A stabbing pain in his wrists woke the young man from unintended slumber. For some while he remained still, exhausted yet restless, willing the throbbing to go away. But no matter what he tried, he continued to hurt, and he decided he might as well get up. Uncurling from the console, he sat upright and immediately felt lost. He could not remember being where he found himself, and so realizing set about trying to piece together what had put him where he was. Dim operating lights looked familiar, but it took concentrated study to recognize the pilot's console of an orbital shuttlecraft. His exclamation was cut short as he reached forward to turn the lights brighter.
     "What the hell?" Wonderingly he stared, raising his other arm to find it too bandaged from forearm to palm. That explained the throbbing pain, but nothing more. Nothing more… it was the only answer he could find for his lack of memory, the lack of companions, the lack of knowing who he was…
     No, that wasn't true. He knew whom he was very well. "Jasper Ringtail. Raconid. Thirty-two years of age, thereabouts. Anti-technist." The words rolled freely off his tongue. Yes, you know yourself now, he thought. But the mystery of where wasn't any closer to solving itself. In the dark cockpit, he decided there was only one thing to do.
     A glance at the console told him he wasn't in take off mode, which made little sense given the facts he knew. A lack of gravity would mean he was in orbit; otherwise he'd be sitting in the pilot's couch with his tail to the ground. But neither case applied here. He could have been sitting at any planet-side table.
      With nothing telling him not to do so, he hit the rocker switch to open the cabin's outer shielding, and for the first few moments he thought there was a malfunction. Despite the sound of the motors pulling the heavy panels, there was no indication of anything working. He had to stare hard to find the dividing line between sliding shield plate and bottomless black sky…
     No, it was not sky. In the sky there would be stars. There would be satellites, debris, orbital platforms and moons. With his nose against the glass he anxiously scanned the field of view, hoping to spy a light, a landmark, anything to tell him where he was. He couldn't and was mystified. Even the dark side of the colonial moon had lights. It would take the end of the world to cut the power that lit the lives of the Federal elite. And even then, the cityscape had a visible pattern that he would surely be able to see.
     He scratched his head and kept staring, hoping to find a clue. There was something… "You ain't seeing it right boy." The low drawling voice behind made him bang his head against the padded, sloping ceiling. He whirled about with a curse.
     "Damn it Doc! What the hell are you doing sneaking up on me like that?"
     The redhead sat calmly, laughing aloud. Jasper noticed his friend floating as if weightless and wondered absently why he was anchored to the ground. Though he hadn't asked aloud, the man answered anyway.
     "Hell if I know boy. It's your dream, not mine. And I ain't sneaking. You just ain't listening."
     "A dream. I should have known." The raconid held up his bandaged arms and then settled back into his pilot's chair. "So tell me, are you part of my dream, or just in it?"
     Doc smiled. "You tell me."
     Jasper threw up his hands, cursing softly at the ache of body and soul. "I can't. Doc, why am I here? Why am I doing this? I'm not a pilot, not anymore…"
     "Giving up then?"
     "No! … Yes… Maybe."
     "And you said I was the confusing one. Look boy, take another look out that window."
     At Doc's bidding Jasper turned to regard the same fathomless black. He studied the expanse of it, deciding the shuttle had moved, climbing into a higher orbit. The deep black had a roundness to it that had been missing before. He watched a moment longer, and then jumped backward from the window, tripping over the console chair. "What the hell?"
     Doc wasn't laughing. "You see it now don't you?"
     "But what was it?" He couldn't look away, despite the distance. The inky depth seemed to have a current within itself, and on it's edges, a swirl as dark as the bottomless middle moved, shifting from side to side. He slowly picked out the faintest gleam of atmosphere, on the farthest edges of vision, and noted the impossible shape. "No way!"
     Doc said nothing. Still Jasper watched, recoiling at the impossible, increasingly horrified at the conclusion he could not escape. The planet below was not a planet, but a single eye, dark and shifting, searching for him. He knew it in the depth of his soul.
