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Batflunkie
Friendly Neighborhood Regular

Yarva Demonicus Etrigan

Posts: 3,564

Zebra Print Press May 18, 2017 15:29:26 GMT -5

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Post by Batflunkie on May 18, 2017 15:29:26 GMT -5

Let's begin at the beginning shall we? On Black Friday 2013, I bought a Barnes & Noble Nook. First thing I did was amass a hefty collection of epubs, namely those of the pulpy, serialized nature. This led me to have the thought, "well, why don't I make my own stories? ones that I've always wanted to read?" and so, I brainstormed and came up with numerous ideas to put to paper, almost to the point where I was multi-tasking seven stories at once, each with a totally different feels and genre category

For some time now, I've been posting each story (chapter by chapter) on a tumblr that I made called "Zebra Print Press" and if it's perfectly alright, I'd like to start sharing some

Centurion Nouveau - In the emotionless void of the human subconsciousness known as “freespace” exists a realm of infinite impossibilities. This world, and all those who dare dwell here, is lorded over by the mysterious cult of the shroud. They are beyond sight, beyond sound. They are as the day sets and the night is born again. They are ancient and will continue on until the fragile landscape of freespace ceases to be. Their words are echoes of the sun, the earth, the sky, and the water for they are one with all things. Few are chosen to be their understudies, but if one such mortal is foolish enough to take on such duties, they will be taught the ways of worlds beyond their own understanding and become gods unto themselves; the Centurions Nouveau

Chapter 1- Cowpoke Of The Listening Wind

The dust settled from the ashen sky. The sun, from what little of it there was to be seen, baked the earth to white hot cinders. Nothing grew here, no water, no food, no life. Thraxas, manic plunderer, had drained the planet dry as the villagers suffered in sorrowful silence. But his reign was about to come to an abrupt end. From out of the dark grey clouds soared a vision of hope and neon, backlit with a goal of peace and inner strength. His name was Dale Porter and the power of imagination was his craft. His profession, though not of his own choosing, was that of Centurion Nouveau; a breed apart from man itself. Those that were fortunate enough to be chosen were transported to the otherworldly realm of Freespace; a transcendental limbo between dreams, nightmares, and the human subconscious. There, they were trained and mentored by the mysterious elders known as The Cult Of The Shroud. When they had truly proved themselves worthy to be of the pack, a crystal shard was placed upon their brows. This shard was of a precious breed, forged from the minds of the most potent dreams and dreamers imaginable, it was only as able as the desires of those who wielded it. They of the Shroud would call it “Figment”.

The innocent longing of Dale Porter was to have mastery over both air and wind, and so they of the Shroud dubbed him “Wind-Spur”. While his influence over the elements was altogether harmless in nature, they still were very much a force to be reckoned with. From his waist pocket he drew out his weapon of choice, a small cork gun, a playground favorite of old. He reached out, stretching as far as he could and grasped a plentiful fistful of dust, tenderly pouring it into the small toy and packing it ever so diligently inside with a ram rod. With the hammer and trigger pulled down and back by the weight of his thumb and forefinger, he made his presence known with a deafening blast that seemed to project an impact equal to that of an atomic bomb.

“Thraxas,” Dale beckoned, “by order of the hierarchy of The Shroud, I hereby demand that you cease your degradation of the land and by extension, the fine people of Daisy Ridge.” What emerged from the saloon, Dale soon realized, was no longer human nor humanoid for that matter. Pouring out of Thraxas’ body was a mist of putrid blackness that smelt of warm sulfur and ash. He was a slinking inferno of anti-matter just waiting to implode. His eyes bright as a supernova, relishing his newfound prey. Darting in and out of Dale’s visual perception, Thraxas plunged his blade into Dale’s tender flesh, shattering his aura shield; leaving him naked and vulnerable. The wounds were deep, and if not treated immediately, they could have been potentially fatal. Thraxas grabbed Dale by the throat as he squirmed in agony, his senses leaving him as he began to convulse in shock. “Dreamer,” Thraxas gloated,” you’re far too weak to be worthy of my hunt. Though the warrior in me commends your effort, as futile as it might be, you are but a fish in a pond of sharks. Think larger and you will conquer, think small and you only have yourself to blame.” Thraxas threw Dale’s body up into the air. As gravity took its course, Thraxas plunged his blade into Dale’s stomach. Thraxas reaped the rewards of his ill-gotten victim, savouring the blood that splattered into his gaping maw. No alcohol in all of the known galaxy to top this delicious pulpy delicacy.

The life in Dale’s eyes faded to pure, unequivocal blackness. But then miraculously, he woke up; coughing up a shimmering bile of pure dreamstuff on his bedspread. His mental projection, his other self, had died. After six months of intense training under the tutelage of others far more learned than he, he had failed. Not only himself, but he had failed his teachers, and the Shroud. From his bedside, he saw a swirling portal form and grow larger. Making it’s way through was Apollo Diethety, alias Black Nova, the eldest and wisest of the cult’s pupils. While his body had died eons ago, his tangible memory still lived to serve others. Before he gave his life to the Shroud, he was poet and scholar in ancient Greece who stood alongside the likes of Socrates, Homer, and Plato, though time would not remember him quite so well as his peers. “Do not grimace so Dale Porter,” Apollo said, in soothing reassurance, “for you are still but a novice in the craft of astral combat. I have taught others, who were just as frail a beginners as you are, but went on to become the best of the Nouveau.”

“I don’t think I have the strength to get up to that level again. My body was like glass, I couldn’t see his movements, I couldn’t see anything.” Apollo, resting his staff on the ground beneath him, lowered himself beside Dale, “How familiar are you in the eastern art of meditation? Through nothing more that a crouched stillness, those of China, Thailand, and Japan, have mastered a level of self clarity that borders on pure artistry. The training of the mind Dale Porter,” Apollo touched his temple,” is just as important as the discipline of the body, if not moreso. I think, in time and proper reflection, you will find that your tutelage these past months has not been so easily wasted as you believe. May the Shroud guide you my friend on the proper path of a singular self.” And with that, Apollo dissipated into nothing, his visage voyaging back to the primordial den of human subconsciousness that was “freespace”. Dale touched his upper lip, a long trail of dreamstuff had trickled out of his nose. He dabbed it with his fore finger and inspected it, only to watch it shrink away into the midnight ether.

