Spinning Yarn 2018

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Ndreare
Savage Siri
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Spinning Yarn 2018

Post by Ndreare »

Please post stories for the writing contest here as a response to this post.

Details can be found HERE
  • 2D6 EFFECT
    2 Catastrophe: Something goes terribly wrong. The GM must decide what, but some ideas are a new and permanent Minor Hindrance, the inability to use powers for several days, or an explosion of some sort. The backlash should be thematic if possible. If the hero tampers with dark forces for his abilities, for example, he might become corrupted or summon something sinister into the world. If he’s a weird scientist the device might explode for 3d6 damage in a Medium Blast Template, or he might develop a Quirk, Phobia, or other “madness.”

    3 Backfire: The power succeeds as with a raise but affects a different target with the worst possible results. A bolt hits a random friend, boost Trait increases an enemy’s skill or attribute, etc. If there’s no likely target, he’s Stunned instead. If the power has a Duration other than Instant, it lasts its full term and can only be negated by dispel (the caster can’t voluntarily end it herself).

    4–5 Short Circuit: The power fails but the Power Points allocated to it are spent, along with an additional 1d6 Power Points.

    6–8 Stunned: The caster is Stunned (see page 106). She subtracts 2 from arcane skill rolls for the rest of the encounter (the penalty remains –2 even if she gets this result again).

    9–10 Overload: The character’s synapses crackle and overload with power. He takes 2d6 damage plus the cost of the power in Power Points, including any Power Modifiers the player declared.

    11 Fatigue: The character suffers Fatigue.

    12 Overcharge: The power draws ambient energy from the air, automatically succeeding against the target with a raise and costing the caster no Power Points!

,
1 = 2 of Clubs
2 = 2 of Diamonds
3 = 2 of Hearts
4 = 2 of Spades
5 = 3 of Clubs
6 = 3 of Diamonds
7 = 3 of Hearts
8 = 3 of Spades
9 = 4 of Clubs
10 = 4 of Diamonds
11 = 4 of Hearts
12 = 4 of Spades
13 = 5 of Clubs
14 = 5 of Diamonds
15 = 5 of Hearts
16 = 5 of Spades
- reroll line for quickness & activation for Calculating -
17 = 6 of Clubs
18 = 6 of Diamonds
19 = 6 of Hearts
20 = 6 of Spades
21 = 7 of Clubs
22 = 7 of Diamonds
23 = 7 of Hearts
24 = 7 of Spades
25 = 8 of Clubs
26 = 8 of Diamonds
27 = 8 of Hearts
28 = 8 of Spades
- reroll line for Hyperion Juicer -
29 = 9 of Clubs
30 = 9 of Diamonds
31 = 9 of Hearts
32 = 9 of Spades
33 = 10 of Clubs
34 = 10 of Diamonds
35 = 10 of Hearts
36 = 10 of Spades
37 = J of Clubs
38 = J of Diamonds
39 = J of Hearts
40 = J of Spades
41 = Q of Clubs
42 = Q of Diamonds
43 = Q of Hearts
44 = Q of Spades
45 = K of Clubs
46 = K of Diamonds
47 = K of Hearts
48 = K of Spades
49 = A of Clubs
50 = A of Diamonds
51 = A of Hearts
52 = A of Spades
53 = Jokers = They are equal
54 = Jokers = They are equal
- If no reroll is being used then there are 2 extra jokers -
55 = Jokers = They are equal
56 = Jokers = They are equal
and of course update your signatures!
"Possible and practical are two comrades who rarely see eye to eye."
Rob Towell
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Ashley Logan
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2018 3:55 pm

Re: Spinning Yarn

Post by Ashley Logan »

“Just breathe.”

Ashley Logan, tense in the hands of strangers holding her shoulders and ankles, tried to relax. It didn't work very well. The mask over her face hissed softly as it injected oxygen into each breath. She could feel the IV needle in her arm. It felt cold under her skin. Everything felt cold. She tried to speak, but the mask was pressurized, and her voice was muffled even to her.

“It's all right. This is normal, Ashley. It'll pass as the dosage enters your bloodstream.”

