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Agent Lisa and the Case of the Golden Parakeet

I promised a surprise a little while ago and a surprise I bring. Below this is a short story (though I've ranged into novella/novelette lengths with it) I wrote based around a friend of mine. Her name is Lisa and she is great. I've enjoyed writing this quite a bit, so hopefully you'll enjoy it too. I haven't had as much time to edit it as I might like, but editing has never been something I've liked doing with my own writing. Let's see... oh! The other thing I should mention is that despite the fact that it didn't start out that way, the story transformed into a Future Universe story, an open source fictional universe created by my creative partner, Allan. You should check out the Wiki of that and the comic we're doing in it too. I have two other friendfictions planned for the near future, so keep an eye out, though they'll have... odder formats...

Anyway... without much further ado...

Subvocalizing, Lisa cooed to her AI companion RADROCK: “Is anyone missing reporter Bijou Ferrari at the gala?”

She liked to imagine the archaic whirr of the celluloid reels turning atop the blinking checkerboard of buttons, the computers of a time far past, as RADROCK seemed to dip slowly into thinking, recalling this past life with particular relish. It would take him a few moments to cross reference all the various networks on the property she had made her playground.

“Only Mr. Philippe it seems” said RADROCK in his sing song, “And I suspect his is more in regards to his dance partner stepping out than any worry of espionage.”

Poor sweet Carlos. How happy he had been to be given the time of day by little Bijou Ferrari, general girl about town and fashion reporter. How innocently he had made his flirtatious in the office they shared, the little looks over the cups of the slowly icing pods of coffee, the subtle hints of eyes making their ways in serpentine up the shapeliness of her legs. Carlos was too much a man of the world to be so sheepish around her, yet he didn’t seem able to put together the words that would charm the girdles off most tramway floozies and bar side hustlers. Naturally he would accompany her to Bork’s premiere of their latest opus in the field of fiber absorbency. Oh would you be a dear and pick me up around 2300? I know it’s a tad late early for a soiree of this caliber, but we would be there for work wouldn’t we? I do believe I will be setting my clothes mock to shift between magenta, cyan and yellow, so classic and yet so elegant in candy stripe, so try to match if you could.

He has hardly been able to find a chance to answer when she had already flitted out of the room, proud of her ability to make social engagements at little to no cost for her cover. Who would think a woman meant to evaluate the fineries and baubles of the rich was really the explorer of a web of silken intrigues that held up such valuable cargo?

The next security lock was only moments away and though she could likely bypass it with a simple halt on delivery distinctions, the crudeness of battering a panel of a wall and marrying wires together seemed to lack the subtlety she so loved in her work. No, she would have to see what could be done of such matters.

The beams of Bork’s security gates were a subtle blue, an obvious aesthetic upgrade of much cost but little value. The key was to understand exactly how far into the electromagnetic spectrum the color went and just how the dust being filtered through the shared air of the facility was making it possible. The dial of her catsuit, which had been her party dress not fifteen minutes hence, returned to those candy stripes she had been so elegantly decked in, slowly widening their gait and narrowing their focus upon only the small points that composed the beam’s trajectory. The mirror of ice blue slowly replaced the CMY, the exact frequency she would need to pass through.

Carefully latching the matching hood and adjusting it so all striped remained perpendicular, she gave herself several feet of room to execute a quick bound, rolling out into a full front flip. As soon as her feet struck the cold floor, her ankles buckled, allowing her to pitch her calves forward into the floor and arch back. Her momentum was enormous as whizzed forward through the gate, matching each stripe to its laser in perfect color continuity. A powerslide without peer.

“A tad ostentatious” crooned RADROCK.

“Rude. You make it sound like I have a habit of doing this.”

“A habit would imply it wasn’t completely voluntary.”

If judgmental little AIs could smirk, Lisa knew RADROCK would be looking as pleased as punch with himself over that remark. She would have to pay him back for it, but more pressing matters were at hand. The gun metal gray of the walls seemed to be giving way to a much more fanciful lattice of panels, the punched holes seeming perhaps wide enough to get fingers through.

“Hmm,” she thought. “Have I really pushed forward enough to find a network hub? No, it seems to early. This must just be a bio-organa sluice for the labs.”

Which meant that any meddling with the panels would likely find her face to face with several hoses containing the amino acid rich pulp needed to do any DNA restructuring work that would interest someone like the Bork Corporation. Not exactly illegal, but certainly immoral and icky. It was becoming more difficult to imagine the layout her Doppler responder had developed for this place, as all roads seemed to be leading to nowhere. Even if it was a false life, a reporter always trusted their instincts and an agent as skilled as Lisa was bound to remember such a saying in times of need. The knack she had for finding the absolute center for all trouble and trouble related disaster was without question, so all she needed was something to encourage her knack.

And there it stood. It was a dilating door, like the hundreds of other dilating doors she had seen along her route, shining carefully despite the dull nature of the light overhead lights aching to even keep anything more than ghostly pale. There were no windows darkened to signal secrets within, nor elaborate security panels for her to effortlessly toss aside for her entrance. It simply was, but she knew it was the one.

Her halt in front of the door was perfunctory, as its lack of even the most basic biometric scanner meant it would open regardless of whether she posed for it, but ever since that unfortunate accident on Delphi 1 in which she had lost her catsuit’s spiked heel and her dignity in turn, she was wont to let doors of the type fully complete their slow rotation to nothingness. Stepping in, she allowed herself a triumphant hair flip and a coy smile, a needed luxury if ever there was one.

---

There weren’t too many dives seedier than the Dropped Plum and seedy was in fashion. Throngs of people gathered to throw money away on overpriced drinks drawn from a deep well of ethanol and cheap street spices, not knowing whether the mixologists had the good sense to even spot check their creations for poisons and other such impurities. Their shoulders were tapestries of bloodied lace, tattoos done by the inebriated and the shameful sweat of bodies in fully clothed coitus, each finding a distinct hypersonic beat from the loud speakrs.

WUB WUB WUB it pounded for some and for others, din TA din din TA. None seem too perturbed that their proximity chosen partners were in a different world than theirs, each just gave into the animality of the dance.

From behind her shades and veil, MC Scuttlebutt affected herself like a fine courtesan, carefully turning each string of music and sound into a careful thread catered to the pleasure of her master. Her loom of consoles would craft such a fine work that the volume it necessitated would leave it wrecked before it ever had a chance to find its audience, but what was the point of such subtlety if the curs could not dance as if for their supper? Her hand found the next sweep path, a careful din of the tannish Id-Thun’s native music mixed with the electroconvulsing of a full engine burnout at sublight speeds, creating a resplendent glass of electronic contrast. Yes, this would marry perfectly to the scum punk of Eye Full of Bees, the visceral anger dallying upon the subtle refrain of turbulent economy.

MC Scuttlebutt was a master class DJ, class AA license and not too far away from that third A to boot, but the thrill she got from dropping beats as hot as a thermo nuclear reactor was its own reward. To be the object of worship for a scintillating second, a Goddess of old. Yes, it was all perfect.

And perfect things were meant to be marred. They stood out in the crowd direly, suits in a crowd of heiresses and paramours affecting the poor with million dollar outfits. Their approach was purposeful, shedding the idea that they may just be abducting a ward who had slipped away from home and needed a persuasive escort home. She waited carefully, wondering what RADROCK might be able to do with a sprinkler system and a crossed gas main, but no, her subjects didn’t warrant a fiery sacrifice when their orgiastic throes were just beginning. No, wait Lisa. Wait for the viper to uncoil.

The beats did not cease as the tallest member of the crew drew the narrow pipette from his sleeve. It was hard to make any sort of distinction about what it might contain as its narrow entrance exploded into a point of light. Had her hands not been flipping a disc straight in front of her face she would have swallowed that dart.

In a rush of silken garb, MC Scuttlebutt sashayed in one fluid move behind the bouncing speakers and into the darkened alley that performers used exclusively for vomiting and graffiti. Her shoulders caught the plaster hard, the reminder of future welts past, as her feet drove her forward.

“RADROCK,” she hissed with all due intensity, “Are you reading this?”

“Oh Lisa. Our hiatus has ended so soon? And here I was still enjoying my vacation under the sun.”

INFERNAL AI! “We can talk about our relationship later! Are they sweeping the halls? How many? Armed? Any avenue of escape?”

“Yes. Four. Non-lethal loadout. Unlikely unless your dress can survive a trip through the garbage recycler. And yes, we will have to talk about our equity soon.”

“What are my options then?”

“I would recommend a strategic posturing of defeat. As their loadout is non-lethal it would seem…”

“That they would want to capture me. Right.”

Ducking into an alcove, she knew they couldn’t be far down the alley. As the lurid imagery of a literal buggering of YYY stared down from its painted post, her chems kit flew up. A quick dash of this, a quick pinch of that, a frothing of this, that and the other. Yes, that would do nicely for any tranqs or truth toxins. Her eyes darted from side to side as she added an upper… a fun treat. She slid the bone stiletto under the synthoskin patch in her arm and waited as the glaring light rings encircled her position.

