Conspiracy Theory

he building was one month away from being condemned. Most of the occupants had no idea of their impending homelessness, though a few suspected it. Those who did suspect kept the news to themselves. Affordable housing was too precious. Telling their neighbors would cause a mass exodus that would ruin their own chances of finding another place to live.

But none of that really mattered now.

A sea of abandoned cars clogged the courtyard as if the machines had gathered in worship. From inside, the howls of he damned bled out onto the streets like echoes of a distant symphony. But despite the time of day... despite the high level of unemployment and the prison-like density of the population... there was still no one on the street to hear hell's music. No children. No addicts. No prostitutes or panhandlers. No runners or lookouts. Those who were close enough to hear it... were the one's whose warbling throats gave the music its melody and who's pounding fists marked the tempo.

Monsters screamed at each other across stained, crowded hallways. They had awakened from a nightmare only to discover that it was real. Nightmarish shapes that had once been human slithered and lurched from apartment to apartment, searching for the humanity that had mysteriously deserted them. Or just for an end to the nightmare.

Occasionally a window would shatter, and something inhuman would squeeze through the opening and leap to the concrete doom below. Most struck the ground with a crunch and a splatter. Some landed on their feet... surprised by dexterity that multiple, segmented legs and a reinforced spine could provide in a free-fall. One flew... sailing around the building on wings of skin before slamming face-first... intentionally... into the wall.

Somewhere... underneath the shrieking and howling... behind the screams... a door opened. It was not an apartment. It was not an elevator. Nor was it really a door. It was more like... a throat. A throat capped by a monstrous mouth that suddenly yawned open and coughed out a series of barely-visible shapes. The shapes looked, and moved, and sounded, like something that had gurgled up from the darker bowels of a place that was within vomiting distance of hell.

The newcomers were not silent, but they attracted little attention as they spread upward throughout the building. They moved from room to room, mostly ignoring the freaks that passed them. If something was in their way, they killed it with swift efficiency and moved on.

They finished their task in just under twenty minutes. Then, as if in response to some silent signal, the intruding shapes reversed their course and headed back down. They moved faster this time. Much faster. Behind them... and in front of them... the building began to fill with a thick and familiar stench.

Downstairs, a crowd of the damned shuffled, walked, oozed, and dragged themselves toward the doors, intending to move out into the streets and, if necessary, walk to the hospital. But the doors were locked. And bolted. And protected by something painful and invisible that would not let them pass.

As the unfortunate souls began to riot and throw themselves against the decorative iron bars securing the windows...

...the dark mouth opened and swallowed back its children. The sound that followed was not a gulp, but hiss.

The soft hiss of ovens and radiators... the louder hiss of ruptured gas lines... the near roar of the gas main feeding the building...

And then came... from nowhere... the spark.

[hree Days Later...]

"You don't know."

Jason could feel the interrogator's breath all the way across the table. Cigarettes, onions, and chewing gum did not make for a welcome combination... but Jason had been smelling it for the past twelve hours. By his own reckoning, this guy's shift was almost over. Maybe the next one would smell better.

"No," Jason replied. "I told you what I know. If you don't have the answer you're lookin' for, then obviously I don't know it. Maybe you should ask Dobbs... she knows more than I do."

"Funny, that's the same thing she said about you."

"Oh well." Jason wanted to lean back in his chair and prop his feet up on the metal table. But his wrists and ankles were shackled... and those shackles were attached to the metal rings on the table. He could sit up straight. He could slouch down and rest his elbows on the table. That was it.

Now, he was slouching.

"Well, I'll give ya one thing," said the interrogator. "You certainly know how to spin one hell of a tale."

"Thanks," said Jason.

"But the evidence is spinning a completely different tale."

"Oh?"

The interrogator opened his folder and shuffled through the papers it contained.

It was a very thick folder.

Most of the pages were blank.

The stack of papers was for show... a common police tactic: Intimidate the suspect by implying an impressive pile 'evidence' that really didn't exist yet.

But it was hard to bluff a man who had a ghost reading over your shoulder. The papers in the folder that weren't blank, were simply notes that interrogator... or the ones who'd come before him... had written while Jason was talking. There was almost no real 'evidence'

"Powder burns on your hands, for one thing," said the interrogator.

Jason shrugged.

"I didn't say I never fired those guns. I had to. Self-defense. I had to PRETEND to be that other guy, or they would have killed me."

"Right."

"Right," Jason repeated. "But I never killed anybody. Check the ballistics..."

"Funny thing about those ballistics..." said the interrogator, giving Jason a long look. "Seems somebody poured acid down the barrel of those guns we found. We can't match anything. Don't know if those guns... guns you admit are yours... killed anybody or not."