The doctor, masked and wearing an AR visor, looked almost like a robot hovering over her. He peered down, then leaned over to one of the nurses or...orderlies or whatever...keeping Ash from thrashing and murmured something. They nodded in return and retreated out of her field of vision.

The hissing from the mask changed slightly. Ash felt herself immediately starting to fade.

“Nothing to be afraid of,” the doctor assured her as she slipped away. “When you wake up, you will be...”



“...right as rain,” Ash's father said as he leaned down and applied a synthflesh bandage to the scrape on her knee. “See?”

Still huddled up, Ashley gave him a stormy-faced nod, but didn't reply. Blossoms of bright red still burned on her cheeks from remembered outrage and humiliation.

Her dad sat back on his heels a little and asked, “You want to talk about it?”

Ashley hesitated, then managed a shrug.

“What happened?”

“I pushed Bettany,” was her soft reply.

Paul Logan couldn't quite control the shiver in his spine at that, but he tried to keep his game face on. “Is that how the fight started? You pushed her, she pushed back...”

Ash shook her head. “She started it.” There was anger in the words, but shame as well. “I pushed her.”

Immediately Paul leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Did anyone see it?”

She shrugged, then shook her head.

It was at school though, he reasoned. There'd be psi-hounds around surely. “Did anyone follow you? A dog boy?”

Ashley shook her head again. “I'm sorry.”

“Ash, do you know Bettany's family commlink ID?” Paul pressed. There'd be time to discipline later, right now there was only damage control. “Why didn't you tell me this sooner? You could have called on your way home!”

“I didn't want you to be mad.”

Paul inhaled to...he didn't know. Reassure? Accuse? Demand? Direct? For all that he and his wife had discussed this possibility, Ash had been so good for so long that he found himself completely unable to deal with it. The crippling fear that she'd be taken from them, or that they'd be taken from her, expanded in his brain like a rice cake in the stomach, leaving no room for anything useful.

Before he could say anything though, there was a knock on the door. Not a chime from the apartment access monitor, but the knock of knuckles meeting plasteel. Armored knuckles.

Ashley's eyes widened and she drew her legs more tightly against herself. “...daddy?”

“It's all right, Ash,” Paul said woodenly. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

The last thing any of them needed was for Ash to get excited right now.

He went to the door and opened it. Standing on the other side were two psi-hounds...one of them had knocked...and a human handler. Not, thank humanity, a stalker. A regular person wearing the uniform of Internal Security, but not armor. He gave Paul a smile that was almost certainly calculated to be reassuring.

“Mr Logan?”

Paul nodded.

“I'm Specialist Bradley Wilson, Chi-Town Internal Security. I wanted to have a quick talk with you about an incident at the Strength In Unity primary school today that we believe involved your daughter Ashley. Is she here?”

He hesitated, just a second, then nodded and stood to one side a little so the Specialist could see in.

Spec Wilson smiled through the gap between father and doorframe, smiled and waved.

“Can I come in? This won't take long.”

Paul's eyes flicked to the large canine humanoids flanking the security officer, and Bradley shook his head quickly. “No no, not them. They'll wait outside.”

His fatherly concerns lessened, slightly, Paul opened the door wider, and Specialist Wilson entered the apartment.

“We were just talking about what happened,” Paul said. “Can I get you anything...?”

“No no, I'm fine Mr. Logan. Sounds like my timing is pretty good though.”

Spec Wilson hunkered down in front of Ashley, keeping a fair distance away, Paul noted. “Okay Ashley, I'm going to ask a few questions, but I thought maybe you'd want to go first. Anything you want to know?” His voice was surprisingly gentle.

Ash looked uncertain, then asked, “Am I in trouble?”

Bradley shook his head. “No, you're not. The Coalition wants to help children, so you can grow up strong and make humanity strong. You are absolutely not in trouble.”

He made, Paul noted darkly, no such assurance about Ash's parents.

“What happened, Ashley?”

“At lunchtime, Bettany and her stupid friends were making fun of me, so I tried to go away, but Bettany followed me and knocked me over and...I pushed her away.” Ash rubbed her nose on the side of her hand and asked, “Is she ok?”

