Nicholas Calen, Void Engineer

What do we know   

[Vienna, June 11]

After gettting back from the Swiss Bank, we decided to go over everything we'd discoverd so far and see if any more clues jumped out at us.

Mark told us that the Ksirafai had used a number of symbols to communicate messages:
rose - info gathering or seduction
dagger - defense
Thunderbolt - warning
Three lightning bolts - assassination

Now the coin we found in the safe deposit box was facing with the rose and dagger side up, so we took that to mean the info in the box needed to be guarded.

We had two scraps of paper that fit together, with the letters 'I' and 'X'. Analyzing the fragments, we believe there are two other pieces.

The rose tapestry that Kyle took from Cassada's house has some sort of energy singature that ties it to Prague.

Also, from Cassada and Lobenstein, we have two pieces of a key. Looks like there should be others.

Mac, it turns out, has been working on decrypting Cassada's databases, and he found the name of a man in Prague, a buyer for the tapestry. Sergei Dinova. Turns out he has a platinum dagger to exchange for it. There were also two entries in Geneva, for Veranique dePree and Fanciulla Marconi. Vera will exchange the dagger for a puzzle box, and Fanciulla is an expert in said puzzle boxes.

Obviously, our next step is going to be Prague. Then through the hoops to Geneva.

Mac's Problems   

[Vienna, June 12]

I can't believe I was so stupid not to notice. I was busy scanning for any active Union transmissions, when Mac's passive broadcasts were going on the whole time. No wonder the agents at the train station IDd us so fast.

Mac stopped me on the way out of the hotel in Prague, wanted to know about his DEI, and if there was anyway to shut it off. I didn't twig to what he really meant to ask for a few, but then I realized he meant how to shut off the condition monitor broadcasts and go into silent running.

I thought I was going to have to knock him out and tie him down to be able to set up the connection to his implants, but he finally agreed to give me the access I needed to change the configuration. Had to remind him that several different Conventions were looking for him for one reason or another. It occurs to me that his father may well be looking for him to protect him from the others. Especially now that the Pogrom's been re-activated. Have to look into that.

While in Mac's VR control room, I generated an admin passcode for him, so he'd be able to control these things himself. Turns out he hadn't even realized the equipment had a manual, much less read it. Typical. Hope he looks over it before he fucks something up.

On the plus side, while he was recovering from the processor drain of generating the access key, I was able to download a number of promising files. Journal entries, contact information. Things that could be useful. We'll see. Reset the access times on all the files so he should never realize any of them were even touched.

Regrouping in Prague           

[Vienna, June 12]

All of us are starting to feel like time is getting short, so we started making hasty preparations to leave. Arden wanted us to tramp to Prague with her 'gypsy' relations, but I was having none of that. She even had the nerve to insinuate that I must be intimidated by their women, never having known a real one myself. Never mind that she's at least partially responsible for Maria's death...

I've got my own ideas, and I suggested we each find our own way to Prague. Derrick, the big action hero, tore out and mounted up on his Vespa. I've never seen someone so excited about such a piece of crap.

I decided to seek out some of the shadier contacts in Vienna, and found just the sort of unscrupulous dealer I needed. A quick exchange of cash and I had a new Bimmer, an M5. Fun to drive, but not out of place to attract attention. Not sure how everyone else is getting to the rendez-vous, in Derblinkendermizzet, but I'm sure the whore will find some sucker to give him a ride. Probably should have given Mac a lift. Void only knows what sort of trouble he's going to get into on his own. At least with the DEI in silent mode, he's not starting from a handicap.

The drive will give me time to go over the logs I lifted from him, anyway.

Oz decided not to go with us, though. I warned him to stay on his toes. And Hwang has been recalled to England. That can't be good.

I'm still bothered about the job she did on Mac's implants. How could she have let him go around broadcasting like that for so long? Surely she knows better! I just hope this isn't an indication of a setup. Maybe she just wanted a little insurance.

All these little clues keep pointing to a trap, though. I just can't figure out the point. She must want us to take on this mission, otherwise she could have had us killed at any time. Which leads me to wonder why she wants us. The only answer I keep coming to is expendable. I don't like being expendable. I've got to get that message to Sgt. Meyers.

