Hair of the Wolf: Open for Business

[Carnival]

I woke up with a start, my head pounding. I sat up, and winced again as I switched the light on. I looked round and was slightly embarrassed to see the woman who had respawned in the bar lying next to me.

"Thats gona be fun to explain to the guys tomorrow." I muttered to myself. I looked round, and realised that I wasn't even in my room. I scribbled a brief note for the girl and walked out, pulling my faded top on as I left. I wandered towards Wolfs room, positive that he'd love to be woken up at this ungodly hour.

He'll probably go skitz, but hey I need to speak to him.

Whistling under my breath, I walked on....

[Zebulon]

Zeb had taken some stims and had erased the looming headache with some meds that one of the Monkey doctors had given him.  He leaned on the railing.  The smoke from the Babylonian cigar wreathed round Zebs head. The sky was clear and the stars were bright.  There was an occasional glint off the defence network satellites orbiting Primus. He bowed his head and closed his eyes.  

Zebulon! Help Me!......   Zeb shook his head and shuddered. That had been Seraphears voice in his head.  Zeb's arm hurt. Not deeply, but a dull ache that made it difficult to move. Apart from the sounds of the launch pad some distance away and the bustle in the distance laced with the sounds of urgency and warfare, there was little disturbing this night.

The comlink buzzed. "Zeb! Its Pyro! Seraphear has been hurt. Something to do with the gauntlet. The damn thing tore his arm off!" Zeb flexed his muscles and looked at his hand. "Zeb? Zeb, are you there?"

"Yes mate, sorry. A little distracted right now. Is he going to be ok?"

"The Chimps reckon he will be ok. He's off the life support at the moment, I'll get in to see him in a bit."

"What about the gauntlet? Do you have it?" Zeb asked urgently.

There was a pause. "After what I saw, I'm glad the damn thing is gone. I had to blast my way in through Seraphear's airlock. When I saw the mess and him screeming like a demented narzat, I grabbed him, pushed off and rigged his wreck to blow with some nuke grenades. Zeb, I never want to see one of those freekin' things again!"

"I'll be down to the hospital as soon as possible. Keep and eye on him and it might be an idea to get a couple of folk to guard the corridor. Have you heard from Roby yet?"

" No. I cant even raise him on the m-wave. I should have been with him hours ago. I've got a real bad feeling about all of this...."

" I know. Wait there till I get down.  Wake Wolf and the others and  get them to meet us in the mess hall by the Simian Security Forces Barracks in two hours. I'm coming to the hospital. "  

Zeb cleared the call, grabbed his gear, called for his car and headed down to the foyer.

---------------------------------------------------@oOo@-------------------------------------------------------

The "Hair of the Wolf" was quiet. The locals were in, as were a handful of Zoner miners that were celebrating their latest find, having scoured the remains of Colorado for what little silver was left there.  Viki sighed and continued to put the glasses back on the shelf. Li'l Liz was polishing the tables and flirting with the miners. Most of the damage from the last fracas had been fixed and business was ticking over. Machiko was in the corner doing her Tai Chi and Rosie the engineer was sitting with her coffee and chatting to two old "Deep Spacers" about engines and long range endurance travel.

Viki caught a glance of them as they entered the bar. Suits. She checked that the shotgun was within reach. The security system scanned them. They were clean. This was the Law or Viki was a cross eyed gibbon. She checked the mirror just in case.
Machiko had moved to their left and Li'l Liz, while still polishing the tables, had stopped chatting and was keeping a side long glance at the party as they approached the bar.

Viki did her best shimmy and beamed them a smile, "Gents, what can I get you?"

The tall dark one flashed a badge. Bretonian Police Special Branch. "Oh crap." thought Viki. "We are looking for Zebulon Antarxes. You any idea where he is?"

Throwing them a puzzled look, Viki replied, "Can't say that I do. He and his buddies left here at least two weeks ago. Headed out Dresden way last I knew."  The two behind the tall one exchanged a few words and spoke into their comlinks.  

