Through the Looking Glass

The blades of the ceiling fan rotated lazily, doing little to lift the heat filling the room.  It was small, the room, with only a single light bulb hanging from the chipped ceiling, giving cheap, yellow light to the filing cabinets  along the bare walls and to the crowd of men in the center of the room.  They had him tied to the chair.  Two of the men stood behind the chair, casting their big shadows across him, while three others towered in front.  Blood ran out of the corner of his mouth and his left eye had been turned a meaty purple from its previous date with a fist.  First one's always the hardest.

"Know I don't know who you are," the boss said, crouching down in front of him, "but you ain't welcome here, stranger, this is our territory.  Now, you mind telling me who you are?  You keep staying quiet and I'll let Tommy take over, and he's not much of a talker himself."

The boss's face was hidden behind a mask of shadows with only the glowing butt of a cigarette casting the faintest orange light on his mouth.  Strands of smoke drifted up towards the ceiling, gathering like a wreath around the light.  He, the man in the chair, spat blood on the floor.

"I'm a detective, my business is confidential." he spat.

A fist smashed into his jaw.

"I know that, Einstein!" the boss snapped, "And quite a detective you are: a magnifying glass, handgun, and a notebook full of gibberish.  Oh yes, and that pocket watch.  I suppose at least that will fetch some cash."

"I'm a special detective." the man in the chair said with a chuckle.

Another fist became acquainted with the skeletal structure of his face.

"Quit the garbage   Who are you and why ere you snooping though my property?  I won't ask again." the boss leaned forward, his voice like a razor in the man's ears.

"Alright, fine." the man in the chair spat out more blood, "They call me the Finder.  I'm a detective of a very special caliber; so special in fact, I'm the only one.  There's a certain item in your possession that is of interest to me.  That satisfy you?"

"The mirror?" the boss growled, "What do you want the mirror for?"

"It once belonged to one Abigail H. White.  She was murdered some time ago; the mirror is important in the case.  It's police property now, you have to hand it over."

The cigarette glowed orange, smoke streaming past the boss's face as he sat, peering silently at the Finder.

"That's a load of bull, and you know it." the boss spat in the Finder's face, "I told you I wouldn't ask again."

"And I think I've had enough of this." the Finder said with a smirk.

"What?" the boss exclaimed, rising to his feet in surprise.

The Finder shucked off the handcuffs keeping entrapped in the cair like one shakes water off one's hands.  He kicked the boss in between the legs and sent him sailing across the room, knocking the two goon behind him to the floor.  The Finder picked up the chair, swinging it around his head like a hammer, and smashed it into the two men behind him.

"I picked the cuffs while one of your boys was giving me a makeover.  I'll just be taking the mirror know." the Finder said, tossing the cuffs on top of the boss's heaving chest, wiping blood from his cheek with his other hand.

"Who– what are you?" the boss gasped.

"A traveler from another dimension."

The boss's face was made uglier by the expression of confusion.

"What?" he gaped.

The Finder slammed a leg of the chair into the boss's thick skull, knocking consciousness from it.  The Finder strode over to the desk, picking up his sparse effects: his coat, hat, magnifying glass, and book.  He pulled the coat on, wrapping himself in its worn familiarity; he tucked the book, watch, and magnifying glass away in their particular pockets, then stepped back over to the boss.  The mirror was tucked safely inside the boss's coat.  The Finder relieved the sleeping man from the possession; the mirror was too effeminante for him anyway.  The Funder slipped out of the building into the fog-bound streets; he watched his back carefully as he slid past one building after another, the life on the streets having taught him to keep an eye behind him.  The Finder checked his pocket watch, the silver gleaming in the dark fog like a pearl in the ocean, popping open the scratched lid.

It was nearly six o'clock.

The Finder hurried down the street, past the shadowy forms of people, towards the train station like a hulking behemoth in the distance.  The Finder stopped at a telephone booth; he stepped inside, checked the fog outside, then rang the special number.  The Watcher's voice came crackling into his ear.

"Finder?  That you?"

"Yeah, I got the Anomaly.  What time was the train?"

"Six fifteen."

"Damn!  I'll be late, I–"

A spotlight pierced through the shroud of black fog, landing on the telephone booth.  An alarm filled the thick air.

"Gotta go!" the Finder shouted, slamming the phone back home.

He ran from the booth, the spotlight searching for him through the fog all while the alarm filled the drab street suddenly devoid of people.  He found the steps leading into the station just as he heard the loud sounds of pursuit coming, rushing, down the street towards him like a river.  He flew inside, pushing past crowds of stunned individuals: the train was starting to leave the station.  The Finder ran down the platform, his pursuers coming down the stairs to the platform.  The Finder grabbed onto the caboose, pulling himself on with a grunt: he was on the train.  He slipped inside the caboose as it left the station behind it in the fog, the mirror in his hands.

"That was too close." he said.    
    

The Pariah

There is nothing in the endless void of blackness and stars; only the silent dance of suns and planets with only the intermissions of comets and asteroids.  Even after Man built the first spaceship the greatness that is space was affected little.  The ugly behemoths of carbosteel and pig tin scuttle from star to star, delivering goods, picking up deliveries, or deploying troops.  The stars and twisting planets take very little notice of this interstellar network, though, the achievements of Man have changed very little about the universe.  Or at least that's how it was before the war...

***  

Galen's eyes snapped open, the strange dreams of deep space retreating into the dark corners of his mind and the usual chill creeping from his limbs.  He sat up, rubbing his head, blinking artificial sleep from his eyes.  The blue light in his chamber was blinking accompanied by the honking alarm.  He grumbled, placing a scarred hand on the white plastic wall of his small, tubular chamber as he pulled on underpants in no particular hurry.  There was a small screen and keyboard next to the door of his chamber, he strode over and punched a button; the screen popped into life.  First there was static, then an image of Ophelia waved into life.

"Galen!" barked the speaker with a crackle, "Get the fek to your station!  We're four klicks out.  Over."

With a pop, the screen was black once more.  The alarm silenced and the light returned to a steady yellow glare.  With a sigh, Galen brushed ice crystals from his hair and pushed the button to the door.  It slid open with a shrill hiss and he stepped out into the hall.  The corridor was long but narrow, like almost everything on the ship, with a row of pneumatic white doors lining one side and lockers on the other.  It was the resting quarters for the crew of the Pariah.  There were only about ten or twelve hands on the ship, though.  The doors of the other engineers slid open as well; Clarke stumbled into the corridor farther down and Tet soon followed.  Kelly came out of her chamber one door down; when she saw Galen she gave him that shy smile she usually gave him and crossed over to her locker.  Galen walked across the cold metal grates of the floor to his own locker.  The melted ice droplets clung to his skin refusing to drip down onto the floor.  Gravity must be light Galen thought as he pulled on his under-suit composed of a thin rubbery unitard, then he covered himself in his uniform and boots.  He turned around to look at the the progress of his fellow engineers as he buckled on his utility belt.  Tet was ready and attentive, Kelly was finishing tying her hair up, and Clarke was still yanking on his uniform.  Galen started giving out his orders anyway.

"Engineers, we are four klicks fron rendezvous point.  Tet, Kelly, you come with me, we'll replace Damon and Marc in the Engines.  Clarke, once you're ready, head to the bridge.  Understood?"

"Yes sir!" they all said.

Galen led Tet and Kelly down the dim hallways down into the guts of the Pariah to the Engine Room.  Clarke headed for the bridge on the other end of the ship.  When Galen and his crew reached the Engines, an exhausted Marc greeted him.

'Chief, finally!  About trajing time!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet.

"Shift's over, Marc, go get some sleep." Galen said to him.

Damon, tossing his goggle to the side, came out of the Engine Room hatch.

"Shift done?  I've been awake too long, it's time for a nap." he said as he and Marc headed away towards the resting quarters.     

"Alright, people, let's get to work." Galen ordered as he pulled googles over his head and stepped into the Engine Room, "I want this girl to hold together when we dock.  Kelly, can you get that screen to show the Guider feed?"

"Sure thing, Chief." she said.

Kelly stepped up on a pipe, wrenching open a pannel on the wall and began splicing wires as Galen and Tet oversaw the smoking behemoth that was the engine.

"Got it!" Kelly called as she put that pannel back in place and jumped down from the pipe.

The screen hanging from the low ceiling beam blinked into life with the blue information screen of the Guider.  In the center was the grid showing the empty space surrounding the Pariah; in the bottom were the stream of jargon useful only to the Guider and the pilots; in the upper right corner was the number of klicks from their targeted destination.

"Three klicks, sir, should we give her a push?" Tet said.

"Sure, let's speed this up.  I'd say push it up to 2500." Galen said, eyes still on the screen.

Tet punched a code and some data into a keyboard, then cranked on a gear to charge up the engine more.  Steam hissed through some pipes overhead.

"Good, two and a half klicks now.  Almost time for the hailing call.  Kelly, audio work on this?" Galen called over to Kelly.  Kelly was a skilled electrician and computer engineer as well as a starship mechanic, one of the few onboard able to understand the streams of command-line programming of the shipboard computers.

"Should be working, Chef." she said to him.

Two klicks now; the speakers crackled as Halon's voice– the ensign– blared through them.

"Starcarrier Celestine, this is the C.S.G.E. Pariah, clearance o-seven-seven-niner, requesting to dock, please respond.  Over."

They waited for a response to come crackling back; nothing.

"I can see them, why aren't they responding?" Tet said, looking at the large dot on the screen.

Halon repeated his message, but still now response came.

"We're just a click away." Galen said, "The Guider should be able to see her by now.  Kelly, reboot the feed!"

Kelly dashed away and fiddled with more wires.  The screen wavered, flickered, then changed to a live view of the void in front of the Pariah.  The three engineers stood beneath the screen; eyes wide and staring.  Kelly gave out a gasp.  The might that was the Starcarrier Celestine, one of the largest and most powerful class of ships in the galaxy, was strewn out across the space before them in shredded pieces.  The bodies of the hundreds of inhabitants floated among the wreckage.

"What the fek could do this to a Starcarrier?  Who would do it?" shouted Galen.