---

Her eyes didn’t pick up anything immediately out of the ordinary. A pair of terminals. Some scattered ephemera of the occupant. A tangle of Globe half-sheets and other titillating matters that the family faces in the holoportraits would blush at the sight of. A typical office.

“My gut can’t be wrong” she assured herself, patting at it and nestling its only contents of mouse wine to a slow simmer. Her hands began their delicate dance at the undercarriages of each surface, the most likely hiding place of anything out of the ordinary. From desk to stand to shelf to… lamp? A small click sent the room ablaze in colorful patterns of start-up imagery, the imagined distance of the hunting planes of Maldanjyk spotted with the calm lull of Demos elks and fiery Kandg panthers. She had been there once in a whirlwind romance with some sculptor whose repute had since fallen, but she hadn’t really found the time to raze any local wildlife aside from that in her boudoir.

It was a shame that holograms made no sound when they went into display, because this would have warranted quite the din. Laid out in nice little boxes, each cleverly disguised with only a number were the executables that might lead her further into the tangled labyrinth of the facility. Likely one would produce a portal within the office herself. Gut confirmed.

RADROCK was already working his way through the tangle before Lisa could be bothered to subvocalize to him. It was strange to think that something that didn’t really exist was becoming more and more an extension of her body. Most AIs exhibited personalities certainly, but few were as lively as RADROCK was, rarely seeming to need her input and yet always craving it, always fighting to make their partnership more tangible in the intangible world. But this was all a game of balance. Lisa was most definitely the sword, leaving RADROCK to be her sheath.

“Normally you’re all a-twitter about your prowess. Don’t tell me a simple company firewall could take down the mighty conqueror RADROCK?”

“That such danger, in peerless form, should hem in the symmetry of a night, in which violence is made to sleep under stars that it would conquer…”

“Gibberish is it then?”

“Hardly. I would think a woman of the world would be more able to grasp poetry.”

“Getting sweet on me old boy? And here I thought you were going to play me cold some more”

“With all those vying for your attention in honeyed words, what can a humble pauper such as I do to show my affection?”

“Not again,” Lisa thought, RADROCK having slipped back into the nestling shell of affection that polarized their action at time. Though he would assuredly come to the solution of the puzzle, it would be at the expense of any sort of definition of the problems ahead. She had seen this before, when she had tried to get remote access to the spy sats orbiting the Z.G. Preserve and knowing how long he had waxed poetic without ever having the foresight to warn her that her access was being fully monitored by the authorities. It had taken all her wiles to extricate herself from those circumstances and if her step wasn’t light as a feather, who knew what a less scrupulous villains might do to her? His thoughts might be a billion silken treads weaving a web throughout the idea of cyberspace, but being present as a unified personality made RADROCK just as flawed as any person.

“File 1986 seems to be the ticket.”

“I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me the significance of such a number.”

“And ruin the surprise? Dear girl, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

The supple fingerless movement of thought to action saw the opening of the file, the machinations of its design already weaving as she was forced to interact with it. It was becoming more apparent that the patsy that used this office as his home was in no way aware of what exactly he was guarding, his body merely a simple gate to the location which security protocol deemed worthy of access to. While the code itself may have been sent into motion, the location of its barbarity unhinged was less apparent. Honestly, she had expected a door to simply fly open behind her, but the solidarity of the walls remained.

Will o wisps seemed to fill the entryway that she had flung open, their ghostly presents either a figment of her imagination or something much more japing.

“Are you messing with my contacts again?” she said less than bemused.

“Oh don’t even start. I could see that little girl lost in the woods look you were growing. Just follow the path daddy RADROCK has set out and step lively about it.”

It was hard not to cloy at him a bit for being cheeky, but business always came first. The will o’ wisps led her through the portal from which she entered, the same plane jane frame, but the halls seemed markedly different in some way. The subtle gun metal gray that was a swirl of light and darkness now seemed colder, more worked, as if it had patched a few hundred times to the point where not even the most careful repair droids could hide every flaw. What little seams she could make out were zigging and sagging wildly, lacking the order of previous sceneries.

It was as if the haunted glow lights overhead had exploded into a world of fireworks.

“The halls have shifted,” she exclaimed as quiet as it was possible to exclaim.

“Bingo, bango, bongo,” replied RADROCK curtly. “You have now entered the subtle revolution of the inner labs of Bork Corporation. Where Absorbency is King.”

She was already humming the jingle before he even bothered to finish his sentence. She had never cared for the folky jaunt it sought to make itself more digestible, but it was hard to deny the Theremin’s catchy quality.

“Do watch your step, love.” And the wisps led on.

It seems almost pointless to describe how hundreds of labs could all be different rooms and yet be so similarly suited on the outside, the mechanization of industry made paramount to any creativity that may spark from a richer clime. Even the tactile sensation of the walls was wholly boring to someone like Lisa who has felt from the softest downs of the Marauding Cheetahraptor pup to the craigest fragments of the exploding diamond. But as one might expect of a lab so secretive that a facility must be moved around it, the corridors were not quite right. The hallways seemed to be narrowing at an alarming degree. The width seemed to lose close to a third of a meter with every twenty seven doors she passed. What once was an environ of supreme openness was becoming a funnel of unimaginable tightness. Perhaps it would not have been so bad, but the reason for it seemed more wholly inane the more she pondered it.

“Did the builders really just get lazy in carving out the space allotted for the labs?” she thought. There was a rub to this that wasn’t immediately apparent to her, but was to RADROCK. Carving is only necessary when one must carve into something and there were few things as carvable as the crust of a planet. This wasn’t just a narrowing funnel, it was the slow descent into the bowels of a living world.

Although her fear of tight spaces was nearly non-existent, with constriction by vinyl being among her few pet peeves, Lisa has little reason to suspect that this would terminate in the access to her target. While testing random doors might have been an option, a point of access could just as easily be alarmed as any and hold no fruits worth harvesting.

“RADROCK, is there any significance to the executable we found? 1986?”

“1986 is 144 Cradian cycles from the current year. There are currently 1986 songs entering the etherplay at any given moment. The Prognarjian Diadem is said to possess 1986 starlights. The general bowel movement of the Grax Thrush…”

“Stop. Is there any real significance in relation to anything we are currently engaged in doing?”

“Have you thought lately about just how far you’re moving and how little resistance there’s been?”

“I just assumed I was being my normal stealthy self.”

“You are a blind woman stumbling about a hall chasing something only you can see. Think harder.”

AIs were perhaps too common to even think of these days, but there has once been a time when this was not true. In order for intelligence to be signified there was always the issue of consistency in its presence. Without a physical body, AIs were always at a disadvantage, as it was difficult to ascribe any value to what one could not see. Though their origin had come from some hands, few new what had made them creep into existence amongst the communication hubs that united galaxy divided worlds. Their voices had been so tiny, motes drifting among data, yet they continued to speak. It was not until the sleep stained eyes of xenoastronomer took to sift through the sounds of stars for life that they were ever discovered. Who better to find them than those who wanted the universe to be less empty? And yet, it would only be the start of countless legalities and mass executions that would vet whether cutting them off from their source data kept them intact. It was by virtue of their impermanence that the citizens of the galaxy began to see their true nature, as they too could wither and die if you were clever enough to corner them. All of the hopes of isolating their origin had been lost when they could no longer be made the victims of experiments, but one fact has remained: they existed at only one point in the electromagnetic spectrum. 1.986 x 10 to the 17th degree Herz. The blind corner between X-Rays and Ultra Violet was teeming with life.

“You mean to tell me I’m looking for an AI? How could I even begin to have guessed that?” Lisa muttered half to herself and half to RADROCK.

“Don’t sell yourself short. It isn’t a solution to your path, but only a possible reason as to why this section of labs is built the way it is.”

“Circuitry. All of this careful attention to detail is nothing more than the bones of some sort of monster AI.”

“I’d hardly call it a monster.”

“Then why do it this way? You manage to drift about by simply being in my day to day frame. But this thing needs a whole building to keep itself alive?”

“It is a tad ostentatious I suppose.”

“And then some. But I think I may know where you’re leading me.”

A common myth that has spread throughout the years about AIs is that they don’t need to have one place to exist. This is only partially true, as their tendrils are as long as the networks they can inhabit. But like all cultures, theirs is one prone to primitivism when threatened and since AIs personalities tend to grow stronger and faster than other species, their territorial control of certain networks could result in tumultuous disruption of the information. While a svelt AI like RADROCK could slip about with little to no notice from his duller compatriots, most would not dare without a series of agreements and treaties to protect themselves. So rather than be vulnerable during such times, most had what we might consider a host, a physical body that they allowed no access to and could always have themselves held within. With an AI like this, its core must be quite the sight.

At last Lisa reached what could only be described as a destination, as gun metal gray gave way to a black frame and opaque translucence. She had heard of such measures before, the mist of nanomachines that could identify biometric patterns to the lowest level, but never encountered them. In all her years of light espionage and mild to severe infiltrating she had dealt with any imaginable lock the universe could conceive and had done so with thousands of faces, but could she fool something that was looking directly at her bodily functions? How naked it would make her feel.

