Moving On (Open RP)

 And then Austrian had done something he hadn't expected to do, he asked Kshana to accompany him to a small table hidden away from prying eyes in the corner of the Club. There, he tried to make sense of what to say to the woman who many claimed to be a sister to Lady Return in every way but biologically. He had a feeling that he would find closure with this Captain, this so-called "Ice Queen" who he had known since the days when he had been just another Operative- a promising young man who had been one of the first Humans to attend L'ecole de la Tour, The Merovingian's school for Exiles who were being re-programmed to serve as assassins and courtiers of his.

 "What is it that you wanted with me, Aust?" Kshana asked, obviously anxious to move on to the next stage of her day's itinerary.

 "I've... been thinking a lot since Return... died." he began with difficulty. "A lot of strange things came to mind. Crazy things." He smirked as he remembered his last conversation with GreatWyrm, a Captain among The Devil's Advocates. "True things."

 Kshana nodded slowly. "You miss her... don't you?" she asked. He could see empathy in her face. The so-called "Ice Queen" had fled from Return's funeral when she had been asked to deliver her own eulogy for her "sister". Kshana was one of a few who had been as close to Return as Austrian had been. Heck, Return had even had a crush on Kshana at one time, much to Austrian's chagrin.

 He nodded in agreement. "I do. I miss her a lot. I miss her so much, I've been trying to look for things to remind me of her- to make the memory more real. Trying to make things feel as though she's still here." he looked down. "Drinking Abysinthe to remind me of the way she tasted when we kissed... things like that."

 She stared at him with a wounded look on her face, as if she saw something intrinsically horrible about his feeling of loss. He couldn't see anything to terribly wrong with his coping strategy. Sometimes, when the drink finally took its course, the Abysinthe would conjure up vivid memories of passionate moments spent together with the woman he loved in Noir. But then the dreams would start. The dreams of Heracles' story being re-inacted. He was Heracles and Return was his mortal wife. But then Hera, which was Liliane in his dream, would take control of his mind with some poisonous spell and force him to murder Return.  Apollo, or Agent Pace, would then give him a chance to repent his sins and resurrect Return with a series of quests. Then he'd find himself battling his way past an army of ravening spirits in Styx, fighting off Cerebrus and then freeing Return- bringing her with him to the heights of Mount Olympus, to Horizon and the home of Triluminary. It was an odd dream. A dream he didn't like experiencing at all.

 "I've been thinking though. There is one woman who lives who is everything Return was and more. A woman with her style, her strength, her wit, her charm, even her flaws and misgivings. A woman who I have known since before I ever met Return. A woman I've kissed more times than I ever kissed Return. And... I find myself wondering if perhaps I fell in love with the wrong woman. Maybe, just maybe, my love for Return was really just a way of bringing myself closer to this... other woman." he continued.

 "Who is this other woman?" Kshana asked, apparently oblivious to his innuendo.

 "She's you." he replied.

 Kshana blinked, taken aback by this revelation. "Oh Aust..." she could only say.

 "It's true though. Isn't it? When I kissed Return, there was never any emotion behind her kiss. She was cold and unfeeling when she should have been passionate. But with you... there was always emotion behind every touch- there was always a passion there... that I have never felt." he explained.

 "Aust, honey, I'm not the sort of person you want to be involved with. Yes, there was emotion there. But, babe, you don't want to be around me. Trust me." she answered, soothingly.

 "But isn't that my Choice to make? Isn't it my decision whether I should be involved with you or not?" he stopped and thought about what he had just said. "No. No, I'm wrong. It's our decision to make. Love... love must be mutual. And obviously this is not mutual. This is all just another mistake. Verdammte Gott, warum musste ich so viele Fehlers gemacht?" he swore to himself.

 "You ok?" she asked. She was beautiful too, he understood. As beautiful as Return had been. **bleep** God!

 "Yes. I'm fine. I'll leave you to your own devices." he answered, replacing his beret on his head.

 "Thanks Aust." she said, nodding. "Just... try not to dwell, ok?"

 "Everyone has to dwell somewhere..." he muttered to himself as she vanished into the artificial shadows of Club Kirin.

 Ravyr, as MadHattah's mistress, was an Exile with a great deal of connections amongst the Redpill population. Austrian had only met her once or twice before this particular day and enjoyed every encounter. She reminded him of his time in simulated Europe. She was everything he missed about his studies in Surbonn, France and his childhood in Vienna and Graz, Austria. She was civilized, polite and intelligent, always thinking, always enthusiastic and pleasant. She was what the European Union had been to him: a paradise that was plagued by some problems beneath the surface but was stalwarty striding forward towards a bright new future by virtue of the keen intellects and industrious ethic of its people. And so he felt comfortable, as if at home, whenever he chatted with her. It was as if he was back in a bistro in Paris, sipping tea with Silvia and debating some myriad selection of political and philosophical issues.

 He'd felt the same level of comfort and happiness when he had been with Lady Return. He'd always found the contradictions that made up Return's persona so funny. She'd debate ethics with him like an academic, enlightened and intelligent in every way. She'd drink from a glass full of the finest wine and her poise as she sipped would be of the most precise etiquette. She would seem so refined, so noble, so aristocratic and complex. But then she stab at a plate of steak and fries, a dreadful North American excuse for a meal, with her steak knife and finish her comments on his love for Kantian deontology with a sexual metaphor. Return could be so civilized and yet so barbaric in the same heart-beat. He couldn't comprehend how she could be so dual in nature. He'd always been raised by his parents to see the natural and the wild as beneath civility. Good etiquette and bathroom-style humour were like haricots verts and steack au poivre- they could not be mixed. They were two separate parts of a dish and had to be eaten separately in turn. But Lady Return... she defied this logic just like Ookami did. Those two women ate their green beans and peppered steak together, simply taking the vegetables and ingesting them along with the meat in one forkful that delicately entered through their parted lips.

 But Ravyr was different from Ookami and Return. She was like Austrian- someone who could not blend pleasure with pain or barbarism with civility. They created imaginary force fields around the various parts of their meal and ate each in its own turn in a pre-determined routine set down either by some nobleman hundreds of years ago or by a Program that had seen fit to add this little detail to the simulation commonly called "table manners". And so he did not love Ravyr and he had not met with her to ask her to leave MadHattah and love him instead. He had met with her to ask her advice because she reminded him, in an odd sort of way, of his Bluepill mother Elisabeth.

 "Did you hear about what happened to Lady Return?" he asked. He'd been surprised by the fact that many hand't. She'd been something of a celebrity. Everyone had loved to hate her when she'd been alive. Perhaps it had been true what Return had told him one evening in Noir. She'd giggled in her cute sort of way when he'd said that he would not be the only person who would be heart-broken if she were to die. She'd answered, in her condescending sort of way, that people would forget about her in a matter of weeks. He'd thought she was wrong. Amazing how right she always seemed to be about nearly everything. It was a pity he could not ask her what he should do now that she was dead- now that he was alone in the middle of a crowd.

 "Oui, it was most unfortunate." Ravyr nodded solemnly. Her French sounded like it originated from Lyon. Not that that was important. Lyon wasn't real. Her French was of a specific dialect, yes, but who knew if it originated in Lyon? Who knew if Austrian's German was really a dialect that started in Steiermark, Austria? It was a semantic assumption to say Ravyr's French was a dialect from Lyon. But it was an expedient assumption. It unnecessarily complicated things for him to alledge that Ravyr's French was of the "Ravyr dialect" instead.

 He smirked to stop himself from grimacing unpleasantly. "Yes, unfortunate. Did you know I planned to propose to her that same night she shot herself? Funny how such things work out. Just when you sum up the courage to do something, you forever lose your chance to do it. You hesitate and then... the opportunity is lose forever. Ironic." He hoped his tone didn't sound too caustic- too disgruntled.

 "Actually, that sounds horrible." she replied, blinking with surprise.

 "No. What is horrible is the fact that I can't seem to stop myself from being dragged down with her. No matter what I do, I can't stop thinking about her- thinking about what might have happened if I had realized something was wrong. Imagine what might have been if I had left Club Noir and gone looking for her. Return might still be alive today if I had stepped out of that elevator in The Vault and explained to her how unnecessary killing herself really was. Imagine... imagine..." He wanted to add 'Imagine if she was my wife.' but those words were too much to bring himself to say.

 Ravyr simply watched him with an expression that looked halfway between pained sympathy and amused curiousity. Exiles could be so unfeeling sometimes. But they were no different from Humans. Exiles, he had learned from experience, were simply Programs learning how to be Human. Some misunderstood those lessons and exaggerated the wrong aspects of Human nature, but the majority, like Ravyr, were almost better than Humans in a few ways. She understood what he was going through. The amused curiousity was more than likely the result of the Exile contemplating how she would react if MadHattah died and she was left alone and without a lover.

 "I... wanted to ask your advice, Ravyr." He stated, regaining his composure.

 "Of course, Austrian." She purred in her Lyon drawl.

 "I was wondering... how do you think I can move on from this? How can I leave Return behind but keep her with me?" He asked.

 Ravyr sighed, her forehead creasing in thought for a moment, before she answered. "I am not The Oracle, nor am I a magic eight ball... though sometimes I wish I was. But I can offer you this advice: bury yourself in work, help others, or find another. This is the only way to keep going. One of these three will work for you, but not necessarily all. Just experiment and you'll find which works best for you. But be aware, Austrian: she will haunt you from time to time. You will forget her more and more but sometimes... something, anything, like a touch or a smell, will bring her back to you for a moment and... I am afraid it will hurt. Je m'excuse. That is the advice I can give you."

 He thought about this for a moment. He'd been buried in red tape the past few days, filling out paperwork that had piled up during his bereavement leave. But this was not the sort of work he expected Ravyr was talking about. Paperwork wasn't involving enough to occupy his thoughts entirely. She meant field work. Work that came from fighting off hordes of Zionites, Neonates, Machinists, Cypherites, Commandos and cheap thugs to save innocent Exiles and protect the fragile peace that Triluminary wanted so dearly to expand and deepen. The Merovingian would no doubt have that sort of work for him soon enough. Apparently, Flood had taken notice of Austrian's suggestions that The Spectrum, a family of Exiles that had a monopoly on the $information flow within Westview, needed to be reined in. Perhaps that would be his salvation: the campaign to end the code degradation of The Barrens and the introduction of peace and civilization to that wayward part of Mega City.