A light burst into life and a klaxon blared through the corridors: the captain wanted them all on the bridge.

     ***

Spacers were created by the Colonial government to be able to survive the harsh conditions and long years of space travel.  They were altered to be able to withstand cryostasis and to only need the barest amount of nutrients to live.  Spacers, it is rumored among the Colonies, don't age, but this has yet to be proved.  Spacers are treated with suspicion and mistrust by the Colonials the rare times Spacers have interactions with Colonials.  The Governance uses Spacers as pilots of freighter ships, mining vessels, and naval battlecruisers.  The only ships not operated by the mysterious Spacers are the Starcarriers; the pride of the Colonies and the key to Man's future.           

Vampires sue Twilight author

Due to the recent series of novels and their success among modern youth, the sanguine Crown of Noctheim demands Twilight author Stephenie Meyer reimburse them for misportraying an existing and ancient species with a long and noble history.  They stated that they took great offense at the main plot point of the book series and film adaptations: the vampire-human relationship; a relationship of such has only ever happened once in the history of the Inquieta in the 16th century and has never happened since.  The circumstances of this historical relationship were very different from those in Mrs. Meyer's portrayal, and it definitely was not romantic, again like in the mistaken portrayal in the book series and films.  Humans and vampires, while the latter's population is drawn from the former, are different species and not compatible with each other reproductively and due to certain necessities.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

The Last: Breakfast

I woke up several hours after our nightmarish escape from the safe house.  The sun was peeking past the buildings of downtown Boston, hitting me right in the face with its obnoxious golden light.  I think Gorham had been sleeping too; Chula Vista still had her eyes closed and head leaned against her door..  I looked over at Victor; he had bags under his eyes and he was doing his anxiety chewing on a toothpick.  If he had cigars he'd have smoked 'em all by now.

"Charleston, what time is it?" I grumbled.

Victor's face involuntarily twitched.  Yeah, he needed a nap.

"0720... er, 7:20.  Lookin' fer a place to crash."

I stretched as much as I could crammed in the seat as I was, then yawned, "Wh- why don't we leave Boston?  If– hey, there's Piero's." I saw the warm red and brown sign through all the debris and wreckage.  When I was up in this part of the city, Piero's was my favorite cafe to stop at.

"Can't.  CDC's still blocking 90 n' 93.  And smaller roads too.  Bridges over the river have been blocked off by the National Guard.  This city's bolted up tighter than Satan's colon.  Only way out's on foot, which means bein' chewed up alive and shat out by one of the f–kers."

"Alright... alright.  Victor, ya gotta get some rest soon though.  And it looks like your about to explode, I mean I'm scared shitless but ya gotta relax a little."

"What d'ya think I'm doin'?  Driving around 'cause I feel like burnin' gas?  Now can it, Russia."

Yeah, he really needed a nap.  Ok, and I was really getting sick of that "Not-calling-each-other-by-our-names,-even-your-own-godson-thing".  This was gonna be a long zombie apocalypse.  I turned my head away from Victor, his eyes twitching as he glared at the crap-filled street, and I looked out my window.  Man, the city had really been going to hell.  Heaps of bags and trash; suitcases and boxes; broken appliances; shattered glass; busted, broken, and/or burning cars; and whole lot more general debris and chaos.  There were cop cars too, and a turned over SWAT van with its windshield busted in, at Huntington and Stuart.  Reminded me of those pictures you see like on Wikipedia of cities after World War II or something.  Except this had the scattered corpses of people, clumps of dead zombies, and the occasional living one.  

I heard a noise behind me, I looked back and saw it was Vista waking up at last.  She stretched, brushing some of her black hair out of her face.  I think she noticed me looking at her.  She gave me a little, nervous smile, I tied to return a confident, manly half-smile.  Not sure how it turned out.  Vista looked out of the hummer, leaning to the side to see the passing buildings out the windshield.

"Um, Sir, Charleston?  Do you have any food?  Are we going to stop to have breakfast?" she looked plaintively at Gorham and me.

I looked at Gorham, then at Victor.  Right, food.  Damn was I suddenly hungry.  I think the last thing I ate was in my dorm.  My stomach felt empty and it began voicing its desire for food.

"Yeah, Charleston, we should get some food from the trunk."

"No.  I'm saving that for when we need it." Victor's eyes snapped around as he scanned the wreckage-clogged street we were driving down.  He sped up and stopped by a little cafe at the bottom of a parking garage.  It was The Atre Cafe or something like that.  I think we were near Wang Theater.  I thought I knew most of the streets of Boston, guess not.

"Grab weapons from trunk.  Get in, grab n' get out.  Be careful." Victor kept the hummer running as Gorham, Vista, and I hopped out of the car, I was pretty darn stiff though, and hobbled to the trunk.  I took out a 9mm and Gorham took one of Victor's rifles complete with scope.  Vista I think took another handgun.  I also slipped the machete into my belt for good measure.  I led Gorham and Vista up the small flight of stone steps up to the cafe front.  It had a glass front and most of the panes were smashed, at least partially.

"Careful of the glass guys." I said back to Gorham and Vista.

I strode up bravely to the glass door, praying to God there wasn't another 500 pound zombie waiting for me on the inside.  Gotta act cool, you know.  Gorham looked through the smashed store front into the dim cafe inside.

"Looks clear, Russia, let's hurry and get this over with.  Looks like some people didn't make it out."

I pushed open the door, the other two close behind me, I quickly raised my handgun, searching the cluttered cafe for zombies.  The place was a mess; tables were knocked over and coffee and other liquids were spilled across the floor.

"Ok, careful, guys, one of those things could– is that a cinnamon roll?  And coffee?" I lowered my gun and leaped over to the counter.

I picked up the cup of coffee and was about to guzzle the whole thing down my throat when Vista interjected.

"Um, Russia, you don't know what could be in that.  It could be.. I don't know, infected?"

The coffee cup stopped inches from my mouth.

"Oh yeah, good point, Vista." I tossed the coffee cup on the floor.  Somebody'd clean it up.. er, wait...

I proceeded to scoop up the cinnamon roll.  It seemed clean and was still very slightly warm, sorta lukewarm.  I was just about to take a huge bite, my mouth watering, when a frickin' zombie burst up from behind a table.  Apparently the people who didn't make it out were now zombies.  Should've guessed that.  I whipped around, heart hammering against my ribs, 9mm raised.  But before i even had time to fire off one shot, the frickin' zombie's head exploded and the cafe was filled with the loud crack of rifle fire.  An empty cartridge clattered onto the floor.  Gorham stepped beside me rifle raised.  I shook my head to try and alleviate the ringing.

"Let's just grab some food and go, bud."

I blinked at him.  Right, I didn't want to linger.  I jumped over the counter and scooped as much pastries and sandwich material as I could into bags.   Vista searched for more food close by while Gorham stood by the fallen tables, looking this way and that with the rifle of his held ready.  This was obviously not the first time he'd held a gun; Vista though, she held like it was a dead rodent.

"So Charleston probably wouldn't approve of this, but why'd you say you wanted to head up to New Hampshire?  Where is Gorham anyway?" I asked as I jumped back over the counter with my spoils of war.

"My wife, Florence, is up there, visiting her brother, Danny.  I stayed behind 'cause the shop was busy.  I was going to join her this weekend.  Gorham's up in the north of New Hampshire, in the White Mountains."        

"Oh yeah, well I hope she's alright.  How 'bout you, Vista?  You said your parents are in California?"

She nodded, "Yeah... I hope what ever this is hasn't reached there yet."

"Hmm, I wonder where this infection has hit.  Is it just Boston, or the East Coast, or what?" I said scratching my chin.  My hand scratched against the stubble that was growing there. "Oh we should go now, otherwise Charleston's gonna burst in here with a machine gun thinking we're getting eaten."

We all turned to leave when we heard a noise and a small whimper coming fro the employees' only room behind the counter.  Our three gun barrels were pointed at the door in a second.  My heart began racing again as we heard more noises and something walking closer to the door.  Gorham peered down the sight of his rifle.  Then we all jumped as a voice called out from just behind the door.

"Don't shoot!  I'm not sick!  I'm not one of those things!  Please don't– !" the voice was a man's, filled with stress and fear though.

"It's ok, we won't shoot, just get out here!" Gorham called back to him.

The door was pushed open just enough to let the man slip out.  He looked like he was only a couple years older than me, in his mid 20s or so, and was in the dirty clothing of a cafe employee.  A hoop glinted on his eat and he held a butter knife in his hand.  Really?  Come on, man.

"What's your name, kid?" Gorham asked him, rifle lowering.  Vista and I followed suite with our own guns.

"Uh, Clay.  Your not gonna rob me are you?" he mumbled as he wiped his nose on the back of his hand.  I noticed he had a pretty nasty looking bruise on the right side of his forehead.

"What?" Gorham looked surprised, maybe even a little taken aback.  "Why would we rob you?"

"The last people in here did... they, uh, took some others into the parking garage..."

Gorham, Vista, and I all gave each other significant looks.

"Guys, we should– !" I started to say with some alarm.  A door far on the other side of the shop to our left was suddenly hit by what sounded like fists.  A lot of them, more than I cared to stay and find out about.

"Let's go!" I shouted, waving my arms toward the exit.

The door gave in with an explosion of wood splinters.  A pack of those things came tumbling in, mouths open, eyes searching and hungry.  I saw one still had a fresh bite wound on his shoulder.  There must've been nearly twenty zombies shambling down the hall.

"Let's go!  Let's go!" I yelled, pulling Vista out the door, Clay dashing up behind me.

Gorham ran into the doorway, then he turned around and fired off several shots into the pack.  I think I heard some corpses hit the floor.  We all four fled down the steps and flew into the hummer.  Before the doors were even closed Victor was off, zooming down the street; the hummer smashed a sedan out of the way as we fled and as the zombies came stumbling down the steps after us.

"Damn, I must've hit three of those things dead in the chest and they didn't even flinch!" Gorham said as he flicked the safety on his rifle and wiped the sweat from his forehead.  "And these are hunting rounds."

Victor's eyes flicked up to look at the rear view mirror.