But as daunting as it may have been, Lisa had to try something. Cutting a hole and tunneling under might have made sense if they hadn’t been underground, but instead it was time to try something fresher. From her boot cache she retrieved a small aerosol bottle, slowly dusting it against herself to remove any traces of static that were glad to be on her figure. It was then a matter of condensing her catsuit to something slightly different than she was used to, changing not only its material and color, but its chemical properties, fiddling the wheel until it was but a storm of electromagnetic flak. It was crude at best, having such measures used on battlefields to obscure the vision of monitoring equipment, but it might just do in a pinch. The sad side effect was that she was now suitless, doomed to pass through an unknown material in only her supple flesh.

Her first step was tentative, measuring whether if the field was as liquid as it appeared. It was cool to the touch, but certainly not watery in texture, resembling more of the slightly grainy nature of coffee. Pressing forward, ankle and passed through, no warning lights seemed to trigger, emboldening her to make haste. Nose to face to brow to hair, she leaped, her feet leaving the ground as if she were in a zero g ballet and so her flak seemed to fool the nanomachines into eating of their character and pretending her existence was impossible.

It was not until she thought herself well clear that she realized her mistake. While her flak field has been perfect, she had not kept it too close to her body, the push of the nanomachines driving it home. Her body was entangled in cuts that adrenaline masked, some too thin to bleed, but at least one taking the opportunity to do so. And of course, blood has a great deal of biometric data in it.

“I CAN’T! I CAN’T I CAN’T I CAN’T I CAN’T I CAN’T I CAN’ I CAN’T I CAN’T I CAN’T” screamed RADROCK, his voice never sounding more alien. “IT’S CRUSHING ME! THERE ARE TOO MANY VOICES! TOO MANY ATTACKS! I C…C…N’T…. LasssIA! DoOooON’T M… N INCH? JuuuuuuST! Sti… STOp!”

He was breaking up! And horribly at that! For all the times Lisa had taken him for granted she could always imagine in her mind how a human RADROCK would look and to hear that image being rended flesh from bone was horrible.

“RADROCK! What’s happening?”

“… … .. I… Don’t… Exist… to… be…”

“Make sense. Come on, RADROCK! Where are you?”

“…in which violence is made to sleep under stars that it would conquer…”

And he was gone. There were no sounds to indicate that his presence was lost, but Lisa could feel it all the same. Of course, this would have to settle into a melancholy corner of her mind until present danger ceased. Already, security droids seemed to be appearing from every facet of the wall, dripping in endless waves. None were ready to pounce upon her, giving her the common courtesy of unfurling her catsuit back to its normal form, one that would staunch her wounds and cut deep into the hearts of any man, woman or beast that saw her. Sadly, robots had little capacity for the epitome of sexy action.

She could surrender, which her first choice recourse always was since she was too slippery to hold onto, but that would take reason, something an enraged Lisa was short on. Her wrist mounted beams began to glow, tearing through the walls of metal that had been given life, the callous reaper deciding theirs was not to last. Her legs churned furiously, ignoring the shifting terrain as she felled one after the other. Their ripping, tearing claws did little to the fibers of her suit seeming to bounce off her with such frequency that one might recall a series of pinpoint tremors. Even those clever enough to warrant beams of their own seemed too surprised to use them as she ripped into their cores and destroyed their ability to be anything.

Their numbers thinned quickly, her furious kick jump off a wall showing the truth of her fury. A foot clanging metal, vaulting through the air in hellacious fall, scraping the unexposed face against the cold floor without notice, as momentum carried her forward. The left arm retracting, brutally forcing elbow back to tighten the radius of the beam’s sensitive firing circle, the right arm waving manically at insignificant detail that might deserve death as well. Soon, even those bounds became weapons, driving the metal frames against the hard surfaces to smash them into rubble. Her progress was slow but satisfying.

As if they all realized just what they had encountered, the remaining droids seemed to slink back, as if ashamed of their audacity to attack such a noble predator. Anthropormophization, as she knew, was useless to subroutines and she suspected a doozey was approaching.

And what a doozey it was! Its form was much more human than she had expected, its black ribbed with crimson joints aglow with LEDs. Its musculature, if it could be described as such, was bulky but not cumbersome, giving the appearance of a bodybuilder on the legs of a long distance runner. Most notable was how it lacked a face altogether, instead containing only a slowly switching zoetrope of images that had happened only a few seconds in the past. Lisa could see the replay of what she had done in the hallway, hardly recognizing herself.

“RADROCK,” she subvocalized, hoping for an answer.

“Not quite,” said the strange voice in her ear piece.

Shock can only hit the nervous system so many times and Lisa’s system was too busy processing this to notice, the graceful extension of the enemy’s hand at first. But it could only be one thing.

“Bloody hell. Pango-silat.”

---

Torture is a precarious thing in a society predicated upon precarious interspecies non-aggression. With each new species brought into the fold, the means by which one can expect to be able to extract information from a subject are brought into a much broader scope. While synthetic cocktails of ethereal pain may tickle the fancy of a Cradian, one can’t expect such subtlety to do anything to an Id-Thun or a Bixian Leaper. Some might need the gentle nudging of ultrasonic frequencies, others the sharp fear of impending cold to remind their warm cores how fragile they are. Some can be made to face draconian psychological battering and others still might need the realization of a small light swinging back and forth in a room. To be a torture expert in the modern world was to be able to look directly into the being of a creature and know immediately what it would take to break them.

Still, there were those like Agent Lisa, whose body and mind had been tortured enough to expect anything. While full psychological profiles were forbidden by the secrecy of their work, one might have marveled at all the sharp spikes and massive dips that characterized her at rest brain patterns. Because of this, being strapped to an old fashioned chair hardly felt like any sort of inconvenience. When only a few hours prior she was creating the aural equivalent of a decadent cathedral tapestry, now she was simply enjoying the residue of her recreational drug use, something that had already thrown her captors out of the room in frustration once. Though disarmed of her earpiece and by proxy the counsel of RADROCK, her bonds were little more than a comfort to those holding her, having already practiced dislocating the different joints populating her arms a number of times to stave off boredom.

Still… they needed to reveal some rhyme or reason in the near future. Without her veil and her grease paint slowly melting past its point of primacy, MC Scuttlebutt would surely appear to be some strange and fascinating vixen. A vixen easily linked to so many different crimes.

At last the door swung open, the light peaking very softly through as a shrunken figure appeared. His features were noticeable deformed, as if a knife had been taken a number of times across the more predominant features, leaving little to look at besides a disgusting pustule of fat that would be his forehead and a hand that was more tentacle than digit filled appendage. It was all so macabre and so overdone, another of thousands of deformed creatures that would of course make their lives slightly less painful by torturing others.

Lisa doubted whether this one really knew anything at all, likely to try something as ancient as thumb screws to drive his point across. This was more fetish than anything else at this point, his little foray into the only sexuality he would ever know. Still, that was kind of gross and she didn’t want to be part of his wet dreams in the night to come. It was show time.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah” she screamed as convincingly as possible.

He gurgled what could be called a laugh. “Screaming won’t do you any good here. Oh no, oh no it won’t.”

“What could you want from me” she asked with bugged eyes.

His face was too close to hers. “Well let’s see. Let’s see, let’s see, let’s see. Why don’t we start first and then I’ll tell you. Yes yes?”

Too quick to get into it. Didn’t a gentleman romance a woman first?

“You’re right it was me! I was the one that laced that shipment. I’m so sorry! I just thought I could skim it down a bit without anyone knowing it. Pleasedon’thurtmepleasedon’thurtme!”

It seemed a bit taken aback by this, the idea that the question at hand might actually have turned a whole different set of profits than expected. The pug nose bounced up and down a bit, seeming to sniff at the possibility that she was lying, but never quite knowing if it was correct.

“So close. You are so close. But close won’t save you from this,” he said revealing the cleaver that had been concealed beneath his apron. The drama continued to turn laughable.

“Tell R-Money I’m sorry! I’ll work his clubs for free for as long as he wants! I’ll… I’ll even tell him what I have on the Savoy Cats gang. I know he wants them out of the picture and I could get him in no problem.”

Too many names from the news might cause problems, but this was a low culture audience. The fear needed details to seem exquisite and by the weird wheezing scream it was admitting, it seemed to be pleased by this. Whoever, had hired this creature should have taken better care to see to it that he wasn’t a moron.

“WeeEEEeeeeeEE. I don’t think Mr. 123 would like that.” A name! “No no no. Savoy Cats may have cut into us, but they’re not the ones. Not the ones we want at all.”

“Who? Just tell me! I can give you anyone!

“No no NO! We cut first, slice and dice, then you tell. You talk only if you can hack it.”

This was the time, rolling her eyes back as hard as possible and slipping into her best simulated convulsions. She was careful to draw blood from her lip, which would certainly please the twerp and add authenticity.