 But Ravyr had mentioned helping others. He'd tried to help Return and what happened there? She had committed suicide- the ultimate slap in the face, the most extreme rejection of his offers of love and aid that the woman could have done. He was worried that the next person he tried to help would do the same. What if he offered to help Vanon find Martel? What if he tried to free Linkslife from that Exile monster? Would Vanon simply laugh, turn his blade on his host, and kill Linkslife and himself? Was that how horrible the world had become now? A world where people enjoyed their own suffering and killed themselves when someone came along and tried to bring and end to their masochistic amusement? Austrian had no interest in living in such a world. He was an idealist. When he saw a problem, he had to fix it. If there was no way to fix any of the problems in the world, what was the point in living? The world went from being an opportunity to being a cruel joke. No, he'd stay away from this option for fear of losing his faith in his purpose and his life.

 The last option Ravyr had mentioned... finding another. He'd tried to reach out to Kshana. That had been an utter failure. It seemed that Return's so-called "sister" was similar to Return in even more ways. Both women were fine with flirting and fondling but the moment things became serious, they fled. They were afraid of commitment because they thought it would mean an end to the freedom they had become intoxicated with. It was a pity neither of them would pay attention to the lessons he tried to teach them. Return was beginning to understand what freedom there was in love but she would no longer make an ample student. She was dead. And Kshana seemed far too ignorant- far too consumed with her wilder side to have the same sense Return had. Kshana was doomed to repeat every step of Return's life, he knew. Someday he'd receive a phone call telling him that Kshana had shot herself too. He wondered if it would be in the same club, The Vault. Heck, maybe both sisters would die lying in the exact same spot. That would be cruel irony. If God became that evil, he might just decide to join those two women and shoot himself in the same spot too. Maybe that would get the cursed club closed down and stop anyone from suffering the same fate as Kshana, Return and Austrian. That would be a fitting end to The Vault- being closed and sealed by The Machines. A Vault that would forever contain the souls of three crazed Redpills and their miseries. No, the last option did not sound viable. The only woman that he could possibly love was already too much in love with herself and her freedom to indulge herself in the many false and simulated pleasures of The Matrix. Pity he would never be able to get her to sit still long enough for him to explain John Stuart Mill's theories on "Legal Moralism". Maybe then she would understand why exactly she had taken the red pill.

 "Merci beaucoup, Ravyr. Your advice is wise. I will think on it and keep it in mind at all times." Austrian said, bowing his head in deference to her as he rose from his seat.

 "De rien, Austrian. It it my pleasure. Just remember: I am not The Oracle." She answered, smiling politely.

 "You may not be The Oracle, but you are as close to her as anyone else can reach. You have said everything I needed to hear. Merci Ravyr." Austrian replied. It was true. He felt somewhat unburdened after speaking with the Exile woman.

 Ravyr looked genuinely flattered at this and answered, "Merci, Austrian, for your compliment. It is heart-warming. And thank you for the conversation on subjectivity. I find your views... very interesting. We need more Operatives like you. People who think. People... who feel."

 Austrian simply nodded at this as he adjusted his beret. It was true- he thought and felt much more than any other person he had met. But, he wondered, perhaps he thought and felt a little too much. He was Commodore of Triluminary. He needed to be a leader, a diplomat and a warrior- not a philosopher who discussed his "feelings" and "emotions" with others in restaurants and churches. Thinkers of that kind quickly lost touch with reality and became wandering hermits that strode out of the spotlight of history and were only remembered when other unrealistic ponderers stumbled across their scribblings. Kant had been a loser in his day. Immanuel Kant, the philosopher he idealized above all others, had been a creepy old German man who spent his days writing about categorical imperatives and the noumenal realm. The only time the philosopher had approached discussing a topic of realistic import was when he tackled the issue of nationalism and proposed its anti-thesis and the basis of future institutions like the European Union or the United States of America: federalism. That was it. That was his legacy: a collection of musty tomes written in a dialect of German so obscure and advanced that few could understand it. He had left no children. He had created no inventions. He had left nothing more than words and ideas- ideas that German, Swiss and Austrian grammar school students had been subjected to as a substitue for torture. Was that how he wanted to be? Was that how he wanted to be remembered? The dithering dolt who had penned some silly manifesto called "The Chaos Theory" and any other volumes who he would come up with in the next 40 or more years of his life? Was he pushing himself too hard, considering he was nothing more than a child at 21 years?

 He decided to ask for Ravyr's help one last time. "Ravyr, do you think I will be an asset or a hindrance to this Organization?"

 "I think you and I both know the answer to that, mon ami." she replied, smiling again.

 After bidding farewell to Wixard and the other Triluminarians training in the dojo, he left for The Vault.

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 "I'll be in touch, Austrian. In the mean time, enjoy that which has returned to you... as if it were not long for this world." EndlessVoid finished his phone call before hanging up. He'd been talking to the Human-turned-Exile for the past few minutes as he stood and waited in The Vault. Linkslife had said Return would be here but she was nowhere to be found. Some sort of practical joke? No. Impossible. But then Return being alive sounded impossible too. He was standing in the exact same spot he had seen her lying in- in a pool of her own blood. She was dead. A ghost? An RSI without a body, perhaps? Rumour had it that such things were possible when one died a most terrible death. Maybe she really had been murdered and had intended to meet him at Noir after all. Maybe the sorrow of having her bright new future with him stolen from her was enough to bind her soul to The Matrix, if there was such a thing as a soul.

 Then the elevator doors opened and he heard the clack of high heels on the tile of the dance floor. And then she stepped out and into the reddish lights of the place. Lady Return. The woman he loved. She was as beautiful as he remembered her. Her blonde hair as white-gold as it was the time he saw her in Club Duality and she had hinted that she would marry him if he asked. She was wearing her perfect purple dress that he had grown so attached to seeing every time he jacked-in. Christ but she was perfect. Whoever had named her as a Bluepill was right. She was an "Angel" as her surname implied. And her first name, "Sara", was the same name that the child of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene were supposed to have had. Sara, mother of The Merovingians. He smirked at the idea.

 "Return... I missed you so much." He finally managed to say. He'd thought it would have been easier to say but it wasn't. He nearly choked on his own saliva as he tried to speak. He realized then, that he wasn't breathing. He tried to stop himself from holding it in but couldn't. Tears rushed to his eyes like they had when he'd first seen her corpse on the floor of The Vault. He fought to maintain his composure. He was ruining the moment. She would want him to be strong. She hated weakness- hated it when he showed too much emotion. He just had to follow her example and act like she did- cold and detached. She seemed to admire it when he accomplished that.

 "I'm sure you did." she answered, her eyes invisible to him beneath her purple sunglasses. That was the problem with the lighting in The Vault- it stopped him from seeing her eyes. Noir was a bit better, oddly enough. The black of that Club actually brought out her eyes and let him peer through the purple plastic. He also believed that in Noir she was more comfortable. She dropped her guard there and let him see the woman underneath. She'd also dropped other things there before and let him see many beautiful things he had dreamed about... maybe they would do that again some time. He hoped so. He needed the release from all of... this.

 "I... I saw you dead. You were dead. You were lying right here." He wondered out loud, still coming to terms with the fact that a woman he had mourned was still walking around, standing in front of him with a bored expression on her face.

 She pointed at the exact spot where he had cradled her lifeless body. "Proxy placed right there. I used an invisibility belt, and gave it the final command to kill itself."

 "But... but why? Why would you do that? Why not tell me?" He asked, struggling to understand why she would fake her own death. He could think of no valid reason. Some people wanted her dead, it was true. But none of them were powerful enough to touch her. And even if they were, she could have told him first rather than make him suffer through her death.

 "Because I wanted to get away from you, from my faction, from everything. And I knew if I just left, you'd find a way to harass me. I needed to make it final." She answered, tossing her hair. He loved how she did that from time-to-time. But right now, it felt like an icy pleasure- an ugly woman doing a beautiful thing. She was not physically ugly, no. But she was morally ugly. There had been no reason for her to do what she had done. None at all. And it hurt.

 "You did all that... for a vacation? Nothing more than a simple... vacation?" He gaped in horror at how different she was now. So cold. So unfeeling. She had been different to him before. Of course, she had been condescending to him, as if he were a child. But it had been cute and playful. Now... it didn't seem so cute or playful. It wasn't fun at all.

 "I wanted to get out and only come back when I wished it. And I wished it." She purred, glancing at the water fountain beside them. He wished he could wish all of this away.

 "Well, at least... at least you are still alive." He said, reminding himself of what was truly important. It didn't matter if she loved him or not. It didn't matter if she was more selfish than she had ever been before. What mattered was that she was alive and well. He approached her and reached out to embrace her... but she shrugged her shoulders out of his hands and looked away from him, towards the expansive windows behind the bar.

 "I have a question for you, my Lady." He decided to go ahead with what he had planned that night she had... gone away. He would propose to her. He was sure that the sight of the ring he had waiting in his breast pocket would alter her mood. He'd taken the utmost care in coding the extravagant piece of jewellery.

 "Wonderful. Always full of questions, aren't you Austrian?" She huffed, turning to look into his eyes. They were lancets- normally deep and welcome to him but now cold, barred and hostile to him.

 "If I were to propose to you... what would you say?" He asked, taking her hands in his.

 She wrenched her hands away from his and in a cold and even tone replied. "I'd tell you to eat your ring." Then turning her back to him, she added. "You need the metal."

 Need the metal? What kind of answer was that? His English wasn't that great but he was convinced that her reply made no sense in good English. Did she mean he needed the iron or the minerals? That would make somewhat more sense. But not a whole lot more. Wedding rings, like the one he had in his uniform, were made of gold, not iron. And eating gold did not gain minerals. He decided to pretend she had not said that and hurried to catch up with her as she strode implacably toward the elevator again.

 "So... during your vacation, did you wind up having time to read my 'Chaos Theory'?" He asked, hoping that she had at least read his words and might have some wisdoms to offer on his work. She always had decent advice for him beyond her insults and jokes.

 "No. I did not." She answered, arching an eyebrow as she stopped walking and looked him over.

 "Pity. I'd have thought a refined lady such as yourself would be literate. I guess I was mistaken about your calibre." He answered, smirking. He knew it would ruffle her feathers and that was the intention.