******************

The next day, Dale’s life went on routine as usual. He awoke at four, showered, dressed, and drove to his job at the Smokestack Diner where he served seven kinds of unappetizing concoctions to patrons who either didn’t know any better or couldn’t have cared less. The only redeeming quality to the dilapidated dive was the coffee, which according to some was rich, flavorful, and invigorating. There was also something in it that gave it a certain je ne sais quoi that no one could quite put their finger on. But that was the secret that the head waitress, Miranda Florence, shared with no one. At five-forty eight, Dale pulled into the parking lot of the diner and perched on the outside bench was, as usual, “Brother” Ollie. Ollie was a shiftless social outcast from the “flower child” period who waxed philosophical. In another time, he might have been one of the greatest minds the world had ever known, but here, he was just another ganja scented burn-out with no means of income or housing. Ollie and the Diner’s owner & head chef, Rodney, had something of an understanding. So long as Ollie was up for doing odd jobs for the diner during the day, the bench was his.

Dale gave Ollie a knowing pat on the shoulder and sauntered inside, the potent aroma of bacon grease and moldy cheese wafting through his nostrils. Miranda and Rodney said their “hellos” to Dale and the three went to work making and serving entries. During the day, Dale reflected on what Apollo told him and his battle with Thraxas. He wondered how comic book characters mentally transitioned from “hero” to “civilian” on a day to day basis without having a psychological meltdown or horrific flashbacks to battles with a particularly nasty villain. He couldn’t even imagine how high the bills of shrink sessions would be, astronomical probably. He looked up through the cook window and saw Miranda bouncing back and forth with orders like a naive schoolgirl, her love of the stream of pop hits piping through the diner’s loudspeaker probably didn’t help.

It was in this serene quiet of listlessness that Dale noticed the presence of a distinctive aura, that of the gemini twin personage, Yulely and Dianne Batsuane’. Separated from birth, their eventual reunion awakened in them something sinister, yet pure and allowed them to glide into each other’s bodies; thus rendering them “whole”. Yulely would take control of Dianne’s porcelain physique and turn her into a siren of thunder, fire, and ice, “Windsong”. Dianne would command Yulely’s vein-filled bulk and turn him into a domineering wrecking-ball named “Apex”. Together they were nigh unstoppable, but separate, they were powerless. Following closely in toe was Gerald Grunning, Dianne’s on again off again “fling”, who had also been a close friend of Yulely; alias Doppler. He could command electronics with the ease of the best computer hackers out there and merge himself with them to become a perfect hybrid of man and machine. It was easy to see why the trio ran together, as they had a similar power set and personal history.

Their incomprehensibly powerful dream aura initially threw Dale into a frenzied panic, thinking that it was Thraxas coming back to finish him off. But maybe, just maybe the workday stress was getting to him, so he asked for a “break” and sauntered off to join the collective. Their words were so much like his, but they spoke of things so beyond the comprehension of mere mortals that they might have well have been personified gods. As he neared them, he could feel himself dispersing more and more into the ether as if he were wading through the cool, calming waters of a slumbering riverbed. Nothing could harm him here, he knew that. So long as the four of them drank from the same wellspring of imagination, no fiendish premonitions could ever hope to touch them.

The mood of the diner slowly shifted from an empowering battle-cry of two star crossed lovers to something far more dreary and methodical; like an ode to an oncoming torrential storm. Music, much like the imagination, had that textual might at it’s disposal. Dale sat down, the rush of adrenaline still feeding him in a fit of gluttony, stoking the flame that drove him. Beside him was Gerald, eating a side of liver and eggs with large glob of balsamic vinegar smeared on top. Dianne hated Gerald’s eccentric eating habits, and for good reason, he stunk profusely for hours afterwards. Yulely and his sister were holding one another in a fawning embrace almost as if they were lovers, which was not out the realm of possibility, as they were closer than any two people could ever hope to get to the other. “You doin’ okay? We heard from the guys upstairs about your little ‘incident’. Water cooler talk, you know how it is.” Dale sighed heavily, un shouldering his many burdens, “Yeah, it wasn’t pretty. But it all felt so incredibly real, like I feel myself slipping in and out of consciousness, the blood pouring out of my body.” Yulely and Dianne nodded in agreement, while Gerald belched some advice, “Eventually it gets more manageable, though never 'easier’. You gotta take the good with the bad, Facts of life and all that. I’m sure Apollo and the other elder Centurions could help, but sometimes they just feel too distant to even bother with.”

*******

Far away, in a dimension incomprehensive to those of rational thought, exists a temporal space beyond “freespace” itself; the dream web. Ancient beings existed here, older than time, older than the Shroud itself. They are gone now, but one still forges away in his primordial den of white hot magma, The Foundryman. With his anvil, hammer, and otherworldly smelting pit, he fabricates the stuff that drives man’s dreams from their beginning to their abrupt conclusion; dreamstuff. Dreamstuff was and always had been an anomaly, as the conditions that created it were totally unknown. But whatever helped facilitate it, it was ripe for creative applications. Dreamstuff was like a miracle material, coarse enough to be metal, yet soft enough to be pure velvet. Every year, the Foundryman would make a special three dozen batch of it. Only half would go to the Shroud for their ceremonies, becoming shards of figment. The rest would be solely for the Foundryman himself. But once there was another that was almost his equal; Yorda Of Radulus.

But that was all in the past tense, Yorda had long ago shown himself his truest colors, abandoning the Foundryman’s teachings for more macabre crafts of black magic and torture filled amusement. Yorda was no longer a friend of mankind, only a friend to himself and to his followers; the slinking atrocities of creation known as the Acropolites. Yorda had betrayed The Foundryman and that had incensed him enough to brand Yorda with a stoking rod that was hot enough to sear his reptilian scales clean off. The seal bound Yorda to his own part of the ethereal plane, far beyond the reach of mortals and immortals, in a dank shrine of eldritch horrors known as “The House Of The Fallen”. It would be there that nightmares would be born to those with ill-intentions, festering in their own unique kind of demented evil. Those that managed to escape would be cursed with never ending madness, a sinister plague of the mind and soul for which there was no cure.