The Specialist nodded slowly. “She's fine. A little scared, but fine. Is this the first time anything like that's happened?”

Ash lifted her eyes to her dad, standing behind Bradley. He nodded silently.

“Yes.”

Bradley nodded again, then stood up. “Okay. I'm going to have a chat with your dad, and then there's something I'll want you to help me fill out. Like...kind of like a homework assignment, only really short and easy. Then we'll be done, okay?”

She just watched him solemnly.

“Don't worry,” her father said with a smile he didn't feel. “Everything's going to be...”


“...just fine,” Ashley gasped. She opened her eyes, sweat beading thick on her forehead, and looked around.

The operating room felt like it was spinning wildly around, but the doctors didn't seem discomforted in the least. The lead doctor's AR goggles reflected her face in each lens as he leaned over her.

“Alright, regained consciousness at oh one thirty-seven,” he said laconically. “Still showing signs of immune response, but fever is responding to countermeasures. Do you know your name?”

“What? Yeah, Ash Logan.”

“Great. You were saying something as you came to. Do you remember that?”

Ashley tried to shake her head, but there was some kind of snug fitting that was holding her more or less still. “I...was just remembering when I got registered,” she replied. “I mean, really detailed though, like it was...happening again. What's going on?”

The doctor nodded and stood up straight again. “Okay subject reports the usual fugue state, re-experiencing memories. I think we're ready for stage two.”

“Wait a second,” Ash pleaded. Her arms and legs were secured too. “Guys, just...”


“...relax, Ash it's going to be fine.”

Tory and Felix had to practically drag Ashley into The Prosek's Pride, an upscale restaurant and bar that had supposedly been started by an old war buddy of the Emperor himself. Normally a meal there would be way over their budget, but...as they kept reminding her...this was her sweet sixteenth, and they wanted to make a big deal of it.

“Guys,” she said, trying for the umpteenth time to stop them. “It's not the money, it's the scanners. They'll never let someone like me in...”

Felix rolled his eyes and Tory just smirked. “You just leave that to us. We're not gonna let some stupid tracking chip ruin this for you.”

There was more Ash wanted to say, things about the penalties that came from meddling with chips or scanners, or any attempt to evade or defraud the Psychic Registration Program's measures in any way. It wasn't fines or slaps on the wrists...people disappeared over this kind of thing. Or were made examples of. And they'd find a way to tie back to Ashley for sure, probably accuse her of mind-controlling her friends, even though she had no telepathic gifts whatsoever.

No time though. The next thing she knew, she was standing awkwardly in her formal dark blue 'prom' dress alongside Felix (who even knew he had a tux?!) and the taller, more developed Tory who was all smiles for the occasion, as the man at the door in the impeccable suit and subtly disapproving expression looked down at them.

“Yes?”

“Landon, party of three?” Tory asked brightly.

He checked his datapad, still looking as if he'd been asked to research something mildly objectionable, like statistics on how many puppies died from dysentery last year. Finally he nodded.

“Please wait here. Someone will show you to your table.”

Tory quickly stepped in front of Ashley as Felix went to the...doorman? Waiter? What even did you call these guys? ...and engaged him in a quiet, furtive conversation. Meanwhile, a much younger man showed up with a bright smile and beckoned.

“Landon party, please follow me.”

Ashley shook her head a little. Her friends didn't really understand. Every place of business, and most public areas, had little PRP implant scanners at the entrances that would detect the tracking chip she'd been implanted with when she got registered as a psychic. What the scanner did depended from place to place. Usually it just meant their security was notified, and Ash would either be discretely tailed or even more discretely asked to leave. Sometimes it was less discrete. Very few owners tolerated psychics on the premises.

And she'd never tried to come into a nice place like this before.

When Ash hesitated to cross into the restaurant proper Tory pushed her through. Only a few minutes later and...no one had come to escort her away. She gave Felix a questioning look.

The gangly blond-haired boy shrugged smugly. “It's possible I made arrangements to show up while the scanner was undergoing routine diagnostics that took it offline,” he chortled.