Changes Without   

[Vienna, June 13]

This whole 'Plan' thing is starting to bother me. I've got to figure out what's going on back home and across the Union, but I can't trust Hwang, and the normal channels are completely devoid of anything useful.

Sent a message to Sgt. Meyers during the drive to Derblinkendermizzet over a scrambled piggyback to the Mars training facility. It's encrypted to his personal key, so he should be the only one to read it, and it's past time I took a few risks. Including a copy of the message here.

--Begin Message--
Sgt-Major, it's Nicholas Calen. I'm alive, no thanks to NWO's efforts. Some folks, friends of Courage, I believe, are helping me out until I can clear my record and return, but I needed to contact someone and get brought up to date. I knew I could trust you.

First of all, I've been hearing rumors about 'The Plan' all my life, but know very little about what it actually entails. I won't ask you to betray that, but if there's anything I can do to assist the VE, just ask.

My main concern is why ItX has been authorized to reactivate the Pogrom. Why anyone would proceed with that is beyond me, and the fact that NWO doesn't seem to be the one pushing it confuses me even more. It makes it even more dangerous for me to try and operate, but there's something going on that I have to help with.

I'll set up another secure channel to receive your reply in 12 hours.
--End Transmission--

Getting In   

[Vienna, Uno CIty, June 13]

So, there I was with four days to myself - no deviant partners to look after, no talking statues, no puzzles to solve. Just a nice , relaxing drive through the European countryside. Two hours in, though, I got an alert from my routine Union monitors that a rogue agent had been apprehended in Vienna. I carried on to Derblinkendermizzet, but my good mood was shot. Rogues are hardly a common occurrence, but it didn’t necessarily have to be one of my associates, coincidental location or not. Somehow, though, I knew this was bad news.

I got to Derblinkdermizzet and, unsurprisingly, was the first to arrive. Checked in at the hotel and decided to see the sights. One sight in particular caught my interest – Fraulein Greta Schmidt. She certainly helped take my mind off of my concerns about the rogue.

Unfortunately, the night was not to be as enjoyably peaceful as the afternoon, as I was awakened by another alert from my taps into Union communications. Dr. Cooper, Mac’s father, had taken an interest in the rogue, put a suspension on the interrogation, and was coming in from the States to take custody personally.

That was too much to ignore. Whatever Coopers intentions, even if they were to protect Mac, as I suspected, I couldn’t risk letting the fuckup spill everything he knew. Dr. Cooper wouldn’t care about the mission I’d agreed to help with, and he could make a lot of trouble.

I didn’t know how he’d managed to get himself into the shit so fast – all I knew was that it was up to me to get the Adept out.

I slipped out of bed and took off, back to Vienna. En route, I pulled all the pertinent files. Mac was still listed as a John Doe, so ItX still hadn’t put together the implants and Cooper’s interest. The AIC was a Dr. James Burke, ItX, and he was definitely not one for finesse. One of ItX’s nastier interrogators, he favored the brute force approach. But, he was a by-the-book sort, which meant my forged records showing that I was simply an intrusion clone seeking information pertinent to my mission should suffice to get me in to see Mac. I just needed to figure out a way to get him out. A clone would have no standing to override someone of Cooper’s status.

Another name jumped out at me then. The NWO Agent assigned to prep Mac for his father’s arrival was one Ms. Rebecca Cooper, Richard’s wife. This just kept getting better and better. No wonder he was still officially a John Doe, she had been running interference. On orders from Mac’s father, I wondered?

I got to the hospital where they’d taken Mac and pulled his charts from the admitting nurse. She gave me the same disdainful look we always give clones. Almost makes me wonder if they’re offended by it. Or if they can be. So far so good, though. Made my way to the ICU and stopped in at the security station. The on-duty agent ignored me as I examined the monitors until I pointed out the one that was offline. Told me that was where they were keeping the Doe – it had shorted out right after he’d been brought in and they hadn’t managed to fix it yet. I nodded, went down to Mac’s room and stopped to review his status.