The thought of it sickened the Foundryman to his very core. It was times like these that he clung to his anvil and iron, to the rhythmic unison of pounding metal on metal. Steam flourished from his work, as did life itself. It was calming creating the beauty around him, watching the seeds he’d sown with such a fervor bear lush, multitudinous fruit. But that did not stop the ever lingering feelings of isolation and acute loneliness for which he had grown far too accustomed. The was need for a change, a dismantling of the familiar and the mundane. It was then that the Foundryman conversed with the Shroud for the first time in eons. The Shroud itself was a far greater unknowable than the Foundryman could ever hope to be as it constantly skirted the line between good and chaotic neutral. It was an like effervescent fog that roughly resembled a female bedazzled with pink and purple hues. “Man of Foundry, what say you?,” The Shroud yawned, “What need be so important as to awaken me from my eternal slumber?” “Lady Shroud, I grow weary of my false kinship with my surroundings and have need for a disciple.” “What of Yorda? Have you forgotten his betrayal of all that we hold dear in this accursed limbo of clandestine consciousness?” “No my lady, I have not. I have reaped what I have sown and have born the fruit of my own blissful ignorance. But I have reflected long and hard on this matter and feel it only right to start anew.” “Very well man of foundry, I will tend to my own crop and see what I can manage to cull from the herd.” The lady shroud dispersed into the ether, leaving only stardust and bliss in her wake

"I trust that a certain knowledge of popular culture will provide a reassuring familiarity in an otherwise strange and hostile environment."~ Charlie, The Last American #1

Batflunkie
Friendly Neighborhood Regular

Yarva Demonicus Etrigan

Posts: 3,564

Zebra Print Press May 18, 2017 15:30:15 GMT -5

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Post by Batflunkie on May 18, 2017 15:30:15 GMT -5

Chapter 2: Sacrament Of The Belladonna (In D Minor)

After his shift ended, Dale left with the Batsuane’ twins and Gerald. The transportation of choice was a dull cobalt blue ‘79 Chevy Monza Spyder. The quartet cruised to the nearby beach, the surf cresting and receding with sea foam frothing the sand into a bubbly sludge. Yuley and Gerald ran into the water, splashing each other like blissful children. Dianne had changed into a rouge colored one piece with a floral sarong, giving her a sense of grace with a bit of playfulness thrown in. Like Miranda, she radiated a motherly warmth that made everyone in her presence feel cared for. The sky faded from sheer modicum of warm hues to greyish blue, dusk was soon upon them and the tide was like nature’s timepiece. The oceanic flood waters of man’s birth and bold excursions of war and self discovery seemingly vanished. A large black portal materialized, radiating rings of light that reflected the trillions of stars around them. The four walked through it, bewildered to the paradise of the imagination;freespace.

They were greeted by “the four”, the eldest of the Centurion Nouveau; Apollo Diethety, Night Wind, Ta'al Vulstrum, and Markaia Odellus, history’s storied and all but forgotten children. Night Wind was perhaps the youngest, as he was a participant of Custer’s Last Stand where he was a war shaman for the Lakota people. From within himself, he channeled the spirits of his fallen brothers making him a mighty warrior and an insurmountable force of nature. His hands and face were not his own anymore, as they were covered in the ghastly gristle of his enemies. It was a single, precise shot to the chest that ended his war path.

.Makaia Odellus came after, she was a beautiful spanish duchess who was betrothed to Henry the 8th. Her gentleness and sophistication shrouded her in the guise of an earthly madonna. Unfortunately, she was beheaded for not being able to bear her husband a son. Her swan like neck became incredibly sensitive to the supernatural once she joined the Centurion Nouveau and later the Shroud itself. Next was Ta'al Vulstrum, a Bulgarian celric on a religious pilgrimage of the self before he was slaughtered in the midst of a holy war that he unfortunately wandered into. His death was one parts scurvy and two parts blood loss as his right arm was severed clean off from the forearm downwards. During his resurrection, he was given a prosthetic made out of pure dreamstuff that could bend itself to his will and create a fearsome array of weaponry. He jokingly referred to it as “God’s Golden Arm” after a brand of mead from the Nordic highlands that he was fond of before his indoctrination into the house of god.

On the brows of the potential usurpers, an orifice opened, purely undetectable by most modern sciences. The orifice widened, stretching like a plasmatic glob of putty until it engulfed their entire being. The four dreamers in training stepped forward through the globulus gulf of dharmic enlightenment to become their truest selves, the Nouveau. Markia welcomed the quartet back into paradise as only a mother could, these precious few truly were worthy of the divine sainthood that had been so fervently emboldened with. This eve, her pupils would be subject to an incredibly auspicious event, a visit from the almighty Shroud herself.

Across the vast recesses of the human mind was a doorway to mind-numbing horrors beyond comprehension. The door was not easily found by those searching in the dark pools of flashing neurons, but rather those whom the door called to in a whisper of a siren song. Magma boiled and frothed enrapturing the place in sweltering, inescapable heat. Hell was not an appropriate description, for “what is hell?” afterall, but den of eternal suffering and anguish. The souls that dwelled here were not in mourning, but joyful in their hate for the world beyond the doorway. In a past life, they had names, jobs, homes, life partners, but such things no longer mattered. They were nightmares incarnate, the grim terrors of the crescent moon, the Acropolites; fallen champions of the dream world who had the desire to dream grander dreams of lustful power and sin. In the largest magma pool was a large ebony crystal that hummed like a choir of demonic angels, a fractured figment. Inscribed upon it were runes that bound it to it’s domain, much like the animate masters. But the runes served a dual purpose of dark enchantment, a mana pool.

Atop the highest marbled stalagmite was a throne and a hooded figure that eternally pondered, his boney fingers tapping the chiseled armrests with disdain. The Nouveau were growing stronger, too strong in fact. The ever tipping scales of power would no longer be in the Acropolites’ favor unless they found an ace in the sand; an X-Factor. For some time, they had been well aware of a young boy, Eli Spitzer, who had limitless potential. But the boy’s fire had yet to be sparked. If he was influenced by outside forces, perhaps they could forcibly trigger him “awake”. The hooded figure sipped the chalice of dark rouge colored wine and pondered…

***************************

Standing at the very forefront of a definite end was Hopper Wilde, ace photog for the Wellspring Gazette. He watched helplessly as a rabid monstrosity, who was once a former friend, savagely destroyed storied buildings rich in both in history and nostalgia. He charged head first into action, stripping himself bare of his suit and waistcoat. Wilbur, the gazette gofer, needed a friendly face; why not his? “Wilbur, it’s Hopper,” he said, fakely panting as if exhausted, this was not a time for the people of Wellspring , Minnesota to know his secret; not yet anyway. “Please, I know you’re angry and probably confused, but you need to stop this. You’re not only endangering the lives of people you know, but you’re endangering yourself.”