"Took you guys long enough.  Stirred up the whole f–king city too.  And who the hell is this?"

"Uh, hi, I'm– ." Clay began, but of course was cut off by Victor.

"Don't tell me yer name.  I don't need to know, neither do I care.  I'll just call you Waiter if I need ya for some reason."

I dished out food to everyone, except Clay says he wasn't hungry.  Something made me think he'd seen more than he'd wanted to today; ugly, terrifying things.

"Bon appétit, everyone." Gorham said as he raised up his sandwich.  We all dug in ravenously, even Victor.

We were speeding past Chinatown, planning I guess to get to the river, or just find a place to hole up for the night.  We were passing Wilbur Theater when we saw them.  Whole packs of them clustered around the theater, battering at its boarded-up doors.  Scared whimpers and yelps could be heard faintly from inside every time one of the things hit the doors.

"Hey, hey, there are people in there!  We gotta help 'em!" Gorham exclaimed.

I felt bad too for the poor bastards locked up in the theater, must be pretty terrifying in there.  Looks like they did a pretty good job of boarding it up though.

"No." grunted Victor, "We keep driving.  Not our problem."

"Charleston, please!  We should at least bust 'em out through the back or something.  Come on, listen to 'em!  They need he– gelp!" that last word came out as this weird strangling noise because Victor had suddenly braked and swerved the car the car around.

He kicked it into high gear, driving right into the main pack gathered at the front doors of the theater.  Zombies tumbled over the windshield leaving bloody streaks; zombies were smacked by the side mirrors, bones cracking and heads turning at unnatural angles; zombies were run over by the hummer with that sickening bump and crunch.  Blood spattered onto my window making me jump.  Victor stopped the car.  He wrenched the door open, marching to the back of the hummer and throwing the trunk open.

"Ya wanna help these people?" he said as he cocked his AK-47, "Then hurry up and grab a gun."                      

Extraneorum

Captain Germanicus' report to the Senate of Rome and Emperor Trajan:
I, Germanicus Manius Gaius Flavius Albus, veteran of Dacia and the Germanic frontier, was stationed by request in Britannia.  I desired to see the wild land Caesar so long ago had landed on and I thought I might make a life there.  I was put in charge of a garrison from Eboracum; we patrolled the city's borders, guarding against intrusions and raids of the Picts and Brittunculi.  We did stop a raid of several of the local tribes from reaching the city.  It happened on the fourteenth day of Iunius, a warm, gentle day; I was leading six of by best men in a scouting mission to the north of the city.  There was Marcus Bubulcus a broad man from Gaul; Quintus Galerius Licinius, the son of a colonist from Londinium; Aelius Scipio and Nerva Naevius, my two lightest scouts, both from Italia; Armendric called Alexander, a Burgundi tribute soldier stationed here; and Tiberius Brutus from Syria.  Aelius was ranging ahead when he rushed back, face slick with sweat.  He said he had found strange Pictish machine.  We were all curious to see this contraption, for as of yet Rome had seen no cleverness in the Britons.  We hurried to the fell where he had found it; the thing lay on the grassy side of one of the sloping hills, exposed to the sky, dark trees all around.  We circled around it, inspecting it and trying to discern its purpose.  The alien thing was made of a dark metal seemingly akin to steel; strange rivulets or strings of blue ran down the center of the monument.  It stood easily two men tall and bout three wide, prongs, four of them, reached up in the center of the thing, which was roughly tear drop shaped.  Finding no discernible purpose to it, we searched inscription or markings.  Though the thing was covered in octagonal designs of foreign origin, we could make nothing of it, but instead we found a hatch to inside the Pictish edifice.  I ordered Bubulcus to pry it open; he was just about to give the hatch a great heave when it opened easily before his hand with the hiss of hot water in a pipe.  Inside it was dark except for similar blue lighting, like the sun seen through ocean water; Aelius and Nerva were able to fit inside easily.  They found many strange Pictish ornaments and odd octagonal pieces of the dark metal.  I kept having a growing bad feeling about this whole thing; I began to question where this strange monolith was truly made.  Then Aelius and Nerva brought out the corpse.  It was shrunken and emaciated as with famine; its veins were of the same azure blue  as the rivulets on the monument; its skin was gray like a corpse, and had un-human hands more like claws; and its eyes were large, circular, and black.  The tribal creature had a split in its chest that oozed green ichor.  I knew this was no Pictish landmark or ritual monument, but something far more foreign and mysterious.  We loaded all the artifacts onto our horses, who acted with some suspicion around the pieces of metal.  We rode hard all the way down Britannia to Londinium to consult the governor.  On the way, as we were camping only several miles north of the city in the forest, Quintus and Aelius were inspecting the ornaments when one of them clamped onto Quintus' arm.  In the struggle to get it off, another ornament a little longer than Quintus' clasped onto Aelius' arm.  The cuffs caused no pain and were the same coloring as the monument; as we consulted with each other, Quintus' let off a pulse of azure fire that extinguished our fire but also charged his sword with the glow of lightning.  One of the octagonal pieces of metal flew into the air, unfolding to cover Quintus in armor that marched the steel armor he had worn.  The ornaments then came alive with activity: one flew up and strapped itself around Bubulcus' shoulders and chest, with the armor following soon after; a second cuff wrapped around Quintus' free wrist; an ornament clasped onto Nerva's upper arm; an ornament that turned into a gauntlet folded around Alexander's forearm; Tiberius received one cuff around his wrist; and I too had one of the ornaments wrap around my shoulders.  After all was done, we all had new, dark sets of armor to replace our old.  And that is what happened the night of the thirtieth day of Iunius; that is how we, the Extraneorum, were made.     

Seneca Blasted Zone

Cal turned the nob on his gas mask, pressurizing his suit with a sharp pneumatic hiss.  He picked up his rifle, slinging the fraying strap over his armored shoulder.  He ran through the usual preps through his head.  He had done this thing a thousand times before; satisfied that all routine precautions were met, Cal sealed the the door behind him and then opened the vault door in front of him.  A hiss filled the little airlock he stood waiting in.  The blaring sunlight of a noon sun filled the dark hall; Cal's eyes were protected by the tinted goggles of his gas mask.  The usual open vista of brown hilly wasteland and patches of bare tree trunks opened up before him.  It looked to be a usual sunny day in the Seneca Blasted Zone.  Cal clunked across the open yard to the old barn he used as a shed to store some of his least important gear, like his bow and arrow and extra horseshoes.  His horse, Braxton Bragg, he kept in his dwelling.  Cal's hired farmhands– there were about six or seven of them– lived in the old rest station across the yard from the barn.   

Cal had learned, in his exploring he did in his free time, that he lived in what was once called New York– why it was called new, he did not know– before the War of Wars, but now was called the Seneca Blasted Zone, which stretched from the Eastern Lake down to the ruins of the Great City on the coast and the irradiated forests in the south, and up to the Wreckage Lakes in the north and west.  Cal himself lived in a small bunker near an old farm, only the barn remained, and a rest station.  The town of Echo-Point One, a thriving community on the banks of Dead River, was a couple miles down the remnants of the old world highway.

Edmund, Clancy, Michael, and the brothers Percy and Olson Gauge were already suited up and mounting their horses.  Kelly was lagging behind as usual.  Cal and his farmhands were cowboys: a select few brave or foolhardy men who rode across the Blasted Zones delivering cattle and other livestock to towns or wealthy warlords.  Sometimes they were hired just for their guns to act as escorts or extra muscle to drive away bandits or raiders, or merely to deliver precious postage.

Cal, after seeing the cattle were safe and sound in the barn, walked back across the yard, dust puffing up in clouds behind him and the grass crunching under his boots.  He unlocked and lifted up the blast door to Braxton's pen in the bunker itself.  The horse whinnied at the familiar look and stench of his master.  Braxton had black-to-brown hair and intelligent golden eyes; he was of course one of the genetically-altered animals, unaltered livestock couldn't survive in the Zones, so that they could survive all the radiation still floating around after the end of days.  The cattle were the same.  Unaltered animals only existed in stories and supposedly in the unopened Vaults.

Once Kelly finally got out and mounted, the seven men opened up the barn and began to corale the cows.  Cal was supposed to deliver the cattle to a powerful warlord in Smoke Town along the coast of East Wreckage Lake.  While being a cowboy was incredibly dangerous it was very rewarding and lucrative if you could do it right and survive.  They rounded up the cattle, Cal used a lasso to control a particularly troublesome cow while the farmhands used prods to herd on the other cattle.

"Keep your weapons cocked and eyes open!" Cal called to his men, "Now let's ride!"

All the farmhands had rifles like Cal, except for Clancy who only had a bow and arrow and low caliber pistol.

With a thunder and clouds of brown dust, the cowboys encouraged the cattle on as they began to thunder off across the valleys and hills on their ninety mile long road to Smoke Town.           

The Progenitors: Vor and Athaneans

Vorian Republic:

Capital: Vorpiter 

Government: Socialist republic

Language: Ril

The Vor of Vorpiter were a race with a strong collective consciousness simply called the Noosphere.  The Vor were a mammalian species with blue or flesh-toned skin that grow hair of dark shades.  They have bone protrusions on their foreheads that are arranged in various patterns and designs.  An individual Vor's brain didn't contain the components for memory and holding learned skills, but these things were instead automatically put into the Noosphere for all Vor to draw from.  Unlike the Prothen, who had a similar collective consciousness in the T'ra, the Vor didn't have any concept of the individual.  The Vor were ruled by the Great Mind, a Vor who had ascended fleshly form and became the Noosphere itself; the Great Mind could, at any time it desired, possess a Vor or Vor, this was the basis for the destruction of the "person" in Vorian society.  The Republic was in effect ruled by the Great Mind, or indeed, the Republic was the Great Mind, since all Vor were one in the Noosphere.  Vorpiter was a lush, resource-rich world; this easy environment allowed the Vor to construct a relaxed republic.  Also due to their strong racial connection in the early Noosphere made the Vor very peaceful amongst themselves which made global government easily achieved.  It is unknown what Vorian society was like before the Great Mind, it seems all records of that time have disappeared.  The Noosphere made the Vor a generally peaceful race: they put an end to the First War, the cataclysmic war between the powerful Kronn Bureaucratic Empire and the rising Teloph Combine; they aslo ended the imperial wars between the Kronn and the newly discovered Prothen Empire.  When the Galactic Tetrarchy was formed, the Vor were always the mediators in the Council, especially between the Kronn and Telophs.  The Great Mind seemed to have foreseen the Dark Epoch because only a minority of galactic fringe-dwelling Vor got the implants of microscopic organisms.  When the Dark Epoch began with the infection sweeping through the galactic fringe colonies of the Tetrarchy powers, Vor losses were minimal and the Republic quickly fortified against the infection.  Through the long centuries of the Dark Epoch, the Vor fought alongside the Prothen Empire against the growing infection, even as the Telophs were wiped out by the Kronn-made artificially intelligent Cyth and as the Kronn themselves were drawing closer to extinction.  For uncertain reasons though, either due to loss of population or some decree of the Great Mind, the majority of Vor suddenly fled Republic space, warping to some remote corner of the galaxy, never to be seen again.          