DEI offline, senses impaired. Concussion. Broken leg, but the quick heal had that mending fairly well. Severe allergy to Draponomine. Apparently they sent him into anaphylaxis. Lovely. The various monitors on the screen outside his room indicated that he was fairly heavily doped up, though. No help there, it was all up to me to get him out.

The thought occurred to me that it would be easiest to simply administer another Draponomine dose. It’s a fairly standard tactic, and would look like he was killed by accident. It would have been easier, certainly, than getting us both out alive. Unfortunately, I needed him on this mission. He had skills, and information, that could very well be invaluable in finding the library.

Yeah, now if I could only just convince myself that was the only reason I wanted to save his life.

Standing in the middle of a Progenitor facility with no heavy weapons, no backup, and no idea how to get my target out alive; up against Iterators who would just as soon kill him, Progenitors and NWO teaming up to get him into protective custody; and I’ve got nothing but a forged record of an intrusion clone created from the genetic sample of a disgraced and deceased rogue VE.

No problem.


written with Phaedra Weldon

Getting Acquainted   

[Uno City, June 13]

With the monitors offline, I couldn’t be sure what to expect when I entered Mac’s room. I had the gun ready, but it turned out it was the last thing I needed. Standing over Mac, who looked like absolute shit, was Rebecca Cooper. Holding his hand tenderly, and coming up from a kiss.

I’m so glad I grew up with a nice, normal family.

Well, I had thought she might be working on the orders of Mac’s father to get the Adept into ‘safe’ hands. This pretty much clinched it for me. Of course, I still had to figure out how to keep Mac out of any Union hands.

Except mine, of course.

I had to find a way to be sure. Her line about Courage could have been a reference to John Courage…or an attempt to give me enough rope. It was obvious she didn’t want Burke to hang on to Mac, but the official line was still that she was delivering him to Control. I didn’t have time to pussyfoot around with her, but if she got her suspicions up, it would have been trivial for her to have me killed.

The downside to being a clone – completely expendable. Useful for being unobtrusive, but not exactly a position of strength from which to negotiate.

I decided it was time for a half-truth. She may have wanted to protect Mac, but that hardly meant she was going to help a rogue agent involved with a bunch of deviants. But, a spy who needed critical information that this rogue possessed - that might be enough to quiet her suspicions and convince her to help me get him out of the hospital.

Fighting our way out was not my idea of a good time. Never mind the outnumbered aspect – a plasma caster against unprepared opponents tends to be a tremendous equalizer – but most of the Agents in the hospital were just doing their jobs. And most of them were probably as loyal to the Precepts as I am. Or, as I was coming to suspect, Agent Cooper was.

She already had some orders on file to take custody of Mac. Forged ones. Badly forged ones.

I logged into the system and plugged in my access codes. A little song, a little dance, and suddenly Ms. Cooper had orders to expedite Mac for transport to an NWO facility elsewhere in the city where I could take a crack at interrogating him using some of their specialized equipment. The acquisition team would pick him up there for transport to more permanent accommodations in the U.S.

I figured, once Mac was out of the hospital, I would deal with Agent Cooper.

I filled her in on the plan. Get Mac into the ambulance and head for CF-A23, NWO's main operational center for the city. I let her believe I was just along for the ride, wanting to interrogate the prisoner. After all, I could hardly get any useful info out of him when he was doped to the gills, and having him in a white room at NWO for a few hours would help clear that up nicely.

Once he was in NWO's hands, she could make sure Dr. Cooper was able to collect his son before Control got to him.

I silently watched them load Mac into the ambulance; unfortunately hadn’t counted on them sedating him so heavily.

I had been expecting to bring him around and have him talk to Agent Cooper – thinking the two of them could work something out. I really didn’t want to have to take action against her. She was caught between her duties and her conscience, something that’s become all too common in the Union of late.

The plan had worked so far. But there’s always a complication...

Getting Away   

[Uno City, June 13]

Mac collapsed into sleep before I’d even put the car in gear. Probably just as well, his system needed to work the drugs out on its own, even if the adrenaline rush had kick-started the process. Once we were well away from Uno, I found a grocers and picked up some mineral water and snacks. We were both going to need the fuel.