As the gang took their seats at the table Ash wondered to herself how much that arrangement had cost...but couldn't find it in herself to ask. For one, she was pretty sure she didn't want to know. For another, it was just really kind of sweet that they'd put that much thought and effort into this. Just for one night, she could pretend that she wasn't this barely-tolerated mutant thing...

There was a commotion then at the far end of the restaurant, near the front door. Ashley looked up from the menu to see what was going on. Her menu dropped to the floor.

Walking across the restaurant floor towards her was a man in black riot armor, the word 'PSI' emblazoned on the left breast. His skin was pale white, though a half-helmet obscured most of his head and face.

“Ash, what the...” Tory whispered.

“Miss Logan, I'm here to escort you from the premises,” the psi-stalker said in a bored voice. When Ash didn't move immediately, too startled to process what was happening, he added, “Now,” in a tone of warning.

It was Felix that stood up as Ash grabbed her coat. The psi-stalker's head swiveled to keep him in his field of view, without quite looking away from Ash.

“She's not doing anything wrong,” Felix challenged. “No one from the restaurant's said anything...”

“This establishment is on file as being zero-tolerance for human mutants and psychics,” replied the Psi-bat enforcer matter-of-factly. “When she entered and was not immediately asked to leave, I contacted management to confirm. Miss Logan?”

Ashley stood up, trying hard to keep tears from her eyes. “It's okay guys. Thanks for trying.”

Now Tory was on her feet. “It's not okay, Ash! You didn't do anything!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Ash saw the stalker's hand drop to the stun baton on his left hip. She quickly stepped between Tory and him.

“It doesn't matter if I did anything. Just...let it go, okay?”

“It's not...”


“...fair,” the doctor mused consideringly, “but I think we can do better. Slow the drip by two-tenths, and up the dosage.”

“Her EEG is peaking...”

“...and she's back. How you feeling?”

There was a general chuckle around the operating theater at the cavalier tone the doctor used.

Ashley opened her mouth to respond, but something was in the way. A plastic tube was stuck in her mouth, and after a moment she realized it actually went all the way down into her throat.

“Someone want to take care of that for me?”

Almost immediately Ash felt the room start to dim again.

“Thanks, that's...”


“...much better?!” thundered Ash's dad angrily. “Is that what you think?”

Ash whirled to glare at him, midway in the process of dramatically leaving her room. “Yes. Yes, I think it's better! I'll get full status, dad! You wanted me to get full education, right? Well, good luck finding a trade academy or anything that'll take me without that. I can't go out for lunch most of the time, let alone get into school. This fixes ALL of that!”

Paul started ticking off fingers, “And all you have to do is leave your family, risk your life, get trained to...to kill people...”

“Not PEOPLE, dad! D-bees! And sorcerers. Enemies of humanity, you know? And I'd have to leave to go to school too, so...”

“People die in the military, Ash! Our people! And lets face it, you're...you don't have...”

Ashley put a hand on her hip and arched an eyebrow. “What? Say it.”

Her dad scowled. “Your...powers...these things you can do. They're not dangerous, Ashley. You can float a glass of water, or give someone a little shove. That's not going to protect you in war.”

“So now I don't have what it takes?”

“For this? For being a soldier? No.”
“There goes that whole 'you can be anything' speech, huh?”

Paul sighed.

“Ashley.” And right on cue, her mother came to his rescue. “Your dad and I are only trying to look out for you. You've already had such a hard time...”

Ash jumped on that, “Yes! Exactly! And this will fix it. Look, the recruiter sent me this.” She tapped her datapad, forwarding the information she'd been given. “Once I get the military clearance, it stays with me as long as I don't get discharged. I do a term of active service, and then I can get out and I keep the status. It's almost as good as not being registered again. They can't kick me out, they can't overcharge, they give me a hard time...”

Melissa looked at her husband, not sure what to say. She knew what she felt, but finding words for it was hard.

“Baby,” she said softly, “We're not just afraid you'll get hurt...”

“...but we are definitely afraid of that too,” her dad interjected.

“...it's just, being a warrior, being trained for war...it changes people.”

Paul nodded grimly. “You know both your mother and I served in the military.”

“And you turned out fine!”

He shook his head and looked away. “We've both done things we're not proud of. We both lived through things we shouldn't have had to.”