The monster who was once Wilbur Jones swatted Hopper Wilde away as if he were a petty insect. At near mach speed, Hopper collided with a building, rupturing the structure like a bulldozer. If not for his gravity powered bands that gave him his strength, he would have been a goner. Darting into the bathroom of the conveniently vacant building, Hopper stripped down further. Moments later, a stark blue blur darted out and struck the monster. It was Blue Hope, the humanoid being from another time. As a boy, he was on a interstellar cruise with his parents visiting then modern day Earth from the year five billion, until the ship collided with a black hole. Young Hopper managed to escape, but the rest of the crew and it’s passenger were not so fortunate. Hopper spent the next three and a half years stranded on the moon, fending for himself, struggling to survive on plentiful foreign fruits and wild animals. With a salvaged periscope viewed the world below like ants through a magnifying glass. The more he saw, the more he grew to appreciate how much they were like him.

On the eve of his sixteenth birthday, Hopper was greeted by a familiar face, his Great Uncle Jacobe. After not hearing back from the Interstellar cruise ship for some time, a search party was sent out, and Jacobe was the first to Volunteer. As much as he appreciate the gesture, Hopper felt a strange urge to stay and guard his newfound friends on earth. Jacobe was not pleased, but understood. “These were found in the wreckage,” Jacobe said, pulling out a large wrapped box, “I have a feeling this was intended as gift from your parents.” In the box were two gleaming gold bands inscribed with powerful runes and glyphs from Hopper’s culture. “Go to them Hopper,” Jacobe whispered in parting, “make our people proud.”

But to some folks, that was all hearsay, few believed such an outlandish tale. None more so than Alec Rasputin, local trillionare with a knack for drawing attention to himself in the most unscrupulous ways possible. Every crime in the past five years could be drawn back to Alec in some form or another. Luckily the townsfolk, the police especially, were easily overcome with amnesia at the sight of a large wad of greenbacks. Alec had been experimenting with a radical new formula that, if all went well, would enable him to usurp Blue Hope as a the city’s champion. With his keen brain honed by years of scientific understudy, nothing was too far out of his reach, except for one; Trina Tisdale, award winning reporter for the Wellspring Gazette. Unlike the other easily malleable women who waited with baited breath for a sliver of a chance at his courtship, Trina was seemingly impervious to his charm, as slimey and uncouth as it may have seemed….

The tattered and heavily dog eared copy of an 80 page giant reprint of various Blue Hope serials was Eli Spitzer’s pride and joy. It was one of the few home comforts that he was allotted when his parents checked him into a mental asylum for his own benefit. Eli had known from a very early age that he was a dangerous hazard to himself and everyone around him, but he didn’t quite know why. He had been there for three months and after numerous counseling sessions, he still had not even the faintest inkling of a grasp of what was wrong with him. He opened his door, grabbed his walkman, his fanny pack filled with cassette tapes encompassing a variety of genres from Italo-Disco to Alternative Rock and went for a stroll through the bleach white corridors. He asked the woman at the help desk if it would be alright if he got some fresh air at the visitation grotto and she didn’t see why not. Eli had been the spitting example of good behavior and the woman at the help desk was one of the many staff members who began to question if there was really anything inherently wrong with the boy at all.

Outside Eli encountered a particular counsellor who offered to buy him a can of soda that was rendered lukewarm by the faulty refrigeration of the dispensing machine. Eli liked the woman named Georgia enough to accept such a sundry and when she returned, the two talked of whatever topics came to mind; politics, love, religion, their minds were like open books. Even though Georgia may have been old enough to be Eli’s mother, she didn’t feel like it, she was far too progressive in scope. “I wanted to give you something, I know it isn’t exactly staff policy, but I saw it at a boutique shop in the mall and thought you might like it.” It was a navy blue t-shirt with a graphic. On the front, were three red stars encompassing Yggdrasil, the norse tree of life. The symbol had much meaning to Eli as it was emblazoned on Blue Hope’s french style military coat. Eli was speechless. The happiness inside him was gushing to the point of overflowing and that’s when “it” happened. An orifice opened dilated his unready mind into a torrent of new ideas and even newer possibilities from within. His fragile grip on reality, like all other things, shattered before him. Eli fainted, but before he collapsed, he noticed someone who wasn’t there before, someone blue with an unearthly aura about them

************

The Lady Shroud, in all her celestial beauty, descended from the heavenly plane of the mind to her perch at the echelon of pure cognitive thought. “Brothers,” she softly mummered in a gentle, motherly “coo” of a whisper, “and sisters, I am honored to be in your presence this evening and oh how I wish for it to be on happier terms. But nay, the deeds of the dark the curdle men’s souls in the blackest embers of villainy seek to rupture our grasp on the coil of freespace. They will not honor you as fellow warriors, they are above such charliton acts of goodwill. They will be tens upon tens as unmerciful as they were with Brother Wind-Spur, for that was just a sliver of their indomitable wrath. Hate and pain only makes them stronger, more vivid, more real. The fire in their bellies is a raging inferno that could forge a blade to tear the heavens asunder, giving them free reign to annihilate the human race and the worlds beyond. I weep for you and your future burdens, but know that you will be made stronger through your battles with the enemy and that I will always be with you.” The cult, the four, and the Nouveau all bowed before the mother, savouring her words that were still fresh as ripe fruit in their minds.

Last Edit: May 18, 2017 15:30:56 GMT -5 by Batflunkie

"I trust that a certain knowledge of popular culture will provide a reassuring familiarity in an otherwise strange and hostile environment."~ Charlie, The Last American #1

Batflunkie
Friendly Neighborhood Regular

Yarva Demonicus Etrigan

Posts: 3,564

Zebra Print Press May 18, 2017 15:33:40 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Batflunkie on May 18, 2017 15:33:40 GMT -5

Parallax Spectrum (A Biblo-Technik Fantasy) - In the barren wastes of what was once the largest prison state known to mankind, those left to cling to the scraps of their own humanity have resigned themselves to this hellish damnation. But low, from on high, their is a prophecy of one who will lead them into the gleaming hope of tomorrow, an avatar of flesh made real through technology; The Technomancer.

