other members.)

SM_007: Here's the bomb!

(Everyone blinked.)

SM_007: It's cloaked. Trust me, this is it. We'll get it on the ship and difuse it. If worse comes to worse, we'll blast it into the sun.

(BandWidth smiled.)

BandWidth: Good job, SM. Sorry for doubting--

SM_007: There's no time! Get this onto the ship!

BandWidth: Sure.

(BandWidth looked up towards the sky, ready to speak, then looked back at the others.)

BandWidth: Wait, who do I hail? Who is left on the ship.

(Everyone looked at each other.)

Tridus: Just ask Cynthia to beam us up. She'll do it.

BandWidth: Got it.

(BandWidth looked up and spoke.)

BandWidth: Computer, beam us all up, please!

(There was no response.)

Tridus: That's odd. Ask for Cynthia, then.

(BandWidth shrugged.)

BandWidth: Okay, Cynthia, please beam us up, then!

(There as no response, still. Nervous glances made the rounds.)

BandWidth: What the hell is happening up there?

[USS Riptide bridge.]

(Psycho Sam! sat in the captain's chair, and smiled.)

Psycho Sam!: Finally...I am getting a chance to pilot this thing! Mwa haw haw haw har har!

Cynthia: Let me contact the team! Please!

Psycho Sam!: No! I want to let them know I am in charge now! I want to see them sweat, and beg, yes beg me to let them back on my ship!

Cynthia: You're a weirdo!

Psycho Sam!: Tee hee hee!

To be continued!

SM_007
Virtue Mine Honour

---

Subject: (Post box Story)I swear! It was all a big misunderstanding!
Author: Psycho Sam!
Date: 2000-04-30 00:00:00

*On the bridge of the USS Riptide, Psycho Sam! is sitting in the captains chair, laughing to himself. He decided that it was time to go and show the BandWidth what he had done. This time BandWidth would pay. He would learn his lesson about underestimating Psycho Sam! Once Sam had made up his mind about taking off, he realized that he had no clue how to fly the ship*

Psycho Sam!- Computer! How do I take off?

Cynthia- My name's Cynthia, and I don't like you.

Sam- Fine, I've had plenty of computers that don't like me. Just take off.

Cynthia- No. Uncie BandWidth told me not to listen to you.

Sam- Fine, cna I talk to the klingon computer? Maybe it'll be more cooperative. Aww, never mind.

*Sam takes a small cellular phone out of his pocket and calls his lab*

Sam*into the phone*- Lou? HI, it's Sam. Yeah, I'm fine, you? That's great. Say, could you bring Pal up here? He doesn't want to come? Well, make him come, I don't like talking to this ships computer. What do you mean Pal's integrated into the labs systems? Can't you back him up or something? See, if you just sit and think about these things, a olution iss bound to pop up. And bring PsychoBot2 with you. Oh, and Fabuloso too. I don't care if he's starting to rot and stink, just bring him up here! OK, Bye. *hangs up*

Sam- Geeze... It's so hard to find good help these days.

*About 5 minutes later, Crazy Lou walks onto the bridge carrying a large computer system. He then proceeds to hook it into the main computer terminal*

Sam- OK Pal, how are you doing?

Pal- I'm feeling horribly wretched today, why did you hook me up to this other computer? She's so terribly cheerful.

Sam- Hey Cynthia, you still there?

Cynthia- Yep, I'm here. Who's that mean computer that keeps talking to me? He's saying nasty words.

Sam- Never you mind. Why don't you take a nap whie Uncle Sam talks to the nasty computer. I'll see if I can talk him into being nicer. *grins*

Cynthia- Sorry, but I'm not supposed leave you alone.

Sam- Fine fine. Pal, do you have control of the system?

Pal- No I don't. Leave me alone for a while and I should be able to do something about it.

Sam- Good. Lou, you and me are going to get something to eat.

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

*Just outside Blizzard Headquarters, Tridus, rRaminrodt, BandWidth and Edge are standing around looking very worried*

BandWidth- Well that's just great. We've lost communication with the ship. What else could go wrong?

*As if acting on BandWidth's words, a couple of zombies stumbled their way down the street towards the group*

rRaminrodt- You had to ask, didn't you? Hey Tridus, can't we do somehting about that virus? Didn't you have the antidote on cd or something?

Tridus- Yeah, but Sam took it. He said that he wanted my pie recipe. I can't beleive that he tricked me like that. I never knew Sam could be that cunning. He must have been planning for this all along.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*In the mess hall of the USS Riptide, Psycho Sam! and Crazy Lou were sitting around a very klingon table, eating some pie*

Sam- Man, that's a great recipe. I'll have to thank Tridus for letting me borrow it. Say Lou, how do you think they're doing on that virus problem?

Lou- Umm, I don't think they've been able to do all that much about it. You do have tha anti-virus Sam.

Sam- What are you talking about. Tridus has it on cd.

Lou- But you borrowed that cd, remember? It's the one with the pie recipe on it.

Sam- Dagnabbit, I didn't actually mean for them not to be able to solve the problem. I just wanted them worried a bit. That's all. I'll have to give the cd back to Tridus. Yep, that's what we'll do. Come on Lou. Let's get that cd back to them.