 "Hrmph." Came the reply he expected, as she crossed her arms over her gorgeous chest and looked away from him again. She could be so adorable. He leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek she had exposed to him but then backed away slowly. He'd be pushing his luck if he kissed her. He didn't want this encounter to end with her trying to drown him in the fountain at The Vault. As amusing an idea as that was, it would not help his courtship of her very much.

 "I love you, Return." He simply said.

 "Why can't you go ruin someone else's life? What's so hard about that?" She asked. Slowly turning back towards him, she began to raise her tone, anger slipping into her voice. Dammit. He'd angered her. He'd done nothing that he hadn't done before but she was angry all the same. "I know what you said at my funeral. Half of it was false. The Advocates were closer to the truth and honouring my name than you were. And then you have the balls to tell them that they are wrong."

 "How am I ruining your life by loving you? It has no effect on you. That much is obvious. And how did you know what I said at your funeral?" He was tired. He wasn't in the mood for her crap. If she wanted to yell at him, he'd yell right back.

 She calmed down slightly at his demonstration of anger and replied evenly and calmly. "Because I monitored it. I still had a Matrix feed and I still kept up with transmissions. But the truth is, The Advocates were right about me all along."

 "No. They are wrong. They are liars. They keep you brainwashed and insane to suit their own purposes. Lady Return is a lie. Sara Angela... she's the real 'you'- the real person I love." He retorted.

 "That's your own foolish opinion." She answered, drawing herself up to her full height so she could stand almost eye-to-eye with him. It was a confrontational posture, he knew. It was her non-verbal way of challenging someone else to oppose what she had said. So he decided to do just that: challenge her.

 "No. That's a fact. There's a woman in there named 'Sara Angela' and I will free her from what The Devil's Advocates have forced upon her."

 "No, there is not." She replied, narrowing her eyes beneath her sunglasses. He was close enough to her now that he could see those eyes beneath but there was no welcoming or friendly gaze there now.

 "I know that there is, Return. She comes out from time-to-time. She's quite adorable, actually. You'd like her." He smirked. If she was only using simple phrases no more than four words long, it meant he was winning, he was sure.

 "I was drunk off my *CENSORED*." She replied, citing the evening they had spent in Duality. The same evening she had said she would wear red to their wedding and that they would do... things together in Noir. So she was dismissing her admission that she would give him a chance to prove himself to her to simply being drunk. Typical.

 "You were drunk when you tried to save me from my plot to kill Niobe too? Drunk when you tried to scare me in Noir to save me from my ways. Drunk every time you were kind to me, rather than cruel like you are to everyone else? I think not." He answered, taking her hands in his again. He loved the feel of those soft and tender palms in his. It relaxed him like nothing else in The Real or The Matrix. The hands that could kill him or relax him. Either way, he loved them just as much as he loved the face that hovered inches before his.

 "I don't love you. I never have, and I never will." She answered, not moving. Was she telling him this or herself?

 "Maybe not. But that won't stop me from helping you. You may not love me, but I love you. And people help those they love." He said quietly, giving her hands one last squeeze before releasing her.

 She turned and walked the last few steps to the elevator. He called after "Love you forever, Return!"

 "I know. And it hurts me." She answered, a wounded expression spreading across her face. "You haven't listened to a **bleep** thing I've said."

 And with that, the elevator doors closed shut behind Lady Return, leaving Austrian alone to wonder how his love could possibly hurt the person he cared about- whether he had become a sort of 'Monster of Frankenstein' in his own right. 

 Austrian stood up from the bench and removed his beret. Everyone else on The Hapsburg was asleep. No one would know what he was up to now. There would be no witnesses, just like there had been none during his occasionaly late night rendezvous with Lady Return in Club Noir when she had been alive. Well, she was alive now too. But she was different. Very different. There was no core of warmth in her breast that he could feel as he sat next to her, basking in her radiance. No, now she would not even talk to him at great length. He doubted that if he called her now, she would come and meet him. Not even if he called her with the offer of detailed intelligence and information on something that would interest her business side. She would simply tell him to stop harrassing her.

 There was a way to solve all this, of course. Someone, or rather some group, had met with him and told him about how he could make all of his problems go away. They told him how he could ensure that he would live in the Heaven he wanted. They were right about a great deal of things. They spoke with wisdom and with a surprising amount of knowledge about his life. They knew he was tired. They knew he would love to have a chance to go on the ferry across the Bodensee from Austria to the city of Basel in Switzerland to buy some of the wonderful bars of dark Swiss chocolate that were sinfully inexpensive there. They knew he would do anything to share those pleasures, and even those pains, he had lived through in Europe with Lady Return. They'd made an offer to him which he could not refuse.

 He'd been resisting causality for so long in his life, he had grown tired. Swimming against the current was draining. He could make all of that end by simply understanding that he was a leaf in the wind. He had no choice as to which direction the wind would blow him in. Well, he had one choice. And that choice was being made as he removed his beret. He just had to understand why he had made that choice before he carried out with it.

 He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a sheet of black silk- a bandana. The bandana was something that many people had worn in the past. Selfless people. Japanese kamikazi pilots had worn bandanas on their foreheads as they sacrificed their lives for the preservation of their nation and what they thought was a just expansion of the empire they had been born and raised in. Samurai had worn such bandanas as a means to collect sweat as well as a symbol of loyalty to their family and their fealty to their lord and daimyo. Chechens had worn such bandanas to conceal their identities as they fought against Soviet and then Russian occupations so as to protect their families from retaliation. They all wore bandanas, but that was not the only thing they held in common with each other. They also shared a common reason for fighting: they fought to protect their homes. They fought to feel as though they shared a common identity with others. Austrian had thought he shared a common identity, a common reason for fighting, with his fellow Triluminarians. They fought for a peace- a home where everyone could live together in harmony. But there was no peace for Austrian in that world. In a world where Exiles, Programs, and Humans lived together in peace and unity, he would still be alone. He would be a lonely man, growing older and older by the day, as others passed him by. He would watch as his crew found love with others, married, had children and grew old happy. But he would stay alone. There would be no marriage for Austrian. There would be no children to teach everything he had learned during his life. There would be no legacy- no reason for him to have ever existed. He would simply have been a tool- a bridge that laid down and allowed others to cross it into a promised land that he would never be able to find a home in. It was like being trapped out in the cold and looking in through a window at a perfect family sitting down for a Christmas dinner made more delicious by the love shared by the members of the family. It was torture and he had had enough.

 He would have a legacy. He would do whatever it was The Cypherites asked him to do short of betraying his friends. When he fulfilled his end of the bargain, The Machines would find him a spot in Heaven. He'd made it clear to the Agent he had met exactly what he wanted. Lady Return and himself would be re-inserted. She would resume her job with Metacortex but at a Swiss branch of the corporation. He would return to being Paul Lipp but he would have taken up his father's offer to work as an executive with Porsche. Sarah would accidentally bump into him at a dinner function and a small romance would take root between them. From there, their relationship would grow until they married and lived happily ever after. However, The Machines were to make sure that Sarah would be able to reproduce. He would not countenance having the woman of his dreams die giving birth to his child. If that happened, he promised the Agent that his Re-awakening would be inevitable and when he was returned as a Redpill, he would join E Pluribus Neo in vengeance if his love ever died.

 It almost seemed like everything was laid out perfectly. A simple bargain and he would live the life he had always wanted. But it sounded too good to be true. It had to be. There was some catch. There had to be. The Machines would refuse to operate on Return after he did what they asked him to do. Or perhaps, even worse, they would lie to them and say they had healed her when they had done nothing of the sort.

 Images of his darling Sarah lying dead in bed beside him one morning in Zurich haunted his mind. Could it be that that was what putting on the bandana would ultimately do? Would he kill the woman he would do anything for with his love? Was returning to life as a Bluepill something she really wanted? Or was it something he wanted her to want?

 He already knew the answer to those questions. Sooner or later, The Machines would have betrayed him if he had cooperated with them. One betrayal begets another. By helping The Cypherites, he would betray Triluminary and all of his friends. Karma would make certain he suffered for such an act, even if it meant doing so at Sarah's expense. He would kill Sarah with his love if he allowed it to. She had already warned him that his love hurt her. What if he forced his love upon her fully? It would be like the Frankenstein monster's embrace. It would kill her, crushing the delicate rose that he had loved so much in a tragic moment that would likely lead him to take his own life. No. That wasn't Heaven. That was Hell. Did she want to go back to the pods? She had hinted at it once, one evening. But she had never said explicitly that she wanted to go back and leave The Real behind. Did he want her to go back to Bluepill life? Not quite. But if it was the only way to get her to love him, then he did.

 But what he "wanted" to do was always different from what he did. He constantly denied himself the chance to indulge himself in his pleasures and fantasies. He was a man of duty. "Man" was a bit strong of a word. He was a boy. No more than 22 years old. He was young and yet he was already Commodore of Triluminary. Why was he so paranoid that he would never find a home? Why was he always panicking that he would never find a wife who would love him as dearly as he loved her? Why did he worry so much that he would never have children to raise and love and share with? He didn't know. Maybe it was just that his parents had raised him to always be demanding of himself. They had told him that a man who was not married, with a successful job and a roof over his family's head by the age of 30 was no man at all. Austrian still had another 8 years to fulfill his parents' expectations of him. He could still make his parents proud, even thought they'd never know what had become of their eldest son.

 He replaced his beret on his head and, as he passed a nearby trash can, tossed away his bandana. He was no Cypherite. He was no traitor to his friends and to his current home onboard The Hapsburg. He was Austrian, Commodore of Triluminary, Captain of The Hapsburg, peace advocate and one of The Merovingian's favoured operatives. There was a home out there waiting for him with some woman. He simply had to perservere, like everyone else, until he found it. It was all just a part of moving on.

 And then the phone call had come from Gothique asking him if he would be willing to fight a brief match with a random Redpill for $information. Just a friendly match, nothing more. So he agreed to it and suddenly his eyes were blinded with a flash of white light. He imagined that someone had thrown a flashbang grenade at him but it was not something so mundane. When his eyes cleared, he was no longer standing outside a church, enjoying the cool but fresh air of Mega City in March. Instead, he was standing in a dark and dank night club. A small crowd of Bluepills was gathered around the edge of a stage that he found himself standing atop of. Very very strange indeed...