Athanean Federation:
Capital: Byzaren
Government: Stratocracy
Language: High Athanese
Athaneans, one of the surviving children species, formed their Federation during the long centuries of the Dark Epoch, carving out a large enough portion of the galaxy to be considered an equal to the Tetrarchal species.  Early Athaneans were enslaved by the Kronn along with thousands of other "barbarous" races deemed to "uncivilized for civilization" to build many of the wonders of the Kronns' empire.  When the infection began to tear apart the galaxy, the Athaneans along with thousands of other children species rebelled against the Kronn and declared independence.  Many of these small, newly created nations bereft of Kronn protection usually were swept away by the infection, but the war-like Athaneans held together.  They assimilated what Kronn technology remained in their little domain and reformed their society around the the military; a powerful stratocracy was formed with polemarchs, commander-rulers, leading the new polity.  The Athaneans flew out in small, well armed, highly trained armies using long-range weapons tactics to reclaim lost worlds.  On the Federation's path to reclaiming the galaxy, they came across many children species barely holding on to existence; a key Federation ideology was formed then: that of Stewardship.  The Athaneans took it upon themselves to save every sentient species they came upon by pulling them into the Federation.  Three of the main races brought into the Federation were the Barari, Narubs, and Phaldar who all became key members of the Federation.  The Athanean Federation reclaimed a huge portion of the galaxy– even claiming lost Prothen worlds– with the goal of eventually taking Krodia Prime from the infection.  But even the powerful Federation, cleanser of a thousand worlds, fell around 86,540 -AI due to enormity of borders, civil unrest within the Federation, and hundreds of infected systems within the Federation itself.  The Federation, though, should be remembered for its long and successful fight against the infection; being the only species to have retaken so much space from the infection and able to hold of cases of internal spread of the infection.  The Barari come from the frost-bound caves of Barar I, they are a very unique species of alien; they are mammalian, covered in white fur, with a lupine face, but their bodies are long like a snake's and they have multiple sets of arms.  They have powerful innate telekinetic psionics.  The Narubs of Narubia, a gas giant wracked by extreme solar winds, are a race of humanoid insects who live in great, floating hives, the thick walls of their lairs and their own chitinous carapaces protecting them from the jet streams of solar radiation.  Unlike the Barari, the Narubs had to be militarily conquered by the Athaneans, who took it upon themselves to "preserve" any surviving children species by folding them into the Federation.  The humanoid Phaldar of unstable Phaldarax, a world of crystal mountains and jungles of fungus long ago devastated by a great psychic disaster, are slight, have green or gray skin, and possess innate psionics.

Rabbit Holes

The Keeper stood in the shadows against a support beam against the wall, scratched pocket watch gleaming in his hand and a device in his other hand that had the appearance of a a compass mixed with a watch but with the complexity of a chronometer.  He looked up; the Guardian stood in the sewer passage in front of him, in usual brown hoodie, red hair flowing out of the pulled up hood.  She had a similar device in her hand as the Keeper's; a watch of scratched silver was in her pocket.  She looked up at him.
"You know I'm glad I was selected as Guardian.  I always thought the Keeper's outfit was a little queer."
The Keeper gave her a look as he tipped up the brim of his top hat.
"As usual, Gee, your comments are helpful and filled with insight." he said mockingly sweeping off his hat.
"Time?" she asked.
"1:43.  You know, you have your own watch?"
She ignored him and looked at her chronometer.
"It's close.  Be ready."
They waited in silence for roughly three minutes, heads turning every now and then to look down the sewer tunnel.  At 1:46 their chronometers began ticking.  Slowly at first then building to a rapid, metallic klaxon.  An area of space about five feet down the sewer from them began blinking, almost in rhythm with the building chronometer alarm.
"Right on time," the Keeper said, trudging toward the place, "Watcher called it right this time."
The Guardian followed closely behind, pulling out an orb of energy surrounded by a silver metal; a device given to the first Guardian.
"Wait, damn, something's coming through!"  the Keeper exclaimed, throwing back an arm.  They dashed behind two support beams on wither side of the passage; the Guardian readied her bell and the Keeper cranked a gear on his chronometer.  The distortion of space before them which was now a swirling vortex as apposed to blinking, was called a rabbit hole; a rent in time and dimension.  Through them entire worlds lay, all the possibilities, all the "if"s lay on the other side of rabbit holes.  Alice Realities they were called.  And every so often, a rabbit would come out of the hole.  The Rabbit was a grotesque creature from a dark Alice Reality.  The creature was once possibly human, but had been twisted into something other.  The Keeper had encountered only a few of these types of Rabbits before but he knew they could cause serious damage to the city if not sent back to their reality quickly enough.
"Damn it!" he swore and cranked his chronometer up all the way.
His device sent out a pulse rippling toward the Rabbit; it hit, but the creature merely shrugged it off.  The Guardian let a bolt of azure energy out from her orb.  The beam had a greater effect, hitting the creature with a small explosion.  The Rabbit let out an injured howl then sped past them at such a speed that the two were knocked to the ground by a shockwave.
"Gee, get after that thing!  I'm going in!" shouted the Keeper as he slogged up to the portal, splashing through the sewage of the tunnel.
The Guardian's orb turned into a long-barrled gun of the same material, she nodded at her companion then splashed down the sewer after the distant Rabbit.  The Keeper sucked in breath then exhaled, cranking back up his device.  He stepped into the rabbit hole.  The same, well-known feeling of falling; the tingling in his gut, coursed through him as he slipped from one world to another.  He stumbled into the Alice Reality and looked up to iron gray skies and walls of fog filling the drab streets of a drab city. Great, it was one of those Alice Realities. 

