Today sucks! But tomorrow might not. The only way you'll know is if you're around to see it! Are you going to give in to a malevolent universe? It's laughing at you! You! Personally! Are you going to just sit there and let it laugh at you? Let it dominate you? Fight back! Scream, cry, but do not go gently into that dark night! Call or text to our crisis management teams! All calls are anonymous. Call 800-273-8255, operators are standing by!

--Pubvian Public Service Announcement after the Terran Die-Off

Brentili'ik scrolled through the historical data on her terminal, sitting at her desk in the Staff Officer's Quarters on the Telkan Marine base. She'd moved there after the attack on the Planetary Director's Offices and her own home.

She'd also been saddled with power armor wearing guards as well as guards from the Telkan Intelligence Services.

Which is why she had six extra people in her office aside from the newly appointed Director of Intelligence.

The taste of Terran blackberries was across her back teeth and the tip of her nose tingled from the security screens and jamming that was in effect. The windows all slightly vibrated with stripped down warboi code in case anyone tried using a laser microphone on it. Everything was guarded, the data cables in and out of the office were one way only. The room was SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) compliant as well as having the best security the Telkan government could beg, borrow, buy, or steal.

Brentili'ik highlighted another passage in the historical datafile she was going through.

...following the attempted assassination of Confederate diplomats by agents of the Mithril Nebula, the Senate adjourned to seek shelter and only met through hypercom and needlecast conferences. During the conflict elections were held four times. Due to mishandling of the early years of the conflict, over three quarters of the Senate seats were lost to incumbents.

Once the Mithril Nebula Conflict was over, the Senate reconvened...

Brentili'ik tapped her monitor, throwing the data she had highlighted to Kreldan, who had been confirmed with 92% of the vote.

"That's when it happened," she said softly.

Kreldan read it quickly and looked up. "The perfect time."

Brentili'ik nodded and waved at the holotank where the Confederate Senate was holding a roll call to being the opening of business. Again she noted that everyone was present, looking immaculate, surrounded by staffers and functionaries. As she watched the roll call finished and the Senate Majority Leader stood up to call the Senate to order.

The Senate Majority Leader suddenly blinked in and out of existence. Brentili'ik frowned and looked at the holotank showing the entire Senate chamber.

The whole Senate flickered. Static filled the image then vanished. Thick bars of static moved up and down the images.

The gathered Senators, functionaries, aides, cabinet members, and lobbyists suddenly turned blue with small white words across the dark blue coloration.

The blue suddenly vanished and where each of the people present in the Senate chambers had been there was a red bar with white words.

CONNECTION LOST TO HOST flashed.

The screen suddenly cut off and "TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES" suddenly appeared.

"Did they... did they just vanish?" Kreldan asked.

Brentili'ik couldn't help it.

She burst out laughing.

-----------

Acharya dropped down on one knee, firing three quick bursts at the androids that had just run up the to the railing of the balcony that surrounded the room he was in. He lunged to the side, rolling, socking the weapon into the pit of his stomach when he rolled onto his back. He fired without sighting, trusting his cyberlink, his onboard combat packages, and his wetware.

The burst took a large headed Thinker straight in the face right as they reached for a control console.

"Getting thick out here, Lady Kay," Acharya said, rolling over and coming to his feet in one smooth motion that let him take off running. "How's that override coming?"

He didn't expect an answer as he ducked behind a console.

The androids couldn't risk firing at him and damaging the control console. Without it, they couldn't override the Terran female that had sunk into the thick nanite sludge surrounding the Master Control World Engine.

If they couldn't retake the Master Control World Engine, they couldn't control the soup that permeated every layer of what Acharya had started to think of as "The SUDS-Onion" or "The SUDS-yun".

He glanced at the status screen, frowning slightly as he focused his eyes on the data and blinked twice, putting the data into his datalink's memory. It showed nearly fifty World Engines and their statuses.

Most of them had "OVERRIDE ACCEPTED" next to them. It looked to Acharya like only a half dozen or so were left, most of them on the outer layers.

He looked to the side just in time to see a pair of android Warrior caste come around the corner. He lifted up the crude propellant based battle rifle and triggered a quick burst that he controlled the recoil on so the weapon's barrel moved in a figure-8.

The Warriors fell back, shattered, as Acharya lunged to his feet, scrambling to the next cover.

Just as he reached cover the words appeared in his vision.

"NANITE EXCLUSION ACCEPTED"

"ONBOARD WEAPON LOCKOUT RELEASED"

"ONBOARD DEFENSE SYSTEM LOCKOUT RELEASED"

"WHO LOVES YOU BABY"

Acharya smiled as he swapped the battle rifle to his left hand and lifted up his right hand. He cocked his wrist back to a ninety degree angle and flexed a muscle that didn't exist.

A thick barrel slid up out of his palm and he felt the smartwire go live. He felt his onboard inertial dampener fields kick on, his battlescreen systems kick on, and kinetic gel flood his adipose cells.

A half dozen Warriors charged into the room, pointing their weapons at him.