     The hand on his shoulder was solid and comforting. He turned to see Doc smiling sadly. Swallowing thickly, Jasper asked, "Is this what happens … if I give up?"
     Doc turned to regard the window. "Perhaps. It's gone beyond that now. The world waits on a set of choices, not mere chance of failure."
     "So even if I stick it out…"
     "Yes. It could still all come undone."
     "Can I do anything?"
     "By yourself? No. But together…"
     "Together…" The raconid mused. Turning back to the window almost against his will, he asked the specter, "And what will happen if we do things right?"
     No answer came from the cockpit, but in orbit, the sun lifted on the far side of the eye like a beacon flare. And as the light burst over the world in a golden flood, the black washed away into a glittering green of awesome proportion, until Jasper felt an ache in his heart. It seemed the shuttle could land in the great branches and be cradled by the leaves without harm.
     Yet even as The Tree burst skyward to greet him, the shuttle lifted higher, leaving him with a melancholy sadness. He reached out imploringly.
     Behind him, Doc sighed with as much feeling. "It ain't so bad partner. Once you get used to it…"

~

     Jasper bolted upright out of sleep scrambling, struck by the weightless feeling that left him as soon as he hit the floor. Still in the blackness, he started feeling his way around, until a clatter of falling metal stopped him short. He could see nothing, and his fingers made no sense of the slick icy cold squares scattered by his fumbling touch.
     Still unsure if he was really awake, he called out, "Doc?" His heartbeat was his only answer, and turning he called out again. Once, twice more, and then came salvation in the form of a door opening, bright light from without spearing into the darkness. Jasper greeted his rescuer gladly. "Doc!"
     "What? What do you want now?" The brown haired man in the doorway snapped the lights on with a touch and stood there scowling. Adus Gray looked at the scattered piles of operating trays and crossed his arms. Jasper sat on the floor grinning sheepishly.
     "Uh, I forgot where I was…" He started trying to put the trays back into their stacks and caused the others to come crashing to the floor. Adus threw his hands in the air and marched in.
     "Just stop it! Give me… let go! I'll get it. Damn, but you're just one problem after another. Go on, get!" Pushed out the door roughly, still holding a tray in numb hands, Jasper winced as the door slammed shut behind him. He stared at the pan as memory came back to him; why he was there, what he had been doing. The attack on Athina came back to him, along with the escape through Enforcers. He closed his eyes at the thought of the team losses. Ian. Espy…
     Espy! His eyes opened as the pan went sailing down the hall. He started to run but halted, shoulders slumping as he leaned against the wall. She had been hurt so badly in her battle on the upper Kinsai Bridge that she had fallen into a coma. Gray hadn't called it by that name, but for all she would respond, it might as well have been.
     It had taken hours to get to the doctor's new shop in underlevel Greenshadows. His head start away from the forces at the Core had dwindled to lost time avoiding the Enforcer troops roaming in packs about the streets. Getting stopped by just one would have spelled disaster. He had been deathly afraid that the delays would be worse for Espy.
     Adus had been none to happy to see the wayward pair, but with one look at the battered Lizardine he'd ushered them inside. Jasper's hours on the roads had caught up with him and he'd had trouble following the doctor's commands. Pausing in diagnosing Espy, Adus had commented, "You're moving like an old man."
     Bruised from his own falls Jasper had replied, "I feel like one." He'd stayed at Espy's side until Adus finished with her and only then taken up the offer of sleep. By then he was so far gone he didn't know where he was going. The doctor had placed him in a patient's bed.
     How long he had slept he didn't know, but it certainly hadn't been enough. Ready to slide down the wall and sleep on the floor, he instead pushed himself the other way, tottering away to slump in the hallway, giving a wide yawn.
     Once more he was surprised by a hand on his shoulder. Used to keeping silence amid his patients, Adus had a habit of moving silently through his domain. The touch was only the first of it however. His words carried the weight of quiet assurance. "She's really not that bad."