The Last: Unexpected Friends

Victor jumped off the roof of the hummer, an AK-47 in his hands.  Part of me, the part left behind in college dorm rooms, classes, and friends thought that owning an assault rifle was illegal.  The rest of me sitting in the hummer with the burning Boston skyline in front of me told that part to suck it up and focus.  Victor jumped back in and sped down the destroyed city street.  It had been several hours now since the bathroom incident and we had hardly seen anyone; a single fleeing business man here, a pack of scared people there, and a zombie and a-not-so happy meal every know and then.  Victor would stop if it was only one or two zombies, open up the door or roll down the window and blow their brains out with his gun.  Yeah, the trunk was pretty much packed with food, first aid kits, and guns.  That's godfather Victor; always prepared.  Anyways, I couldn't believe how fast things had gone to hell: the streets were filled with dead bodies, broken down cars, trash and all that debris dropped by dead fleeing people.  I think Victor was trying to find a safe respit 'cause the sun was going down and we couldn't get out of the city right now.  Yeah apparently the city was like in lockdown or something.  I slouched in the chair, staring dumbly out the window as we drove and drove; the V8, all-wheel drive, barricaded hummer punching through most road obstacles, including zombies.  In my stupor I actually noticed those.. things, the infected, go all "deer in a headlight" when a car is speeding at them with headlights on.  I think I chuckled a bit as Victor tested this theory.  I must have dozed off just a nod when Victor exclaimed something.  I jumped up in my seat, eyes gummy and a fleck of drool hanging out my mouth.
"What's it, Victor?"
"Lights, boy, it's gotten dark we gotta stop."
It had indeed gotten darker while I had been dozing.  The smoke from the downtown towers blotted out the stars in front of us.  The lights were coming from a building just two blocks down the road.  As we got closer it looked like the building must have been an office or part of a college campus, but it doesn't really matter anymore does it?  It was a brick building with several stories and annexes with a courtyard around it and a brick wall around the courtyard with one of those Tim Burton wrought iron gates in the wall.  Yeah, real fancy.  There were lights in the most of the windows and what looked like the silhouettes of a ton of people inside.  When we pulled up next to the gate we also saw there were police officers inside the courtyard.  Victor rolled down the window.
"Hey, over here!  Open up the gate quick before those f–kers come!" he yelled.
Some of those riot police guys, you know with the black padding and riot shields came up along with several normal city cops.  One of the regular cops walked up to the gate, he must've been the chief.
"How many?" he asked quickly.
"Just two." Victor said.
The chief motioned and the gate was pulled open hurriedly.  The hinges squealed pretty loudly.  Did they not even think to grease them?  Victor slipped inside; the courtyard not in front of the building's main doors was packed with cars, motorcycles, and shopping carts for some reason, I guess to carry people's crap.  Victor parked the car as near the gate as he could in case of a quick escape I guess.  The chief and some other cops approached us, man, they looked like they were about to pass out.
"We weren't expecting much more survivors in this area.  Where 're you too from?" the chief was pretty beat lookin' with bags under his blood-shot eyes and his hair was all disheveled.  His mustache, which was pretty cool– one of those manly bushy ones– was snarled sticking out all funny.
"I'm from out of city, the kid here's from the state college.  How many people you got bottled up in there, officer?"
The chief turned to some subordinate, "Brown, how many checked in?"
The other cop, Brown, flipped through the pieces of paper on his clipboard, "Around 450, Chief."
That's quite a lot of people." Victor said to the chief, "They're all packed in there and ya' got the lights on like it's some f_king college party!  This ain't Woodstock, man!  You need to cover up those windows, turn off most of 'em lights, and tell those people to shut up.  We saw you a mile away and you're usin' up huge amounts of electricity and I'm bettin' the power stations are probably about to go."
The chief's shoulders sagged and his eyes drooped.
"You can take it up with Chief Freeman inside.  Now, get inside quick."
The double doors into the building at least were reinforced and there was a pile of furniture that the cops on the inside had to move away for us to enter.  Now the building wasn't huge and 450+ people is a lot of people.  Every inch of space was filled with some sweating, anxious, self-concerned person and their metric tons of "important and life-saving" junk.  I mean really, suitcases and trunks of shoes, clothes, jewelry, and other crap.  I even saw a flat screen TV.  What are these people thinking?  Cops were here and there trying to get control of the situation.  As we entered the main room of the ground floor, a cop, as beaten down as the ones outside, came out of the sweltering pack of bodies as thick as a wall of trees.
"Two?" he yelled hoarsely at us over the collective din of hundreds of scared shitless people.
Victor nodded affirmatively.  The cop shouted into his walkie talkie.
"Two new ones.  Room?"
A voice crackled back over in response.  "We got room third floor."
Our cop jerked his thumb to the stairs, "Third floor!  Go!"
We ran up the stairs to the third floor.  It seemed just as packed as the ground and second floors.  We made for a less packed corner of the floor.  We found a room that might've been a lounge just two days before.  Twenty or so people filled the room, sitting on sofas, tables, window sills, and sleeping bags.  Victor dumped his pack on the floor and pulled out two sleeping bags.
"I'm gonna go get some extra water f I can and try and talk some sense into the cops here." Victor spoke as he pulled the sleeping bags out.  I saw other gear and foodstuff in there, how much had he crammed in that pack?  In a quieter voice he added, "Be ready to run, ok?"  he left the pack on the floor and walked out of the room into the oven-hot crowd in the main room.  I sat on the sleeping bag, head in my hands, my numb brain still not excepting what was going on.  I just wouldn't, couldn't, understand this.  Footsteps near me.  I looked up.  A guy with graying tan hair and blue collared shirt hanging over his belt had walked up to me from the corner.
"Hi," he said, "I'm Mike Mancini, I see you just got here.  Eh, what's your name?"
"Uh... uh... Adam." I mumbled.  We shook hands.
"Do you know what's going on?  They won't tell us anything ever since we got here.  They're not letting us leave.  I don't know how long we can survive hear."
I shook my head wearily; I was very, very, sleepy.
"Sorry, I only know as much as you.  This morning I was a college student studying for a test... then, hell broke loose.  You come here in a group, Mike?"
"Yeah, I came with a group from Geneva Avenue.  Some of 'em fell behind on the way here.  We were split up once we got here so I'm just here with Nicki now." Mike pointed with his thumb behind him to the young woman that had been sitting with him.  She looked up at us with blue yes, then gazed back down at the floor.
Victor burst in, slamming the door behind him scaring us all witless.  He stomped over to us muttering something about bureaucracy and procedures.  He threw himself down on a sofa next to my sleeping bag.
"Hi there, I'm Mike, I–" Mike began when Victor stood and hushed him with a look.
"Don't tell me your name, sir, situation like this I don't need to know it nor do I care.  Just tell me where you're headed."
Mike blinked, then cleared his throat uncomfortably.
"Oh, um, I'm tryin' to get up to Gorham, New Hampshire... see if my wife's still alive." he said the last part quietly with a downcast look.
"Nice to meet you, Gorham, best of luck to you.  I'm Charleston and this here's Russia.  Any idea what the hell's goin' on?"
Mike, or "Gorham" shook his head.  Victor was pretty adamant about this whole not telling each other our names thing.  He said it helped stopped us from getting to attached to others, especially if we told them more about ourselves.  Nicki came over to where we were all standing.  She was pretty, real pretty.  And pretty pale too.
"D– do know–?" she stammered to Victor.
"Nope, stop asking." Victor grunted. She snapped her mouth shut.
"What's yer destination, miss?" Victor asked.
"Uh.. um.. well, I'm trying to get to Chula Vista.  That's.. that's where my parents are." she spoke softly.  She, Nicki, was cute; she had black hair in a pony tail, blue eyes, and smooth pale skin.  She had on a little gray hoodie and black, work-out pants.
Victor whistled, "That's mighty far, Chula Vista.  Besta' luck to ya."
"Hey, maybe for the time being we could, I don't know, team up?  Pool resources?  You know I'm a mechanic– Mancini's Auto Repair– we could help each other!" Mike, er, Gorham said.
Victor raised one of his bushy, gray eyebrows, "I ain't one for passengers."
"So is that a no?" Gorham asked, uncertain.
"Hell yeah." Victor grumbled, he then turned to me. "Kid, get some sleep.  Now.  I'll wake ya' up in a couple of hours.  I don't want to stay here long, just enough o rest and get my bearings."
"But, Vic– Charleston, they won't let us leave!" I mumbled.
He put a hand on my shoulders.  "Just get some shut eye, I won't let them stop us."
I think one of those classic "once their head hit the pillow they fell deep asleep" things happened to me because all I remember after that is Victor shaking me awake and cussing.
"Wake the hell up, boy!  Shit's broken loose!  Get the f–k up!" he yelled.
I leaped up, blinking violently; strange noises were coming from the lower floors of the building.
"What's goin' on?  What time is it?" I moaned, rubbing my eyes.
"They're climbin' over the wall, they're at the f–king doors!  It's still dark out, boy, pack up the sleeping bag!"  Victor was getting red in the face as he barked orders at me.
I felt like I was till asleep.  I felt like a sleepwalker as I stuffed the sleeping bag away and shouldered the pack.  Victor dashed over to the windows, peering out and dashing over to another.  He finally peered out the right window and smashed it open with his boot.  A fire escape led to the paved courtyard three floors below.
"Get your ass out the window, boy!" he yelled at me.
I threw myself out the window and waited for him to leap through.  Gunfire and these horrible, blood-chilling screams could be heard around the front of the building.  And over the screaming and raucous was the droning growl of those things.  Gorham poked his head groggily out the window after us.
"H-hey, can we come with you guys?"
"No!  Just get outta the building ok?  Don't follow us!" Victor roared back up the metal ladder.
"Victor, come on, man, it's just two of 'em!  I mean the guy's a mechanic, that could be useful!  C'mon, they're scared and we could help each other out.  Strength in numbers, y'know?"
"Yeah, and also a bigger meal... but fine, if you love 'em so much they can come." Victor grumbled.  Man, he was unhappy.  "If ya' wanna come along, get yer ass down here right now!" he barked up to the window.  The sound of a breaking door reached our ears: they were inside the building.
Gorham scrambled out the window followed closely by Nicki, er, Chula Vista.  We all clattered down the fire escape, hitting the ground running at the bottom.  Victor halted us with his arm as we weaved through the sea of cars to the front of the building.  The hummer was near the gate and currently those zombie-things were gnawing at the iron gate or climbing over the wall.
"On my mark we run ok?  Ya' fall behind, yer left behind." Victor had turned back to us, giving Gorham and Chula Vista a hard look.  He turned back and watched, and we waited.  Hours passed, but  y'a know it was really just seconds.  Then Victor waved his hand forward.  He all broke into a dead run for the hummer.  Scream,growls, and gun shots filled the confused night, 'course I wan't really paying attention, I was focused on jumping over the mess of cars and not getting eaten.  I reached the hummer first, flinging myself into the passenger seat and slamming the door.  Victor was in the driver's seat a second later and turned the key to start the car.  Gorham and Vista leaped up into the back seats; Gorham just had a single little backpack and Vista had her purse only.  Victor swore as he turned the key again and again; the car wasn't starting.  Then the things noticed us.  My heart thumped loudly in my ears as they leaped over other cars or the wall and began banging on the doors and windows, a couple of 'em climbed onto the roof.  The hummer finally roared into life, Victor swore some more as he sped the hummer backwards , slamming into a car and setting off its alarm.  He turned the car sharply and floored the gas, flying through the gates and shooting down the street, flinging all the things to the side.  One of the ones on top fell in front of the car promptly disappeared under its tires.
Victor looked at the gas meter.
 "Good thing I filled up earlier." he said as we sped off into the night.
I think I fell asleep again after that.                     
     

Branchton

Erin sat by the fountain that filled the center of the brick pavement in front of Branchton University; this was her favorite spot to read, and watch the clock tower.  The clock tower stood in the heart of Branchton, towering above all other buildings, even the library and university.  The clock tower– while an accepted, even coveted, monument– was different from the rest of the buildings of the city.  While a majority of the buildings in the city were of brick, concrete, or even steel, the clock tower was made of sleek metal, possibly steel, and looked as if it were made in a different era perhaps.  But that was not what interested Erin the most in the clock tower.  The first time she had first noticed the peculiarity was two years ago as a young freshman at the university.  She and the other incoming students had just been officially welcomed to the school and the dean and faculty were departing when Erin had looked up at the edifice; and she saw it.  Something about the tower had changed.  She couldn't quite explain what had changed, it had sort of "blinked", it had looked different but only for a moment.  This had happened several other times since.  She stared over her book at the clock tower; if the professors caught her staring into space again they'd mark her for wasting time.  Citizens of Branchton were discouraged not to waste time.  The book slid from her hands; she had been staring off into space in the direction of the enigmatic tower.  She jumped, then bent over to book up Ashfield's Hypothesis on Reason when a pair of hands came down and picked the book off the ground and handed it to her.  Erin loked up blinking; she hadn't seen anyone come up to this side of the fountain.  It was a man, a man in a worn coat and top hat who must've been in his late thirties or early forties; there was also a small, plastic name tag clipped to the left breast pocket of his coat.  He smiled at her as he stood up straighter and adjusted his fingerless gloves.
"You dropped this; though I can't blame you, I never could get my head around Ashfield." he said.  His eyes were a deep, piercing blue and the tanned skin around his eyes were wrinkled.  He was, all together, quite handsome.
Erin blinked again, then remembered her manners.
"Oh yes, thank you.  I was, um, looking at the time." Erin managed to smile back.  Then she finally saw what was on the name tag.  In straight, printed, white letters, the top third of the tage said "Hello, my name is" on a blue background; below that the rest of the card was white and filled with the scrawled word "the Keeper".  The Keeper!  Here?  Erin blushed.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she stammered, "I didn't read– oh I'm such an idiot!  My apologies, Keeper." how could she have missed it?  The coat, hat, and the name tage.
The Keeper just chuckled and smiled again in his warm, friendly way.
"Don't worry about it.  I'm just passing by." he pulled a scratched gold pocket watch out of his right breast pocket and clicked his tongue when he opened it up.  "Yes, best I be off now, speaking of time.  It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss–?"
"Erin, Erin Carr."
"Miss Erin Carr.  Good day and good luck with that book!" the Keeper waved to her as he strolled away across the pavement towards the great double doors of the university building.
Erin gazed at the shrinking brown coat back and top hat until they vanished inside the university.  She cast one last glance at the clock tower then resumed her reading.