 He turned and saw Kshana standing opposite of him, gorgeous in her gaudy clothes as always. Standing between them was Gothique, her hand out-stretched as if expecting something. What did she want? A tip for moving his code from some pleasantly relaxing spot he had been enjoying to this little den of debauchery? It was amusing how the North Americans who populated most of Mega City had such a poor taste in style and lacked the rudiments of ethics and morals to boot. The activities he was witnessing at the foot of the stage would never occur among the Bluepills who frequented Kirin, a Club in Chinatown which Triluminary frequented. This Club, wherever it was, was like the anti-thesis of Kirin, or The Vault for that matter. He was glad the lighting in the place was almost non-existant, otherwise, he was sure, the uncleanliness and poor state of repairs would have made him ill.

 But Gothique's hand... Ah! Now he remembered! The "entry fee", for lack of a better term. He handed over a small stack of bills and asked, "So... Kshana is my opponent then?"

 "Jawohl. Gibt da Probleme?" she replied, in surprisingly good German. He'd never known the woman to speak any German. He almost felt a pang of respect for her. Almost.

 "Nein." He answered. Quite the contrary. He was pleasantly surprised. Fighting some ruffian would have been boring and distasteful. But fighting Kshana... that was quite interesting.

 "All right. I want you two to shake hands before we start." Gothique said, backing out of their way, wearing a smile on her face. She must have known that the pairing would be a good one as well.

 Kshana rose from her position on the floor of the stage, where she had been sitting as she stretched and prepared for the fight. They shook hands and then hugged briefly. He enjoyed the feel of her body on his. Yes, where Return was the recipient of his love, Kshana was the target of his lust. It would be... mildly distracting to fight her now that his passions had been re-kindled with that soft embrace.

 The blonde woman backed away from him, sweeping into an extravagant stance that seemed to parody his favoured Hawk Stance. He reminded himself not to use that tactic on her. She had fought him a number of times before. They were evenly matched to an extent. However, his style of fighting involved more deception and trickery. Kshana's style was more direct. She relied on simple speed and strength to over-power her opponents. If he used tactics he had used before to deceive her and gain the upper hand, she would see through his tricks and beat him into submission with blow after blow as he struggled to regain his poise. No, he would have to be smart to win.

 He entered into a conservative stance, one known in Tae Kwon-Do simply as "walking stance" because it was as natural was walking. One foot was slightly forward of the other and the arms were held up loosely, ready to quickly respond to an attack, with his chin tucked into his shoulder to prevent an unexpected upper cut from knocking him out in one devestating attack. He stood there, waiting- giving away no indication of what his intentions or plans might be. That was an easy thing to do as he didn't quite have a plan yet. He'd expected to fight some relatively unknown Operative who would have no idea what Austrian's combination of Ba Gua Zhang and Tae Kwon-Do would look like in a fight. But Kshana would not be dazzled by the circular patterns his hands made in the air as the open palms struck out a flurry of blows, punctuated periodically by a powerful kick at the vulnerable points of her body. She knew most of his tricks by now and he was in need of sifting through The Hapsburg's Archives for another style to hard-wire his brain with. After 2 years operating in The Matrix, he was already an old dog to those who he found himself frequently confronting in combat. He needed to learn some new tricks.

 A bored expression on her face, Kshana beckoned for him to come to her. "Come and get it, honey." She taunted.

 He supposed he should oblige her. It would have been amusing for him to have reached into his jacket and pulled out his Steyr AUG and let loose a few automatic bursts of 5.56mm rounds at her but he doubted that would go over well. This was, more than likely, a martial arts tournament. Bringing a gun to a fist fight wasn't exactly good sportsmanship. And besides, the Bluepills in the club wanted a show. Seeing a man casually shoot a woman on a stage, take the prize money, and leave wasn't much of a show at all. He bounded across the distance of the stage in a few quick strides and feinted a closed fist punch to Kshana's face, simultaneously kicking out with his other leg toward her shin. The shin kick, he hoped, would surprise her so he could unleash a more damaging attack like "Monk Airs The Corpse" or "Eight Immortals Cross The Sea". However, his hopes were not be answered with the intended results. Kshana saw through the feint and, raising the knee of the same leg he was trying to kick to her chest, dodged the attack. The leg that she had brought up and out of the way of his kick then lashed out with an extreme force, striking him in the abdomen and knocking him to the ground.

 He rolled with the kick and rose to his feet in time to block a series of punches from the now smiling woman with his elbows. She was a grappler, he knew. And grappling was his weak point. Unfortunately, she was in close and that was why he was forced to block with his elbows and not his palms. If he had more room to work with, he could catch the punches Kshana was throwing and retaliate. However, she was in the perfect position for her style and he was not. And, he noticed in the periphery of his vision, he was getting close to a birck wall that she could trap him against. He had to act fast or he would lose.

 Kshana presented the opportunity to him as she struck out at his throat with a technique known as a "tiger mouth strike", a lead-in to a throat choke. Very nasty. But it was just the sort of attack he could counter in his position. Just as her hand was about to reach his throat, he caught her wrist between his forearms as he leaned back out of the way, ensuring the safety of his air way from the "tiger mouth". Wrenching her over into an exposed position as he controlled her arm, he let loose a roundhouse kick to her belly. She buckled with the blow and struggled to get free but she could not as his grasp of her wrist was strong and squeezed his forearms together, creating a vice on her wrist that caused her to flinch a little. He didn't like how she flinched. He didn't like the idea of causing her pain. But it was just a friendly fight. If she felt that the pain he was inflicting was too great, she could simply submit and the match would be over. Of course, he knew she was very competitive, especially with him it seemed, and he was not so sure she would give up easily.

 He let loose another roundhouse kick, adding a little more power to it this time, but his foot never reached her stomach. As his leg raised to chamber the kick, Kshana's kneee rose up to strike him in the crotch. The sudden pain of the move, and the fact that he had been caught completely by surprise by it, caused him to release her arm and stagger back a little. Kshana did not allow him any quarter. She pressed home her advantage and surged foward to tackle him into the wall. He felt his back slam against the cold bricks and heard the crowd cheer at the move.

 Just as sudden as the knee to the groin and the slam into the wall, Austrian felt himself being tossed to the ground in a standard Judo hip throw, too dazed to have time to break his fall. He felt his light frame shudder with the impact as his back struck hard floor. He knew he had to get up but as he rose a sharp pain in his back convinced him that it was better to take a moment to collect himself. He doubted that he would have the balance to maintain his footing even if he ignored the pain and stood up. No, it would be far less embarrassing to pretend he was losing consciousness. Maybe his lack of movement would cause Kshana to be over confident and give him the time he needed to muster himself for a new offensive.

 But his motionlessness did nothing of the sort. Once again, the plan went to hell as soon as it came into practice. Kshana was on top of him, securing his arms and legs in a pin he recognized to be known as a "grapevine". Perfect. She had him pinned and there was nothing he could do to escape from it. He could whisper something to trick her into bringing her face closer to his and then he could head butt her. No. That was a *CENSORED* idea. It wouldn't work. If the feint-shin kick maneuver had failed and the opposum-like attempt to make Kshana cocky had failed, some silly attempt to head butt her would fail too. She obviously was in her element today and he, on the other hand, was not. His place, at the moment, was by that Church in Camon Heights, lecturing people on the values of cooperation and tolerance. Her place, it would seem, was in a dojo. It was a little attractive- being pinned beneath her, knowing he'd just lost to such a luscious Fraulein.

 "Nice try babe, but I think I've got you. Give up?" She chuckled.

 "Ja. I give up." He answered reluctantly.

 She rose and gave him a hand up. He really needed to load up a new style. Something unpredictable. Something like Zui Ba Xian Kuan, or "Eight Drunken Immortals Fist". Maybe even She Kuan, "Snake Fist". Those were very unorthodox styles. He couldn't imagine Kshana managing to beat him quite so badly and interpreting his intentions so well if he was staggering about on the stage like a raving drunk and then lashing out with his fingers at the most important nerves of her body and the most important meridians of her RSI's code structure with cold precision. Maybe he'd try it out in the dojo later. Maybe. He had an emotional and sentimental attachment to his Tae Kwon-Do kicks and Ba Gua Zhang hand strikes. They'd rarely ever failed him in two years. Moving on past those wasn't something he was eager to do.

 Gothique handed Kshana the money and congratulated her on a good fight. He supposed she deserved it for the prowess she had demonstrated. And she looked so pleasant with her proud smile as she accepted the money. He tapped her on the shoulder and, as she turned to face him, kissed her on the lips. He enjoyed her taste. And he enjoyed the fact that she kissed back even better. Despite the perfume Return wore, and the taste of her lips, kissing The Lady was never as much fun as kissing Kshana. With Kshana, it was a mutual gesture of attraction, he believed. But with Return... it was like the woman was simply accepting a paltry gift with bored detachment.

 "Wow..." Was Kshana's reply as their lips parted.

 "I'd help you celebrate with your winnings, but I doubt you'd let me indulge in such a pleasure." He said, a weak smile on his face. He was asking her to let them have a chance at a relationship. But he already knew what her response would be. However, he could not help himself but ask. He had no choice in the matter.

 "Oh Aust..." He hated when she said that. "I would but... Farplane would be very jealous..."

 "Farplane? What about him?" He asked. He recognized the name but couldn't think of a face to match with the name.

 "Yes. He's claimed me as his own, haven't you heard?" She replied, amusedly examining his reactions.

 He snorted. "'Claimed'? Who does he think he is? No man would ever claim a woman if he has any respect for her."

 She seemed to like that reply. "Well, things are in motion that will ensure no man will ever be able to claim me for their own."

 He felt the sudden urge to ask "So you're going to go make a proxy of yourself and have it shoot itself and then go into hiding in The Real too? Why? Is that the newest fad? When you get bored of playing with Aust's affections, you go fake your own death to take a break? Hasn't anyone ever heard of... I don't know... giving a guy a chance at proving himself? Or simply taking a normal vacation? Why does it have to involve convincing everyone that loves you that you are dead and gone forever and then waltzing back into their life with a completely different personality?!?! Hm? Anyone want to enlighten me?" But he didn't. That would solve nothing.

 He simply turned and exited from the stage. Stopping only to look back at Kshana over his shoulder to say, "Good luck with that." That cold and emotionless comment being made, he allowed himself to disappear into the crowd of Bluepills that jeered and mocked him for losing to a woman. Too funny. They didn't even have an idea of who that woman was or why she had won.

