by

Yanick Champoux (38%)

Lee Watts (18%)

Josip Nað (17%)

Michel Lacombe (16%)

Dorian (4%)

goldkngt55 (3%)

Andrew Avila (2%)

Marten (1%)

Oliver (1%)

Part 19

Dorian (8/12/2001)

Magdalena wept.

She was trapped on a spaceship heading for some unknown location.

Actually, to clarify, she was trapped on a spaceship heading for an unknown location which was now under attack, surrounded by aliens she knew nothing about and held prisoner-like in a room with a charred body which was once some sort of pumped up killer.

She was lost, scared and alone. Though strong, it was all too much, too crazy for her to assimilate. Magdalena was a member of the Reeves office. She didn't do crazy, never needed to. She knew numbers and contracts and appointments and . and . it was all too much and so she lay there on the floor, allowing the craziness to just happen.

Wake me when it's all over.

Demuel would have wept if it was something his virtual ghost could have done.

He was trapped inside an alien computer system, his meat dead and his existence reduced to a digital reflection. He was now millions of numbers, electricity and light: a programmer's afterthought.

How long he hung in that space, not quite able to comprehend what was happening, he couldn't know, didn't want to know.

Then everything changed.

A bright circle appeared in space and drew him in. Down he went, through a corridor of light, the island left behind, clutching the prize tightly. He knew nothing of where he was headed, merely that he was carried along a torrent of data, washed away on a stream of information and then unceremoniously dumped in a black void.

Demuel existed, that much he knew.

From out of the black, steel cables shot out and wrapped themselves around his arms and legs. They drew him towards, what he could only describe, as an infinitely large crucifix which burned like a sun.

Onward he was virtually dragged and upon reaching the crucifix, he was slotted in.

Magdalena awoke in what appeared to be some sort of surgical room. She lay on a bed, naked and barely conscious.

"Awake," came a voice.

"Yes. I shall inform the Mandarin," came another voice.

They were Vau. They were speaking Vau and she understood. What?

A door opened and she slowly turned her head to try and see. In walked one of the tall aliens dressed in large ceremonial robes. "I give you greetings. What do you feel?"

She tried but failed to speak.

"There is no worry here. You are well. I know. I have seen to that. There is a problem. We have solved it. We had bought the service of your colleague but he is no longer able to comply himself. But you are. We have transferred his flesh-ware to your person. We have implanted one of our computer-meat interface units as payment for your service. We have also implanted him in your neural net."

"Good morning, baby" said Demuel's voice in Magdalena's head. "I knew I wanted to get inside you, but this is not what I had in mind."

"Bollocks" said Magdalena.