The tall one handed her a commcard. "Ma'am, if you hear from him tell him we called and that we need to speak with him. Its to do with Artifact smuggling."

Viki gulped. If Zeb was convicted of Artifact smuggling they would loose the bar and their livelyhood. It was crazy. The penalties were higher than for smuggling Cardamine! She knew not to call Zeb as it was the first thing they would expect her to do and Viki was not about to give the game away.  God! Where were those boys?

Rumours had come into the bar via the usual traveling sources. The AoF boys always dropped in when the passed to make sure all was well with the girls. Not that they couldn't take care of themselves.

She looked back up and tall man was still there, staring at her. She flinched. He spoke.

"We would like to check the office at the back." This was not a request. Viki knew better than to argue. Whilst they could have taken these guys down, the ensuing trouble would have been impossible to deal with and the thought of running out on Zeb and Wolf did not sit well with Viki. "Sure." she responded. A nod to Machiko and a wink to Liz settled everything down. She led the way to the office at the back. They climbed the stairs and entered the mezzanine office.

They were careful in their search and put it all back as it was, but they were thorough. Some forensic bags were brought in and samples of who knows what, taken away.

When they were done, Tall Man handed Viki an e-pad and asked her to sign the document and as quickly as they had arrived, they left.  "Darn it Zeb! Where the hell are you?"

[Seraphear]

I swam slowly into conciousness, gazing round the white room, taking in the instruments and displays everywhere. I looked to my right and saw a huge number of drips and feeds leading into my right arm. I couldn't remember anything, really. I know I had undocked, so something must have hit me in space. I turned slowly to look to my left...

And yelled in shock.

"My arm!! Where the hell is my arm!" I began breathing rapidly, quickly going into shock. "Help me! Someone help!"

A strong voice shouted across me, and I felt arms holding me down against the bed, trying to stop me from thrashing and disconnecting the drips.

"You're fine, you're fine, stop struggling man, stop it!" Pyro shouted at me, desperately holding me down. "You have to calm down! Calm down, now!"

I slowly stopped thrashing and straining, looking at my ruined shoulder in shock. I couldn't believe it.

"Wait, where is the gauntlet?" I stared at Pyro, fear lighting up in my eyes. "Where is it?!"

"It's gone, Seraphear." Pyro shook his head in sadness. "I caught up with you outside Primus. You were screaming murder down the com, so I force docked with your Crusher and broke in. The gauntlet had shrunk, and shattered your arm. By the time I got there, it had removed it completely, and by the time we got back here... it had destroyed itself."

I stared at him, horror and disbelief warring in my head. How could this happen? I had control of the gauntlet! I had mastered it, I was the one who wielded it! And now... I had nothing.

"I have nothing." My eyes brimmed with tears as I spoke my thoughts out loud. "I'm useless. The gauntlet was the only thing that could have helped us. Now, I can't even take the fight to them without it! I CAN'T EVEN FIGHT!"

The words echoed round in my head, and I sank back into the pillow, tears of hot rage flowing down my cheeks. For years I had struggled to find out the Nomads secrets, fought for information, and all so I could help the chosen few when the time came. I'd found the gauntlet, and become a being of supreme power and knowledge. Now, what was I? A guy with one eye, and one arm. No power. No knowledge. Not even a ship to my name. I wouldn't be able to fly it anyway.

"Stop it." The voice was hard and cold, and took me completely by surprise. Pyro was standing next to me with a disgusted expression on his face. "This is pathetic. You came to us with power, with information, and with the heart to help with the biggest threat we've ever known. Now, you're lying on your back crying about a lost piece of hardware."

I opened my mouth to speak, but he cut me off before I even had chance.

"I thought I saw someone of worth in you, Seraphear." Pyro stared at me with a hard, unflinching gaze. "But obviously I was wrong. You're right. You can't fight. You are weak, and you are not worth the effort it would take to protect."