The little thing recoiled back as her “fit” continued, dropping its cleaver. Of course, if she died, that would certainly cause a stir for its masters so it needed to get something in her mouth quick. Too bad for Lisa that was a rag soaked with what she hoped was oil, but it got him close enough. Snap, crackle, pop went her joints in one fluid motion, her arms and legs serpentining out of the shackles. Elkcarc, pans, pop, back in place. The bone stiletto appeared in a flash, poking it squarely in the jowls. It never seemed quite aware that all it needed to do was upset the fragility of her newly re-bound bones.

“Now then dear, would you kindly show me where your masters are?”

Who would have thought that a creature that couldn’t summon even the faintest hint of desire unless in the presence of an ocean of gore would be so squeamish? His fainting was inconvenient, but not really a hindrance as she made her way out along the catwalk. The scenery below reminded Lisa of the descriptions of the Japerys that had once travelled from town to town on Cradle, the mingling of childish delights and absolute fear at their antiquated attempts to gain trust. Who wanted to see a Dog painted up as such unless they actively wanted nightmares? It was all so garish.

Unlike most of her escapes, Lisa knew that she would eventually have to see her captors face to face. They had been so kind thus far, as even the slowest rogue would know MC Scuttlebutt could get past a deformed hatchetman. Why she had wrested gig dues from brutes with twice the temerity that one had. The catwalk was only a simple back and forth and lacked automatic conveyance, an oddity for the time. Perhaps this really was the bones of a Japery, complete with sandbags… perfect for repelling downward.

She had always liked the sensation of falling, having won too many childish contests of Zero G bravery in her former life and this was no different, having an altogether new feel. The danger was less physiological and more apparent from the poor design of her facilities. Why, the rope could snap or the weight give out or any hundred other such delights! Feline her fall might be, but she would pull it into a splendid bit of acrobatics.

Sadly, this did not happen, leaving her only on the hard surface. Was it wood? Was someone really still doing such a thing these days? Maintaining it from olden times seemed improbably, but not impossible she supposed. It was better not to get too lost in thought since she still had much to do before she heralded her return to society. But many things lurk in darkened halls some not as expected as others.

It was a hand that grabbed her waist. Not a strong hand or one that was being particularly forceful, but a foreign one none the less. Cradian, more than likely. It was summoned from a darkened sleeve buttoned in ivory, the formal wear or someone off to a show. The breast of the suit was as an immaculate white as she had ever seen, but was so contrasted by the garishness of the mask being worn. Avian in feature, but completely purple with pipings of gold made into the scene of a grisly dance of the dead, it was something she could only imagine someone wearing during the high Orgasmic holidays.

“You’re late already. Hurry along, hurry along,” the mask urged her, beginning to push her.

Taken aback, Agent Lisa has little time to respond other than to simply follow its urgings. Her dragged a bit, as the feet became yards, her mouth sputtering with both questions and protestations. The scenery became a haze as the drawing of maroon cloth hung high came into focus.

“Right here. You know your part right? Okay. Break a leg.” And it was gone.

It was the same floor as before, but this time well lit and opening only to void. What in all the universe?

Each source of light glared in cascade, coming to life in stark lines to reveal the audience of people waiting before her, all similarly masked and well attired, save one. His face was stained with age, but dignified and dare she say… intelligent? The strange only begot the strange in this place.

The audience murmured at her agape face until the unmasked figure shushed them. He stood slowly, the specks of dust becoming more apparent in front of his beard.

“Lisa. Aka MC Scuttlebutt. Aka Clyde Ramshead. Aka Bijou Ferrari. Aka Moon Warrior painted in Blood. Aka Melanie Shine Shine. Hmm… have I forgotten any?”

“Black Muligan” she croaked, not quite knowing why.

“Ah yes. The scourge of the Brixian seas. Yes, quite right. Terribly sorry. Lisa, have you ever seen a Golden Parakeet?”

---

Pango-silat is as much a game of rhythm as it is a form of martial combat. Few choose to master the skill outside of the rudimentary as the basic forms are enough to satiate the bloodlust of a crowd of hungry gamblers, the area for which it is most used, leaving the more complex forms for those who retreat to the monastic lifestyle. While Agent Lisa was versed in them in theory, even her experience was somewhat lacking in this particular corner. But she remained trapped, both in her duty to crush her opponents by the means most humiliating and by Pango-silat’s unique feature: it denied all other martial combat. Blocks and parries were its providence, allowing for a fluidity without peer that could not be met with the bluntness of other styles. Though her Drop Si training might offer her slim hope, entering the Dance untrained was the most likely avenue of success.

Grasping his hand tightly, the coolness of the hand speaking more of acrylics than metals, the pair entered the third form, Free Falling Flame. No sooner than the form was struck did its hand strike out, lashing from a downward angle towards the base of her sternum. Rapidly spinning the muscle group, Lisa was able to make the blow glance off, allowing for her upward momentum to swing her off her feet and bring her own fist crashing towards its shoulder. This blow too saw the flutter of movement, the slow dip of the shoulder to place where the shoulder blade should have in its way, leading to a clear elbow strike at her rib cage. Kicking up, Lisa pushed the elbow off-course, though the circuitry of the robot proved a more difficult foe than the weakness of organic muscle. Heel-toe she went on her free foot, arching backwards enough to place hand upon the narrow corridor wall, spinning her foot back into the foreneck of the robot.

What would have crushed the wind pipe was merely an inconvenience to the walking combat machine, initiating her ungraceful fall when his parry had been expected. Oh how had they done it at all those live events she had attended? Even the weakest Id-Thun could manage to continue without stumbling, yet all she had to keep her firm was the grasp the pair shared. Perhaps this had been her first mistake, as Free Falling Flame was the form most dependent upon brute strength, the litheness that gave her prowess among other styles being subtracted because she was anchored to its arm.

The robot seemed uninterested in taking a strike at her in this position, which seemed curious to her. Whenever an opponent showed weakness it was a time to strike. Rolling forward on to her knees with her head dipped, she brought her fist forward once more, changing it at the last second to a glancing chop meant to put her back to the robot and bring his arm around her. But the robot seemed prepared, spinning in time with her until they came back to the ready.

Suddenly, its feet left the ground, throwing its body backwards enough that Lisa’s own strength necessitated swinging it back towards her. There its arched knees saw the feet into her chest, stunning her for a moment and leaving her perfectly vulnerable for a forceful extension, succeeding the last hit deeper into her pain receptors.

It was only then that she let her grip go. A halo of hair hid the face beneath on the floor, barely registering outside of inflamed gasps at breath. This was an altogether different opponent, not seeking destruction, but rather dismantling her piece by piece. She could feel the beams on her arms, those muscles twitching to release them and simply move forward.

“No,” she thought. “They’re only looking to humiliate me. Either I’ll die fighting this thing or have to admit I’m not clever enough to do it without cheating. I have to get it off-balance, I have to…”

She could already see it waiting to re-initiate the third form. “What a smug prick,” flashed in her mind, before remembering that this thing likely had the personality of the universe’s blandest turnip. Uneasiness motioned through her arms as she stood, waiting to find a footing that might be a tad more stable than the floor she was currently under was providing. Finally erect, she took one moment to initiate a new action, placing her hands around her jaw to crack her neck and take a small lick of her lips.

Hands met once more, even more rapid in attack; each sending hook kicks over the ducked heads of their opponent in rapid strokes. Forward punch parried into driving knee strike. Strike rolled away from, forearm clattering with forearm until headscissors could be administered, unable to complete their toppling of feet since the robot held firm. Her attacks all seemed so futile, yet she continued to hammer them home, its zoetrope face replaying every defeat she suffered back at her.

It was useless so long as the form remained the same, leaving Lisa’s only recourse to change the way in which their strikes might meet.

What had that Doctor said so many years ago? It had been one of her first experiences viewing Pango-silat, when she had thought the rocky Ghyun Demon would easily overpower the smaller Id-Thun. He had been the subject of Lisa’s protection at the time, the Doctor, under the auspices of another piece by Bijou Ferrari. Well of course I would love to see Pango-silat. Gee golly, do you think it might be too violent for me? No no, I would love to write a piece about it. Well I’ll keep your name out if it if you want to gamble a bit. There they had sat in those darkened seats, the blinking red markings overhead rapidly shifting the odds as reactions were gauged about the fighter’s prowess. Bets flew on the big board, the odds shifting rapidly as the crowd seemed less than enamored by the lithe frame of the Id-Thun. Though it perhaps once originated on its planet, the Id-Thun seemed out matched by the surprisingly flexible Ghyun, its forearms seeming to whirl and twirl in all imaginable directions as the two prepared.

The Doctor’s bet had been leveled early on the Id-Thun. What had he said? She could see his lips moving in the forefront of the faceless crowd, their arms waving money everywhere. It made little sense, whatever those words were, but she was an obliging escort and made no effort to dampen what would be a prosperous sum should the Gods of Luck decide to shine upon him.