“We don't want that for you, Ashley,” her mom concluded. “Over time people will trust you more, you'll see. You can prove to them that you're a good person, even though you have these powers.”

Ash shook her head. “It's been years since I registered, and nothing's changed. I'm not like you guys, you know? You had...options. You didn't have to join the military, but you did and now you have regrets. Okay, fine. But me? I'm just...staring down a deep dark hole that's like...eating every idea, every hope...and there's just one way out of it. There's risks, but they're my risks. I'll take risk of maybe something bad happening to a hundred percent certainty that something bad's going to happen.”

The silence that followed was getting uncomfortable when Ashley's dad went over to her and reached out to ruffle her short hair with a hand. “Okay. I'll drive you over.”

Melissa, still blocking the door out of Ash's bedroom, looked at him.

“It's her choice. We did what we could, now we have to support her.”

“Keep her stable,” Ash's mom suggested.

Ashley frowned and looked at Melissa. Her mom looked...different. Her eyes had a silvery film over them, and her nostrils and mouth seemed...were they disappearing?

“I said keep her stable,” Melissa said again. Then suddenly shouted, “KEEP HER STA...”


“...BLE!”

Beeping. Rustling fabric. Machines pumping. Ashley felt dry and weak, like she'd been dying in a desert for days. Some kind of gunk was in her eyes, blurring her vision, but she couldn't reach up to clear it out.

She was cold. Her body felt like something stapled onto her, rather than something integral to her. Like it could just blow away in a wind, and leave the real her lying there on the bed.

“Heart rate stabilizing, but it's still high. BP is up too.”

“Just keep an eye on it. Brain activity is showing desynchronization. This is working, we just need to give it time!”

“No one's ever made it this far before,” muttered someone. “We don't know what to expect anymore.”

A curse. “She's awake again. Put her under?”

“...no, not yet. Lets see how this plays out.”

Amidst the blurry images of doctors, someone new came into Ashley's field of view. Someone in perfect focus.

“Private Logan.”

She felt her stomach churn, but she couldn't move. She was...


...stuck to her seat, or that's how it felt at least. It was only the third week of training and she was already getting called in to see the battalion commander. For a moment she thought she spotted strange, blurry shapes moving around the office, but quickly wiped the confusion clean off her face. The last thing she needed was to be both a psionic weakling AND a crazy person.

“Who in Prosek's curly shorthairs do you think you are?”

Ash blinked, not sure how to answer that. “What? Sir what?”

“Coming into my unit? My army? Barely strong enough to hold your fist in front of your face?”

Her eyes flicked down to her lap. “I'm sorry, sir. I...I am trying.”

“Bullshit. But you will.”

She looked back up at the commander, not liking the sound of that at all. Training in Psi-Bat was already pretty grueling. How much worse was it going to get?

The commander, an older man with a somewhat mottled complexion and narrow, glaring eyes grinned unpleasantly. “You ever hear of the Scream Factory?”

A chill went down Ashley's back. She had, of course. It was all the newcomers heard about.

“It's only been three weeks,” she protested weakly.

He nodded. “Normally we give people a little longer to sort their shit out, but this is a bit of a special case. For one, the situation with Tolkeen is hitting redline, and we need ALL our troops able to fight. For two, I've interviewed every trainer you've been with, and they all say the same thing.”

His finger tapped on the desktop in a rapid staccato for a moment. “You're holding back.”

“I'm not TRYING to!”

“Uh huh. Doesn't matter. You know much about it? The Factory?”

Ashley shook her head quickly. “Just things they tell recruits to scare them.”

“But true, every one, Emperor bless 'em,” chuckled the commander. “The whole idea is this: psychic powers that are...constrained, lets say...by mental blocks often require great stress or trauma to manifest past those blocks. The exact amount varies by person, and by block...” He shrugged. “Goes from 'small persistent itch in your jammies' all the way up to 'immediate and real expectation of imminent demise.' The Scream Factory is how we harness that. It's basically a giant torture machine that fine tunes itself to your particular needs.”

For a moment she couldn't respond.