"Too bad," said Jason. "And they weren't my guns. I borrowed 'em."

"So if you're innocent... if this is all just self-defense... why'd you pour acid down those barrels?"

"Who? Me? I just tossed 'em in the lab when I heard the alarm... if they accidentally knocked over a bottle-"

"They didn't 'accidentally knock over' anything. Somebody POURED acid down the barrels. Big difference"

"Wasn't me."

"You sure about that?"

"Found my fingerprints?"

"Not yet-"

"Probably because it wasn't me."

"Forensics is gonna nail your ass; but that's just a minor point-"

"Forensics is gonna find out that I was in that room... which I already TOLD you."

The interrogator flipped through the notes and blank pages. He shook his head and sighed.

"You're going away for a looooong time, Brooks. Maybe as long as a year or maybe even TWO... before they march you into the gas chamber."

"For what?"

"Let's see: Murder. Murder. Criminal Trespassing. Murder. Armed robbery. Murder. Assaulting an officer. Murder. Kidnapping. Murder. Arson. Murder-"

"I TOLD YOU!" Jason said angrily. "I didn't do ANY of that! It was the OTHER guy!"

"The guy who looked like you?" said the interrogator. "Your twin brother? The guy who's conveniently dead and unable to refute anything you're saying?"

"You found him right there in the hospital," said Brooks. "He was wearing the coat. He had the guns. His face looked just like mine. You run ballistics on those guns and you'll see-"

"We'll see that you could have planted them on him."

"Yeah," said Jason. "AFTER the cops outside shot the hell out of me, I crawled back inside, switched clothes with this other guy, put my weapons in his hands, then HEALED all of my FATAL bullet wounds and pretended to be an innocent victim. Is that what you're saying?"

"Makes about as much sense as everything else you've said."

"I'm sorry if the truth doesn't make sense."

"So what is this 'truth' again?"

"You want to hear it again?"

"Yes. From the beginning."

"Are you going to let me talk, or are you going to keep interrupting me and trying to trip me up like the last four times?"

The interrogator shrugged.

"All right," said Jason. "From the beginning..."

"'m guessing he was some kind of genius... ya know, like in the movies."

Ashley smiled at the detective sitting across from her. He didn't smile back... or even blink. He stared at her with a serious kind of intensity that reminded her of Sebastian... except that THIS guy was bald, fat, and ugly.

"Yeah," Ashley continued. "So Braxis... this genius doctor guy.... he comes up with this cure for cancer, right? Cancer and a lot of other stuff. Sort of like a universal antibiotic or something. Only there's a couple of problems with it. Nasty side effects... that kinda stuff. But Jason knows more about that part than I do-"

"Tell me what you know."

"Okay. Well... it's like this gas, you know? Odorless and colorless. You breathe it, you get confused and you start hallucinating. You start seeing monsters and demons and stuff... really freaky. If you take a big enough hit, then it messes with your organs. It like... weakens your arteries and gives you brain aneurysms and stuff. A little more, and it drives you crazy. I mean REALLY crazy. I mean running down the street shooting at cops kinda crazy."

"I see."

"And THEN... if you keep breathing it, then you get all these growths and tumors all over your body. You turn into a monster, almost."

"Monster."

"Almost."

"So this... Braxis... developed this chemical on his own."

"Yeah. And obviously with side effects like that, the FDA won't let him test it on people right?"

There was no reaction from the detective. None whatsoever.

"...okay, so Braxis decides to do his own tests. So he came here. He tests it on a few people... and that's when everything starts going to hell. The first guy freaks out and turns all ugly with growths and stuff-"

"Like a monster," the detective said sarcastically.

"Exactly. He escapes and rips through a hardware store and kills some cops. Finally he ends up in the steel foundry and he tosses himself into a vat of hot metal like that guy on that movie-"

"-and how does Jason Brooks fit into this?"

"Which one?"

"Both."

"Welllll.... okay, I gotta back up a bit for that."

"Go ahead," said the detective. "We've got all night..."

"ou're not cooperating, detective."

"I AM cooperating," Dobbs sneered back at her two interrogators. "You're just not listening!"

"If you'd start making sense-"

"Oh, you want SENSE? Here I thought you wanted the TRUTH, but what you actually want is something that makes sense! Well... sorry. The truth doesn't MAKE any sense here. None at all."

Interrogator #1 looked at Interrogator #2.

"Do we want to try this again?"

"Why not?"

"All right, Detective Dobbs... start from Brooks."