     Jasper brushed the hand away, turning to face Adus with heavy shadowed eyes. He'd seen those hands brushed with blue, deftly moving scalpel and pins to re-anchor the torn tendons in Espy's arm. He'd watched him bind slow healing wounds and repeatedly take readings without a trace of emotion, and he had to wonder just how much Adus knew.
     "When will she wake up?"
     "As soon as she's ready. Not a moment before."
     Jasper stood as though lost under the doctor's study. Not having the words was as difficult to overcome as broaching her secrets. The fog of exhaustion gave him little to work with. "Adus?" The question carried the overtone of need. When the doctor nodded, Jasper went ahead. "What is a Lir?"
     Adus simply gave him a blank look; Jasper blinked and looked down at his feet before sighing. But then the doctor asked a question that brought his head up sharply. "What," he said, "is a Raconid?" When his guest couldn't answer, the doctor smiled and motioned for him to follow.
     "You ask me Mr.Ringtail to define the indefinable. I could tell you the name means 'The Ever Learning', but that isn't what you want to know. They named themselves that you know. And they made your kind, though I suspect they would say that God made your kindred, they only amplified what was already there."
     Jasper found himself led into an office with a desk and a couple of chairs. On a laboratory burner a pot half full of black liquid simmered. Adus sat him into a chair and prepared a pair of cups. "Soy Caf?" He offered, and Jasper took the coffee substitute numbly. Sipping from his drink, the doctor sat across from the raconid and studied him over the rim. "Drink," he said, and when Jasper complied he spoke again. "What worries you about her, I cannot dispel. But I don't believe you have anything to worry about. Lir blood runs through a larger percentage of the population than anyone knows."
     Jasper blinked, focusing on his cup. "I never learned much about them. They were already gone you know, despite what the Federals said. What was the point?"
     "Fear."
     Jasper laughed. "I know that. I mean, what was the point in worrying? But now…" The pair sat in silence, one looking inward, one waiting for something. The raconid stirred as a thought broke through the need for sleep. "What about you? How is it you… I mean…"
     It was the doctor's turn to laugh. "I used to work for the Feds. It was quite a long time ago really." Holding up his hands to forestall the comment coming with Jasper's frown, Adus answered the doubts about his story. "No really, it's true. I'm older than I look. I did my pre-med with Enforcer Services. I took advanced training with their bio-mechanics division in the Core."
     "Pulse." Jasper spat the name out so vehemently, Adus raised a brow.
     "Yes, so it turns out."
     "So what happened?"
     The doctor mused a moment before he answered. "They were deep into some heavy research. Nasty bio-chemical stuff that in theory was supposed to negate the need for artificial body parts. They told us it would obsolete the Wire. They never could make it work, but the Feds imposed a deadline and my superiors lied their asses off to send it out."
     As heavy as his eyes were, Jasper had risen, wide awake and hanging on every word. "Did they ever give you a name for it?" When Adus said no, he sighed and slumped. Cracking a wide yawn, he tossed the last of his Soy Caf back and mumbled, "It doesn't matter anyway."
     "But perhaps it does. Pulse had their hands in a lot of experimental medicines across the globe. They were, to my mind, looking for ways to affect the Lir. No one knows where the initial specifications came from, but we were required to keep especial track of any data relevant to that end.
     When I saw how my superiors handled their failure, I quit the force to go into private practice. With my knowledge and specialty, it was only a matter of time before fixers came looking for me to tend to their mercenaries. I kept many of my old contacts. That's how I garnered Espy."
     Jasper looked as though he might pass out at any moment. Smiling to himself at the thought of his guest's doctored cup, Adus asked him, "So what about these nightmares?" The raconid gave him a bleary frown.
     "Eh?"
     "Espy told me. You've had some pretty dark dreams keeping you up at night. You care to tell somebody? Confidential privilege you know…"
     Despite himself, Jasper shuddered and pawed at his wire line. "T'was after the service … Busted up pretty badly… I saw it… The Blood…"
     Adus felt his pulse quicken. He leaned across the table, staring intently. "Tell me," he said.