He added, “Also, FYI, if you don't pop on that imminent demise thing, the test does actually kill you. You come out of the Factory a full blown psychic, or not at all.”

She sat there numbly, trying not to cry, trying to think of something to say, something to do.

“But, in your case, there may be another possibility,” came a voice from behind. Male, cultured, a slight northern accent. Free Quebec maybe?

Ash jumped and twisted around to see who it was.

A tall man, thin, probably younger than her dad was, if not by a lot. Glasses worn over cold blue-grey eyes. He nodded at her.

“What?” was all Ash could say.

“Doctor Krellik is working on a new treatment,” said the commander breezily, waving a thick-fingered hand at him. “A way to break down those blocks without having to put you through the wringer first.”

The doctor smiled a thin, annoyed smile. “Succinctly put, commander.” He turned his gaze on Ash. “Private Logan, from what I've seen of your file, you are a candidate for my research, which has begun human trials. It is a regimen of psychotropic drugs, which will act to remove inhibitions and unlock your abilities. I will need your written consent to participate in the program, however. Absent that, you will be sent to a more...conventional form of psionic therapy.”

Ashley slowly put the two and the two together. “...the Scream Factory.”

“Quite.”

“And this thing you're doing is...better?”

Krellik shrugged. “I do not assign such judgments. It is, however, different. I would argue far more effective and efficient...and certainly less traumatizing to the subjects. Indeed, if the initial trials go well, you may qualify for the enhancement program as well.”

A blurry shape cruised through the office, messing with glowing panels in the background.

Doctor Krellik smiled beneficiently down at Ash, and she realized she was lying on an operating table. “You survived. My precious girl, my masterwork... You are testament to the indomitable spirit of humankind...”

Felix wandered in alongside the doctor, eyes red and waterlogged. “Look, Ash, I get why you want to go, but...I just figured maybe we...”

Her mother Melissa, “...it changes people...”

The room was spinning again. Brightening. The walls melting into pure white light, gorgeous and uplifting. More people strolled in to speak to her, and the discomforting blurry shapes finally dropped down out of her vision and were gone.

Ash finally took a look at herself, and realized she had become light as well; a figure sculpted from brilliant white light. Peace and contentment rolled from her in waves. Without effort she lifted her hands from the chair and reached out for the people from her memories, her loved ones and friends. Light spilled out and embraced them. They came to her through the light and hugged her. She felt Felix kiss her again, just as he had that night before she left to join the military...but this time there was no confusion or awkwardness. The light was love, without restraint or shame.

She left the room with the chair, and wherever she walked the wall and ceiling panels were converted from dull, oppressive matter to that same radiance. She became aware of a sound like a hymn as she continued, a joyous harmony. Voices raised, people in white robes lined up before her, and she gathered them into the light as well. The song only got louder, the gratitude and joy at their apotheosis ringing out ever more clearly...


It was the smell.

During her training a boy named Clark, younger than her and with more psychokinetic power by far, accidentally vaulted to the top of the training room, and in his panic grabbed one of the light fixtures. He came shrieking back down like a meteor, trailing smoke, and hit near where Ash had been watching, aghast. His left hand had been horrifyingly burned, down to the bone on a couple of fingers, from the heat of the lightning element and the electricity.

She realized dimly that she could smell Clark again...and opened her eyes.

The brightness around her wasn't a pure solar white light. It was fire. The corridor was aflame, consuming the plasteel panels with eager hunger. Splayed out on the floor in front of her were human bodies; the source of the stink. Ash looked behind her as well and saw even more strewn across her path. A path marked by blackened, charred footprints.

Her memories warred with drug-addled hallucinations, and won. The light, flame. The hymns, screams. She fell to her knees, trying to unsee it, trying to go back to the light...but it wouldn't come. Ignorance was a bliss that couldn't be returned to. The whirling black tunnel suddenly seemed to rise up again, and Ashley howled in terror. The flames answered her, exploding out, whipping into a vortex like a tornado composed of fire. The damaged walls and ceiling of Krellick's isolated lab were thrown apart, letting daylight in through the thick, choking smoke.