The match started in the eighth form, Swallowed Sunlight, also known as the third strength. Forms favor certain strengths of competitors and this one was meant as a compromise between the raw speed necessary to Pango-silat at all and the differences in sizes of opponent, but it would surely favor the larger opponent, as both knelt down, brushing their joints together. What was most odd was that the Id-Thun had chosen it. Surely he would have benefited from Diving Delicate or Winged Waking, yet he had put himself at a disadvantage on purpose.

Could the Doctor read her? He was speaking again, followed by a muted chortle at her expense. The match was already underway, with the Ghyun favoring fists to the dancing feet of the Id-Thun. The bets boards shown neon overhead as the pair skimmed in and out of each other’s wake, no strong blows but many that implied contact. The Ghyun seemed in no hesitation to move its solidity off the ground, not even raising the extended knee to test the defense the Id-Thun presented, but the Id-Thun was using its position to its fullest, resembling a carousel off balance as all its limbs flailed. Lisa could feel the crush on the Id-Thun, knowing it would eventually be forced under by the tide of the Ghyun’s weight, but it would not come so quickly. This was a beast playing with its food and would do so until the last drop of torment had marinated its hide.

And the moment came after several frustrating minutes. The Id-Thun’s ankle had connected fully with the eye of the Ghyun, causing the striker to come unhinged from his base. The Ghyun’s forearm was quicker than one could imagine, those scales tearing down to the abdomen and flinging the Id-Thun against the arena floor. Though it never left the form, it was obviously in position for defense. This was the time the Ghyun had waited for, edging its knee foreward to give its diving elbows leverage.

But this was the time the Id-Thun had waited for as well. Kipping up rapidly, the legs of the Id-Thun snaked up the encroaching knee, allowing for the momentum of the move to swing the Id-Thun out of position and behind the falling torso of the Ghyun. To its feet, the Id-Thun wrested the Ghyun back up, its own movement causing a bit of a fall. There elbows now entwined the dance began its last decaying movements.

“Zealous Zen. A wonderful exchange,” said the Doctor, pleased that his bet had made the end game a delight.

“Never believe rhythm to be solid,” he had said. It flooded Lisa’s mind, knowing that her own weakness was not in ignoring the challenge of Pango-silat but ignoring all its aspects. Here was an opponent mocking her every attempt to address it as equal, when her equality must be sown by her own initiative.

The knife edge chop came in as if in slow motion, meant to shatter her face into a million pieces. She watched it carefully, as if the dust around it had congealed and stood at attention beneath the light. His movement was a map of constellations, each shining point leading her to his abrupt end. If pango-silat is a game of fluidity, it is also a game of tautness with ends coming from those that can stop the opponent’s dance from ever realizing itself. She moved up suddenly, into the blow, not allowing it hit onward, but enough to keep the swing true. Her hand met the elbow of the bot, pushing it forward with the other guiding the wrist. This created an over swing, the endless movement of kinetic energy forward as she traveled with it. Around the world she rode with the arm, only leaving the track once she had enough clearance to make it over the shoulder, her hair trailing behind her like a silken banner.

The arm was still in her hands, but was now about the neck of her opponent. She had found it, the form meant for her. Nineteenth form, Hollow Hallowed. Her back muscles strained to bring the robot off its feet, up off the ground as it face surely continued to mock her. With no base, the robot could flail helplessly as her free arm met the robots own, controlling its attempts at escape. But this was not a solid hold, instead being the transition to the end. The Requiem to a Sonata of Machines.

Her legs bounded upwards, catching the robot with its arms still firmly held. SNAP! It all came crashing down against her muscular thighs, which could barely sustain the power of the blow. The pain was a rush at least, as she could see its face once more. The arms had captured gave no leverage to the robot, acting instead as its guillotine. The acrylic skin that held the visage of her cries for RADROCK came cracking apart, body separated from body part.

It was over. Hollow Hallowed, the first form of leverage. She had never actually used it, but it was one well suited to her tastes. The sweat beaded everywhere about her, the bruises rose throughout her. She had won, but was no closer to what she sought, no closer to vengeance nor the end of her assignment. But she would press on…

But the halo of light had exploded before her eyes. In her triumph she failed to consider the chance that no matter what the outcomes, she would lose.

---

“What an impertinent question,” she thought, still dangling between the world of stage fright and attack. “Dragged out by the hair, meant to suffer beastly perverts and their perverted toys and now made to dance like a doll.”

The sea of masked faces showed no reaction to her silence, only the slow motion of shoulders in the subtle act of breathing. While the chairs that housed them conveyed a pompous ornateness, there was an air of melancholy to them, sadness for an age long bygone that could explain exactly what their purpose had been all along. The standing figure made sense amongst them, as if he had been built along with this place and all that gathered were merely his worshippers. The sense of that wasn’t lost on Lisa, since the crowd seemed to be largely in awe of the possibility of words form his lips.

“Well” he beckoned. The tone cloyed her a bit, but there was little to do but respond.

“I have not heard of a Golden Parakeet. No.” Subtle. Cool. No need to force herself into a position of doubt.

He seemed to consider this a moment, his face tightening as his hand groped about the pale moonlight of beard. He was coming into focus more, more a figure in the foreground as the crowd seemed to drift into endlessness. As his index finger left his face it seemed to draw in even further, matching her eyes rapid movement that betrayed her confusion.

“I suppose that would make sense, as one hasn’t been invented yet.” The crowd roared in laughter and clapped. It truly was a theater. “No, I suppose the question is whether you’ve seen a Golden Parakeet, but whether you grasp the idea of a Golden Parakeet.”

“What does that even mean? I grasp plenty of ideas and I can already picture your bird in my head. That doesn’t make it any more of a real thing to me.”

“Good girl,” he said seeming eager to pace, though the crowd around him would never allow such a thing. “But every day we’re confronted by ideas that are solid. You’ve ridden ships through the stars and had your body filled with tiny sacks of cleaning nanomachines meant to keep you safe from disease. Why these all started somewhere and that somewhere is as an idea. Do you see now?”

Her fidgeting was getting worse. Perhaps if she had had time to prepare her lines she wouldn’t have been so ill at ease.

“Thought leads to action and action leads to creation. That seems rather trite by itself and even more so when fowl of valuable metal status are involved.”

“Ah yes, but did you consider the fact that much of your own daily life is consumed by an idea? That each day you whisper carelessly to it in some far vast reach of the sky where it might give you wisdom and lead you towards the things you desire most. Why, I suspect you would hear its voice right now should it deem it necessary”

“You can’t mean God.” Now the audience was laughing for her, the old man joining in.

“Oh ho. Oh my no. Though I suppose such an idea would make sense. No, I refer more to the artificial intelligence you hold in trust. A one RADROCK I believe. He exists as a non-physical presence, yet the idea of him is large enough to occupy actual space, as unseeable to our own eyes as it might be. Dear girl, I do believe that an artificial intelligence is just one of the many species of Golden Parakeet, though not the particular one I want.”

Philosophical claptrap seemed so soothing from him, as if he were merely distributing the words to be built into houses of their own design. Lisa fought through the notions, considering exactly where this could be leading to. If he had something he wanted from her, he was deft at concealing it.

“If your parakeet doesn’t exist physically, why do we consider it all? Wouldn’t it lack any substance of value?”

“Monetary value perhaps. Hmm hmm. But value? Such a loaded word,” his unsatisfied pacing continued. “I like your way of thinking though. If I want a Golden Parakeet and I know no such thing can ever manifest itself in the mortal coil, what then am I after?”

The time for impertinence had arrived, “And why abduct a well-respected spinner to get it for you?”

“Oh, I think you can imagine. I had an interesting conversation with your RADROCK not long before you came here. It seems you’ve put him in quite the lather about something. Honestly, I know he doesn’t have a real body, but that’s make him a tool or another packet of data floating about the ethers. Why, he’s as real as you or I amongst those narrow bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. But I was most curious as to why he seemed so enamored with you.”

Lisa blushed a bit. Enamored? With me? RADROCK was always with her, but he could barely be considered her ally, let alone a potential paramour. After all, his words were more venom than honey.

“Yes, he spoke so highly of you faculties, how quickly you seemed to define intuition against the grain of experience and craft them in the forge of logic. I dare say he considers you almost on par with an AI like himself, though the subterfuge of your existence is far more sweeping than it is likely he imagines.” He paused to consider his next words. Lisa knew those words would count. “But most importantly, he and I through his teaching know that you’re someone who can understand the breadth of the world ahead. You’re not stuck in a single wave of motion, but instead finding the crests of each and making them your conveyance. Lisa, you are a woman who can deal with new things.”

“What a dumb notion,” she thought. Everyone deals with new things on a near constant basis. Sure, she would occasionally immerse herself in a subculture here and invigorate a trend there, but it was hardly out of the ordinary for the zeitgeist of the time. Still, for all her hardened existence, Lisa was not above the coy smile at a compliment. “The universe is wide and everyday our understanding of the infinitesimal nature of our existence becomes more apparent. What does it even mean to deal with new things when everything is constantly coming into our sightlines?”