"Braxis needed some pretty heavy-duty supplies to make his chemical... some of which were hard for a law-abiding citizen to come by. In other words: Illegal. He dealt with some... 'exotic' suppliers, and they double-crossed him. They wanted more money. They figured Braxis was a rich old man who had no idea what he was in to... but they DIDN'T figure that Braxis had help. He wasn't in this alone; he had a... middleman... somebody who knew the territory and was willing to bust some heads for him."

"A hit-man? An assassin?"

"In a way. He was a fixer. He handled things when they got out of hand. I don't know what that guy's real name was... but he WENT by the name of Jason Brooks."

"But he's NOT the same Brooks who lived here in Rock Springs."

"No. But this guy had reputation-"

"A reputation that we've never heard of."

"We've never heard of it because we don't know his real name. OR his real face. But he hits Rock Springs and needs to adopt a new identity. He spots some random person on the street... somebody he already bears a slight resemblance to... "

"The real Jason Brooks."

"Exactly."

"They kidnap the real Brooks, and Braxis does some surgery on the imposter to make him look exactly like the real one."

"This is bull-"

"-sounds like a cheap spy movie, Dobbs!"

"And besides. The Braxis we have on record was a BRAIN surgeon. He didn't do faces. And he didn't do chemical weapons."

"Oh, have you interviewed Braxis? Has he TOLD you he's incapable of doing a facelift? Has he TOLD you he doesn't know squat about chemistry? Got a sworn statement on that?"

"It's common sense, Dobbs-"

"And I've TOLD you... nothing about this case make sense. But its TRUE! Now... am I telling this story or are YOU?"

"Maybe we should skip to the part about the man you shot in front of a few dozen witnesses."

"The man I killed? The man that's in protective custody right now? Him?"

"Yes."

"Yeah, I shot him. He had a gun. A gun that nobody found because the paramedics carried it out with them... INSIDE his body. Only he wasn't dead... he was in a coma induced by Braxis's chemical, which is probably what drove him crazy in the first place."

"We got that part. The guy's a freak... he had a gun in his gut... we got that. But you're saying that he was in this deal with Braxis-"

"Yes, he was."

"-to frame you?"

"Frame me and kill James Royce. We had to be discredited and killed. Why? Because we stumbled onto Braxis while we were chasing the person we THOUGHT was Jason Brooks."

"So, if we were to QUESTION this man, he would verify everything you've said in your story."

"Maybe. If the doctor's juice didn't drive him completely insane. But why're you asking me... why don't you talk to him and see what he says?"

"Because, Detective Dobbs, Brandon Phillips has a broken jaw and two broken wrists that severely limit his options for communication."

"Really?"

"Any idea how he may have come by those injuries, detective?"

"Well... he DID attack me in the hospital. I had to defend myself."

"By breaking his jaw?"

"Yes."

"His JAW? Did he try to BITE you, Ms. Dobbs?"

"He tried."

"And both of his wrists?"

"Both? I didn't notice."

"Not to mention the severe head trauma... looks like someone may have dragged him down the stairs."

"He slipped."

"A concussion that severe would cast serious doubt on any testimony he gives in a court of law, Ms. Dobbs. So even if he did corroborate your story... which he HASN'T so far..."

"I guess we'll just have to wait and see what he says then," Marilyn shrugged. "When he's well enough to speak, that is."

"Yes indeed," said the first interrogator. "I, for one, will be very interested in what Mr. Phillips has to say..."

ocked in a windowless room on an secured floor of the hospital... with two armed guards outside the reinforced door... Brandon Phillips was about as safe as one could be outside of solitary confinement in a maximum security prison.

But the precautions were more to keep other people OUT rather than to keep Phillips in. A man with broken jaw, two broken wrists, a fractured skull, spinal injuries, and a hole where his large intestine should have been was not considered a danger for escape. Phillips had regained consciousness exactly twice since his arrival. On his first foray into lucidity, Phillips moaned and begged for more painkillers. He was asleep before they arrived. On his second, he managed to answer a few yes-or-no questions by wiggling his toes... the only part of him that he could move without considerable effort, pain, or both.

Yes... his name was Brandon Phillips.

Yes... he was a private detective hired by Marilyn Dobbs' ex-husband as part of an upcoming custody suit.

Yes... he had been threatened by Detective Dobbs.

Yes... he was shot by Marilyn Dobbs in the a crowded lobby just a few days prior.

Yes... he had followed Dobbs into that lobby, and-

The question of whether he had a gun or not was left unanswered. Modern painkillers left little allowance for interrogation... and so, the speculation continued.