The Watcher swept up a pile of graphs, charts, maps, and other scraps of paper into his long arms and deposited them onto a side table; the Guardian leaned back in her chair, boots on the main table.  The Watcher cast her a sidelong glance through his glasses.
"Where is he?" the Guardian yawned.
"He went out to do some errands, you know how he– "
"What time is it?" she suddenly sat up, pushing the chair away from her, red hair flying up around her face.
"Almost one o'clock." the Watcher grumbled from the blackboard at the front of the long, main table.
"One o'clock?  He needs to be here!  One o'clock is a tricky hour."
The Watcher looked at the Guardian over his thin framed glasses.  "He'll be here, don't worry." he turned around, scooping back up some of the charts and papers and began to climb up the black iron staircase to the upper floors of the clock tower.
"Besides," he called back down, "he'll end up here, one Keeper or another."                  

01/01/2162

All, right, it's working.  Uh, hi, I guess, I'm Connor Smith and this is day one of my new life on Rhea.  Um, so it took the shuttle like six 'er seven years, two months, and I think twenty days to get here.  Man, cryo is weird; it ain't like your normal anesth-sleep.  You don't feel like you're asleep in cryo, years go by and it feels like you blinked.  God, seven goddamn years just in transit.  Anyways, I got here... uh, lemme look... five hours ago; took the drop ship from the shuttle down to Elysium's Gate, the forward base here on Rhea and Marine garrison for the settlements.  Oh yeah, the shuttle that brought me here was the, uh, UESS Yamazaki.  It's big man, I think it's like the flagship in the transpo fleet; oh and its got like these ion-plasma jet engines that like cause these explosions that propel the ship forward at like 1% the speed of light or somethin', Dr. Oxfield tried to explain it to me when I arrived.  So I'm all checked in and in my room here in Elysium– see you can see it behind me– pretty simple, just how I like it.  There ain't too much luxury here on Rhea.  So when I was all cleared in, me and the other new arrivals were given a briefing by the commander of the Colonial Marines, Col. Shepherd.  Man, it was kinda like the old days with a good old-fashioned ops speech.  Shepherd's a cool guy; brisk, hardy, demands respect.  Tomorrow at o-seven hundred I'm being sent to, uh, a lab some two klicks from here to meet the science team that I'll accompany out in an expedition in three days.  Hopefully I'll see my brother, Michael, he shipped out here as a science guy in the shipment before me.  Oh yeah, about me, said my name earlier I think; Smith, Connor Smith.  I'm a Marine sergeant from the UE Corps, uh... saw action in China, Bulgaria, and Chile; did a space-op durin' the conflict in Chile.  I was born just about thirty years ago in the Boston quarter of New York City... um, grew up in a little apartment near Jamaica Plains– 'ts a little neighborhood in the Big City.  And yeah, now I'm here.  All right, I'm gonna shut off, it's like eleven forty-five right now and I'm wiped, I'll probably have time tomorrow for another video log.  Oh yeah, I almost forgot: happy New Year back on Earth!  All right, logging off.              

The Interplanetary Empire of Mankind

Throneworld: Crux Terra
Government: Hereditary dictatorship
Language: Terran (official), various other colonial dialects
Allegedly founded by the war hero Caiss-Sol, the Empire has lasted for more than five hundred cycles alone in the galaxy.  It has colonized dozens upon dozens of world, holding a sizable portion of space, and is dived into ten prefectures and ruled by an emperor at Crux Terra, the ancient homeworld of the Empire.  The symbol of the Interplanetary Empire is an eagle, with outspread wings, backed by the galactic communication symbol, all ringed by a laurel.  Though the Empire had no interactions with alien species for its entire current existence, this does not mean its history has been without tumult; the Interplanetary Empire has been wracked with countless civil wars and rebellions, dynastic quarreling and intrigue between the Old Houses.  Though the position of Emperor of Mankind is legally recognized as hereditary and is passed down to the current emperor's successor, quarreling amongst the Old Houses within the Senate causes dynasties to come and go, ambitious Houses using the Senate to vote out the current reigning House for their own, causing an ever-changing political environment that, fortunately, usually does not affect the common citizen.  If legends are to be believed, the Interplanetary Empire of Mankind was founded AI 01 by the mythical Caiss-Sol, an admiral of the Crux Terran Republic who saved the crumbling, corrupt Republic by taking the reins of power from the Senate, eventually declaring himself emperor.  His dynasty, the Caissid Dynasty, ruled for eighty more years, with Primus, Caiss-Sol's son, and then Primus's adopted son, Octavian, pushing the frontiers of the Empire forward, colonizing a multitude of star systems.  The twenty-one Patron Houses were at this time cementing their power and building themselves as patrician houses, their members filling the, now ceremonial, Senate, the imperial bureaucracy, and the positions of prefect.  Around AI 85, the Caissid Dynasty ended when Octavian failed to produce an heir; House Geminorum was elected by the Senate, with Geminorum urging, to the imperial throne with Authari Nonus Geminus.  A series of rebellions of Outer World colonies tore the Empire apart, and the ruthlessness with which the Geminorum emperors responded with left many worlds depopulated and scarred.  The Geminian Dynasty, to handle the countless internal wars, reordered the Caissid military, updating it for modern use, by training a larger body of marines with heavy orbital dropping training.  After their dynasty of five emperors, all known for their ruthlessness and efficiency, House Geminorum was then removed by the Senate and House Eridani in AI 154, which elected itself to the throne immediately afterwards.  The Eridanian Dynasty only had four emperors on the throne before the Geminian Dynasty came back, putting Secundus Horace Geminus on the throne in AI 215.  Secundus, after a ten cycle reign, was then assassinated by House Andromedae, who replaced Secundus with Emperor Trajan Apollo, who reorganized the Geminian military with the modern Quadrant system, giving out more power to the prefects and governors, especially those of the Outer Worlds. Trajan was followed by his son, Honorius I Trajan Apollo, and then he was followed by Honorius II and Honorius III.  The Andromedan Dynasty was a time of recovery from the Geminian warmongering and Eridianian corruption, refreshing the Empire after two hundred years of existence.  In AI, Honorius III died mysteriously while visiting Astar, possibly by a Geminorum assassin.  The Senate was divided on what House to elect next, when House Serpentis established a three emperor dynasty, the Serpentid Dynasty, while the rest of the galaxy bickered.  Salazar Serpens, the first Serpentid emperor, reformed the Imperial credit system and oversaw a colonizing boom, adding a dozen new systems into the Empire.  His son, Galerius S. Iulius Nerva Serpens was more interested in expanding the Caissian Palace on Crux Terra, adding on new levels and wings, making it into the Golden Palace, and he also was the first emperor to have an official harem.  Galerius produced no legitimate heir, so he adopted a political rival's infant son, who became Aemilian Galerius Serpens.  When Aemilian murdered his adopted father and ascended the Imperial throne, he changed his nomen from Serpens back to his biological family's name of Days, his name becoming Aemilian Tertius, the name of his real father, Galerius Days.  Aemilian ruled for more than ten cycles as a just and merciful emperor, trade flourished and colonies grew during his reign.  Aemilian was ousted by House Cancri, claiming that since he was an Outworlder he was unfit to rule the Empire.  Aemilian fled to Arsinoe and there he and his wife lived until they died of old age.  The Cancrian Dynasty began in AI 275 with Genseric I Osiris Pius Cancer and lasted until 318.  All Cancrian rulers were either named Genseric after their founder, or Horace, a common Cancri praenomen.  A notable period of Cancrian rule was the Rule of Brothers, when Genseric III Caesar Horace Cancer and Horace II Horace Sinister Cancer jointly ruled the burgeoning Empire after the destructive Brothers' War.  Cancrian dominance ended in 318, after a total of seven emperors, with Genseric V G. Dexter Argos Augusts Cancer, who when he died, the Senate elevated House Scorpii to the throne, the great Scorpii admiral, Menelaus Nikophorus Lucian Matthew Scorpius made emperor.  The Scorpian Dynasty reigned until AI 431 with a total of eleven emperors, it was a time of general stability and strong emperors, with many famous emperors and Imperial family members; such as Domitian the Wise, the namesake of the planet Emperor Domitian, and his son Romulus the Mad, who initiated the Third Outer War, and Romulus' successors's daughter, Princess Thalia ended the conflict and had a small, beautiful world named after her.  This great dynasty ended when Menelaus III Menelaus Tiberius crashed in his luxury ship on Aria.  The Senate was again undeceive and divided on which Patron House should claim the throne when the son of the Lord of House Algol took the throne as Ibrahim Samir Akin Maurice Perseus, and ruled as the one and only Algol emperor from AI 431 to 474.  Ibrahim was arrested after forty-three cycles on the throne by House Geminorum and executed for unjust reasons after a long and prosperous reign.  But before House Geminorum could ascend the throne, House Andromedae intervened and had themselves reelected with Septimus Apollo Honorius Domitor Augustus Andromedus, but only two other emperors followed him, and the restored Andromedan Dynasty ended in 490 with the upstart House Arcturi ascending the throne after blackmailing the entire Senate, the act that the Lords of House Arcturi had been planning for hundreds of cycles.  Lord Lucius Aurelius Titus Arcturus took the crown, putting down numerous rebellions and suppressing and fighting back the other Houses, especially his rival House Geminorum.  The first Arcturian Dynasty lasted until 508 with only four emperors when House Libri, having took up the fight against House Arcturi after Arcturi and Geminorum signed the Treaty of Axex, set up a rival emperorship on Ridia, the Libri baseworld, and started the Libra Wars of 506-511, which started out as vicious naval and planetary battles, but settled out into a stalemate cold war in the later years.  There were only two Librian emperors; Caiss V Marcus and his son, Abrecan Caiss Adelard Luthec Librus.  Abrecan was killed by Phocas Gordian Arcturus in the Arcturian bombings of Ridia in 511, ending the short-lived Librian Dynasty and the Libra Wars.  Phocas reclaimed the Empire, taking on the agnomen Hannibal.  His son, Tiberius III Phocas Vespasian Lucius Arcturus reigned during the Empire's first contact with alien life, the Necroid Plague, where the Empire was almost destroyed by the savage, undead lifeforms.  His son, Hadrian Tiberius Trajan Severus ruled after the plague, rebuilding the Empire, guarding against future encounters with alien life, and he turned the Cyclopses into a psychic elite corps after psionics came back to humanity through Meryl Sheridan of Rama II, who ultimately saved the Empire.  Hadrian's son Justinian, was emperor when the Prothen Protectorates contacted the Empire, at first with hostility, but then with friendship, and when the Sinn Empire invaded the Interplanetary Empire and the Great War was fought.  Titus II Justinian Domitor Arcturus, after the death of his father, was held captive on Crux Terra while the Sinn fleet bombarded the planet.  Again the Empire was saved by an unlikely, psychic hero; the outcast and renegade Marcus Sirius and a Prothen justiciar slew the Sinn Thar, Draco Ravorn, and then used their Great Weapon against them, ending the Sinn siege of Crux Terra.  Emperor Titus then ordered the entire Imperial Navy to bomb Akshak, the Sinn throneworld, until no living thing could exist on the planet.  The Sinn moved their capital to Korduun and hastily signed a peace treaty with the Empire.  Titus' son, Trajan Titus Fulvius Victorius Augustus Arcturus reigned for many cycles after the Great War in a time of peace and regrowth.  Trajan's son, Romulus Trajan Antonius Augustus Arcturus ruled the Interplanetary Empire during the Protean Invasion of 659 and the Second Great War, where all sentient races united to stop the Cyth from wiping them out, where the Empire was nearly brought to its knees with the rest of the galaxy.  Again, the Empire and also the galaxy was saved by an Imperial Knight, Trajan Librus, and a small team comprised of all species.    
             