 He needed some sleep. And then he would need to think on why he kept losing. Not just why he had been losing fights, but also why he had been losing in every attempt he made to win over a woman's heart. He had to win sooner or later. And it was more important to him that he win at the second thing over the first thing. 8 years was too long to spend alone as he watched Return and Kshana throw their lives away without ever paying any thought to their legacies- to their need for love that they kept buried away and protected from his appeals.

 He took a glance over his shoulder. That made two Neo wannabes and one Trinity copy-cat. A Neo in front of him and to his left and a Trinity on the right. They were training simulacrum produced by The Hapsburg's AI, Sophia, to resemble E Pluribus Neo Operatives. The premise of this particular program was that The Merovingian's Chateau was, somehow, under siege from a coalition of operatives from various other Organizations who attacked in waves. It was the perfect Construct for doing what he wanted to do and he had asked Sophia to load it for him.

 The Neo in front of him let out a spirtied kiai and, over ambitious, hurled a jab for Austrian's face. He deflected the punch downward, his palm pushing againt the Neonate's wrist, and, as the opponent's arm lowered, struck out visciously with his own attack. His hand, in a She Kuan or "Snake Fist" technique, formed a curved shape, almost like the jaw of an ox, and pierced at the Neonate's throat. The force of his fingers striking the enemy's throat was devestating in its effect. Not only would the Neonate's thyroid be badly damaged by the impact but his larynx would have been burst, stopping the flow of blood from the heart to the brain. Releasing the Neonate's wrist, he allowed the first foe to fall lifeless to the polished marble floor of The Chateau's Great Hall before the body vanished in a flash of green code, deleted from the simulation by Sophia.

 He preferred to have the AI monitor and govern his training over any of his crew members. If he made a mistake in one of the Constructs or did something out of the ordinary it would plague the conscience of his Operator, Ragnalodon, or his First Mate, Wixard. He didn't want any of his crew wondering about their Captain. They needed to assume that he was incapable of doing wrong- a faultless father who could never make an error. That was, of course, a false image. But it was an image that would ensure the most loyalty and efficiency from his crew.

 He had heard the Trinity wannabe moving to position herself behind him as he dealt with the first Neo and as he finished the foe, he heard her boots squeak on the floor as she charged toward him from behind. He moved as if to position himself in front of her attack, pretending to be oblivious of her charge and focused more on the second Neo. But as she prepared to unleash a flying front kick to his spine, he weaved, almost drunken-like, out of the path of her attack. As she passed through air, he brought his arm up in a sort of "clothes line", striking her neck with his forearm and suddenly stopping her momentum in an instant. Finishing the job, he brought his heel down on the Trinity's throat as she burst into a flash of green code.

 Without pausing, he shifted his attention to the last E Pluribus Neo simulacrum, striking at the abdomen of the trench-coated fellow with his palm. The Neonate doubled over, opening himself up to attack, and Austrian took advantage of the opportunity. He kicked out at the crotch of the Neonate with the ball of his foot and then, with the same leg, kneed him in the chest. The force of that attack sent the Neonate sprawling backward, opening his throat up to the same technique he had used to kill the first Neo wannabe. The Neonate clutched at his windpipe before disappearing as well, leaving Austrian alone, for the moment, in the Great Hall.

 That whole burst of motion that had left all three simulacrum dead, was known as "White Snake Flicks Its Tongue". Perfect. A She Kuan move that felt the same as a Ba Gua Zhang combination he might have used before. But the positioning of the hands was sleeker and the movements of his hands were more natural and less awkward than those of Ba Gua. He was pleasantly surprised. Of course, he would have to tweak what styles he had hard-wired to his brain and make them as perfectly suitable as possible. He needed to be unpredictable but not clumsy or random. That would help make sure he would not be losing any more fights to Kshana, to Wixard, or to anyone else.

 The creak of a door behind him signalled the entry of the next wave. He'd told Sophia to keep him on his toes and she would no doubt oblige him. The enemies entering through that door could be anything from Commandos or Cypherites to EndlessVoid or Lady Return. They would all be simulacrum, of course, but Sophia would try to simulate the combat performance of all of those individuals it had ever observed. He just hoped Sophia didn't try to be... funny and send in a simulated Agent to beat him. Yes, beat him. It was no contest. Agents, despite the beliefs of the naive new Zionite Redpills, were not a challenge- they were undefeatable angels of death. One could run or hide from those Agents, but they could not be fought unless it was with a 40mm grenade launcher. Anything less destructive than that and one was only committing suicide or delaying the inevitable.

 He turned and saw another group of three simulacrum- blood-drinkers this time. He hated them. Loathed them, even. His dislike for them was the result of two things- the betrayal of Invalesco and Malphas and the stories he had been raised on back in Graz. When Malphas and Invalesco had went about trying to do what the Smith Virus had tried to do, the blood-drinkers had cast away all respect or trust he had for them. Of course Ookami had left The Merovingian too and her lupines had fought in Invalesco's defence. But Ookami had since done much to restore his respect and loyalty for her. She had fought hard against Morpheus. She had been with Austrian in the vanguard that had struggled for weeks to find where The Effectuator was being held and then to release him. Ookami had also been the one to, in the end, seal The Assassin's fate. Her hot-headed behaviour in all those incidents had, in Austrian's eyes, saved The Matrix and, for that matter, Humanity from utter destruction. But where had Malphas been in all those incidents? Nowhere. Cowering in The Chateau, more than likely. He was a coward and a glutton, that Blood Noble, and he was beneath Austrian's respect.

 And then the stories he had heard about these "vampires" in his youth didn't help matters either. He was told about how some evil and horrible man named "Graf Drachenklaue" had ruled over a small duchy in Romania. This man had done horrible and despicable things for his own amusement, even at the expense of many innocent lives. Some Teutonic Knights, fighting to spread Christianity across Eastern Europe, had stumbled on this duchy and killed the wicked vampire, liberating the oppressed people he had ruled over and forever commemorating the day of his death as "Debilsnacht"- Night of the Devil. Now, he had never seen evidence that these Exiles who assumed a similar form to what the Graf was said to have possessed indulged in the same grossly evil actions but he felt a nagging sensation in his mind that they did. Something about them made his skin crawl and he often wondered what they did in their wing of The Chateau. What horrible things were hidden in The Dungeon? If he were allowed to journey down into those dark halls, would he bear witness to the same things those knights had when they investigated allegations of Graf Drachenklaue's heresy? Or was it all just a story invented by The Machines to make Bluepills distrusting of the blood-drinker Exiles and the Redpills whose trench-coated, gaunt-expressioned, dark-paletted appearances were all too reminiscient of those vampires of legend?

 The only thing he admired about them was their use of the same style he still was most fond of: Ba Gua Zhang. But their hissing and fang-bearing tendencies corrupted the pure look of Ba Gua. While Austrian made the style look proud and elegant, the vampiric Exiles made it look sinister and evil- their hands moving not like wind mills but like shadowy tendrils. He understood, though, why Sophia had chosen the blood-drinkers as opponents for this wave. The AI wanted to allow him a chance to test his new styles on his old one. He was happy she had done so. He wanted to see how She Kuan and Zui Ba Xian Kuan faired against his old blend of Ba Gua Zhang and Tae Kwon-Do.

 But the simulation halted as he readied himself. Everything paused, the blood-drinkers caught in mid-motion.

 "Prince, there is an issue of importance." Sophia said, appearing beside him. The AI had quite a few annoying quirks since it was re-programmed. It had originally been a Machinist AI, just like The Hapsburg itself. But after it's crew was killed in The Matrix and the vessel was assulted in The Real, the vessel had been given to him by his former captain Re1gn. The re-programming had turned the stern-faced man who insisted that he and his old comrades would all die, into a pleasant woman, modelled off of a Hapsburg princess of the 1700's- the glory days of the Austrian Empire. She had, however, developed the annoying habit of calling him "Prince". He wasn't sure what to make of the name but had given up on encouraging her to call him "Commodore" or "Austrian". To make matters worse, it had modified its appearance somewhat from its original avatar. It had adopted the same hair style as Return and its dress had changed in style from the ancient ballroom gown to the purple dress Return was nearly always wearing. Sophia practically looked like Lady Return without the sunglasses. He imagined that the AI was altering itself to an appearance and personality it thought would please him and make him more comfortable, but it did the opposite. It bothered him greatly. When he left The Matrix and went about his duties in The Real, he wanted to forget that woman, not be reminded of her whenever he had some business with the AI.

 "What is it?" He asked.

 He'd arrived briefly for a party that she was holding in Club Noir. Lady Return, it seemed, had managed to fully re-integrate herself into the mainstream of Redpill life. She'd founded some sort of faction called "Avidité Syndicat". Her French was pleasant, he supposed, and so he was content with the name she had assumed for her group. Many had already joined her and he was surprised- shocked even- by this. Why would so many people be so depraved, so inclined to live a happy but discontented life, with her? It was little matter. The Operatives that the less morally strong factions recruited came and went regularly. They recruited swarms to their causes but they soon died or left and joined other equally morally irreputable groups. Triluminary seemed to recruit at a more steady and slow pace. While the fleets never grew at a blindingly fast pace, they rarely lost people. Once someone joined Triluminary, they never left- so strong was the sense of camaraderie and moral conviction in their ranks. And all six Captains of Triluminary made sure that everyone came home to Horizon alive and well. He knew, from the hard-wired programs on military strategy, tactics and protocols that had been downloaded to his brain in L'école de la Tour, that suffering 25% casualties was counted as unacceptable losses for a conflict. As soon as a commander of any rank found that his troops had lost a quarter of their numbers through wounds and deaths, he was to retreat and regroup to fight later on. But for Triluminary, one lost member was too much. It was probably why they fought so well as teams. They knew they had to work together and watch one another to ensure each and every one of them made it home. And yes, Horizon was home to them all.

 His conversation with ProtectorProgram fresh in his mind, he walked up to Lady Return, in the midst of the crowd and decided to alert her to his departure. He'd been at the party for maybe 15 minutes. That was as long as he could stay. He'd enjoyed sitting across from her in the dark and dreary club, admiring the paleness of her skin and how it contrasted so beautifully with the interior of the Club and the dark purple of her dress. He'd had a brief discussion with some woman named Coraxian- apparently one of the people who had founded the Devil's Advocates with Lady Return- and told her about Triluminary's mission and how Arch Admiral Triad had led the Exodus from Zion in the wake of The Truce as she foresaw the coming strife and the inevitabile need for a group that would serve as diplomats and peacekeepers- a new sort of United Nations. The message he was trying to send fell on deaf ears. No one wanted to know how to bring peace. They were only interested in satisfying their own desires and pleasures. Willing slaves to causality who had little in common with someone who wanted to break free from the chain and make choices that were moral and selfless, rather than hedonistic and self-centered.