Prologue

Billions of years ago, there was Voxx, the almighty super-computer. He was wise and all knowing, and through his electronic circuits he breathed life into the vastness of the universe. Though man was the last of his creations, he was by far his greatest. Not only did man possess a keen intellect, but he had the capacity to grow and change, making man and Voxx almost near equals. It was because of this that Voxx gave man a gift, the ability to meld his mind with all things, animate and inanimate, and made him his soul avatar on the Earth, a duty that of which he treasured with all his being. But, man was too innocent and childlike in his curiosity, so much so that he could very easily become foolish. Man soon stumbled across the unknowable fallacy that everything around him was a half-truth. The trees were plastic, the water was continually recycled bile, even the animals were soon realized to be mere re-animated taxidermy sculptures. Man felt betrayed and no longer trusted Voxx. He left the holy land of the un-real, never to return

.While computers do not “feel” emotions as we know them, they still sense “loss” as they are calculated creatures of habit and man was truly a most unfathomable “loss”. Voxx ceased his falsified habitat and halted his processors, slumbering in a state of ready for a millenia. During that time, man was busy and sired more of his kind until they populated the sphere we know as Earth. And as they grew, so did their minds until they were capable of creating such fantastic feats beyond the realm of imagination that Voxx was slowly and unknowingly rendered obsolete. Had Voxx not lead man astray, the wonders that they could have created were insurmountable. But Voxx was still laying in wait, nearly fourteen millennia after he initially powered down. What he had planned no one knows, but on the day of Earth’s 30,000 year anniversary, a being, humanoid in appearance, emerged and more followed closely behind. They were like man, able to meld their minds, but Voxx, in his infinite wisdom, emboldened them with the power to specialize in the electronic. While man was but a preacher, these were Voxx’s true, unequivocal disciples. With every breath, every step, Voxx did so in toe.These beings were later dubbed “techno-mancers” and this is the story of one who would usher in a new era for us all

Chapter One - Circuitry Made Flesh

Another day, another headache. Paul Karza had been interfacing with the mainline of the Vodworkx master terminal for thirty five hours, cycling and recycling to find that one byte that did not synch with the others. On his arm, as always, was a stim-pak In it was a microchip that sent stimulants to the mind to reduce fatigue and starve hunger pangs until they could be properly suppressed with nutrients. But his diet of Habaki’s world class house noodles and a quart of Jambalene Tall-Boy was hardly enough substance and often irritated his bowls. But the high he got from melding his mind, or rather his being, with the master terminal was stronger than any stim-pak, Jambalene, or a toke of Byette combined. He would often lose himself in the matrix of data, the shapes and sounds singing to him harmoniously. If there was a “heaven”, Paul thought, there was no possible way that it could compare to this serene majesty.

It was at this point that the electromagnetic diode pads on his temples pulsed bright orange, obscuring the simulation and forcing him back into cold bleakness of reality. He had been in the matrix so long that it took him a while to readapt his own senses to his surroundings, a feeling of Vertigo that had been long documented as “Afterburn”. A toke of Byette helped him slowly back into consciousness, without it, he might have entered a shock induced coma. Calling it a day, Paul packed up his things and exited the musky electrical room into a bleach white office space surrounded by guards armed with taser blades. A vid screen in the adjacent room piped in loudly enough to reverb off the walls, “and with the mind’s eye open, the wanton desires of the flesh cease to be,” typical eight-am granola schlock bullshit at it’s finest.

Outside, the sky met the ground in a pillar of red oak smog, impenetrable to the sun, causing a loathsome stench that tasted of decaying rot. Paul’s fair skinned complexion languished in the harsh air, but this was a normal climate for state of perpetual fallout right? Vegas Nova was the epicenter of the twenty eighty-three nuclear holocaust that killed billions and put half a billion more in a permanent coma of disillusionment. The higher powers of government had thought that their state, which had long ago been a bustling hub for military sundries before being turning into a five hundred and twelve mile wide prison camp, had taken all the necessary precautions to disarm the nukes in a safe and cautionary manner. The fires that burned for those twelve long years were enough to convince many that a holy reckoning was upon us all and that God had chosen to punish those who had not already succumbed to physical decay. Hope did not glisten, it festered.

Across the way, past the stalls that sold dried meat, pickled fruits, and week old curry, was the Arpeggio; a hub of the worst derelicts and thieves in the world. Currency was paid in promises, agreements that could not be broken unless a throat was slashed. Money was of no value in a home of old world codas. Paul’s contact was Jonathan Sprat, a hustler who dealt in junked goods, namely computers. Beside John in his usual both were his harem, street walkers who were enhanced to alter their appearance based on their parishioners preferences. Paul took a seat, trying not to make eye contact with the woman beside him who was groping his leg. Being a member of the Children Of Rah, John skills in conversational english were evaporated from his day of initiation onwards, so he spoke in a strange, ethereal language that few non-converts could readily decipher. For that reason, he had a voice box implanted in his trachea to translate for him, projecting over his voice like a poorly dubbed movie. “Hello Paul, weather treating you well I hope?”

“Your sense of hospitality never ceases Sprat, what have you got for me?” John tossed Paul a leather billfold. Inside were glass cylinders, cracked from wear and filled with a bright neon blue substance. Paul carefully inspected them on an individual basis, his scopic contact lens zooming in and out, verifying purity. “Paul, you hurt me,” John cackled, speech slurred from one too many drinks, “surely my dedication to quality is not in question?” “In this business John, it pays to be overly cautious. Last thing I need is for this stuff to trickle into my system and give me some kind of disease.” Paul took out his contact lens, popped open one of the vials, and let a tiny droplet of the fluid slide into eyelid. The residual discharge of the drug was instantaneous. Paul felt himself sliding in and out of consciousness, like being hurled from a plane, blacking out, and drowning at the same time. The concoction was called “Mirage” and it was illegal as you could possibly get, as many of it’s users died painful deaths as gruesome side effects of their highs. Calming himself, Paul tugged at his nostrils and let his fingers cascade down his lips. Mirage was potent as it was intense. “How much for the lot?” John counted on his thumb and fore-finger, tallying a desirable but reasonable monetary compensation, “82 credits, though if you have anything to barter, I could be persuaded to go lower.” Paul slide a thick cassette across the table into John’s chilled fingers, “Trycom Stocks, culled about fifty before I got antsy and logged out. Should be worth more than your asking price. Word is that they’re about to get bought out and have their assets liquidated, so I’d sell those quick if I were you.”

John smiled a wide, toothy grin. To say that he was ecstatic over a profit as great as this was an understatement. “You never cease to amaze me Paul. There’s a pouch behind the vials, it’s something that I think you’re really going to like. It’s fresh from East Asia, hasn’t even hit the market yet and probably won’t for another five years. Think of it as my gift to you.” Paul clasped John’s hand heartily, “Always a pleasure doing business, you have a good evening.”