The Interplanetary Empire is dived into four military sectors, the Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta Quadrants, which has no effect on the people who live there, but it streamlines military distribution.  Culturally, it is divided into the Inner Worlds and Outer Worlds, the boundary being the Edict Sector.  The inhabitants of Inner Worlds, called Inworlders, have archaic names; tend to have corporate or state jobs; high standards of living; live on populous, fully-terraformed planets with a fast Net and easy transportation; and this is also where the wealthy, industrious Old Houses make their homes, in fact many Inworlders are part of one of the massive Houses.  The Outworlders are used to harder jobs, lower salaries, slower transportation, and a more rugged lifestyle.  Lastly, and most important in the eyes of the state, the Empire is divided into ten prefectures, centered around, and deriving their names from, the worlds New Tanis, Harappa, Clovis, Pretorius, Polyphemus, Atlas, Balder, Astar, New Odessa, and Nara.  The prefects are in charge of maintaining, and ultimately commanding, prefectural garrisons and fleets, though these soldiers are still paid and owe their service to the emperor on Crux Terra.  The Quadrant fleets are under the direct command of the emperor and his chosen admirals.  Inner Worlds are garrisoned by trained ground marines and armor who answer to the planetary governor, and then the prefect, and a mix of prefectural and Quadrant ships patrol the space lanes of the Inner Worlds.  Outer Worlds are garrisoned by special soldiers called Colonial Security officers, or Co-Sec officers, who double as a policing force and planetary garrison as they are given light marine training.  Co-Sec chain of command is like the imperial marine garrisons of the Inner Worlds.  The more dangerous and pirate-ridden space lanes of the Outer Worlds are patrolled by prefectural ships alone.  Militias, unlike in the Inner Worlds, are encouraged by the Outworlder governors and prefects, as long as they then enter into the imperial chain of command.  In the days of the Republic, what is now most of the Inner Worlds was called the Colonial Territories, and the few border systems that would one day be in both the Inner Worlds and Outer, were called the Fringe.  One of the first acts as Emperor of Mankind, Caiss-Sol reformed the Republic economy, changing from the inflated drachmas to the Imperial credit system, whose largest and most common unit was the credit.  Following the credit in value was the bezant, worth half a credit; the aureus, a quarter of a credit; and the denarius, worth a tenth of an Imperial credit.  Caiss-Sol also created the Interplanetary Standard Calendar (ISC) which started with the cycle of his coronation day as Emperor of Mankind, Anno Imperium (AI) 01.  The largest unit of time measurement of the ISC is the cycle, which is how long it takes Crux Terra to orbit once around its sun, Sol Primus.  Smaller standardized measurements of time are seconds, 100 seconds makes a minute, which in turn 100 minutes makes an hour, and 10 hours to a sol and so on.  All of the units of ISC measurement are based off of Crux Terran time; so 5:00 on Crux Terra is when the sun is at its highest, while on another world five o' clock is when the sun is low in the morning sky.  This makes interplanetary business planning easier, as one can give standard time which applies to all planets, though it can make moving to other planets confusing at first.  Cycles before the founding of the empire are shown with -AI after the cycle, for example the cycle Caiss-Sol was born was 34 -AI.  He also made the Interplanetary Standard Measurement System (ISMS) which revolves around eight basic units: the meter (m) for length, the gram (g) for mass, the previously mentioned second (s) for time, the tarquin (T) for electrical current, the boreas (b) for thermodynamic temperature, the lucian (L) for luminous intensity, the arkkilon (a) for amount of substance, and the quintian (Q) for electromagnetic output.  The oldest and most important elements used by the Empire are geon, a noble gas used for industrial and domestic light tubes across the Empire, as well as shipboard lighting and a catalyst in laser weaponry; astarium, a tough but flexible metal most often used for body armor and, in alloys, almost all urban buildings in the Empire; neotanium, a tougher metal used in ships' hulls and military and science buildings; and utherium, an utheride, radioactive but used as the core and key component of fuel cells and power generators, industrial, military, and domestic, across the Empire.   The Empire has not encountered intelligent alien life throughout its entire history, only discovering undeveloped animal lifeforms on certain worlds or adapting their own animals for life on other planets.  There were three alleged claims of discovery of alien life in the Empire's past; the first was during the days of the Caissid Dynasty and the early dynasties, where there was a strong, wide-spread belief in an ancient alien race called the Knowers that existed long before the Empire.  This probably arose from the discovery of ruins on Harappa that turned out to be unusual geologic features, according to the official report.  The second is when an archaeologist, Desiderius Lafayette, who discovered ruins on Regis III in AI 387 that he claimed were made by a race called the Xenotheans.  He formed a religion around his findings, known as the Hybrid Church of Omnology, a cult known for blackmail and attacking those speaking out against it.  The emperors ignored  this new religion until it faded to the background and its threat forgotten.  And thirdly and most recently, scientists discovered a new natural element, epsileus, a crystalline element unlike any other.  People began to talk of aliens, the Precursors, who left the crystal-substance behind them.  This was the most strongly believed by the mass of Imperial citizens because of the scientific backing.  The existence of the Precursors was eventually refuted by scientists from the Academy at Eridani and field scientists investigating the rumored places where the Precursors were supposed to have dwelt, such as the caves of Regis I.  


The state religion of the Interplanetary Empire was, for more than five hundred cycles, the Imperial Faith, which deified Caiss-Sol as the benevolent protector and ancient founder of the Empire, as well as a cult of personality around the current Emperor.  It was Cancrian Emperor Horace III Genseric Porphyrogenitus Cancer that, after the Reign of Brothers, established the Imperial religion to cement belief in Caiss-Sol and the Emperor of Mankind.  After Horace III died, his successors and the Scorpian Dynasty that succeeded them continued to promote the importance of the Faith, using as a cementing force in the Empire.  Cults dedicated to various, hypothesized alien races such as the Knowers, were common and faded in and out of popularity, but never growing above a small, gnostic cult.  The exception was the Church of Omnology started by Desiderius, which grew and became popular among scholastics and the Empire's celebrities but remained at its heart a secretive cult worshipping the supposed Xenotheans.  By AI 540 Omnology was waning in influence, and finally vanished to the public less than ten cycles later.  Marcus Sirius, the one who ended the Greater Incursions, saving both the Interplanetary and Nersarrim empires using the most powerful weapon in the galaxy, the Planet Architect; even using it to create a new world now called Marcus' Earth, was killed by a Cyclops assassin once he spacewalked off the mighty vessel he had just sent toward a black hole.  Because of his power and sudden change of heart upon the Architect, sparing the lives of billions and refusing to take out his revenge on the Empire, Marcus became a martyr and a cult formed around him, the Children of Marcus, based on Marcus' Earth.  Crux Terra, the site of Marcus' martyrdom, his birthworld Regis IV, and Marcus' Earth all became holy worlds to the Children.  Soon they put the honorific -Sol at the end of Marcus' name; Marcus-Sol became a god-like figure to the cult, one who transcended his humanity.  Titus II Justinian Arcturus Sinn-slayer, the Emperor who ordered Marcus' death, tried feebly to suppress the cult and the rising faith in Marcus; he stated that the appendage of -Sol to Marcus' name was heresy and understated the role and glory of Caiss-Sol.  But Titus Justinian failed in his attempt to suppress Marcianism.  The Children of Marcus had grown to a major cult and the mass majority of Imperial citizens, whether workers, marines, bureaucrats, or High Inworlders, revered Marcus-Sol in one form of devotion or another.  Statuettes of Marcus-Sol became popular, people swore by the name of Marcus, were married in his name, buried their dead asking for his guidance, and holo-statues of Marcus-Sol watched over the skylines of such worlds as Uther, Sichuan, and Regis IV.  So Titus Justinian gave in.  Near the end of his reign, Titus Justinian officially recognized Marcianism, allowing an enormous holo of Marcus-Sol to be erected on the Boulevard of Emperors on Crux Terra, right next to Caiss-Sol's holo.  It was Titus II's son, Emperor Trajan Titus Fulvius Victorius Augustus Arcturus that made Marcianism the state religion of the Interplanetary Empire on AI 615, much to Empire-wide celebration.  The already celebrated holidays of Marcus' birth on 2.11, his ending of the Greater Incursions and creation of Marcus' Earth on 4.23, and his death in the early morning of 4.24 became Imperial holidays; days where the Emperor threw lavish feasts, workers celebrated with their friends and families, and hostilities ceased.  Marcianism is also popular among the Nersarr, whose very existence as a species was saved by the great hero.  Many members of the Children of Marcus are Nersarr or Rranthi.  Marcus-Sol is recognized though as the patron of the Interplanetary Empire, space-travel, soldiers, widows, and orphans.  Marcus-Sol's House symbol, three, many-pointed stars, were added to the Imperial flag on the eagle's chest, during Trajan Titus' reign.                                      