He grinned and leveled his arm at them, feeling the recoil compensation system go live. A twitch of his thumb, which did not actually move, and the gun in his forearm fired.

Before the Warriors, and the Thinkers behind them, could comprehend the sudden change in the equation 10mm hypersonic darts slashed them into ruin.

--------

Herod tensed. He could feel it.

Madness.

It was gibbering and raving, almost like a round black furry creature with massive eyes, a fang filled mouth with a waving spiked red tongue, bouncing toward him as it screamed and howled.

Herod swallowed and closed his eyes for a second.

He had just opened them when the door exploded inward, derezzing and falling into a shower of pixels.

Sam-UL stood in the doorway, wearing a tattered jumpsuit that looked like the one he had worn over his hazardous environment frame in the Black Box.

"KILL YOU!" Sam-UL screamed, lunging forward at Herod.

Herod jumped out of the window that overlooked a well cut lawn with artificial flamingos and a "VOTE FOR KODOS!" sign stuck in the lawn.

The one with the pink casement.

Sam-UL snarled as the windows shattered into pixels, leaving that section of the room's 'wall' blank. He cast out with his senses quickly.

Herod had fled to a database storage section on Bravo Layer.

Snarling, Sam-UL turned and ran through the door, vanishing down the hallway that represented a major dataline.

The door appeared back in the frame.

Herod climbed back into the room through a window with a casing painted with pink and white stripes. The window dissolved as Herod dug in his pockets and pulled out two stickers he quickly put on the wall.

A window with a pink and red polka-dotted casement and another window with pink and red crosshatches painted on the casement.

Herod moved over and changed the door knob on the door into a carved glass one, dropping the brass handle onto the floor where it shattered into bouncing pixels that glittered for a moment then faded from existence.

Sam-UL stopped in the log file database and looked around.

A small doll, wearing overalls and with bright red hair as well as freckles looked up at him.

"Where is Herod?" Sam-UL screamed.

"Hi, I'm Ducky! Want to play? We can be best friends!" the doll answered.

Snarling, Sam-UL went to kick the low level VI.

With a shrill scream of glee the slasher ICE erupted up from the floor, slashing with the knife. It grabbed onto Sam-UL's shirt and, laughing wildly, slashed at Sam-UL even as the DS tried to keep the blade away.

Sam-UL took the stab wound, felt the attack code dig deep into his arm, but he used the time to grab the ICE by both legs.

He ripped it in half.

Bleeding from several slashes he reached out with his senses.

Herod was hiding in an environmental control port on Gamma Layer.

Herod heard him coming.

He moved over and leaned against the bottom of the casement of a window with a light grass green painted casement. The window was open, but it felt as if he was leaning against cellophane.

The door crashed open, shattering into a billion pixels that bounced across the floor even as they sparkled and vanished.

"KILL YOU!" Sam screamed.

Herod let himself fall backwards out the window. The window shattered into pixels as Herod landed hard on the tile of a train switching station. He jumped up and ran for the phone booth, yanking the door open, grabbing the phone, and punching in a number.

He dissolved and a something else fell from the phone's receiver.

Sam-UL felt Herod appear on Sigma Layer, down near the cold storage sections.

Roaring with rage, Sam-UL turned and ran out the door, which reappeared.

Herod climbed in through another window, which shattered.

In the cold storage memory manager switching station Sam-UL yanked open the phone booth door.

A monkey with cymbals looked up, its eyes glowing red, and started banging on its cymbals.

Sam-UL kicked its head off with a single convulsive kick.

ICE flooded into the station from both tunnels, screaming and howling with glee. They poured over Sam-UL who fought back, kicking, punching, biting, spitting.

He could feel Herod hiding in the phasic processing array process processor.

It wouldn't do Herod any good.

Sam-UL would kill him.

---------

"Shit," the Detainee said.

"What?" Vuxten asked, giving around himself a quick look.

"He's faster than I thought he would be. Tougher too, the ICE isn't slowing him down as much as I thought it would," the Detainee said. "I miscalculated badly."

"Can we compensate?" Vuxten asked.

The Detainee nodded, turning to look at Vuxten as she put her hand on the door and it silently slid back into the wall.

"That's why you're here," she smiled.

Vuxten followed her into the building, passing by empty offices, still hallways. He could see signs that a fight took place long ago in the building. Damage that had gone unrepaired for longer than Vuxten figured he could guess at.

--creepy creepy-- 471 said.

They stopped next to a massive needlecast hypercom. In front of it, crudely but skillfully patched into it, was a holotank.

"Keep an eye on my back," the Detainee said. She moved up and typed a few times then stepped back. "Drop the heavy gun rig over there, load phasic rounds into your submachinegun," she ordered.

Vuxten turned and faced the only door, checking the heat and slush levels on the M318 he was packing. 6% heat, 4% slush, right where it should be. Ammo load was full, heat sinks were cold, everything right where it should be. He undid the smart harness and set the heavy gun away from the door. Close enough to reach in a few steps, but far enough away he didn't have to worry about tripping on it.

"Get ready, buddy," Vuxten told 471.

--gonna come apart on us-- 471 guessed.