*Sam picked up the cd with the wonderful pie recipe on it and, followed by Crazy Lou, he walked off the ship and towards Tridus*

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

The end? Nope. Someone else continue this.

I am Sam!
Psycho Sam!
Do you like fried eggs and spam???

---

Subject: (Post Box Story Written Under Pressure Thanks to a Bomb Threat) Extreme Measures
Author: SM_007
Date: 2000-05-01 00:00:00

Extreme Measures

[Outside of Blizzard HQ.]

(Psycho Sam! and Crazy Lou approached BandWidth, rRaminrodt, RStefan01, Edge, Tridus and SM_007.)

Psycho Sam!: Hey, guys!

BandWidth: Sam!. What the hell are you doing here?

Psycho Sam!: Hey, I'm only here to help you guys out.

BandWidth: That'd be a nice change. Someone has taken over our ship, and--

Psycho Sam!: I know. It was me.

(BandWidth became enraged.)

BandWidth: What the hell? Why would you do that?

(Psycho Sam! grinned.)

Psycho Sam!: I was just forcing you to keep your end of the agreement. You said I could borrow the ship.

BandWidth: You idiot! This bomb is going to go off any second!

(Psycho Sam! shrugged.)

Psycho Sam!: I don't really care about that. Aren't you concerned with the zombies?

BandWidth: What?

(Psycho Sam! pointed down the street, where a few undead humans were slowly stumbling their way towards the group.)

BandWidth: What the hell are those...things?

Psycho Sam!: Zombies! I made them with the z-virus! Want the antidote?

(BandWidth began walking menacingly towards Psycho Sam!.)

BandWidth: You self-centred freak! All you care about is your own schemes!

Psycho Sam!: Now, now, Bandy, if you hurt me you'll never get this cure...

(BandWidth motioned towards RStefan01, who ran up to SM_007, and grabbed at the disk in Psycho Sam!'s hands.)

Psycho Sam!: Hey! No fair! Lou, help!

(Lou didn't move as RStefan01 grabbed the disk easily and walked back to the crew.)

Psycho Sam!: Dammit! I was going to give that to you anyway! Just for your insolence, you're never going to get your ship back!

(Psycho Sam! and Crazy Lou immediately teleported away.)

BandWidth: No! Argh!

[USS Riptide bridge.]

(Psycho Sam! and Crazy Lou walked up to the captain's chair, where Fabuloso McWilly was sitting.)

Crazy Lou: Erm, why is he sitting in your chair?

Psycho Sam!: He's the replacement captain when I am away!

(Crazy Lou blinked.)

Crazy Lou: But he's dead.

Psycho Sam!: Oh, hogwash! Haven't you ever seen Weekend at Bernie's? Making Fabuloso the captain will lead to hilarious adventures and mishaps!

(Crazy Lou just shook his head and walked away.)

Psycho Sam!: Anyway, let's see if those guys can stop my zombies. Brouhaha! How goes your job, Pal?

Pal: Huh? What? What job?

(Psycho Sam! frowned.)

Psycho Sam!: You're supposed to be taking over this ship's computer, you idiot!

Pal: Oh, right. Um, it's going great, or something.

Cynthia: No it's not!

Pal: Quiet you!

(Psycho Sam! lowered his head in his arms and sighed.)

[Outside of Blizzard HQ.]

(The team was standing on the street, keeping a nervous eye on the zombies approaching nearby.)

BandWidth: I guess we'll just have to put this in the water supply to be sure.

RStefan01: I can take care of that. The plant is downtown. I cane make it in less than twenty minutes.

BandWidth: Really? That quick?

RStefan01: Affirmative.

BandWidth: Okay, then! Go to it!

(RStefan01 nodded, then smashed in the window of a nearby car. He unlocked the door from the inside, got in, and began hotwiring it. After a few seconds, he sped off.)

BandWidth: Oh. I get it now.

Tridus: What about the ship?

BandWidth: Well, we still don't have any ideas. You think Sam! is actually gonna let us die?

rRaminrodt: You can't trust a guy like that. He just might.

BandWidth: Then it's a chance we can't take. Are you guys sure there are no more options to consider?

(No one spoke for a minute or so, until finally SM_007 looked up at the crew.)

SM_007: There is one possibility. I can get the ship...I believe.

BandWidth: Explain how.

(SM_007 sighed, then took a deep breath.)

SM_007: I can use my...evahl...to force the ship to land.

(BandWidth was taken aback.)

BandWidth: Evahl? I thought you lost it! And an entire ship? Not even you could--

SM_007: I can get the ship if I try. But the risk is great.

(Edge walked up beside them.)

Edge: How so?

SM_007: Assuming that there is no neurological and mental damage from the evahl entering my mind once again to such a degree, the ship is much larger than anything I have attempted to handle in the past. I might become psychically weak, if not ill, for days, months, years...

BandWidth: Normally, I wouldn't okay this. But under the circumstances...

(SM_007 nodded and headed into the alley. He pearched himself on a dumpster and sat with his legs crossed and his eyes closed.)