He turned his back on me, and started walking towards the door.

"Zebulon is coming to see you shortly. Frankly, I don't know why he's bothering." Pyro gave a mocking salute as he went to exit the room. "Goodbye, crybaby."

He didn't even get to the activation panel. With a roar of fury and pain, I hurled myself across the room and cannoned into the back of him. Blood sprayed from my ruined shoulder as I barged him into the wall, pummeling him in the face with my remaining arm. I screamed in his face as I struck, each blow accompanied by a word.

"To hell with you!! I've been fighting my entire life, and you judge me by this?!" I stood up and grabbed his throat. "I will NOT be called weak, I will NOT give up, and I will NOT be belittled by the likes of YOU!"

Summoning all my strength, I hurled him across the room. He stood up quickly, and I began to advance on him... when I noticed he was laughing.

"What the hell are you laughing at?" I spat.

"Seraphear... at last. I was worried you'd lost yourself when you started weeping, my friend." Pyro grinned at me as he dusted himself off. "I didn't expect you to react so violently, but at least you know you're not worthless now."

Pyro walked over to me and took my hand. He shook it, and led me back to the bed. I wondered briefly how I had been so easily manipulated, and how quickly I had reacted. Hell, I'd only had enough time to speak before Pyro had got on my case. I felt exhausted by my outburst, and wanted so badly to go back to sleep... Pryo's taunting had done the job though. I felt alive again, as though I once more had a purpose.

"When you wake up, the Monkeys are going to start growing you a new arm."

"No." I stated flatly.

"What?" Pyro stared at me, faintly amused. "You can't pilot a ship with one arm."

"I know." I looked up at him, and smiled. "I don't want a replacement arm. I want a better arm. I will sit down with the Robots tomorrow, and they can help me design a mechanical replacement. If theres one thing I've learned, its that flesh is weak."

Pyro gave me an appraising glance, and nodded.

"Very well. I'll inform the Monkeys. And I'll get onto the Robots." He turned round and sat back down. He went to say something, but stopped, a smile crossing his face.

I was already asleep.

[cold_reaper]

I woke up covered in the all so familiar cold sweat covering my body. But without the memory of the all so familiar dream. Instead I remembered pictures in my mind. New ones. A shady room, a man pacing it and looking worried. I couldn`t see his face. Then blood and carbonized flesh all around the room. And two men. And those eyes. Blood red eyes. Unforgettable eyes. "Something`s not right..." I thought while I started to come back to my usual self. I stood up and looked at the bed. Seraphear was still sleeping. He looked ok.

I left the room and went outside in the hospital`s yard and lit a cigarette. "Roby...I need to find out what he knows..." As I smoked, I reached for the m-wave.  "You have: 25 missed calls and 1 new message." the robot informed me. "Where the hell are you? You should`ve been here 6 hours ago! Listen...I`m afraid...I`m afraid something will happen to me....and to you...you need to know what I`ve found out. It might be your last hope. But I can`t tell you over the m-wave. Come here as soon as possible. I`m at the Stonebook Motel." I recognized Roby`s voice.

"Hello is this the Stonbook Motel?"

"Yes. How may I help you?"

"I want to talk to a mister Roby Lancers please. Can you put me through?"

"Umm...I`m sorry...but Mister Lancers died..."

"WHAT?!"

"Yes...later this evening two men came to his room. We heard shots fired. By the time we got there all that was left of him were carbonized body parts."

"DAMMIT!" Ok thanks"

"What to do...I need to find out more...This can`t be happening...sunova..." I thought while I was feeding the machine a new number.

"Hey Huan. Yeah it`s me Pyro. Listen I heard that a certain Roby Lancers died. I had some...business with him. Can you give me any details on the matter?"

"Sure thing mate. A red eyed man and another guy were seen leaving the scene of the crime. We found there what was left of a memory card. We`re trying to see if anything can be retrieved from it. Anyway we got one of the guys. The other one got away...the red eyed one. And here`s the weird part. We shot him 8 times. He should`ve joined his friend down at the morgue."