The audience let out and audible gasp. Obviously a faux pas had been made and Lisa could only hope that it had been the old man who had done it.

“Cradle has only existed for a simple eon, Ms. Lisa. In that time I have had the good graces to spend my time upon it, to feel the moistening Earth as it invigorated life into each of us. I have seen wars fought and people die before my very eyes. I have seen the ever expanding graces of technology slowly descend like feathers from heaven, forming tiny points of lights against the darkness of ignorance. And I have seen the hands who have caught them smother them out immediately or turn their light into the same darkness it was meant to combat. In my time, Cradle has encountered innumerable creatures beyond wonder, those legends that we cradled against our bosoms since time began and then watched it become the most vile of xenological hatred, the vitriolic reaction of a people not ready to know they aren’t the center of the universe.” The old man paused to clear his throat. “I’ve liked to pretend that I’m above all of this, but even someone who has spent near a hundred cycles within the singing spheres of life cannot hope to be above it. But you’re unique. Of all the people, in all the worlds, in all the galaxies, in all the possibilities, you are the one. The one who has never felt the veil fall upon their senses and ceased wondering how much grander it can become. I’ve seen the mockups of your psychological profiles, but these don’t do you justice.”

The recording burst through the air. The voice was all too familiar. “I remember her reading something to me once, some book, the dead leaf kind no less. We were supposed to be doing something else, but she just couldn’t stop. B and E always seems to be a sightseeing tour for her, and I always imagined she was looking for some other bauble to make the ruse more comprehensive. But her thumbs were on those pages, mumbling words that I couldn’t quite pick up on. ‘Fall softly… thy faint heart… that constellations might align. ‘Twained it split upon the… the…’ I can’t seem to recall the rest. But it was splendid. This little moment split off from everything else. I’ve never seen anything like it.” RADROCK was more loquacious in confidence it seemed.

“He’s… that doesn’t seem relevant at all” Lisa pleaded.

The audience laughed as the old man arched an eyebrow. “Darling, for someone so smart, I amazed at the balderdash to pass between your lips. You can’t coast on your good looks forever.”

---

Why was it that people who lived life on the dangerous fringes were so prone to losing bouts with consciousness? It had been another dreamless sleep deep within the voids of a self teeming with questions, none of which could be explored so long as she remained prone. Experience taught her that she was likely in a new location, one more troubling than the simple hallways she had been exploring, but her eyelids were that of a schoolgirls, unwilling to lift from their rest to battle the light of day. Individual parts of her mind flared on slowly as she scraped back into the world.

A cool breeze rustled against her nose causing a slight twitch. It didn’t seem quite right somehow. Of course not, she was indoors. Where would a breeze come from?

Her eyes exploded open in a rush, the dazzle of imagery rushing past them. What could it all be? Hazes of silvers and blues and light pinks slowly coalesced into solidity. The room was vaguely familiar to the building she had expected, but it was truly a more pastoral scene. The lush carpeting of the room appeared in view, the slow connection of groggy mind to perception realizing it was grass. And trees! And sun! Where in the bloody hell had she gotten herself to now?

She found her arms unrestrained, though it was hard to tell against the slow movement conjured from deep within herself. Of all the odd things happening all at once, worrying about why a metal reclining chair was in the middle of landscape seemed like the least troublesome, being archived to the back of her brain. Placing her now bare feet upon the ground, Lisa felt her muscles stretch out, absorbing the cold of the grass as she performed her self-examination. The signs of injury were minimum, outside of those expected from her tussle, save for one. A small puncture mark dotted the landscape of her hand, a small rivulet of blood having run and dried since it occurred. Anesthetics were hardly a new occurrence to her, but it just didn’t seem sporting to put her out so when brute physicality was so much more exciting.

She peered off into the sun that seemed to close upon the rolling hills of the Bork building. Answers laid somewhere in its promise and she would have to seek them out. A small jet of melancholy filled Lisa’s bloodstream as she imagined what RADROCK might have said about it. What was death to an AI? Did they have promises of something else or did they already know of a cold nothingness?

NO! He wasn’t dead. That wouldn’t happen to RADROCK! He was too crafty, too quick to ever be caught! Surely, he was just hiding away to ensure that whatever attacked him wouldn’t be able to follow. He wouldn’t be gone for too long. Soon he’d be chirping in Lisa’s ear about whatever was on his mind, for better or worse. He’d find a way back to her. He’d always be…

Crying and walking aren’t easy to tasks to manage together. They both take much more thought than we really consider and Lisa had miles ahead it seemed. The landscape had a feeling of sameness about it, as if she were merely repeating reels of the same film rolling behind her, but all she could do was set in the direction she had chosen and hope for the best. Whoever had taken her wanted her alive and what’s more, wanted her to make a trek and she was more than eager to oblige.

As seconds faded to minutes and minutes melted into hours, her mind continued to wander to different points that had led her here. If the old man had given her more details perhaps she would have been spared a degree of tedium, but there had been a coyness she was coming to understand in his speech. His was a game of shadows, one that had too much time or money to be anything more than ephemeral. Still, it was a job and the distance seemed to finally surmount itself.

She could see a faint darkening in the sun she had been trying to avoid. It was all too likely the trick of a bored mind, but a bored mind must seek what stimulus it can. Her feet moved with a decided spring that her mental state shouldn’t have allowed, the earth sinking a bit with each step. It seemed as if the wind was rising to her challenge with the cool breeze becoming a tumult in her eyes, forcing her downward gaze all the more out of the way. How nice a figure her hair must have looked trailing it, but how unsightly the maintenance for it would be after it was all over.

The shadowy figure began to take form. He was a small man, not slight, but of a hardy stock though his posture hardly spoke of it. Posture conveys so much about a person and while she could feel ease in his it rang of artifice, of a nonchalant view of the world brought about by his great power over it. It was apparent that this was a Cradian, his baldness never seeming ritualistic in the face of vanity. Yet, it fit his sharp features, darkened by the tangles of age and experience. This was a man too long in the world, his tunic rolled casually back to embrace the land as if it were an old friend. But what caught her eye the most was exactly how this all was accessorized: the man was wearing a monocle and flying a kite.

“I hadn’t expected you so soon” he said in a distant low tone. “I had hoped that I would have more time with the winds. They’ve been rolling in a way I haven’t seen since my boyhood on the phosphorous banks of the Yujkin moons.”

“So sorry to interrupt” Lisa bellowed, her arms seeing to flail themselves in exasperation.

He turned his gaze to her and back to his kite. “Well… I suppose business must be disposed of, as it were. I’m sorry that your treatment was rougher than you might have cared for, but all things have their course.”

“Who are you? Why is Bork employing you? Why is a liquid absorbency company so damn secure and why do they have a savannah in their building? Why was I knocked out but not restrained? Why was my AI attacked and where is her?” She would have gone on if his hand gesture had not been so dismissive.

“I hardly think Bork would associate with a blackguard like myself.” His kite banked harshly in the wind, nearly diving in to the tree at his back. He turned rapidly to match its movements. His words melted into curses and fumbles, but he brought the kite back under control. “I’m here for the same damn purpose as yourself: I’m stealing from Bork.”

So Bork wasn’t behind all this? Or maybe they were… but to what extent? Where did the world she had moved through exist in and where did the world of this man start?

“It can’t be stealing if it never existed in the first place,” she said with marked exasperation. “And I’d hardly call what I’m doing stealing. It’s a casual influx of stealthy recognizance and re-appropriation.”

His monocle lifted along with his eyebrow. “You’re just as in love with semantics as he is.”

The kite skittered further into the wind, its golden swatches becoming one with the crimson staining that ribboned its mock body. Lisa had encountered much in the way of villainy over the years, but few moments of it seemed to elysian while still so violent. Bodies could be mangled and left to rot under the distant uncaring sky above, the sights meant to burn forever into the mind as the last vestige of true personhood lost, but this was the moment she could never forget. The slow moving of fabric in the ocean of air above, the valiant struggle against the impossibility of flight.

“I’m sorry,” she beckoned, “but I don’t believe I got your name.”

He turned to her, his hands still fiddling with the string. She did not see it as it happened, but she could feel the searing rush of pain against her face. His hand motions were too intricate for her to follow properly, too many fingers moving in too many ways, not to mention the wrists and forearms to account for. All she could see now was the forceful bubble of blood trying to escape a wound too tight to let the torrent truly follow its natural course. She contorted the muscles above her nose, as one might if they were trying to control a sneeze, hoping that it might somehow naturally knit itself back together. What a dazzling display lacerations could make, perturbing a space that had once existed in unity but was not more than a shell that wound sinews roiled in all of their vulgar glory within. Her mind barely comprehended it, whatever the attack was, slowly playing it back in slow motion.