~ ~

     Mechanic David Hammond straightened up from his work on an Enforcer patrol craft for the umpteenth time. Frowning at the clatter of heavy objects being thrown against his locked down bay doors, he looked over to his workers. They were grouped together in a circle in the second bay, ignoring their tasks in favor of chatter. He couldn't blame them for every man present had run the gauntlet just to get to work that morning. Still, they had their jobs to do, and it was his job as the master mechanic to make that happen.
     Wiping his hands on a grimy rag, he moved around the combat sled and strode over to them. The guys parted without a pause, wincing as a new barrage rattled the plas-steel bay door panels.
     "Why us boss?" The young mech was visibly nervous. Hammond took a cup of Soy Caf as though he hadn't a care in the world. Sensing the others intently waiting his answer, he knocked down a few swallows before giving his reply.
     "They know who gives the payroll. They're nothing but a bunch of frightened folks being manipulated by low life scum. That's why it's us son. They only pick targets too small to fight back."
     "So what are we going to do?"
     "Why, keep working of course. There's more than enough to do."
     Another man spoke up. "Charley didn't make it in today. It's really getting on my nerves."
     "I'll say. I damn near blew the rig by punching the fuel diffuser when those assholes set that alarm off out there." Hammond grinned despite himself, having nearly knocked himself out on a sled's undercarriage during the same event. He swirled his cup around as they continued complaining.
     "These guys won't quit. They get closer every day, and the next thing you know they're burning down the building and dragging you out into the street. I've seen them flip ground cars over. And you know the drill. 'Give for your blessings.' And this from a bunch of nuts asking me to set aside my earthly possessions!"
     Hammond added his voice to the general consensus. He was just ready to add his two credits into the conversation when a heavy boom sounded. The garage was physically shaken by the blast that visibly dented one of the heavy bay doors.
     "God damn! What are they doing out there?" It was a question he himself wanted to ask. Instead he threw his cup to the ground and started giving orders.
     "Steward, Daybee, block those rides and make sure their fuel valves are shut off. Then follow the others. Everybody out the back door; get out on the rear alley and don't come back till I call you. Go!"
     The men ran to their workstations and shut them down, packing tools with military precision and locking their heavy chests before vanishing through the garage's first floor back door. Hammond went back to his office and retrieved his portable comm. unit and key card. He was tempted to call the closest Enforcer station; not at all sure they'd be able to send enough troopers to help him. The sound of the crowd outside was loud enough to carry through the wall.
     A drop down ladder in his office took him up to the ceiling; he unlocked the hatch into the second floor and threaded his way through pump motors, air tanks and bay door lifters, until he came to the front wall of the building, and its one-way window looking out upon the shop lot and the gathered crowd.
     "Well I'll be a son of a…" The Blood Prophets had crashed a ground car into the front of the building. It was enough to make his blood boil, the way the brown robed imbeciles stood out there chanting and carrying on as though they owned the entire world. One of them was standing on top of the wreck, waving his arms and gesturing to the crowd. As Hammond watched, a group of young street people threw handfuls of debris against the shop doors at the orator's direction.
     "Just kids…" Hammond thought of the rack of machine rifles on the floor below and shook his head. He could fire into the crowd behind them, but besides smearing the Enforcer network reputation farther, it wouldn't do any good. Still, if something didn't get done, Hammond knew his shop would suffer the consequences. The chanting of the crowd had been a dull roar through the garage walls all morning. They had blockaded the roads fronting the area. All it would take was the right device over an energy conduit, and the entire block would be set afire.
     He was unlatching the window catches when the crowd went silent. Opening the one-way glass, he saw the speaker that had been driving the riot exchange places with an older man. This one too wore the tattered brown robe of the Blood Prophet, but unlike the previous man, the new elder seemed to want his listeners calm. He started speaking through a megaphone, and Hammond realized he had never heard what these people really stood for.
     "My children, I wonder if you know my secret?" The old man waited for the response to die down before he continued. When he did the megaphone carried his voice with a thunderous power that pushed his message even harder. Hammond wondered if this was their original prophet.