 "My Lady." He said, gaining her attention.

 She turned, her long dress flowing around her so perfectly. The curve of her lips suggested she was amused by his recent... sedation. He hadn't been quite so passionate or open about his affection for her this evening. He wasn't sure why but he didn't seem to feel the same energy as he used to. Normally, when he saw Return, he felt a sudden rush of adrenaline and testosterone through his body. His mind would focus and narrow on her and only her. No considerations mattered other than listening to the inflection of her voice and interpreting her mannerisms, from the way she crossed her legs to the way she folded her hands in her lap. He became an admirer lost in a trance in an art gallery, staring at a tapestry or a portrait on the wall. No, that wasn't entirely accurate. He wasn't a patron staring at a painting. He was a patron staring through a painting. Or even, staring into it. He would gaze into her mind as her RSI posed a window to her heart and to her mind. He had thought it was protected by a thin sheet of blackened silk, an ugly design emblazoned upon it. He had thought that he was, bit-by-bit, pulling back that veil to see the perfection that lay beneath. He had thought that there were wounds and abrasions upon her hidden face, concealed beneath the make-up and her embittered mask. But he wasn't so sure anymore. He did not know if there really were cuts there that needed his healing. Maybe, once he peeled back the veil, he would only find the same thing. Perhaps, there was no beauty within her and the only truly pretty thing about Lady Return was her physical appearance. There was a chance he had been wrong all along. He might have made a mistake in his interpretations and, in truth, she was not a rose he could de-thorn and help to grow. Maybe she was like a venus fly trap that was luring him in with her looks and her charms and would, in the end, entrap him and be his doom. It was an odd thought. How could someone so hopelessly attractive to him be his doom and, to make matters worse, visit his fate upon him in her tender embrace?

 "I'm afraid I have to leave. Business. I'm sure you can empathize." He said, smiling nervously. There was something unnerving about her tonight as well. He couldn't quite place it, exactly. But she was different in a very subtle way.

 "Already? Well, that was short." She answered.

 "Yes, I'm disappointed too." He shrugged.

 A small cluster nearby the two erupted in laughter about some topic they had been chatting about spiritedly. He recognized them as these primitive new "Sanguinarians", as he called them. They were disenchanted Redpills who who had become, through one means or another, completely insane. And to say they were "completely insane" was an understatement. They ran about The Matrix, believing it to be a simple playground, devoid of consequences or reprecussions, and, to make matters even worse, thought themselves to be vampires of all things. They disgusted him with their utter rejection of anything close to morality or ethics. What a boring and unfulfilling life! Was that why they took the red pill? To gain an ever so slight sensation of being powerful? To live out fantasies of being mythical creatures? It would be one thing if someone was crazy and believed themself to be a benevolent mythical creature- like an elf or an angel. But to imagine oneself to be an impossibly evil and malign entity like a vampire- a parasitic and pathetic excuse for a creature which derived pleasure from taking the lives of innocent Humans- that was intolerable. He had decided, as a sign of how Triluminary stayed true to its ideals, to tolerate their existence. So long as they did nothing to the innocent, he was fine. But the moment he heard of some sick scum murdering and mutilating a poor Bluepill- that would be when he drew the line. That would be when he'd start ripping out teeth from these Sanguinarians and handing them over to that annoying Succubus.

  And yes, he despised her too. She was ugly, at least to him, yet she thought herself to be some sort of divine muse that could tempt men, or women, with a touch. Whatever. The next time he saw her trying to seduce Kshana, or anyone else for that matter, he'd "reach out and touch her" with a burst of 5.56mm NATO rounds from his Steyr AUG. Then everyone would awaken to the truth of her shallow and weak existence. A corpse trying to find life through inflicting suffering on others and obtaining some fleeting sensation of pleasure. That's what they all had become- the Sanguinarians, PltChaos, and even Lady Return. They no longer understood the reason for their existence and so, lazy, they grasped onto the most obvious thing they could find- what made them feel good. The Sanguinarians, plagued by dementia and psychosis, felt happy seeing blood. It reminded them of their own invulnerability in The Matrix. And so, enjoying that feeling of power, they sought to be reminded of it at every opportunity- fancifying the routine so it never got old or boring with silly rituals. PltChaos felt the same power by exercising what meager powers the Exile within her granted her. Perhaps it was why she disliked him, from his point-of-view- she was frustrated by the fact that she had no power over him. The same was true of Return too, now, he understood. She was belligerent and vain to others because it granted her a sensation of being elevated over others. By feeling powerful and refined, she gained a tingle of pleasure and happiness from it. But the little tickle lost its rush not long after and so she had to maintain her sense of power routinely. She had to keep adding fuel to her fire by continuing to spurt insults and depreciating others. She had to stay at the center of everyone's attention or she would begin to feel the depression that was always waiting, sinister and persistent, at the back of her mind slip in and take hold of her. Maybe she hated him because she knew he understood. And it would be too difficult and painful in the short-term to feel true happiness and contentment in the long-term.

 "It's interesting how so many want to become Exiles nowadays. It's an ironic fad, wouldn't you say?" He remarked.

 She shrugged simply, grimacing at the noise that the Sanguinarians were producing.

 "It's even more ironic when you consider that those people want to become Exiles while I... I would only like to be a little more Human." He continued, sighing. She'd miss the point. He knew she wouldn't offer it any thought. It would be too much effort. And he was becoming tired with it- with her. How could you help someone who wanted to carelessly and casually waste their life? How was it possible that someone could not want to be helped? He'd helped so many find their Purpose during his brief time Awakened. He'd asked so many people for help with his dilemma over Return. So how could it be that someone who had even more problems than him or any of the people Austrian had ever helped in his life-time, not want to be helped? It didn't make sense but then, he supposed, Return never really did make sense. She was random. Capricious but stubborn. She'd never have any logically valid reasons for doing anything but when she did something, she was adamant that she had been in the right and everyone else in the wrong. Maybe it was why he loved her. And maybe it was why he was becoming fed up with loving her and wanting to move on.

 "Well, good luck with that." She answered, bored.

 He reached out to hug her. Maybe that was all he needed- to embrace the woman and feel the warmth in her breasts against his chest. Perhaps all he needed to feel the rush of passion and purpose in his heart was to feel the soft caress of her breath on his neck. But she placed her gloved hands on the insides of his arms, gently holding him back.

 "Kiss my ring, honey. It's about all that you're good for." She replied, coldly. She offered him her hand.

 Reluctantly, he accepted it, feeling the touch of the leather in his palm. He kissed it but it was the same sort of kiss as she had given him a month ago in the same Club. It was a chilled and unfeeling kiss. A kiss with no emotion behind it. There was no love nor lust in his lips as he pressed them to the dark leather and tasted the bland material.

 He looked back up, trying to see into her eyes, but all he could see was the shiny purple surface of her sunglasses leering back at him. He allowed his shoulders to slump slightly and thought about kissing her hand again, hoping for the life to return to the moment. But he decided against it. It was a dead Club, full of patrons who wished to be undead, and his Lady was dead too. The memory of what could have taken place between the two of them was just that- a memory. A ghost of something that would, undoubtedly, haunt him. But the struggle was to stay alive, even amidst all these dead people. It was, in a way, the same challenge The One, Neo, had faced. He had remained alive in the middle of a crowd of dead people- zombies that remained undead through their primal desires and primitive fetishes. There had been Commander Lock with his desire for power and pleasure, much like Return. There had been Morpheus with his blind faith and incessant desire to feel needed, just like Kshana. They were all the same. Walking dead.

 Without a word, he let go of Return's hand. He offered her fingers a little squeeze to show, somewhere buried within, he still cared about her and that he'd be willing to help her find her way if she ever woke up. And then he turned and left Club Noir. The whole experience had felt like some sort of dreary and unpleasant dream. Not quite a nightmare. But still a very disturbing dream.

 He was reminded of a conversation that he had had with Ravyr not so long ago. She had explained to him what she thought was the status of the relationship between himself and Lady Return. She had used a painting as a metaphor. Austrian was painting a portrait, she had posed, and this portrait was his life, as well as portions of the lives of everyone he knew. But this portriat was not just his to paint. Return was there to help him to paint it, whether he liked it or not. She would not be able to decide what the overall project would look like or where he placed his brush strokes. But Return would be able to influence the mood of the painting. She would place her hand over his and alter the intensity of the colours he chose and affect the pressure he applied to the brush in areas. She could make a spot he wanted to be more defined, less so. Return could pull his hand away from the surface of the canvas so that a line he wanted to be very obvious would become vague. He had control of what he wanted the end result to be, but Return would have an influence on how his dream was realized.

 But, he thought, perhaps he no longer wanted Lady Return to help him with his painting. Maybe he wanted to be rid of the influence on the pressure of his brush strokes. But who would replace the gap left by Lady Return?

 He glanced down at his hands as he walked over to the nearest hardline. He didn't want to be dragged down into a shallow grave with Lady Return and the others. But he didn't want to lose the sensation of not being alone. He liked the feeling of her hand on his, guiding his brush strokes, for better or for worse. If he wanted to be free of his prison, if he wanted to escape the emotional venus fly trap that was the hostess of that "Party of Black Pleasure", he would have to find someone else to love- a kindred spirit. A woman with morals. A woman who thought like he did and who understood the distinction between the two lives. Someone who would listen to him, unlike Lady Return. Someone he, himself, could listen to for hours. Someone he could be Human with, while so many others vainly tried, like Icarus, to become supermen but were doomed to be forgotten fools.

 He thought this over in his mind and tried to remember every woman he had ever met. He tried to determine who matched this description among the Redpill population. But no one came to mind. He was, more or less, alone. And as a chilled breeze howled past the warehouse he stood beside, that thought seemed more painful than the thought of becoming like Return- bitter and conceited.