She picked herself up. Once barely strong enough to lift a game ball, she now effortlessly plucked her too-thin body up and hauled out up, hauled it out...threw herself hard enough to hurt when she hit the ground and rolled to a halt, sobbing.

The trees around her blackened and smoldered, but it seemed her strength had, for the moment, been expended.

What was she doing?!

No, she couldn't lose it all now! This had been her chance to make everything better! She had to go back, had to talk to someone. This wasn't her fault! Doctor Krellik's medicine had done this to her!

Barefoot and be-gowned, Ashley started making her way back towards the tower of black smoke that marked the lab's location...a slower pace now that she didn't have the strength left to fly, and had to step on every rock and twig in the forest it seemed... She hadn't gotten far though when she heard the sound of psi-hounds calling out to each other with their gruff, distorted human voices. Bushes rustled. They were close.

Ashley cried out, “I'm here!” Desperate. This had to work.

A flat-faced bulldog hound crashed out from the shrugs crowding the floor of the forest and growled at Ashley. Vibroblades extended from the vambraces it wore on each arm. Then another 'dog-boy' burst onto the scene, a taller leaner breed. The packmaster, a pale-faced psi-stalker followed soon after with another three.

They fanned out around Ashley.

“Wait, please!” she called. “I know this looks back, but this isn't my fault! I was...Doctor Krellik was doing...this thing with drugs...and I was in bed. And it was like everything went crazy and the next thing I knew everything was on fire!”

“This the one?” the stalker asked, his eyes never leaving Ash.

The psi-hound nodded grimly.

“Take her boys!”


Three suits of powered armor rocketed over the forests north of Chi-Town. An air wing scrambled to respond to a transmission sent from a military outpost that they were under attack. Well, part of a transmission. It had cut off before it ever finished. The outpost was considered secure and didn't have more than a couple of squads guarding it...but it was owned by Psi-Bat, and the psionic battalion did have some powerful enemies.

They saw the rising smoke clouds from miles away. A little further in, and they saw the origin of all that smoke. The forest was ablaze. Trees for hundreds of yards around were being enthusiastically destroyed by fire upon fire upon fire. The source of the conflagration seemed to be the outpost itself, which wasn't much more than a steel skeleton of supports towering unsteadily over a pile of charred ruin. After running a pass of the forest, looking for any evidence of heavy weapons, explosives or vehicles, the air wing of SAMAS banked around and headed back for the burning outpost.

“Central, this is Wingleader eighteen, we've made visual contact with Outpost sixty-eight. Structure is completely destroyed, over.”

“Wing eighteen, central here, is it safe to investigate remains? Over.”

“Affirmative, no hostile contacts on recon sweep.” He paused in his report as they did another flyby. “Debris consistent with firebomb more than high explosive. Surrounding forest also on fire. You are going to want to send fire control support out here asap. Over.”

“Survivors?”

“No sign yet. Will advise.” He paused, then added, “Over,” with just a hint of joking accusation in his tone, then grinned at the almost inaudible exasperated mutter on the other end before Chi-Town Central Airforce Command closed channel.

Seriously though, what a mess. Survivors his chapped ass...what could survive this?

Far below, in a fallen tree trunk that had been cored out by fire, Ashley cowered until the SAMAS landed some ways off...then wormed her way out and ran...ran north, and east, towards the lakes. She didn't know where to go or what to do, but maybe it wasn't so bad that the black hole had swallowed her at last...now that she knew what waited for her in the white light.

Or worse, what waited for everyone else.

Her parents, her friends, Felix...they'd all assume she was just another casualty of Krellik's experiment. As much as that hurt, maybe it was for the best. Who knew how that treatment had affected her? What if she lapsed again? What if everything came apart, and she forgot who and what she was again?
Except it was worse than that, wasn't it? Because it hadn't felt like she'd forgotten.

That moment in the light had been the only time maybe ever that Ash had felt like she'd really known herself...had been doing what she really wanted to do. Every OTHER moment was the confused and drab and dull thing that made her feel like she wasn't who or what she was.

It's a lie though, she thought as she scrambled barefoot through the woods, trying to escape what she'd done. A dream. A dream where I hurt people.

Maybe having her dreams taken from her wasn't such a bad thing after all.
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