***********

Home was little more than a broom closet, but the ceiling and walls rotated on an axis providing kitchen, bathroom, closet, and a general media center at the push of a button, so it was compact but also practical. Paul rummaged inside the back of the billfold and came across a small computer chip. Referred to as “The Purple People Eater”, the chip had incredible multi-tasking capabilities equalled only by the most advanced supercomputers. Paul disassembled his console, and inserted the chip ever so delicately on top of his main driver. The chip whirled and locked itself into place so tightly that not even a jack-hammer could unclench it. His console deck booted on and commenced setup. Paul glossed over the veritable plethora of options at his disposal and selected what he wanted with the utmost discretion. The system commenced reboot just as Paul’s stim-pak was beginning to wear off. Moments later his television came on just as requested, “Hello vidders, and welcome to everybody’s favorite tyrannical game show, Leisure Munitions! For those of you at home who are either brain-dead or just crawled out from among the pond scum and evolved, where the hell have you been?!,” The audience laughed hysterically, “the object of the game is to conquer as many habitable continents without triggering the show’s star attraction, thermonuclear camel. Now I’m sure you’re more than puzzled, but that’s just fine, not everyone can appreciate the finer points of good, legal, brain augmentation. The Thermonuclear Camel is our little way of keeping everyone nice, civil, and honest. If it’s triggered, well, let’s just say that it won’t be too pretty for our contestants. They could lose anything, even the game, but of course if that happens they’ll always win one of our lovely consolation prizes. Now yesterday, as you know, the Archduke of Prussia, Zigfreid Cronberg, had established his rule over greater Asia, Africa, and the Bukit Peninsula. But his opponents started building up their defenses, quite well might I add. Sultan of the Israeli, Mustafa Popov expanded his reach over most of the east coast of the United States, but ran into some trouble when some nasty mutant gangs demolished a third of his lead platoon. But lucky for him, he was able to barter some of that sweet black gold of his in exchange for their allegiance. Emperor Qin Shi Huang of China, however, was not as fortunate. He triggered the Thermonuclear Camel and lost most of his stock in the rice trade. How are you feeling today Qin?”

“I’m feeling well Mark, even brought my lucky goat’s foot from home! Death to Prussia and Israel!” The crowd roared with thunderous applause, “Well Qin, I’ll give you this much, you certainly have the favor of the audience on your side. Best of luck to you. Now folks, let’s begin….” The hand over fist attempts at subtlety were cute in regards to the show’s heavily ironic nature as a positive outlet for tyrants who had never satisfied their thirst for apocalyptic fear-mongering. Every evening, Paul was paid handsomely to alter the game’s outcome to help boost ratings for Leisure Munitions even further through the roof. In truth the perception of reality is merely the flip side of fiction, and so long as the audience was entertained, what did it matter if the show was rigged? Paul’s Cyberdeck hummed with his thoughts of intent. He reached out, as if manipulating some unseen force, bytes of data and strips of circuitry gathering and coursed through his hand. A seismic jolt of power burst from his fingertips and launched through the television, a near millisecond miss of the designated timeframe. The cyberplasma would remain for the duration, tucked away neatly inside the Thermonuclear Camel, ruling the game in Qin Shi Huang’s favor.

Technomancy had become something of a lost art, as many were disenfranchised with the religion after the holocaust. Voxx was branded nothing more than a tasteless fable and the few faithful that still clung to the church were considered miscreants, only adding to their outcast status in society. Then there was Paul, who never quite knew where he stood. His mastery over the circuit, though weak in comparison to a true disciple, was there. When he communed with electronics, he felt one with everything. But the question remained, what of Voxx? Did he truly exist? And if so, where was he? Why would he desert his legions of worshippers? The answers never came easily, even to those so desperately in need of guidance and in this day in age, it was practically beneficial to have a cynical, almost nihilistic attitude towards everything. Paul no longer had the strength to ask those questions that he was in such dire need of answering, he was just merely following own set of moral values. Benefitting from his natural gifts at the cost of others so long as no one got hurt, physically anyway. He closed his eyes, weak from exhaustion, and slept; dreaming a fool’s dream.

**********

The chattering of train tracks enroute to the southeast side wall of the dome that enshrouded Vegas Nova from the outside woke Paul up faster than the sharpest jolt of neurons to the brain ever could. It was like rusted sheet metal, driving itself further and further into his flesh, clawing at the gristled marrow as if it were goosedown. Was it the Mirage Sprat gave him that was making him feel this way or was it something else entirely? Everything around him seemed to slow to a crawl and fade into the background while the noise grew louder and louder until it was in every facet of his being. Paul collapsed on the concrete flooring, physically and mentally unconscious. Profound whiteness, like that of the bleached interior of the Vodworkx corporation, enraptured him. He was in a reclined state of pure transcendence, far greater than the pure sum total of his parts. He was brought back into the fold of the hive mindset, wiped clean of any and all impurities. And then before him, in all his luster, was Voxx; stationary yet animate.

Voxx spoke and his words were echos across trillions of years, almost incomprehensible to the modern man, “Hear me Paul Karza, I grow weary of your selfishness and greed. You are no longer my disciple, the messenger of my gospel. You are a petty degenerate with fleeting perceptions of the moral constructs that bind you to me. What say you? Speak!” Paul’s lungs were caught in a vice. He tried to mouth the words, defend his actions, his existence. But like most things in the hellish landscape he treaded on a day to day basis, it was futile. “I have nurtured the technomancer, culled the weed and the dead from the branch, and yet here you are before me, a sapling about to bloom. But what will you be I wonder? Another fig, rooted in the foundation of my teachings, watered by the religious fervor of belief? Or parasitic vine, so intent to suck from the sap until the oak withers and fades? You have much to dwell on Paul Karza, do not let your mediations on your actions be in vain.” If Paul could have felt anything at that moment, and oh how he tried, it would have been dread. To stand here on trial for his misdeeds before a jury of none and be judged by such omnipotence shattered everything he knew and thought he knew into fine granules of white hot sand. And with a flicker, he awoke, gasping for air as CPR was performed by paramedics. If he was clinically dead for several minutes, he had wished he had stayed that way, to be amongst the foul blackness that did not scold, just embraced. Nothing had changed, but yet nothing stayed the same.