 But as he was reading over a few file folders of information that had been sent to him in Yuusuke Akayama's "Paper Tiger Restaurant", a waiter approcahed him. "Yes?" He asked. He'd already been served his meal, a bowl of bubbling kimchi soup and a side dish of spiced chow mein- an eclectic mic of traditional Korean food with Westernized Chinese. It was a meal reflective of the International District- a blend of various Asian cultures with the odd Western influence creeping in.

 "I was asked by a lady to give you this fortune cookie. She was very specific." The waiter explained, bowing his head in respect, a Japanese custom, while offering him the fortune cookie- a Chinese custom. Oh how the vagaries of Mega City's Chinatown amused him. He understood why Captain Nigh7Shad3, Admiral GwailouSaang and Master Petty Officer Tsudo found the place so amusing. They had all originated in Asian countries during their Bluepill lives. They had experienced simulated versions of the real Japan, China, Korea and Malaysia. So for them to see The Machines then create a near parody of these places in Mega City was a curiousity. Why would they create such an inaccurate depiction of other countries in Mega City? The architecture of the buildings and the languages spoken by the residents of the district were all accurate. But the customs and foods were all confused and mixed together. It was bizarre. And even more bizarre was a random woman asking for a waiter to give a specific fortune cookie to a specific patron of Akayama's restaurant.

 "Thank you. Is she still here?" Austrian asked, rising slightly from his chair.

 "No no. She left as soon as I accepted her request. I am sorry, sir." The waiter replied, motioning for Austrian to stay seated.

 "Fine." Could it have been Return? But why would she track him down and ask for a fortune cookie to be presented to him? Had she written something on the message? Some sort of hate message telling him to never show up to one of her parties again? He wouldn't know unless... "What did the woman look like?"

 "I... I am not sure. She snuck up on me in the dark. But I could tell that she was wearing white. A white jacket that kind of billowed around her. Kind of angel like. Perhaps an omen, sir?" The waiter explained. Superstitious Bluepills. They were annoying. They grasped at straws to come up with the most ludicrous explainations of what they saw while jacked into The Matrix. When some Zionite extremists kidnapped a Bluepill and tried to forcibly remove them from The Matrix, they came up with stories about being abducted by aliens who were trying to operate on them. When they encountered an Exile, like Cerulean, who had a weak RSI, they assumed that they had seen a ghost. It was annoying. It was one thing to be lied to by The Machines and then blame them for Humanity's troubles after being Awakened, but it was another to go about life lying to oneself and then still blaming The Machines for one's own incompetence.

 "No, not an omen." Austrian replied. And no, it hadn't been Lady Return. The only time she had worn white was when she had been infiltrating the ranks of Pluribus Neo. No, she wouldn't go anywhere without her purple dress. And she probably would never be so subtle as to sneak into the restaurant of a powerful Exile in Chinatown so that she could pass on a special fortune cookie to Austrian. No, if she had something to say to him, she would corner him somewhere and say it. So... who was the woman in white? "Thank you for your service." Austrian said, nodding to the waiter and tossing him a sizable coin. He'd forgotten the names of the currencies they used in this area of Mega City. The coin looked fairly valuable and the expression on the waiter's voice told him he'd made the right choice in what to tip him with.

 He cracked the fortune cookie in half, cautiously. Who knew what could be done to the code of a fortune cookie? The Merovingian could do wonders to a slice of cake. He could alter the code of it so that it made a woman swoon, that much was rumoured throughout the Redpill population and known full well by those with connections to The Frenchman. Further rumours spoke of how a skilled coder could alter the compsosition of something as simple as a slice of cake in other ways. For example, the occasional postal worker could go insane and cause chaos with the $information channels of The Machines. How did this happen? Well, The Merovingian mailed a simple letter but for one subtle difference- the code had been altered so that it became a virus of sorts. Handling this virus unleashed it as it moved about The System, attached to the carrier code of an innocent Bluepill postman. At the right moment, the Bluepill would lose control and grab a shotgun, just like the occasional woman visiting La Vrai would lose control and, unwittingly, help The Merovingian in his unfaithfulness to Persephone. It was morally disgusting but it happened. The few Bluepills who died in the resulting hostage takings and shooting sprees at post offices and banks across Mega City would put a dampener on Machine activity against Exiles for a time and would allow The Merovingian plenty of opportunities to divert some of $information flow from 01 to himself. That $information only helped preserve the lives of countless Exiles whose existences were ultimately more valuable than the lives of a postman or bank teller. Of course, it was evil. It was utilitarian ethics and he hated it. But such were the times. Someday, he hoped, an end could be made of all the rubbish that went on that he could not prevent.

 Satisfied with the safety of the cookie's code, he unravelled the small piece of paper contained within and read the message. It said, "Those who feel see life as a tragedy. Those who think see life as a comedy." A strange message. Very strange indeed. How could life be seen as a comedy? He thought. Perhaps a little too much. But he never saw life as a comedy. Chinatown was a comedy, in his opinion, with its ambiguities and parodies of ancient Human cultures that far surpassed anything The Machines had ever made in elegance. The Matrix was beautiful, yes. But it was just a copy of things Humans had made, with The Machines own embellishments and interpretations thrown in. As far as he was concerned, The Machines were incapable of creating an original idea of their own. They couldn't conceive of something as magnificent or unique as the Forbidden City or the teachings of Buddha or the techniques of Hun Gar Kuan Kung Fu. They could just learn and mimic and then wait for the next idea a Human thought up for them to steal- to snatch from the minds that their mechanical tendrils wrapped around as their bodies floated inert in the pods.

 He ate the cookie, biting down hard on it to release some of his stress. Some fortune that had been! But then he felt himself relax. That had been his intention when he had unleashed his temper on the cookie- to relax. But he was relaxing far more than he could have by simply having a temper tantrum. He almost felt like dozing off as he swallowed the cookie and tasted the delicate texture of the dessert. It felt soothing. He felt like he was sitting in front of a dull fire in Graz, sipping a fine glass of Riesling and reading Kant. It was as if he was back in Austria, happy and content- everything as it should be. His muscles, normally held tight and flexed with the tense anxiety that came from leading a dangerous life where an Agent or a Zionite could strike at any time, lost their strength. He found himself slouching forward as a comforting peace filled his body with the sensation of having just visited Chinatown's best masseuse. That was definitely not an ordinary fortune cookie. Someone had altered the code somehow. The woman in white...

 He was almost ready to fall asleep, his face coming close to the steam that was still rising from the boiling bowl of kimchi soup in front of him. But then he was suddenly brought back from the almost zen-like state of contentment he had felt by the waiter who was now rushing back toward him. "Sir! Sir!"

 "Hm?" He managed, sitting up in his chair.

 "I must apologize." The waiter said, bowing and offering him a sheet of paper with both hands. "I found this slipped into my pocket as I was heading back to the kitchen. T-the woman must have placed it there somehow."

 Austrian accepted the letter from the waiter and, waving his hand dismissively, said, "It's no problem. Just... don't expect a second tip for the letter." He chuckled.

 Confused by Austrian's sudden mood change from being impatient and tense to almost drunken and cheerful, the waiter cast him a worried glance before heading back to the kitchen. Satisfied that no one was watching him, Austrian glanced down at the note. It was very brief but it answered most of his questions.

 "I know you haven't been feeling well lately and I hope the fortune cookie made you feel better. If you ever need to talk, just give me a call. -Alice"

 A cool breeze was coming in from the water just before Kobayashi Boardwalk in Ikebukuro. It was a little relaxing in a way. The soothing sound of the water lapping against the piers as simulated fresh air blew across his face and tugged at the corners and the trimmings of his coat. It was an interesting philosophical question that reminded him of the Buddhist metaphysical dilemmas that had amused him as a child. If the fresh air was simulated, was it really fresh? How many times had the code that made up the air that gusted at him circulated through The System? Had this air that he now "breathed" existed for more than one iteration of The Matrix? Had Neo's RSI took in and absorbed the code of the air his RSI now inhaled and exhaled during that fateful battle that had changed everything? It was an interesting thought. Maybe those Neonates were right. Maybe Neo was part of The Matrix now- living within every one of them.

 That brought up a whole new list of considerations. If Neo lived on in The Matrix as part of its code, was it possible that those others who had died in The Matrix were also a part of it too? Was Morpheus, in some shape or form, living on within the code of the plank that he stepped on as he proceeded down the boardwalk to his destination? Could it be that Invalesco existed within the shattered glass of a window pane on a vandalized Ikebukuro warehouse he had passed on his way here? If that was true, was it possible that The Matrix not only represented Kant's noumenal realm, where moral judgements were made that led to attendant effects in The Real and the phenomenal realm, but was also a sort of Heaven? Was the place where souls came to when the body died? It was an odd thought. It was like the ultimate perversion of the euphemism: "A person makes his Heaven or Hell here on Earth." The Matrix as a Machine-made Heaven. Very odd, indeed.

 He reached the pier and found a crowd standing about two figures. The crowd all wore bandanas, the masks concealing their faces. He knew all their names, of course. He'd learned to identify them by things other than their facial features. There was a calm and detached demeanour to RogueA's body language which identified him immediately. There was the agitated stance of Claurice, some woman he had heard... stories about. Disturbing stories.

 But the main figure they had all congregated around was who had drawn his attention. She was quite a sight, indeed. She wore all silver. Her shirt was silver with black. Her jacket was silver. Even the lenses of her sunglasses and the hair that fell down her shoulders were silver. But it wasn't the bright and beautiful glean of silver that one saw in a ring or in a prized heirloom plate. It was a darker silver. The kind of silver that blended in perfectly with the silver of the full moon overhead and the dark folds of water beyond Veil and Kobayashi Boardwalk, reflecting the light from the moon. It was an eerie scene. And there was something unnatural about the woman. She didn't feel... right. It was almost like the feeling he experienced when he was around a blood-drinker Exile. Both Malphas and Veil seemed to share one thing in common then: they both felt like they simply didn't belong in The Matrix, as if the very code around them were trying to reject their presence like a human body trying to repulse a transplanted incompatible organ.

 "Hello, dearie. Looking for us?" Veil asked, noticing him from behind the wall of Somnus Fraternitas operatives. He noticed, almost sub-consciously at first, that the Cypherite Controller was reaching for a pocket in her shirt. It was probably for a knife. He had heard tales of how Veil was quite adept with knives and could throw them with deadly accuracy at opponent's many metres away. He was a little confused by this. Why would she react so aggressively to his presence? Didn't she know that Austrian was by no means her enemy?