"How's the lag?" the Detainee asked as Vuxten pulled half his ammo mags and one by one fed them into the reclaimer grinder on his hip.

Vuxten glanced behind him and saw eight Terrans standing in the holotank, but not like any Terrans he'd ever seen. They were wearing leather or military surplus, spikes and chains and patches decorating their clothing. They had swirling digital tattoos, neon colored hair in spikes and other weird cuts, and they all had obvious cyberware. They all held old solid propellant weapons in their hands.

"Manageable," one said. He looked around. "Bigsa networksa, Miz Johnson."

The Detainee threw a datapacket into the holotank. "There's your objectives. If you encounter too stiff resistance at any objective, pull back and go for the next. I don't need heavy infantry, I need covert ops."

Vuxten began taking the magazines one at a time, as they were extended from the hip mounted nanoforge, and putting them in his magazine holders. He checked his fast reload system, which used short range point to point mat-trans to 'teleport' the rounds from the fast reload magazine into the magazine of the heavy stubber.

The one who had been speaking nodded. "Wesa cansa providez that, Miz Johnson."

"Payment has been made up front," the Detainee said. She lit a cigarette and stared at the gathered Terrans through the smoke. "I have confidence anyone who could find the Halls of the Mountain King as well as hack a Smaug can move quickly and cleanly."

"And iffy wesa engaged annie cannot withdrawsa?" the leader asked.

Vuxten checked his ammo.

"Punch out. You don't want to take on what's in here face to face," the Detainee said. "I'm not expecting suicide."

The leader nodded. He pinched the glimmering sparkling ball in his hand, tasting the pinch, before handing the ball off to each person.

"You do this, Crashrider, you'll be more than history, you'll be legendary," the Detainee smiled.

The group nodded.

The Detainee turned away as the team moved out of the holodisplay. She stepped up next to Vuxten, exhaling slowly.

"If you're as in control of your rage as I was told, you might want to start getting angry," the Detainee said.

"Why?" Vuxten asked.

"Because they're coming," the Detainee said. "Us being here has disturbed them, but it's the only non-SUDS system hypercom on Alpha Layer."

"Who's coming?" Vuxten asked. He couldn't hear any screaming, any roars of rage. He couldn't feel the floor vibrating from the impact of tens of thousands of feet.

"Them," the Detainee said, pointing at the wall.

The warsteel eagle on the side of Vuxten's stubber began to glow a dull red and smoke began to waft up from the warsteel. Vuxten glanced at the weapon, then where the Detainee was pointing.

A male Terran, his chest slashed up until Vuxten could see his ribs, swooped out of the solid wall, its body entirely made of white energy.

Three more males and two females, all bearing signs of death wounds, followed.

--phasic shades-- 471 warned.

Vuxten snarled as he managed to slap the first one aside, feeling a ghostly impact in the marrow of his bones rather than on his skin. His arm suddenly felt cold as the shade staggered to the side.

He was aware of the Detainee just standing there. Phasic shades flickered into her, as if they intended on passing through her, only to rip and shred, tearing apart into tatters that dissolved in midair. She reached out and poked on with her cigarette and it vanished in a puff of white mist.

He didn't pay attention, grabbing his chainsword off his hip and thumbing the Cutting Bar Mark II to life even as he triggered his stubber. The phasic rounds exploded with bright purple flashes as he raked two Terrans made entirely of misty white energy with his stubber. He slashed another with the cutting bar and it fell back with a screech, reaching down to gather up its entrails that spilled out of the wound across its abdomen.

471 cranked up the phasic systems even as he kicked on the speakers.

YOU CAN STRIKE A MATCH IN MY HAND rang out through the room.

Dee made a face even as she poked another shade and it puffed out of existence.

TOO BLACK TO TAN

Vuxten could feel the heat in his armor rising as he slapped aside a clutching hand with his stubber and slashed across the face level of three others that were lunging for him. The chainsword chain crudely welded to his gauntlet, shattered years ago, began to glow a steady burning red, smoke trailing after his hand as he leveled the stubber and fired a burst of phasic rounds into the group of shades that had just lunged out of the wall.

His shoulder mounted grenade launcher kicked out a trio of phasic rounds, the plastic shells shattering and a purplish-blue pulse of energy washing across the entire wall.

"WATCH THE GEAR!" the Detainee yelled over the screams, explosions, and music.

Vuxten just nodded, gritting his teeth on a freshly chewed piece of stimgum.

More shades flooded into the room.

----------

MANDATORY VIEWING MESSAGE

"As Planetary Director For Life, it is my solemn duty to care for all of you within my sphere of authority. Are you or someone you know a Terran in distress? Help is available 30 hours a day, 8 days a week, at any time! The New Tnvaru Psychiatric Services can provide grief counseling in addition to many other services. Call or text at any time for an automated, digital sentience, or live being crisis counselor call, a counseling appointment at a clinic or other comfortable location or even a home visit! Let us help you as you have helped us. Call 800-273-8255, operators are standing by!" - Planetary Director For Life Namtotum speaking for the Terran Assistance Program

END MANDATORY VIEWING MESSAGE