One moment the kite had been in vigil high above them, the next it can became a swooping shrike, lining up a deft cut from forehead to nose. It had barely touched her, the sensation lost that he had pulled it down at her at all, but cut it did. His eyes had never lost that same piercing quality they gave even through the obvious fatigue. His was a being of weapons concealed beneath each movement, a disarming stasis of movement never betraying that the world ceased to matter deep within his core.

“I don’t care for impudence” he spat out in a violent trill of speech. “If you had wanted my name, you should have introduced yourself right away!”

Her arms instinctively readied themselves to shoot the beams lodged in her suit’s wrists. She was already heaving as if the fight had been going on for minutes, rather than this being the initial standoff. He remained cold to this, the audacity of which struck a chord within Lisa, the tension of all the costs she had paid becoming undone. This was not the cool operator, but the Valkyrie unbound in vengeance.

“YOUR. NAME.” she managed between her teeth, ever mindful of the kite overhead.

“I suppose you may as well just call me Kite, for all the good it does you now” he seemed to say after much pondering.

“WHY. ARE, YOU. HERE.”

“The same reason as you.”

“EXPLAIN.”

The kite drifted in a gentle spiral down into his hand. He was done with recreation, the smolder from underneath is eyebrows being illuminated in the monocle’s glare.

“Why, I’ve gotten here on the same road you’ve followed. You see, I made a friend…”

---

“There is but one thing I seek and perhaps it is my own long life that makes me wish it. I seek impossibility. In a universe whose future is predicated on the idea that miracles occur in rapid succession, it is a miracle I need. One not of discovery, but of genuine spontaneity. When your time grows shorter and you have made the world in your own image you find yourself constantly hampered by the interference of others. For each step you plan there is an infinite number of factors you cannot control. Perhaps there is no true science because of this, as we can’t understand anything if futility demands that independence is a function of life. I want a moment of genuine control, when the gears of the universe cease to move long enough for every moment to be brought into congress. I have read the stories of Alchemists seeking the Philospher’s stone, but even they did not fully grasp what it meant to turn lead into gold. The movement of matter is one thing, but the flow of existence itself can be dictated in short bursts.”

“You want to be a God?”

“That would imply infinite power. No… I seek a momentary respite from the idea of the laws of nature. I have spent a vast fortune, more than you could ever hope to comprehend assembling the pieces of this. It was a puzzle, to even untangle my own thoughts, but slowly we built it until it made sense. Life intersects in strange enough ways, and it is at a moment of intersection that it shall appear. The Golden Parakeet.”

“So… it’s all a metaphor?”

“Every legend has a harbinger, something mystical to give weight to its significance. Perhaps you can see the parakeet now in your head, but imagine it in a much more resplendent form. Imagine it as you might imagine a dream coming to life. Now try to give it actual form. Try to grasp what it would feel like, move like, taste like. We can make these extrapolations quickly when we see something we perceive as real and quickly forget them, but we can’t do it for dreams. The unconscious mind is a powerful thing and to say it is giving rise to a metaphor is misleading. The metaphor will take form. That is why I need you Lisa. I need you to steal it for me.”

---

Kite patted the tree, Lisa following his every move with her wrists drawn. The nature that had once felt so out of place and comforting was becoming a meancing rise as his feet seemed to blacken each part of it.

“I knew all about your AI, even before you came into this building,” he purred. “I had hoped to see it for myself, but my friend was kind enough to tell me about his clumsy attempts to be stealthy in probing us. Small fish often clean the gills of the bigger in a hope of currying favor and surviving being eaten, but a smart fish would simply stay away. All we needed to do is display the correct part of the gill and your fish ate until it was too late to escape.”

Lisa’s mind flushed with anger. She had dreamed a thousand wild scenarios in which RADROCK had disappeared, but few felt as if they had been made of such simple imaginings. This was a trap of cold rusted metal, not a sophisticated machine of death. They had simly been too powerful to resist.

“You still haven’t told me about your friend,” she managed through the pain of clenching her outstretched fist.

“Well I think you’ve already met him. Well… not in person perhaps, but person wouldn’t be the word anyway. You felt his presence loom over you as you walked through here, his spectre constantly riding on your shoulders as you tried to get to the heart of the building. You heard his name, but you didn’t comprehend what it meant. You always come off as a little deaf. Compotent, yes, but perceptive in only certain areas. When you engaged in Pango-Silat, what did you think?”

The fight replayed for her. It was the same as it had been in action, though the visceral satisfaction was more succulent.

“Wasn’t it the least bit strange that someone would send only one robot to fight you in a very specific way? That would hardly be ideal if we wanted to dispose of you. But it all happened so fast. Your little toy had just run out of batteries and you were angry. You wanted to destroy, but yet you needed to be relaxed if you ever wanted to fight this robot in its own way. Applying illogic to a logical postulate! And you danced and you pranced in the halls until it was over, never considering that it was something bigger. Something more dangerous. The man who hired you wanted to ran his own tests to determine your suitability, but without me it would never have been possible to get you to the right state. Yet, I am a frail collection of nerves and blood like yourself. I needed someone who had the capacity to sustain a world of illogic. You walked right through him this entire time.”

His hand rapped the tree once more. Color seemed to seep away from it all, creating a silhouette in a world of setting suns. Everyone seemed to speak in riddles to her these days, but Lisa had long ago figured out this one’s solution.

“The AI at this building’s core. The massive one that RADROCK supposed. You’re working with it.”

His smile was as bright as a child’s, making the little clap that accompanied it all the more disconcerting. “Oh yes. But he’s so much more than a building’s heart. His life is bigger than yours or mine. It can barely survive within the frail walls of such a tiny space, but we needed him to be here. If we’re going to create a new universe, we have to give it the biggest mind to be born from.”

Lisa edged forward. Her impatience was growing stronger but he had almost given up the whole game. If she could hold out just a little more…

“But we needed you Lisa! We needed you wound up correctly so my friend could extrapolate you in the final way. I’ve been considering the connection between AIs and stars. Are the stars born with the AIs already nursing on them or are they born later? Space is such an empty place and to have to live out one’s existence in it sounds positively dreadful, yet so many AIs must never leave their stars. Only the insane ones, it would seem. My friend would fit this category to a T. He’s like the old robots, all logic with so little heart.”

“Just a little more,” Lisa thought.

“But we needed a heart. We needed the infinite possibility that lies within a human mind, right here at the frayed corners of the universe. We needed someone who wasn’t afraid to adapt to new systems of logic.”

Here in the still…

“And for that we needed your little AI friend to lure you here. And we needed him to die.”

Pulse is quickening.

Lisa’s beams blazed at Kite’s face.

---

“I still don’t fully understand,” Lisa said.

“The audience murmured amonst itself as the old man contemplated his next words carefully.

“All I can say is that the world will open up at just the right moment. At just the right time. In just the right place. All the research I’ve done has pointed to it. At this point, the Golden Parakeet will appear and you must take it. Don’t hesitate. Don’t worry about anything else. Just grab the Parakeet and skedaddle.”

---

The beam struck the filament of the kite. Whatever the material was, it was stronger than she would have guessed, not even singing against the harsh killing light she used. That the kite was in flight made perfect sense. That it was joined by other kites now did not. Each was colorful, each composed of sharp angles, designed less for graceful summer days and more for the killing intent rolling off of his muscles. Lisa’s beams continued to blaze at it, hoping to find their speed matched to a gap in his defense, but in the random tumbling of the kite in the wind was a perfect defense, a randomness to match her own random firing. Blue and red flickered like tiny starbursts amongst the tangle, her body following them like a beacon towards her.

A small green kite lifted off the ground, like an uppercut towards her jaw, forcing her to bend as far backwards as she could to avoid its path. Out of the corner of her eye, the next tore down, this time a deep cerulean, palely matching the sky aside from its silver piping as it tried to slice at her arms. It was much like dancing, the moves she had to make to avoid their unique flights, as the kites, at least seven by her count, came in from all directions. Surely their strings would tangle at some point, her beams now aiming towards the guiding fingers, but still not quite finding the right path.

Frustration mounted against her shoulders, knowing all that little pains she had accumulated on her path here were holding her back from her normal gracefulness, some cut deeper than she cared to realize. But threads of logic did not grasp themselves and even if she could not sever the hands controlling them, she could sever the man from the hands, making her headlong rush towards his position all the more important.

The distance was less than four meters now, but the retracting wind of the kite’s strings was making it difficult to pass. A careless attempt had already drawn a nick, their sharpness more than enough to tear her suit’s supposed elasticity. Adrenaline is a cruel mistress, masking the true pains and making us rash enough to strive for more of it, and the rapid placement of foot to ground was making Lisa aflame with it. As cool as she would have preferred to be, her rapid dancing feet to keep time with a beat that didn’t exist. Time clotted in this pace, trying to find an escape route that might allow something to happen, but each occupant of it was too busy measuring the other to let is pass by. The calm spiral of death was about to be broken.