As I was driving, I tried to tap into the secure files back at Caster, but it seemed they were onto the access codes I’d used. I had no way to get in and find out how they’d picked up on McGyver’s presence in the first place. That was bothering me. There should have been nothing about the implant to give him away, so what had the fool done to draw their attention?

About an hour out of Uno, Mac suddenly started groaning and thrashing in his sleep. I checked his vitals, and everything was as well as could be expected. Just a nightmare, I guess. Can’t really blame him for that.

At least they hadn’t cut off all of my access. The tactical net was still feeding information to my monitors, and the Communicator was decrypting it. I realized my error later. Completely unforgiveable.

I was letting the Nokia handle the decryptions, then transmitting important data to my DEI without using a cable. I was so tired and distracted by my own thoughts that I forgot that Mac’s implant would pick up the signal as well.

They’d confirmed that Agent Cooper was dead. I’d known, of course, from the first reports of the destruction of the ambulance. That had happened about the time we were just getting to the car back in Uno. It had taken the pursuing agents some time to identify her remains, however, and they were just now sending out the confirmation.

What I hadn’t realized at this point was that Mac now knew it, too. Or that he knew about my change in status.

I knew my ‘death’ wouldn’t be kept a secret forever. And I knew that when the truth was revealed, Control would have no choice but to classify me as a rogue. That’s what I was. And still am, I suppose. It still bothered me, though. I had accepted that pursuing the mission to stop Sterling was the right thing to do – if he unleashed whatever force he was searching for upon the mundanes, they’d have no chance. Disgraced or not, I am still one of the defenders of this planet, and I am going to do my job. I just wished I could have done it with the support of the agencies that also have that responsibility.

I wondered how long Mac had lain awake, listening to me arguing with myself. I wondered how much he knew. That Rebecca was dead, certainly. That I was discovered, probably. Did he know that there were agents searching for the two of us, even now? The last batch of transmissions indicated that they thought we were still in Uno, or Vienna at the furthest.

At least they weren’t following immediately, and they hadn’t blocked all of my access. I wouldn’t be getting into any more secure facilities with my current ID codes, but the datanet access was still available to me.

Still, the man’s presumption got to me, pissing me off. I was hardly in the best of shape or the best of moods, and he was going to blame me for Agent Cooper’s death?

We argued, and for a moment, I thought he was going to throw a punch. In hindsight, I’m glad he didn’t. Bullet wound or no, my temper was about out of control, and if he’d come at me I’d probably have killed him without even thinking about it.

Wouldn’t that have been fucking fantastic? After risking my own life and then getting Cooper killed to get him out, I was within seconds of ripping his head off myself. Wasn’t it enough for him that he was alive and free?

More than ever, I regretted going after him. Was it my own sense of self-importance that sent me into Uno after McGyver? That my mission was far more important than the Union’s procedures?

It was certainly my arrogance that got Agent Cooper killed. If I hadn’t been so overconfident in my abilities to fool the system, maybe we could have taken our time, come up with a better plan.

I had to move past my mistakes, then. Learn from what had happened, and not let it happen again. Well, if there’s one thing I can always count on with Mac, it’s that he’ll give me something else fucked up and interesting to think about.

Didn’t quite work as I’d expected. Turned out McGyver’s mind was working remarkably well for all the shit he’d been through. Maybe some sense had finally been knocked into him. He was thinking things through logically.

Of course, he picked the most inconvenient time possible to start that shit.

Mac kept picking at me, drawing out the memory of disastrous mission. It was supposed to be a fairly straightforward training and observation drop. “No contact.” Right.

Lots of unexpected contact later, fourteen of my friends and one idiot of a lieutenant were dead, and I was trying desperately to hold the team together for a retreat while literally holding myself together where one of the beasts had torn into me.

Some of us made it out. Jason didn’t. He knocked me out of the way of the blow that should have killed me and so I was only wounded. But he drew its attention, and its next move tore his head from his shoulders.