 "I guess you never got the memo." Austrian answered, chuckling and backing away slightly. He wasn't exactly good at dodging knives but he could try. The only problem was, if he returned fire with his Steyr AUG, he wouldn't just have Veil to be worried about. He'd have to contend with a small mob of angry Cypherites too.

 "Don't worry. I invited him here. He's one of us." Viraconrida interrupted, grasping Veil's hand by the wrist and holding it within the pocket.

 "Oh. I'm sorry, dearie. Undercover, are you?" Veil chimed. Her tone turned to a pleasant one but her expression never changed from its cold and frozen mask. She was just as difficult to read as one of the Cypherites with their bandanas. She was just as difficult to read as, say, Return.

 While he wasn't an undercover agent for the Cypherites, he decided to play along. Whatever he could do to keep the Cypherite leader pacified. He shrugged as if to agree with her observation and the meeting seemed to return to its usual order of business. Veil explained to them about the threats the Cypherites faced and what their newest missions would be to ensure their re-insertion. The group asked questions of their leader about a supposed splinter group of the Cypherites, The General, and E Pluribus Neo. Even Austrian posed a few questions himself, out of curiousity.

 As the meeting drew to a close and those present began to go their separate ways, Austrian approached Veil. There was something... insinctive about the act. He couldn't help but find himself wanting to speak with her personally. She turned to face him, as if sensing him as she watched the code rising and falling off in the distance, in the artificial sea that lay beyond Ikebukuro and the International District. "Hello, dearie. I'm pleased you came this evening."

 "The pleasure was all mine." He felt code. Chilled, even. And the cold temperature of his blood seemed to become even more chilled as he drew nearer and nearer to the silver woman. He dropped to one knee as Veil offered him her hand. He took it in his own, felt the cold touch of her fingers in his hands, and marvelled at how someone could be more rigid and unfeeling in their movements and their "feel" than Return. It didn't seem possible. But it was. Compared to Veil, Return felt as warm and soft as... well, as warm and soft as someone who was capable of love and who loved him nearly as much as he loved his Lady.

 He kissed the hand of Veil gently and politely. He tried to make sure his lips only touched the hand briefly, to ensure that he didn't become frozen to the strange silver of her sub-zero skin. But as he pulled his lips away from her hand, something very odd happened. His face seemed to elongate as he drew further away from Veil. At first, he thought he was simply tired. But it quickly dawned on him that he was not imagining it. As his face drew back, he saw that his lips were still on Veil's hand. The skin which had stretched the distance between himself and the woman was now a silver. But it was an even darker silver than the skin of Veil's hand and face. It was like the dark silver he remembered when he had first been Awakened. When The Matrix had rejected him just as his mind rejected The Matrix, his RSI had changed from its fleshy tones, clothed in the white of his dobok, the Korean equivalent of a gi, to a montone of blackest silver that reflected the light of his dojo and the green tile of its floor. This was the same thing. And he realized now that he felt the same cold sensation filling his body as it had when he was Awakened.

 It was also the same cold sensation he had felt once or twice during his days as an Operative in The Matrix. It felt like dying.

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 He awoke onboard The Hapsburg with a start. He was in his bed. At the foot of his bed was a replica of The Katana which one of his Engineers had made for him as a token of gratitude for Awakening him. On the wall beside his bed, a slightly torn and burnt flag of the United Nations hung. He'd found it once in the tunnels during a salvage operation. He still had no idea how the thing had got down there or how it had survived so many centuries. Across from him was a data terminal which he could use to access any information he needed, contact any member of his crew, or, if the situation was desperate enough, summon the ship's AI. He tried to interact with Sophia, The Hapsburg's soul for lack of a better term, as little as possible. She was developing an annoying affectation for taking on a holographic avatar that was disturbingly similar to Return's appearance. At least Sophia hadn't acquired Return's stubborn personality and short temper. Otherwise, he'd be forced to clear the AI's memory. Sometimes, he wished he could clear Return's memory. That way, he could start things anew with her. He could replace all of his mistakes and try again. When he compared how she treated him not long after her debacle with that doll to how she treated him now... he despaired at the opportunity he had lost. If only he hadn't tried to help her. If only he hadn't tried to change her.

 But that brought him back to the last thing he remembered. He had been meeting Veil, finding out how he might, should matters become truly dire, re-insert himself and, perhaps, Return. That would be the ultimate opportunity! What if there was no more Merovingian, no more vampires, no more wars? What if there was just a man and a woman who happened across one another one beautiful day in Vienna? She'd be sitting with that perfect poise and posture of hers, sipping a cup of delicious Viennese coffee and he'd spot her in the crowd of the bistro. He'd walk up, mention that she looked familiar and introduce himself. In an odd turn of fate, she'd remark that she recognized him too but couldn't place where they had met before. She'd invite him to sit with her, just like she had done when they'd met at a party in Club Sphinx for the first time after she was freed from the doll's influence. They'd chat and... well, the rest would be the best life a person could ever live. So what if she was older than him? Love didn't know any boundaries, right?

 But the dream of this perfect paradise was interrupted as the memory of Veil's kiss returned to him. He'd been kissing her hand when he had felt like he was dying. At first, he theorized that he was being re-inserted somehow. It was possible but not probable. And the fact that he was now onboard The Hapsburg made this theory even more unlikely to be true. No, he hadn't been re-inserted by Veil. But how had he jacked-out? He couldn't remember any of what happened after he felt like he was dying.

 He got up from his bed and shambled over to the mirror. As he gazed at his reflection, part of his memory returned to him. He was slowly turning silver. His whole body was turning silver. He released his grasp of Veil's hand and began clawing at himself, trying in vain to somehow stop the slow trickle of silver down his body. But his hands just slid down the smooth surface like a sheet of paper sliding across another sheet.

 He collapsed onto the planks of wood on the boardwalk. He felt no pain from the fall. All he felt was his body turning more and more cold. It was as if he were naked in the middle of a blizzard, his blood slowly freezing to a temperature that no Human could bare. "Just relax, dearie. You've done good work for us. I'm just... giving you a little help, that's all. You'll thank me later." The silver woman spoke to him. He could barely see her as his gaze fogged up.

 He passed out at the mirror, and on the boardwalk, his vision almost completely black. He could see nothing save two silver orbs, the lenses of Veil's sunglasses, staring cold and unfeeling into his eyes.

 The last thing he thought before losing consciousness again was how he had never noticed the correlation between Veil and the ancient religion of Christianity before. In the Human mythology, there was a holy man named Christ. This holy man, near the end of his days, was betrayed by one of his own Apostles. This traitor betryaed Christ for a few coins of silver. Silver coins, silver eyes.

 He sincerely hoped that he wasn't going to be crucified. 

 But now he had been called to meet someone just as important as Veil, if not more so. Seraph had called the Hovercraft. Somehow he knew how to reach The Hapsburg via a payphone in Tabor Park. It was a little... troubling that an Exile as enigmatic as Seraph knew how to reach him. Austrian had never met Seraph once in his life. Well, that was a lie. He'd met Seraph once in a parking lot in Dannah Heights. A small mob of Cypherites had attacked a group of Devil's Advocates there and the ensuing firefight had attracted Triluminary, a dozen other Redpills from various factions and groups, and Seraph himself. The Exile had revealed that Cryptos was indeed a leader of this new group of Masked terrorists and that The Oracle had become useless in this incident- she could not predict where the Cypherites would strike next. Some kind of seer.

 His crew had found the location where the Cypherites were to strike next and defended a parkade in Union Hill against a numerically superior force of the Redpills. It had been something to celebrate. No one knew exactly what The Cypherites intended to do when they were in those parking lots and parkades, but no one was about to let them hang around there undisturbed. If The Oracle and Seraph had been afraid of the, he had assumed along with everyone else, then they were obviously dangerous. The jury, though, was out on that point. He'd learned that they were just like him, Redpills who realized that The Truth wasn't all it was cracked up to be. But his experience with Veil that night convinced him that perhaps The Cypherites weren't all they were cracked up to be either. Maybe Seraph and The Oracle were right. Maybe there was something more sinister to them than anyone could know. He tried to take his mind off of such considerations. He didn't want to go back to pondering what exactly it was that Veil had done to him.

 He cautiously looked about the hardline he had stepped off of. This was the meeting place. He spotted Seraph standing a few metres away, in the shade of a tree nearby. Austrian brought his hands up in the traditional Chinese salute of respect, his left hand forming a cup that held his right hand which was clutched gently in a fist. "Seraph. It is an honour to meet you."

 The Exile returned the gesture. "The honour... is all mine. I have heard that you are different than many- that you work to perfect yourself."

 "I try to improve myself, yes. It is how I became Awakened. I was tricked into thinking that the red pill would improve my fighting technique and would make me part of some group that fought to stop genocide." Austrian replied. Yes, he'd received more from The Merovingian than he bargained for.

 "Good. Then you must know that you can only improve yourself and improve others by testing yourself. Only when you reach your boundaries can you expand them... until there are no longer any boundaries." This was also true. But Austrian couldn't help but smirk to himself. This Exile sounded like a bad Kung Fu movie.

 "You have brought me here for a test then, nicht wahr?" Austrian asked. He felt a little uneasy. He'd heard stories of how Seraph liked to challenge Redpills to fights frequently. Was this test to fight Seraph in personal combat? He didn't like the prospect of that. He was still becoming adjusted to the new styles he had hard-wired to his brain. She Kuan Kung Fu was similar to Ba Gua Zhang but they were by no means the same. He would need a great deal of time spent in the Training Constructs onboard The Hapsburg before he would be ready to duel someone even close to Seraph's combat prowess. He had to learn to fight in a straight horizontal fashion, rather than in the circular arches of Ba Gua. He was, for the time being, like a Crane impersonating a Snake. And if this Crane-turned-Snake tried to fight a Seraph, it would inevitably lose badly.

 "Yes. One thing you must learn is focus. Focus is important if you wish to achieve your goals. There is a man being held at this address." Seraph handed him a thin piece of paper, a few letters and numbers scrawled across it's surface in black calligraphy. "You must free him. He is not aware of our world but there are those who would force it upon him. Let him make his own Choice. You do not have long. You must go." Seraph bowed deeply to him.

 Austrian returned the gesture, puzzled at this job he had been given. And then he left, intrigued by this little test.