"You mean to tell me the other guy`s dead?"

"Well yeah...we weren`t about to wait for him to try to make us little new holes in our foreheads now were we?"

"Anything you can tell me about him?"

"Yeah...something weird. He was Order!" (No surprise there...)

"Can ya give me his id code?I`d like to check him with some of my contacts."

"Sure mate. I`ll m-wave it to ya as soon as we finish talking. Anything else?"

"Aye. If you retrieve anything off that memory card I want to find out what. Don`t forget you owe me for that job in Alpha two years back..."

"No problem mate. Don`t worry...you`ll be the first to know."

"Ok. There goes my interesting development. One life saved for the price of another. I don`t think he`ll respawn after this one. It didn`t feel like your ordinary die-and-wake-up kinda death in the dream. It felt different...And what is truly an interesting development is that I dreamed the whole scene..." As I was thinking I remembered I didn`t call Zeb. "Curses! I knew I forgot something!"

After filing Zeb in I called Wolf and the others and told them to meet in the mess hall by the Simian Security Forces Barracks in two hours. Then I walked back to Seraphear`s room. As I stared at him he woke up.


---------------------------------------------------@oOo@-------------------------------------------------------


At last he went to sleep. "Dammit that was a close call. He started losing it back there...We can`t afford to lose this guy, gauntlet or no gauntlet." I felt a bond to Seraphear. I don`t know what kind of a bond, but not your ordinary "we`re friends let`s have a laugh and a beer sometimes" bond. No...something more than that. Like our souls were in a way connected now. As I thought about this Zeb came in. I looked at my watch and noticed a half an hour passed by. "Darn, time does really fly fast when you`re not paying attention..."

"How is he?" Zeb asked a little worried when he say his left hand missing.

"He`s fine. Hey Seraphear! Look who popped his ugly face around and came to see ya?"

Seraphear woke up and looked at Zeb. It took him a couple of seconds to realize who the man in front of him was.

"Zebulon...We need to talk....."

[Zebulon]

Albemarle Dixon had been in the service of the Bretonian Police for over fifteen years and had risen to the position of Special Branch Detective Inspector with courage and guile. Criminals feared this man. They seldom escaped his attentions.

The gravcar moved off in the direction of Police Headquarters. He was unhappy at the way his superiors had bowed to the military on this case.  Smuggling artifacts was a police matter, but on this occasion there were implications for the mllitary. They would tell him nothing more other than they needed to speak with Zebulon Antarxes.

The comlink buzzed. It was a message. His men had picked up Alphonse da Silva outside the BMM Headquarters.  There had been a message from the Order asking to know of this mans whereabouts. The police had been curtly told that it was an "internal matter".

Dixon thought for a moment. "Don't alert the Order that we have him. Bring him to HQ and I will speak with him there. Bring in Andrew Anderson also, but dont let them see each other.  I want to know what it was they were talking about."

It was not Dixon's first brush with BMM or the AoF for that matter.  The relationship of Zebulon Antarxes to the Anderson Brothers was well known to him.  During the boom years of the diamond smuggling rings from Dresden, Dixon, as a young narc, had brushed with AoF several times. There were eight traders serving ten year stretches for the tax racket they had pulled.  None of it had come back to the President of AoF.

To himself, as he looked out the car window, he said, "What the devil are you up to Antarxes?"  This had all been brought to Dixon's attention due to a gunfight at the "Hair of the Wolf" several weeks ago. Intelligence reports were coming in from all over that there was a problem within the Order, but no one was talking. Then this fight and a pile of Order operatives were left in a bloody mess outside the bar, along with an "Eyes Only" Top Secret report on the forensics that also showed Nomad signature DNA at the crime scene. There had never been that much trouble at The Hair of the Wolf, unlike some other places, so this was quite unique.

The car pulled up in the vehicle quadrant in the Police HQ yard. Dixon made his way in to the desk sergeant.