The Progenitors: Kronn and Telophs

The Kronn Bureaucratic Empire:
Throneworld: Krodia Prime
Government: Infinite bureaucracy
Language: New Krodarak
The Kronn, originating on the temperate, ocean world of Krodia Prime, wrote down the first records of their race in Paleo-Krodarak roughly 4,150,000 -AI.  The Kronn slowly developed a global bureaucratic hegemony over all Kronn, advancing steadily in technology and exploring all corners of their world.  Around three and a half million years before the Interplanetary Empire, Kronn explorers analyzing Krodia Prime's two moons discovered one was hollow and had the ruins of a massive, alien laboratory in it.  This shocked the Kronn heads of state and the general populace, as they believed themselves the first sentient species in the known universe.  Remnants of ancient technology was found in the ruins, which appeared to the Kronn to look like an observatory, which the Kronn utilized, learning from the artifacts the secrets of subspace, universal mechanics, and the energies that pervaded this dimension and others.  At this time the Kronn began to understand more and unlock the latent psychic powers in all the members of their species.  The Kronn dubbed the unknown, possibly extinct, aliens that had come before them the Old Ones, or Dra-Tsath in Krodarak.  The Kronn spread from their world and colonized their local system around 3,010,000 -AI, and the next one, and all adjacent star systems to theirs.  They discovered several primitive species, and, like the Dra-Tsath, built hidden observatories and laboratories to watch these primitive, unsophisticated species develop; never did the Kronn interfere with their natural growth or make themselves known to them, as was commanded by the Kronn bureaucracy.  The Kronn thought themselves alone as the sole rulers of a primitive galaxy, which they could rule or shape according to their will, that changed when an alien mothership wandered across the Kronn border.  The species on the ship called themselves the Prothen, or Arunar, and the ship was carrying colonists by order of the Prothen emperor.  The first of the many wars between the Progenitors followed, with the Kronn unwilling to except that other advanced races existed and also to let the colonist ship pass through Kronn space.  The war would have gone on longer, and more star systems ravaged, had not emissaries from the growing Vorian Republic not negotiated peace between the Kronn and Prothen.  Again the Kronn were shocked at the emergence of another advanced race; the mammalian Vors of Vorpiter, a striking world of great beauty.  Around this time the Infinite Bureaucracy was established in the Kronn's empire, with no head or president, just a giant loop of bureaucratic positions, each answering to other levels of the loop, called cosmocrats.  Peace lasted between the Prothens' and Kronns' empires and the socialist Republic.  It was also in this era that the Kronn began to make themselves known to the various races unknowingly inhabiting their empire, and began to experiment, study, and deport many of them.  The so-called primitive "children species" of the three great powers were treated differently; the Kronn, eugenicists and elitists, enslaved or destroyed many species deemed "unworthy", also the Kronn became very proficient at genetic engineering, altering or experimenting on many species, such as the enslaved Athaneans, or the eventually wiped out Iau.  The Kronn, unlike the Vors or even the Prothen, did not allow their children species to become citizens of the Empire, unless they favored their race over others, as in the case of the Xala and Thussaserons, who happened to hold the favor of their Kronn overlords.  Galactic wars resumed when the fourth great race, the arthropod Telophs of irradiated Tel'Aga V, who had formed a corporate empire across a great swath of space.  The Vors helped form a peace between the four species after countless wars, and the Kronn proposed creating a Galactic Tetrarchy of the four great powers to cease the constant and devastating wars, with the seat of the tetrarchy at Krodia Prime.  As peace reigned the Kronn, the greatest of the four in size and power, advanced more in science, becoming masters at genetic engineering and warpspace technology, as well as psionics, which was Kronn's greatest strength; they mastered many arcane abilities such as spacewalking and universal precognition.  They tried continually to create life, instead of merely tampering with primitive species.  They succeeded, around 2,316,000 -AI, creating a beneficial microorganism.  Many trillions inhabitants of the Tetrarchy had colonies of the organisms implanted in their spinal cords, giving many beneficial effects to the hosts.  Then something changed in the organisms; a fluke in their hive mind consciousness.  Trillions of the galactic fringe colonists, who had received the microscopic implants first to aid them in their more rugged lives, were killed by the organisms then reanimated as un-breathing, dead, merciless monsters.  The Kronn failed to hold back the infection in large part due to the numerous  rebellions of their children species, especially the more primitive ones like Maanasa, Athaneans, and Enukians, who comprised a vast portion of the Kronn armed forces.  The rebellions distracted Kronn resources and military forces from fighting the infection.  The infection spread throughout the galaxy, the Kronn tried desperately to fix their mistake; first they created a sentient, artificially intelligent race called the Cyth from Dra-Tsath technology, to combat the Telophs and to wipe out the infection; then by performing a successful Cybresis on the next generation of Prothen younglings making them near-immune to the infection and able to combat the malfunctioning Cyth; then finally by building monoliths on worlds across the galaxy that channeled a frequency that pacified the infection, but it was to late and Krodia Prime, after centuries of war, was destroyed by the infection.  The Kronn Bureaucratic Empire was no more and a Kronn was not seen again, only the devastated ruins of their civilization remained.  The Millennia Stillness followed this so called Dark Epoch of war.                  

Teloph Trade Combine:
Capital: Tel'Aga V
Government: Corporatocracy
Language: Teloph
The arthropodal, four-armed, Telophs hailed from the barren, irradiated world of Tel'Aga V, located in the beta quadrant of the galaxy.  Life for the early Telophs was hard and life-expectansy was short; the gigantic sun of their homeworld pounded the surface of the world with radiation, killing most Telophs and native fauna and flora quickly and at a young stage, and the sparse amount of resources made life primitive and harsh.  Teloph culture was based around death and one's immanent death, little times was wasted building monuments or vast cities, but instead to catacombs and tombs.  Resources were always scarce on their harsh world; guilds quickly formed to manage and claim resources, often becoming more powerful than local rulers or allied councils.  The guilds, around the same time the Kronn were landing on their moons, formed into global corporations and mega-corps, ruling cities, nations, and entire continents.  The Teloph corporations began colonizing star systems when the Kronn had already established a sizable interstellar empire, but unlike the Kronn who were unified throughout their entire history, the Teloph mega-comoanies and corporations fought with each other continually for planets, resources, and energy.  It was their first contact and war with the Kronn and Prothen empires where the Teloph powers signed the Treaty of Tel'Aga IX, uniting the corporations into the Teloph Trade Combine, which was in charge of the defense and foreign relations of the corporations, but they still retained inner autonomy.  The Combine attacked the Kronn and Prothen so viscously due to the lust for more resources and also jealously at the two species who hailed from stable, lush worlds and who were not weaned on the eternal presence of a cancerous death.  When the wars ended and the Galactic Tetrarchy period began, the Telophs always resisted Kronn supremacy, often opposing them in the Tetrarchal Council on Krodia Prime.  The Telophs, similar to the Kronn, did not treat their children species as citizens of their federation, instead using them as laborers, soldiers, slaves, and experiments; stripping resources from their worlds and carrying away their population to work on foreign worlds.  Unlike the Kronn who mastered genetic engineering and rarely made a mistake, the Telophs toyed with dozens of species, their brutal, un-elegant methods often ending in disaster; such as the Yurgh Rebellion, where billions of mutated Yurgh rebelled all across the Combine, resulting in their extinction at Teloph and Tetrarchal Peacekeeper hands.  When the Kronn created life in the form of the microorganism, Telophs, like the rest of the galaxy, filed into lines at Kronn laboratories and hospitals, receiving the spinal injection.  When the Dark Epoch began with the infection, the Telophs lost all of their children species, except for the Hrullgi who clung desperately onto life for another thousand or more years.  The Telophs, furious at the Kronn, withdrew officially from the Tetrarchy, closing their borders to everyone as they fought ineffectually against the infection.  The Combine fleet then began attacking the disintegrating Kronn border, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties as the Kronn had to fight both the Combine fleet and infection.  Kronn scientists then created the Cyth, a robotic race designed for one thing: genocide.  Cyth fleets poured across the galaxy, combating the infection and, as ordered by the Kronn Bureaucracy, the Trade Combine.  Teloph armies and fleets were swatted aside by the unstoppable robotic force, destroying all of Teloph space; not even ruins were left.  What was left of the Teloph race had their last stand on Tel'Aga XXI; the Cyth came from the sky, slaughtering and destroying all defenses while the infection attacked from behind the Teloph line.  Most, if not all traces of the Teloph race disappeared with them; and thousands of years later, the Hrullgi were wiped out by the Prothen in war, removing the last legacy of the Telophs.