     "My children, you must know. This is not how the world was meant to be! These men that enslave you would shackle us to doom. For they hide the truth. They seduce us with technological trinkets and mindless babble, and credits as worthless as that which they buy. These men know the secret my children, and yet still they side with the one that will destroy the world."
     Hammond smirked at the rows of people listening in rapt fascination. Fools, he thought, as the old man continued to speak.
     "The one that destroys the world is coming! He may already be here. Do not let old legends deceive you. "The One" that you wait for comes. And when he does the great enemy will seduce him into surrender, and then it will be too late! The world will be destroyed, cleansed, purified, for The One will be sacrificed, and God in his wisdom will reshape the world to His will.
     All that is filled with malice and greed will be destroyed. All that has been built by our hands will be cast down. Only the pure, only the righteous, only those who live simply, as the reborn, will be brought forward into the glorious new world. Only those that sacrifice for The One will be saved!"
     Then what are you doing here? Thought Hammond. To his surprise, the old man asked the same question. "What are we doing here?"
     The crowd replied with a thunderous roar, "Looking for The One!"
     "That's correct my children! We are looking for The One. For these men will take him. They will take him, and hold him, and hand him to The Betrayer! And when they do, we will be there! We will be there my children, and He will usher us into Heaven. To Heaven, with the righteous, we will go!"
     The crowd went berserk, surging forward to batter the doors of the shop with their fists, bricks and bottles, anything they could use, even unto their own bodies as the mass of people broke like a wave upon the shop. Hammond fell back from the window with a curse, crawling back into the depth of the building on his hands and knees until he reached the safety of a support pillar. As he grabbed the pillar to pull himself upright, he was shocked to feel vibrations from the attack.
     He had to call the Enforcers. There was no way the shop could ride out the chaos below. But just as he pulled his comm. unit out to make the call, the device vibrated in his hand. He knew the number as something official but did not recognize it. He hurriedly answered and was asked "David Hammond?"
     The caller could have been anybody. He slapped a hand over his other ear and replied that he was the right party. The next words from the speaker shook him harder than the rioters were shaking the building.
     "Mr. Hammond, this is Echelon Nine of District Riverset, Enforcer Services. We have scheduled your shop for an audit tomorrow and require all personnel to be present."
     "What?" He yelled into the mouthpiece to be heard over the torrent of noise, trying to tell about the riot. But the voice on the other end of the line was machine cold.
     "Mr. Hammond, Enforcer Services has determined that your business may be involved in fencing stolen properties to and for individuals involved with Anti-Technist activities. Your cooperation in this investigation is mandatory."
     "You son of a bitch, you can't even get in here! Listen to this!"
     He held the comm. unit around the pillar to catch the full sound of the riot and barely heard; "Enforcer personnel will be at your place of business at seven o'clock to start the audit process. Do not be late Mr. Hammond. This is Enforcer Services. Have a nice day."
     The line was dead before he got it back to his ear. "Son of a bitch!" The vibration of the crowd was his only answer and he threw the phone as hard as he could, regretting as soon as it hit the window and dropped out of sight. Somewhere below came the protesting sound of folding metal, probably from his outer office door. Hammond thought of the military hardware and cursed again. Going back to the office was no longer an option. The ladder and open hatch a dead giveaway, he took off at a dead run for the upper floor's outer access. It let out onto a fairly busy street above, but it was the last way out of the shop he had. Even as he slotted his key card to open the mostly hidden door, the motors that opened the bay doors kicked on, allowing the full horde of rioters inside.
     Swinging the door open to the sound of droning engines, Hammond thought of his last few years in the business. Damn them all, he thought, letting the door close on its own as he chose his moment to jump out between moving vehicles. As horns erupted he gave the one-fingered salute, running for the safety of the walk on the other side. Let the Enforcers have it all, whatever the riot left. He was pretty sure he had a place to go, and the only things he'd miss would be his tools.