"Good evening, sir"

" Anderson and da Silva. Where have you got them right now?" asked Dixon.

"Andrew Anderson is waiting in your office and we've got da Silva and three of his security guards under lock and key out the back."

This was going to take a while but Dixon was going to get to the bottom of all of this.....

[-Vengeance-]

When Wolf left the bar saying he was going to bed I somehow felt relieved. Wolf had become a close and trusted friend and to have him looking at me that way was more than a little unnerving. It was downright troubling. The kind of troubling you feel when your brother squeals to your parents that the mess you both had gotten yourselves into was your fault. No matter whether it was true or not, you just don’t do that. And your friend just doesn’t doubt you like that. Unless he’s really not your friend.

Or unless… he has a real reason to doubt you.

That I had no recollection of the recording was bad enough. I could explain away that gap in my memory with the knocking around I took in the battle, the oxygen starvation, the panic of dying a slow painful death. If that was the sum of it all, I’d say ok, blow it off, and get on with the fight. But there was more, and the more was what bothered me the most.

I never lose sleep over dreams. So to speak. What I mean is, I never take them very seriously. But these dreams were more than your average garden variety dreams. There was something more about them, enough to make me not want to sleep. Enough to make me drink myself to sleep every night since I returned on Larissa. It was like I was living a separate life when I was sleeping. It was creepy.

So when I’d decided I was drunk enough I made my way up to Wolf’s room. I was worried about him and I still had the door cipher from the night before, so I thought I’d drop in on him before going across the hall to my own room. If he was asleep I wouldn’t have to wake him.

He was asleep, but I could tell right off it wasn’t as easy sleep. He tossed and mumbled, cried out once within the first minute after I slipped in. I dimly saw a chair in the corner. I  made my way to it and sank into its body-conforming comfort. I’d intended to keep an eye on my friend but the drink was too much. I fell asleep. OK, I passed out.

The dark stone was cold against my back. No wonder. I was completely naked. I sat up, tried to get my bearings. The roughly circular room was strangely lit in shadows of green and violet. Instruments lined the walls most of the way around, strange alien markings on the panels and screens.

Several monitors opened views of other similar rooms, but these were more barren. This must be a control room, I guessed. I slipped off the platform, feeling surprisingly light. Closer to one of the screens I could easily make out a figure on another stone slab. Several others stood around him. He was human, the others were obviously not. They were arranging devices on his body. When one moved aside I was briefly offered a better view. I was appalled at what I saw.

The remains of the man wore the remains of a flight suit. An Order flight suit. There were wires connected to numerous nodes protruding from his body. A wire mesh cloth was draped over his head but with the light shining directly on it I could see the figure of his face beneath. Dead eyes stared at some point in space and the mouth was opened as if in the midst of an anguished cry. How he had died I could not say but it must have been agonizing. There were deep gashes and burns over most of what I could see of his body but nothing I would call life-threatening. I wondered how he’d died.

My mind flashed back to my last battle, my battered ship adrift through the green clouds in Omicron Theta… the oxygen meter pegged at zero, the red light flashing its warning, stammering through the last of my message, fighting for breath…

When I looked back at the man on the table I knew. He’d died the same way, in the lonely cold of a darkened ship.

One of the creatures turned away from the table and reached for a control panel adjacent to it. Long fingers curled in impossible angles to push several buttons and adjust a meter at the same time. Then it turned into the light for a brief moment.

It was long enough. I recognized it at once. From the primers in school as a child to the briefings in basic training, this image was engraved on my mind.

This was a Nomad.

The lights dimmed for a few seconds. When they returned to normal the cloth was removed from the man’s face. His eyes opened and he looked wildly about the room. Then he seemed to relax. His eyes shifted to another Nomad who was leaning toward him.

The pilot sat up, all the while looking at the Nomad. Then he nodded and said, “I understand.” He rose and moved out of view. The Nomad he’d spokne to turned. This one wore a sash across his body. On it in bright blue shone a crescent and some markings within the arms of the arc. He looked at the others and they moved quickly out of the room.