I was able to return the favor. My plasma cannon left very little of the beast in one piece.

The rest of the battle and retreat is a bloody haze. I remember shouting for everyone to fall back, trying to activate the recall beacon, then waking up in the hospital.

It must have been the drugs. McGyver had turned into a psychoanalyst on me, just when I really didn’t feel like examining my feelings and motivations. I certainly didn’t want to discuss them with him.

But if not with McGyver, who?

Hwang was gone, returned to England, where she had been taken into custody as a rogue agent. She had already been taken off-planet by the time I caught that bulletin, so there was no chance of another dazzling rescue attempt there.

I supposed I could contact my parents directly, now that my cover was shot. Never could really talk with my dad about emotional sorts of issues, though, it always made him uneasy. I remembered then, I’d already sent a message to Sgt. Meyers and needed to check for a reply.

And there was. In my wildest dreams, I never expected the message he had sent. He was surprised to hear from me, and pleased. He didn’t believe the reports about my going rogue, thankfully. Good to know he had confidence.

His other words were far from comforting though. The VE’s Plan…one my parents had been critical in setting up and implementing, was to secede from the Union. And it had begun. Even as I re-read Meyer’s message, I could sense the absolute panic in the Union communication and tactical nets as everything went to hell. My access codes were knocked out of the system so abruptly that I felt a physical blow, and almost lost control of the car, only just managing to clip a tree instead of ramming it. I think that’s when Mac woke up.

They weren’t locking me out because I had illegal codes though, it was because they originated from a VE. The other Conventions were circling up against us, though I knew it was already too late.

The others have always looked down on us for being more interested in the Engineering portion of things than the politics that consumed a great deal of other Technocrats’ time. But they didn’t realize just how heavily dependent they were on us. When the primal taps on their Constructs shut down, leaving them powerless, airless, lifeless hunks of metal floating in space, then they’d understand.

In the meantime, unlike most of the VE, I was still stuck on Earth, and would have to deal with the fallout.

ItX had already recommenced the Pogrom, and now they’d be putting any VEs they came across on their list of people to be exterminated along with anyone else they decided to call a deviant.

I was just thinking I didn’t have enough people trying to kill me.

I pulled the car over to examine the damage. Mac was awake again and back to a semblance of normal, which is to say repeating obvious questions like ‘What’s going on?’. I got out and paced around for awhile, ignoring him. I had far too much to worry about on my own without coddling the Adept any longer.

He was saying something about getting the car repaired, but I hardly cared. I looked it over and could hardly see any damage, must have just scraped the tree much lighter than I originally thought.

I saw no reason to enlighten Mac on the reasons for my sudden distraction, but he wanted to argue about it, of course. I just told him to get in the car or walk, and finally he did.

I ignored the Adept for the rest of the trip, which luckily passed without incident. I thought about the repercussions – with the Union destabilized, who would defend the border? What would the deviants try? What might break through?

It was almost a relief to be grounded back to more immediate concerns when we arrived back in Derblinkendermizzet and I had to face the wrath of one scorned Fraulein Greta.

Getting Out   

[Uno City, June 13]

As they loaded Mac into the ambulance, I overheard Burke complaining about the destruction of Mac's laptop. Good to know they wouldn't be pulling any data off of it, but Mac was going to be pissed when he found out.

As soon as Agent Cooper had us rolling, I started bringing Mac's DEI back online. My codes were accepted and I rebooted everything, injecting some nanobots to repair the minor damage and some quickheal solution to help with the concussion.

Unfortunately, at this point Cooper and I quarrled regarding how to proceed. She was convinced that taking Mac back to his father was the best course of action, but I obviously needed to get him back to Prague. It very nearly came to violence before Mac woke up and started trying to make decisions for himself again.

I could tell he had to agonize over the choice of continuing with the mission to stop Sterling or returning to his father. The choice was somewhat made for him, though, by the imminent arrival of an ItX team to recapture both him and me.

During the fracas, I was shot. Again. I was starting to think the guy was bad luck.

Finally, he gave in to my logic and ran for it with me. Agent Cooper sacrificed her life to draw the pursuit off of us while we hightailed it back to my car and out of Uno.