"Do you think she shot him?" said the guard standing to the left of Phillip's door. Unlike the man standing on the RIGHT of the door, he was not a member of the Rock Springs police department. He was a state trooper who'd been pulled in to support the dwindling ranks of the city police.

"Hell yeah," said the other guard. "She shot 'im all right. No doubt about that. Said it was self defense, though."

"That's not what I heard. I heard she even attacked a couple of your guys in lock-up. Escape attempt."

"Yep. They attacked her first. And it wasnt' an escape, she was kidnapped."

"Riiiight. So, uhhh.... What's she look like?"

The second guard looked at him and smiled.

"Figures," said the trooper. "All the hot ones are either married, crazy, or both."

"Oh, they're all crazy, man. It's just that some kinds of crazy you can deal with-"

"-and other kinds will break your jaw, throw you down the steps, and rip out your gut. AFTER they shoot ya."

"We got company."

A nurse was wheeling a cart toward them. The guards recognized her ... she was the same nurse that always showed up in the afternoons to give the patient his sponge bath.

Both guards agreed that, even with a shattered jaw and no stomach, Brandon Phillips was a lucky man.

"Hello boys," the nurse said.

The state trooper grinned giddily. The other guard held out his hand... into which the nurse gently deposited her security badge.

"Same as it was the last two times," she said sweetly. "You boys have short memories."

"No, ma'am," said the second guard. "But rules are rules." The guard looked at the picture on the badge and then at the nurse.

"I like your hair," said the trooper.

The nurse's hair had undergone a change since her last visit. What was once a well-organized set of curls now looked like the half-finished nest of a deranged vulture. At the trooper's comment, the nurse ran her fingers through it and smiled.

"Oh, this? Sometimes I just don't know what to do with it. Thank you."

"So what are you doing after-"

"I'd better get on in there," the nurse interrupted. She looked expectantly at the other guard, who was writing her name and ID number down on his clipboard. He handed her badge back to him and then quickly glanced over her cart to ensure there were not machetes or uzis hidden among the rags and towels.

"Go on in," the guard said.

The trooper opened the door, and nurse winked at him as she went in.

The guard pulled the door closed, leaving her alone with the patient.

"Hello Mr. Phillips," said the nurse. She walked over to the sink and turned both knobs as far as they would go. The sound of rushing water filled the room.

Brandon Phillips opened his eyes.

When the nurse turned around, he was looking right at her.

"Oh!" she said, surprised. "You're awake!"

Phillips made a sound that wasn't quite forceful enough to be a moan.

"This is always better when they're awake. You ready to be cleaned, Mr. Phillips?"

"...uhhhh-huhhh..." Phillips sighed.

"You know... I SHOULD go get the doctor since you're awake; but this won't take long." The nurse slid the call-button out from under his left hand and set it on the table. She disconnected the various wires and sensors running from the patient to the machines that monitored him.

Then she started unbuttoning her shirt.

"...not long at all."

"..uhhhhkk?"

"Oh, I don't want to get this dirty," said the nurse. She undid the top few buttons, giving Phillips a generous view of her bra-less breasts. Then her hands slid behind her neck, where she started fiddling with something he couldn't see. It looked like she was undoing a necklace, but she wasn't wearing one. "...and I definitely don't want to stretch this..."

"...huuuuk?"

"Stretch," the nurse repeated. "I said I didn't want to stretch... oh, never mind."

The bottom half of the nurse's face went slack. What had been a slight smile now drooped into a slack-jawed gape. The nurse's hands slid around her neck toward her chin. She was holding something between her fingers, peeling it away as-

Her face.

The nurse was taking off her face.

"UHHHH-"

The lovely nurse peeled her face up and over her skull like a mask. Underneath was a tightly-compressed shape that unfolded into a ring of mandibles surrounding a large, toothless mouth. Segments of the mouth pulled away... multiple jaws yawned open revealing a thick, coiled shape-

ssssSSSH-KLOTCH!

The long, tubular tongue launched out of the nurse's mouth and buried itself in the center of Brandon Phillip's chest. The barbed end ripped through his flesh, smashed his ribcage and hooked itself around one of the broken ribs.

"NNNNNGGGH!!!" Phillips tried to scream. He could hear himself over the sound of the running water... but he doubted anyone else could. He reached for the call-button, but it was just out of reach. "NNNNNN!!"

The tongue pulsed. Its circumference expanded slowly... and then contracted with a sudden gush-

-the gush of fluid being pumped along its length and into Phillips' torso.

"MMMMMMMM!M!!!" Phillips screeched. He thrashed on the bed as the acid burned through his chest cavity. "NNNNGH! NN-N-Nnnn..."

Phillips felt his organs dissolving. The burning goo filled his lungs, then ate through them on the way to his heart.