The Nomad stood alone for a moment as its face, for lack of a better word, twisted into a grotesque form. Then it, too, move out of view.

I woke with a start as I heard a knock at the door. There was a blanket over me I know I hadn’t put there myself.

Wolf sat up in the bed and looked at me groggily, then at the persistently knocking door.

“You gonna get that or what…?” He asked with a lopsided grin.

[Watchwolf]

Vengeance got up unsteadily and moved to the door. When it opened the silhouette of a big man blocked the light from the hall outside. Vengeance stepped aside and Carnival entered.

He seemed surprised to see V with me. Looking back and forth between us with a raised eyebrow he asked, “Am I interrupting anything?”

“No, no, we were just getting up…” I said

“Uh, no, just a bad dream,” Vengeance said, at the same time.

C looked at the bed, then back and forth between us again, a strange look on his face. “Just when you think you know someone…” he mumbled.

“What?” “What?” we said in unison.

Carnival burst out laughing.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, very funny. Don’t quit yer day job, pal.” I groaned as I crawled out of bed. “What time is it anyway?”

“Oh-five-hundred. One hour to briefing. Thought you two ladies might want to freshen up.”

“I’m so hungry I could eat a Belian Beetle,” Vengeance complained as he made his way to the lavatory in the back of the room.

“What’s this about a bad dream?” I called to him over the sound of his water falling.

“The usual.”

“Well ok, what’s the usual?”

“Listen, I’d  really rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind”

“Well, ok,” I replied as he emerged. “It’s just that I had a pretty screwed up dream myself. Or at least I think it was a dream…”

“What’s this?” Carnival joined the conversation.

“Well it was so damm real it’d be easy to say it wasn’t a dream...” I elaborated.

“Now that’s interesting,” Vengeance interrupted. “I could say the same thing.”

”Wait your turn,” Carnival quipped. “The doctor has plenty of time for both of you.”

“It’s just that I could have sworn I was awake,” I explained. “There was someone in the room but when I turned on the lights there was no one here but Vengeance, and he was cutting logs in the chair there.”

“Yeah?” Carnival turned to Vengeance. “And you were asleep too? The whole time? “

“Well yeah. I mean, I was dreaming so I musta been asleep, right?”

We both looked at Vengeance. It hadn’t occurred to me til he’d said that. C and I looked at each other and back at V again.

“Wait a minute. Here we go again…” Vengeance held his hands up, shaking his head.

“Look, it’s not that we don’t trust ya, mate. But it’s just you’re not yourself lately.”

“Oh come off it, guys. No one thought anything of the sort until that guy came in here with that recording last night. So I freaked out. I don’t care how many time I kick over and wake up, it’s never any fun. The pain in my head, the screaming, it’s always the same. No one likes it, no one talks about it, but come on! Tell me it’s fun for you!?” His voiced had raised defiantly. “Tell me you look forward to it! You ever die slowly? Flash bang gone is one thing, but you ever have time to think about it? Tell me that  doesn’t scare the crap outta you!”

“OK, I get it,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “Yeah, it’s never a party. I’m sorry, OK?”

“Yeah, forget it.”

We all stood looking at each other, trying to ignore Vengeance’s discomfort and the whole topic of conversation. Then I remembered.

“Well anyway, what’d you come here for at 5 in the morning, C? You didn’t come here just to give me a wake-up call.”

Before he could answer, a gibbon stepped into the doorway.

“Mr Carnival?”

“Yeah?”

“Sir, you have an important Message. It’s been waiting for you at least a day now. I think you should have a look at it..”

“Yeah? So how come no one’s said anything before this?”

“Well we’ve been waiting for you to come pick it up, sir, but the boss said if you didn’t get it by today someone should bring it to your attention.”

Wolf looked at Carnival . "Sounds important. We'll catch up with you and you can fill us in over breakfast."