Info from Home       

[Uno City, Derblinkendermizzet, June 13]

I was so wrapped up in the process of getting Mac out of Uno City that I almost missed my appointment to open a secure channel for Sgt. Meyers. I remembered just in the nick of time and pulled down his squealed transmission.

It was some heavy shit. The VE have seceeded from the Union.

I can't even wrap my mind around that, I'm just numb at the thought. They've found proof that the AI in Autocthonia is not an AI at all, but a massively powerful outsider. The corruption of this outsider has led the leadership of ItX into folly, and they're preparing to open gateways to let thousands more of these Outsiders into our reality.

As part of this, apparently ItX has officially sanctioned the reinstatement of the Pogrom. They're wiping out people left and right, and not just deviants. Lupine, maybe I could understand, but they're taking it out on everyone from leeches to agents they don't like, and a lot of ItXers are using it as an excuse for personal vendettas. Even barring the VE going to war with them, they're pissing off the other Conventions now.

My father is apparently one of the leaders of the so-called 'Plan' to destroy Autocthonia, along with all of the other ItX stations, by dropping blocks across their primal energy taps to Earth. Even as I write this, battles are beginning across the stations where personnel are mixed, and most of the VE population has been recalled to the Cop.

I would have been there, too, but everyone thought I was dead. Now my loyalties are torn...not between the VE and the rest of the Union - I have to trust my father's leadership and the fact that he knows what he's doing, but between returning home and completing this mission. Can I make enough difference in the civil war that's now destroying everything I once knew? Or is this mission even more important - safeguarding reality while those who normally take that watch are busy fighting on another front?

Or are they related? Could Sterling somehow know of the Outsider involed with ItX - is his excavation part of that things plan?

That could be very bad...

Changes Within   

[Derblinkendermizzet, June 13]

I've been trying to deny it, but something's different. The voice that tormented me for so long has gone silent. It doesn't even seem like it's hiding, or anything - the presence is just gone. I don't know how to even describe it to myself without getting all metaphorical - my eyes are opened, I've found peace, I've got a new lease on life, blah blah blah...

The long and the short of it is, my mind is my own. I've got noone second guessing my every thought, trying to coerce me into doing things I know are bad ideas. That's disturbing enough, but whatever happened seems to be affecting other things.

Since that night in Vienna, I've been unable to use the Dimensional Scanner. I can activate it, and see the display come on, but I can't understand what it's telling me. It's like I somehow forgot how to read it, but that's not possible.

To make things weirder, I was working with it, trying to figure out what was wrong, and got so frustrated I just slammed it down into the table...which cracked in half. I've never seen anything like it - it's not like I was doing katas and trying to break a board with a kick or punch, I just slammed my hand against this piece of furniture and it practically shattered. Never had that happen before.

Then, in Derblinkendermizzet, both Mark and Arden were trying some of their hoodoo on my car. Not entirely sure why, but they did something and it wouldn't start. The second time I tried, though, I got a little static shock and it started up fine.

And I swear, I didn't catch a single red light on either trip betwenn Derblinken and Vienna. What the hell is going on?

Changes in Others   

[Derblinkendermizzet, June 15]

McGyver's been acting somewhat oddly since I got him out of Uno City. Something's changed - realization that we're not playing a video game, that this is real maybe?

Rebecca's death hit him harder than I would have expected, true. I had thought he wanted nothing to do with his old life, given what I've read in his diaries. I guess the information I've given him about his father and brother have really shaken him.

In any case, he's definitely different. Seems to have grown a spine, I guess. Well, maybe now he'll try to stay out of trouble a little more.

Mark...there's far more to him than meets the eye. When I heard he was agreeing to come on this mission as part of a spiritual quest, I thought I was going to be saddled with an utter fruitcase. No pun intended. But now...there's depth to him. He is truly worried about what Sterling is going to unleash, and feels it's his duty to stop that. I can respect that. I guess it's not really a change in him, as me seeing more of him than he has let on before. His foppishness is the act - the serious side that he's just now letting me see, that's the real Mark Davins.