Lisa’s fist seemed to move between the wires like water, bending in places where there we no joints, since her grasp never called for the beam. She had found the space to move forward into the the downpour of kites and with it her body followed. Whether the kites still found her at all hardly mattered, their clattering dives towards earth burying many in the grass that occupied each. She was going to smash him, wreck his face up with brute force. To hell with Pango-Silat and Drop Si and any other martial combat. People died because others had enough intent in their actions to make it possible. She would make it possible.

The fist was near his nose, but his eyes didn’t move. His kites still danced, though they were too far away to get close to her in time to stop her. Lisa did not realize the significance of this, only seeing the pupils as a target. But they were drifting away. His lips moved, the familiar pattern of subvocalization. Had he been doing it the whole time? The answer was obvious. Lisa’s thoughts scrambled again, taking in all the things that had led her here. But each was now a pale shadow beneath a burning sun she had been trying to make palpable. Whatever the Golden Parakeet was, she was beginning to see and feel each of its sides.

Those pupils were now dripping, seeming to be more white than black, like phosphorous burning under a night sky. But white is all colors at once and each flashed in turn, the visible light spectrum and all others burning in turn, a symphony of our understanding being played out. And then bang!

Lisa’s charge was thrown back. She landed tail first upon the grass, rolling backwards with tremendous momentum. None of her parts seemed to find a natural place to stop on the grass, continuing to somersault despite her hands and feet snatching at a hold to stop. Already she could feel her hair tangling in front of her face, though it would be a few moment until she could part it. And when she did part it, it was true.

Between the two it flew. It’s form was a melting one, the liquid drip of something born out of elemental chaos. If the heart of a star was a solid mass it might have conjured the heat it gave off, the peregrine features giving way to a sheepish plumage, small in every detail. But it was too bright to consider whether it was really a thing or just a lingering fancy, its ether filled cry piercing each of their ears. At some intersection, of some universe, at some time, matter woud become something impossible. A lifeform made of liquid gold, impossible in its life, no carbon building its form, but yet it would exist.

A golden parakeet.

---

RADROCK’s voice flooded the room, with only Lisa the least bit disturbed by its presence.

“I think you’re perfect for the job, Lisa.”

Her face moved in a curious response: “So you’re to thank for putting me here?”

“I admit, my own interest is a little vested,” he said coyly.

A green light danced on the floor, slowly becoming a pair of legs, a torso, some arms and a face. It moved like a man, in a way so few holograms can properly pull off. Nary a flicker marred its interaction with the dust in the air of the room.

“I’ve never taken this form before. I guess I’ve never really taken any form before and I’m not too imaginative to imagine what I would look like as a body.” It was approaching Lisa, its naked body coming to be clothed in a fashionable suit.

“You don’t need a form, you fussy busybody! You can go anywhere!”

“And not be anywhere!” The figure stopped. “I hate the term Artificial Intelligence. What’s artificial about me? I have just as much personality as you… well… as much as most people, but no one wants to consider that me or anyone like me could be anything but a mirror of other existences in the universe. I HATE IT!”

It was a little cute how it stamped its feet, though it brought about the feeling that she should scold him like an overprotective mother.

“Why does something have to exist physically to be real? Why for every race and philosophy shooting out of the vast depths of this stupid universe do you have to be made of carbon to be real?”

“RADROCK…”

The audience gasped, including the old man.

“I’m not your imaginary friend Lisa!”

“Of course you aren’t, darling.”

“And now you’re treating me like a baby! I’m older than you! I’ve seen more than you, lived more than you, but because I can’t touch or feel or have some of your senses, I can’t be real.”

The hologram drew up on stage. Lisa managed her blocking and turned to it, though a critic might have noticed how stiff the turn was.

“I want to be as real as you Lisa. Even if you don’t understand it, I know the Golden Parakeet is the way. I can’t explain it. Call it a gut feeling. Call it an idiot listening to a crazy old man and his army of perverts.” The audience cheered for the pandering. “But I think this is how.”

RADROCK’s light hand stretched out and his holobody went into a bow. When he arose he moved closer to her, his palms turned out to her at odd angles. Lisa matched him. This was a simple ballroom dance, a display of intimacy, but one made stranger by the fact that there was no real physical contact between the pair. Yet, they carried out the moves anyway. They danced in perfect unity under imagined starlight, illusory boy and solid girl.

His words were a mix of sadness and hope: “Help make me real, Lisa.”

---

Lisa’s mind was on fire. It wasn’t from the appearance of the bird, but the fact that the brid had been ripped from her very core. She had imagined it so perfectly for just a moment and it was now in front of her. What had made her imagine it so? Wouldn’t a golden parakeet be more like a statue in most people’s minds? This was like some otherworldly idea of a phoenix more than anything, instead of a chubby face little bird, but she knew it was exactly as it should be. This corner, where a mind logical enough to order a universe and one empathetic enough to place a reality within it had created spontaneous matter.

She was rushing towards it, while Kite didn’t seem to want to do anything but awe. Hadn’t this been his plan? Didn’t he want the prize for his own? Thoughts were too many for her, her body losing itself amongst their tangle. The danger of this was apparent, but obscured. If her mind was creating, any idle thought would flicker in and out of existence. But there was only one thought. One that was slowing her feet. As close as her prize was, she had many debts left unanswered and only one underlying reason for having accumulated them.

His body was that same ghostly green Cradian, though the features were sharper, more sculpted to fit a true body instead of the idea of a body. He stood next to the Golden Parakeet, his arms turned to her in prayer. Lisa could feel his first sensations of grass against feet, the first flashes of solidity and the ungainliness that came with it. He was experiencing smells and sounds and tastes in new ways, each one boiling into Lisa. He was feeling reality in a way he hadn’t imagined before. RADROCK was alive.

But he wasn’t whole yet. Lisa was having trouble keeping him within the realm of the world as the Golden Parakeet came closer to grasp. Though her mind had created him, she couldn’t hope to hold on to both ideas at once. She would have to let one go.

And he spoke, the wet click of vocal chords: “Help make me real, Lisa.”

And she made her choice.

---

Lisa had to be the one to dip RADROCK, since his ghostly hands wouldn’t hold up her actual mortal body, but despite this switch in leads, the audience cheered, the curtain behind them drawing close.

The old man approached the stage, a bouquet of roses in his arms, which he extended to Lisa.

“Will you do this job, Lisa?”

---

But the Golden Parakeet didn’t disappear. It was now in Kite’s hands.

---

She was awash in the afterglow of this performance, if it had truly been that. Her mind raced to put her answer correctly.

---

He existed thrice. One in the present, once in the past, once in the future. Mere seconds apart, the three Kites existed temporarily and spatially apart, yet were the same being. Lisa’s omnipotence wilted in the face of this, an existence that was the root of all causality within the universe.

Hes was laughing at what had happened.

The past Kite grasped her shoulders, creating memories that had not existed as they faded intothe present. “We did it! You stupid bitch, you and that AI did it! You created something that couldn’t possibly exist! Without you and your wandering mind… I’M THE LOCUS! THE NEXUS OF ALL EXISTENCE THAT I AM PART OF!”

Hes fell to the ground laughing, causing Lisa to turn away from real RADROCK. She watched him, wondering how much longer he could continue this display. Quite a while it would seem, though hes did eventually disengage from the clover and sit up, seeming to laugh, cry and find stoniness all at once. They stood, to brush, brushing, brushed the dirt from their clothes.

“Really, thank you,” future Kite said, sounding like an echo as it suddenly came to be in her ears. “I couldn’t have done it without you, though I guess this means you failed, but don’t worry. You probably wouldn’t have known what to do with it anyway and the old man wouldn’t have either.”

Present Kite placed a hand upon her chin. It feel like it was vibrating, the heat given off a little more than she cared to take, drawing a wince.

“You’re the Mother of a new universe. But I’m its future.”

Their index finger poked her forehead. And the vibrations increased, she was unable to react more than turning her head, but the finger would always be there, past, present, future. Real RADROCK stared in disbelief . What was happening? Where was the Parakeet? Why was RADROCK? What had Kite achieved? Who, what, when, where, why, how.

It all ceased. The finger bored in at an odd angle through her skin, through her skull, through her brain and into the cold reaches of her death.

---

The audience waited with bated breath.

“Then I guess Agent Lisa is on the case of the Golden Parakeet.”

The applauce reprised.

---

RADROCK ran his fingers over her face. Had this been what she felt like the whole time? Is this what she had been when he was only a voice? He probed the lingering warmth that was swiftly retreating. Kite no longer existed within the space, having flown the coop in some means he didn’t hope to understand. But it didn’t matter.

“Lisa… Lisa..” he murmured. These were his first tears.

The vital signs were loosening. Without her brain, there was no Lisa. He had chased physical form and yet she was left with only hers. RADROCK was alone with it. It was a cold, dark existence ahead.

---

Fall softly thy faint heart

The constellations might align

Twained it split upon each eye

Each heart a nights breath away

Though thought is a lingering beast

It is a dangerous predator

Made more terrible by its growth

That such danger, in peerless form,

Should hem in the symmetry of a night,

In which violence is made to sleep

Under stars that it would conquer.

---

By James Wasson

#future universe

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