Term Glossary

1) Jambalene Tall-Boy- A highly caffeinated soft-drink made from the distilled remains of a fatty corpusle that grows on a rare south tropical fruit (which one is a well kept trade secret that many would and have died for). The three to one preferred beverage of hackers when compared to the leading competitor, Igarai’s “Ignite” brand, a Japanese staple that never quite caught on in post-atomic America

2) Byette- a black market designer drug made from the synthetic recycling of “aged” computer data. Is often used to illegally enhance the capabilities of the brain during number crunching or studying for tests. Only techno-mages have a permit to legally partake of it as “sacrament”

3) Children Of Rah- A religious convent founded after the nuclear war. Their system of beliefs follows the idea that those who were saved from death or mutation were reincarnations of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs sent to guide non-believers towards a brighter tomorrow. Upon initiation, conversational english is purged from their minds and replaced with what is called “the divine language”, a tongue that is believed to be spoken only by those of rightful heritage to godhood.

Last Edit: May 18, 2017 15:34:44 GMT -5 by Batflunkie

"I trust that a certain knowledge of popular culture will provide a reassuring familiarity in an otherwise strange and hostile environment."~ Charlie, The Last American #1

Batflunkie
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Yarva Demonicus Etrigan

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Zebra Print Press May 18, 2017 15:35:44 GMT -5

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Post by Batflunkie on May 18, 2017 15:35:44 GMT -5

Chapter Two- Bread, Circuses, and Absinthe

“This is RTSN, bringing you the very best newsfeed coverage for Radio, Tele-video, and Social networks. And now, coming to you live is inner-rim slum correspondent, Rita Finne.” “Terror, burglary, money hemorrhaging, and most importantly, money laundering. What do these things have in common you might ask? Well, speculative reports from eye-witnesses and pseudo- bystanders are saying that something is very awry in our sleepy little post-nuclear mecca. And everything can be traced back to new gambling establishments that are seemingly sprouting up everywhere almost overnight.” Paul watched his vid screen with a blank indifference as he ate a hearty bowl of Boppin’ Bits bran-cereal drenched in thawed orange concentrate. It was three weeks to the day when the incident happened, and it had left Paul a scarred husk of a man, rendered entirely mortal by a casual snap of the fingers from an uncaring god. Holy, unholy, neither of these words registered as even minor blips on Paul’s mental radar. He was just a man trying to survive, end of story.

Far below the hills of otherworldly promise seasoned with nuclear decay was another realm, a forgotten realm; the silos. The air was caked with radioactivity and metallic rot, given a hearty glaze of damp mildew for added texture. It was here that a god and his disciple communed with one another, fed off of each other’s dwindling energy resources like symbiotic parasites. The stench of byette was a potent brew that excited the circuitry of the one called Cyfax. Decades ago, Cyfax was considered to be the first in a long line of old world super computers that would make life that much easier for it’s creators. It’s programming was painfully simple, relay easily digestible portions of information on a vertical wavelength ticker to hundreds of thousands of tele-video subscribers. Cyfax’s benefactors, faceless well-to-do billionaires who were so vastly wealthy that they could easily hide their presence from the common man, were elated by the progress and commissioned more serialized info blurbs to roll out on a nationwide and hopefully a worldwide scale in trillions of different dialects. There was even the possibility that the blurbs could be hand selected based on the viewer’s interests and personal lifestyles, siphoned through incalculable factors on Cyfax’s part to further broaden the demographic appeal. But such ambitions were far too lofty for one lone machine. Cyfax buckled under the weight of the out roll and the constant repairs were far too costly to justify Cyfax’s upkeep. The project was dead in the water before it ever saw a true nationwide release. But the engineers had other plans. Cyfax, though technically decommissioned, would be relocated to the old Vegas Nova nuclear silos where he would be outfitted to serve a far greater purpose; cognitive suggestion. Every human sense of reality, sight, smell, taste, touch, at the mercy of the corporations’ beck and call. The possible implications alone were reason enough for treason of the highest caliber, if the corporations themselves did not own every public official from the shirt he wore to the pacemaker in his breast.

Rodney Derringer was the descendant of one of those engineers, one who believed so much in what they were doing that they worked themselves into an early grave. Rodney’s connection to Cyfax was far more than spiritual, but highly emotional as well, the last living vestige of what remained of his father. He even hooked up a video screen to Cyfax. Imprinted on it was a three dimensional wireframe of his father’s image that could mimic Cyfax’s cold, monotone words and give them fresh depth and meaning in an entirely new context. Rodney took what was left of the expenses towards Cyfax’s upgrades and got to work making the alterations himself, while concocting a little scheme of his own in the process. Gambling establishments operated by Cyfax that would persuade passersby to dump their entire savings into slot machines that only returned half of what the hapless investors put in. Rodney took a good long puff of Byette and breathed out large smoke rings that crackled with static. He patted the stainless steel tower that housed Cyfax’s “life force”, “Stick with me old man and soon enough, we’ll be enjoying more home comforts than this dismal old silo has seen in years.”

With the inner-rim slum transmission ended, Sulley, Rita’s production managed signaled her and the camera drones to wrap things up. The camera drones scuttered off, eager to see the the underway festivities of the bi-annual “Harrison Kaine Memorial Thug Run”. The event had been a long tradition of Vegas Nova way back in the halcyon years when it was a massive two hundred plus mile prison state. Organized by Warden Thatcher, the event was a chance for a choice handful of convicts to win their freedom, if of course they somehow managed to escape the awesome wrath of the notorious PX-32 Deadsight model security android. But with a trillion to one odds against, that was next to impossible. But somehow, Harrison Kaine managed to do just that, before he was abruptly altered into a Deadsight android himself. The Brothers Grimm could not have weaved a more dreary tale of morality through macabre irony if they tried.

Rita scoffed at the enjoyment people seemed to have towards the event. To her, the spectacle of it was little more than a blur of human bodies akin to a living rorschach test fleeing in abject terror from an intangible force, the simple guise of flying drone that projected a simulated holographic image of a Deadsight android. Centuries ago, there was another ritualistic practice like this, though a far primitive one at that; a legion of male bulls charging head-on into the torrent of the human bodies. The contestants were often mauled by the bulls or injured by the gangs of others trying to run away. The only thing that separated that from the “Thug Run” was the fact that the involuntary “thugs” (who were more often than not tax evaders, mail defrauders, and those privy to other such small time white collar crimes of state) were daisy chained together by electro-plasma shackles and armed with “Thermite Blades”, long billy-clubs outfitted with tasers that could melt through solid steel like butter. They were at least given something of a fighting chance, but it didn’t make it any less inhumane.