Arden seems to be getting more and more concerned. As with Mark, I initially wrote her off as worthless. Someone more interested in her shoes than getting the job done. An actress, at best. I think it's becoming real to her now, though, after the attacks. People want to stop us, and we can't let them. It's darkened her mood, I think. Or maybe she always had a dark side to her, that's just now being revealed.

Derrick, luckily for my paradigm, remains the same smug jackass he's always been, and Kyle remains as obnoxiously immature as ever.

La plus ca change, and all that.

Prague       

[Derblinkendermizzet, Prague, June 16]

Still on Earth, and proceeding with the mission to stop Sterling. I've sent another request to Sgt. Meyers to set up a meeting with any VE that are still on Earth. Not much point in concealing the truth about my being alive anymore. All VE's are now being treated as rogue agents.

I'm completely locked out of the regular Union traffic, now. I hadn't realized how much I'd come to depend on that info source. At least the VE nets are open to me, to a limited extent anyway. Those back home are still nervous about letting any information out to anyone not on the Cop.

To make a long story short, we got the dagger in exchange for the tapestry. Now it's just a matter of taking the dagger to the contact in Geneva.

Arden tried to screw with my car. Apparently she's over the shades. A quick knock around the engine and I was back and running. Better than before, in fact. Something very strange is going on.

Inside the hilt of the dagger was the next letter of the puzzle, 'O'. Not a Roman numeral of any sort, then. Following the course laid out for us in Cassada's database, I picked up Mark and Mac in the Bimmer and we headed towards Geneva.

Geneva       

[Prague, Geneva, June 16-18]

We continued following the trail laid out for us. We exchanged the dagger for a puzzle box with Veronique. Both she and Sergei agreed that it would be best for them to go into hiding.

We tried to open the damn thing ourselves, so we wouldn't have to involve Cassada's contact, but we just couldn't figure out the last step.

We took it to the expert the next day and Fanciulla snapped it open fairly quickly over lunch with Derrick and Arden, though. Inside was a bottle of entropic poison, the last scrap of parchment ('S'), and the last piece of the key.

Ixos is the name of the poison apparently. The last time it was used seems to have been in 1745, and is connected with the fall of the White Tower somehow. Since this was also the last recorded appearance of the Ksirifai, the pieces are beginning to fall into place.

Fanciulla seemed unaware of the signifcance of any of this, so we believe she should be allright without warning, though Derrick did tell her Cassada was dead. I think he was just hoping to give her a sympathy fuck.

Anyhow, the assembled key seems to be for a swiss bank vault. We'll be checking that next, I think. This is still too easy. Where is that other fucking shoe?

Interpol       

[Geneva, June 18]

We took the key to the bank, and Mark, Mac, and myself took it inside to open the safe deposit box. Inside was, unsurprisingly, another clue. This time, however, it was fairly straightforward. Latitude and longitude coordinates. A quick check revealed that they centered on Venice, and correlating with satelite imagery put them at one of the entryways to the Venice sewer system.

The interesting bit about that entry is that it doesn't match up with any information we could come up with about the Venice sewers. There simply aren't any tunnels underneath it.

Bingo.

While we were putting this together, though, the bank manager returned and knocked on the door. I answered it, playing up the security guard bit again, and was confronted by three Interpol agents.

I was hoping we could talk our way out of it, and I glanced at Mark. Instantly he turned on the charm, wanting to know what he could do for them, playing up the obsequious American.

They showed us photos of Oz and Derrick, and wanted to know if we had seen them, since some of us, namely Mark and Mac, had been placed at times and places that these 'known terrorists' had been seen. Mark denied knowing anything about them of course.

The agents looked like they weren't quite certain they believed us, and informed us that they would be monitoring our movements so long as we remained in Europe, and asked us to contact them if we saw any sign of the criminals. We agreed.

Before the agents were out the door, I had a call in to a limo service to pick us up from the side door, and Mac was relaying our conversation to the people outside. Turned out they'd had a little trouble of their own and had solved it, albeit employing a touch less subtlety than we had.

Well, they only killed three innocent bystanders in the explosion...