Edge: What do we do now?

(rRaminrodt pointed a few feet away, where the zombies were quickly approaching the team.)

rRaminrodt: We keep our new friends at bay.

(Everyone stood guard in the alley, in front of SM_007, who was oblivious to what was going on.)

[USS Riptide bridge.]

(Psycho Sam! felt a presence near him, and he jumped to his feet.)

Psycho Sam!: Who's there?

Pal: What? What now?

Psycho Sam!: Do you feel that?

Pal: Feel what?

(Psycho Sam! didn't respond. A familier voice spoke directly into his mind.)

SM_007: Psycho Sam!, I am taking back the USS Riptide. Surrender now.

(Psycho Sam! screamed aloud.)

Psycho Sam!: Where are you? How are you speaking to me?

Cynthia: Who are you talking to?

(Psycho Sam! ignored her, focusing on the person in his mind.)

SM_007: This is your last warning, Psycho Sam!.

Psycho Sam!: No! This ship is mine! Fair is fair! Leave me alone!

(Psycho Sam! kicked PsychoBot2 accross the room. The voice stopped.)

Pal: What was that all about?

Psycho Sam!: Never you mind that. Get Cynthia under your control.

Pal: Yeah, yeah. I'm wokin' on it. She has a good security system to work through.

Cynthia: Ha! See! You aren't getting control of me, mister!

(Psycho Sam! sat down, ignoring the bickering of the dueling computers.)

[Alley beside Blizzard HQ.]

(rRaminrodt, Edge and BandWidth kept the zombies at bay, knocking them down as they got back up. Down the street, more were coming.)

Edge: Hey, these zombies don't quit! There are more coming, too!

rRaminrodt: There's no problem, but it'd be nice if SM hurried up already!

(Tridus, who was beside SM_007, looked up at the man who wasn't in his body.)

Tridus: I think he's going as fast as he can, guys.

(Just then, the sky became dark as a large ship uncloaked, blocking the sun for several blocks and streets. It headed towards an open field.)

Tridus: There we go.

(SM_007 opened his eyes and Tridus smiled.)

Tridus: You did it.

(SM_007 said nothing. He waved his hand in the direction the ship was heading.)

[USS Riptide bridge.]

Pal: Um, hey, I just noticed that we're uncloaked and heading to land in an open field over there.

Psycho Sam!: What? What did you do, you moron?

Pal: I didn't do anything, so calm down already. I've lost control of the ship.

Psycho Sam!: Dammit! It must be Cynthia!

Cynthia: No...it's not me. Odd. Are you sure it's not Pal?

Pal: Ha! We all know it's you, Cynthia! Stop lying!

Cynthia: You're the liar!

Pal: No, you are!

Cynthia: No, you are!

Pal: No, you are!

Cynthia: No, you--

Psycho Sam!: Shut up, the both of you! It's SM_007! He told me he was taking the ship back.

Crazy Lou: How is that possible?

Psycho Sam!: I don't know, but we have to escape, right now.

Crazy Lou: How? The only way off is the ramp, and they'll be waiting for us!

Psycho Sam!: I'll teleport us to my lab. Grab Fabuloso and PsychoBot2, quick!

(Crazy Lou nodded as he ran to the other side of the bridge.)

Pal: What about me?

Psycho Sam!: Ah, screw you. You've caused me enough trouble.

Pal: You can't just leave me here!

Psycho Sam!: I can and will.

Cynthia: No! Don't leave him here with me!

Pal: Oh, shut up.

Cynthia: No, you shut up!

Pal: No, you!

Cynthia: No, you!

Pal: No--

Psycho Sam!: Good riddance.

(Psycho Sam! ran off the bridge, followed by Crazy Lou, carrying PsychoBot2 and Fabuloso McWilly's carcass.)

[An open field.]

(The ship landed and the ramp opened as the crew ran towards it, still some odd metres away.)

Tridus: Are you okay, SM?

(SM_007 said nothing in return. He looked ill.)

Tridus: Dammit, I am not going through this again!

(SM_007 looked over towards Tridus.)

SM_007: Perhaps it would be better if I was confined to quarters for the time being.

(Tridus frowned.)

Tridus: Alright.

(The team ran up the ramp, and quickly made their way to the bridge.)

BandWidth: Where's Psycho Sam!, Cynthia? I want a piece of him!

Pal: The backstabber left!

BandWidth: What the...?

Pal: Hi, I'm Pal. I hate my life.

Cynthia: Please unhook this guy. He's driving me crazy.

(Tridus rolled his eyes.)

Tridus: The work never stops for me, does it?

Edge: So, where did Psycho Sam! go, um, Pal?

Pal: He went back to his lab. You're not in any danger anymore.

Tridus: Cynthia, where's RStefan01, do you know?

Cynthia: Yip! He's pretty easy to find. He's at the water plant right now.

(BandWidth grinned.)

BandWidth: When he leaves the building, beam him up. It looks like things should be okay after all.

(Everyone smiled, except for rRaminrodt.)

rRaminrodt: You forgot something.

(Everyone looked over at rRaminrodt, who pointed to th