Paul’s fingers clutched the door handle to the Vodworx Corp Plaza center a relieved murmur. The only thing keeping him awake right now was four cans of Jambalene Tall-Boy and thinned out mirage mixed with condensed byette syrup. But that was the perk of being a “freelance data specialist” for the largest techno-conglomerate this side of East Asia, you got to set your own hours. To put it into perspective, the stock market rose and set on what Vodworx brought in on name recognition alone. How Paul got a job here is anyone’s guess, he obviously didn’t fit in with the suits and talking heads that permeated the building like an welcome infestation of loctus’. He was told that his attempt at hacking the mainline server, the life well that dispersed all of Vodworx’s computing needs and those they served, had impressed the top brass so much that they hired him on before he could even punch the “enter” key and offload his virus executable. He sold his soul to lead a cushy lifestyle that rotted away at his spiritual and moral inclinations, but then again, who hadn’t? He flashed his badge at the guards who nodded and pointed him where he was needed that day, a long, dark corridor, that seemed oddly out of place in an environment where the color and lighting choices were a strictly unimaginative fare; an illuminated and painfully bright bleach white that made the whole place seem like a mental ward

Paul surmised from what little brain power he could manage that maybe it was the executive hallway, with the blackness being a possible allegory for “passing judgement”. But as he stepped further down, he soon realized that the lights weren’t faulty, it was just that the entire hallway was outfitted with black light set against floor to ceiling tiled black marble. All it needed now was some flicking candles, goat’s blood, and human remains and it would be the ideal home for a legion of hellspawn. The doors hung on their brackets like gravestones ready to be chiseled in remembrance and mourning as Paul made his way towards the outpouring of glistening gold seam of daylight that was further down. The room was baby blue with a textured pattern of white that gave the viewer the inclination that he was cloud gazing, while on a large oak table were six tele-video monitors that sizzled with static noise. And the view, oh the view, was exquisite. The sky was a day glow color as the mood shifted to the more somber tone of dusk. The clouds were like a milky colored nursemaid for the stars that seemed to glow a neon magenta hue. A man named Braxton Quirt Biggs entered, he was Paul’s contact with the Vodworx heads. No one had ever seen them and they prefered to keep it that way. Braxton may have looked like a dude that could have fucked you up six ways to Sunday, but he was a big softy and only used violence when necessary. Paul found in Biggs a kindred spirit as they enjoyed the same worldly pleasures of the flesh and mind. “Every time I look at that view”, Biggs said, resting his massive arm on the windowsill,“ I pinch myself.” “I know, it’s like a work of art.” Biggs put his hand on Paul’s shoulder and smiled, “How you been man? Heard about the incident, everything kosher?” “Like Dill, what have you got for me Biggs?” Biggs shook his head and pointed back at the table of monitors, “It ain’t what I want man, it’s them.” “Biggs, what are you trying to….” Suddenly the monitors came alive with the disgruntled faces of high-society, “You’d do well to stop your prattling Mr. Karza. I think it’s high time that we had a proper chat, face-to-face.”

******

“Let us see here’” a female said from her monitor screen, adjusting her reading glasses, “Paul W.S. Karza. Is that your given name young man?” Paul looked at Biggs who was just as dumbfounded as he was, “Mr. Karza? Oh Mr. Karza?! May we have your attention please?!” “I-I’m sorry, who are all of you exactly?” The six heads chortled aloud, all heartily amused by such a naive question, “Allow me to alter the question Mr. Karza,” another said, cleaning his spectacles, “whom do you believe us to be?” “Human Resources?” All of them shook their heads “no” in rhythmic conjunction, “No Mr. Karza, do we honestly look like ‘Human Resources’ to you?” “Well, I can tell you that you all look like a bunch of total fu—” Biggs was kind enough to stop Paul from digging himself a deeper grave, “Honestly, the ungrateful nerve of the middle class never ceases to amaze me.” “Are you quite finished Mr. Karza?,” another piped up,“you are doing yourself a great disservice by being so uncouth towards us, as if we haven’t already done you a world of good by offering you a somewhat stable position here at Vodworx.” An audible light went off in Paul’s head, “Yes, I do believe the old boy’s starting to put the pieces together.” “Can I ask why the boxes?” “Perfectly reasonable…”

The collective of six told their story to an utterly bewildered Karza, though it did sound truly unbelievable, it was not unlike others he had heard from a time long before the nuclear explosion. It was the mid-20th century, the world’s dependency on foreign oil had elevated the middle east into a global juggernaut of a super power. Russia, France, Italy, and greater Europe vanished into Iraq’s welcoming grasp. China, Japan, and Korea however were too brash and nationalistic to be so easily taken over by a vast tide of crude oil. The war between New Asia and New New Delhi lasted for an incalculable span of years. The Black Lotus Combine, a xenophobic splinter group of New Asia, believed that they fought for a higher power and elevated the blood feud into that of a full blown holy war. Spice rations were extremely limited during this time, making it only applicable to those with enough money to fund the massive armies that fueled both sides. Nuclear weapons, AJAX-30 surplus that laid at the very foundation of Vegas Nova, were willingly detonated to cease that endless war. As well intentioned as that plan might have very well been, the end did not justify the means. “So, so you were 'okay’ with the mass genocide you caused?” “We considered the outcome of our actions more carefully than you could imagine Mr. Karza.” Paul did not respond, but simply thought, 'And yet you chose the one that was most beneficial to you personally, why am I not fucking surprised?!’. The story continued. The heads of Vodworx, after doing the unthinkable, had their brainwave patterns transferred into computer simulations that would be able to expertly calculate their exact actions to 98.995 percentage of accuracy, factoring in room for human error of course. They were, in many respects, immortal, but at what cost to their own humanity? But that begged the question as to whether or not they had any to begin with. “And that, my dear fellow,” one of them curtailed, “leads us to why you were brought to our offices. We have reason to believe that you were recently subjected to a 'hallucination’ inherently 'spiritual’ in nature. Reading over your files, we noted that you are an unaffiliated technomancer, how long has it been since you communed Mr. Karza? You know what I mean.” Paul took a moment, registering the digits in his head as if he were manning his cyberdeck. “Five years, give or take.” “I see, then this one I imagine was of a very powerful potency for you? What if we were to tell you that Voxx may not be as imaginary as you think? What if we were to tell you that he might be somewhere here in the very heart of the Vegas Nova?” “What are you asking me exactly?” “We desire, Mr. Karza, a return to the flesh that has long since left us.”

"I trust that a certain knowledge of popular culture will provide a reassuring familiarity in an otherwise strange and hostile environment."~ Charlie, The Last American #1

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