The tongue pulsed again.

"NNN!"

The private detective's wordless scream devolved into a series powerful choked gasps. His whole body spasmed and then clenched tightly in one last contraction. Eyes filled with desperate, pleading fear, Phillips looked up at the thing standing over him...

"...k-k-k-k-"

The tongue sprayed another tremendous gush of acid down its length. Fresh digestive juices cascaded into the detective's body, replenishing the acid that had turned his organs into sludge, and was now eating its way into his extremities. Phillips' eyes glazed over...

...and then dissolved in their sockets. The dead orbs receded into their sockets and melted into the milky goo that had once been the contents of his cranium.

The nurse waited patiently as the last of Phillips' bones dissolved. The bones always took the longest, but when Phillip's head began to stretch and droop like a half-inflated soccer ball, she knew the task was done.

What lay on the hospital bed now was not a man... or even a corpse. The acid had eaten everything except the skin, which now held the liquified innards like a man-shaped sausage casing. The stretched, lifeless face of Brandon Phillips still showed a few traces of his final terror... but after a few moments, the gurgling and shifting of the goo underneath had erased even that.

The nurse poked the bag of liquid flesh with her finger and watched the waves distort the wilting skin. She made a pleasurable clucking noise, and then, once again, liquid began to gush through the tubular tongue attached to the former detective's former chest. But now the liquid was flowing in the opposite direction.

ssSSLURRRRP!
sssSLURRRRP!

The nurse's chest expanded and contracted rhythmically...

sssSLURRRP!

...as she pumped the savory juices out of the lifeless husk on the bed...

ssssLURRRP!

...and gulped them down into her own voracious gut...

sssSSLURRRP!
sssSLURRRRP!
ssssssSLURP!

The sounds of the running faucet barely covered the wet slurpings of the demon's appetite. On the bed, the man-shaped bag of pre-digested dinner deformed... deflated... and flattened until it was just an unusually-textured blanket. The slurping continued for a few seconds more-

ssssssSSSURRRRR-R-R-R-R-RPP!!

-as the demon greedily sucked out the last of the juices.

"Hhhhnnnnn..." The nurse hummed with a satiated smile. With a quick jerk of her neck, the demon detached her tongue from the shriveled husk on the bed and retracted the fleshy hose back into her mouth.

"There," she said. "Alll clean! Well, almost..."

The nurse peeled the tip off of one of her fingers and extended a short, retractable claw. She used it to slice off a bit of Phillip's empty skin and pop it into her mouth-

"Mmmmmm!" the nurse smiled, chewing the tender morsel. Fresh human skin was not only useful for disguises, but it was a quite a delicacy. This one could fetch her a nice price... if she didn't eat it all herself. She folded her prize into a neat package and tucked it under the towels she had brought in with her. Then she pulled her disguise back into place... stretching the dead nurse's skin over her demonic face.

She checked herself in the mirror.

"One day I'll get the hang of this.... stuff." She said as she tugged at the mop of blonde hair on her head. She straightened it as best she could (without stretching the scalp), then turned off the water and went outside.

She winked at the guards on the way out. The one on the left looked delicious...

"...o after cleaning up THAT mess," said Dobbs "Braxis decides that maybe he needs to go back to animal tests for a while. But at the same time, his buyers-"

"Buyers?" You never mentioned any buyers."

"A chemical like that? There's GOT to be buyers."

"So you're guessing."

"Concluding. There's a difference."

"Go ahead, detective," the first interrogator sighed. He was already shaking his head in bored disbelief. "Go on..."

"Okay, buyers or not, the doc isn't blind. He knows that, on top of healing people, this drug has some serious weapons potential. So he decides to give THAT aspect of it a try. And do you know who he tries it out on?"

"Who?"

"Us."

"'Us' who?"

"The police. In controlled doses, this chemical-"

"Which does NOT actually exist, as far as we know," said the second interrogator.

"It exists. It's real, and its been used right here in this building."

"The attack where all the Brooks evidence conveniently vanished?"

"Right."

"We've read those reports-"

"Then you know about the hallucinations? The giant demon-dog?"

"Those accounts were left out of the report."

"But you DO know about it. You HAVE talked to people who saw it. Go ahead... LIE and say that you haven't."

"Some people saw something. That doesn't mean-"

"People saw things that could not possibly exist. Giant dogs. Demons. Monsters."

"Hallucinations wouldn't explain how several people saw the SAME-"

"That's how the drug works. There probably WAS a dog. A regular, ordinary dog. But that stuff gets into your brain and distorts what you see. Everybody saw a dog because it was there. Some people saw giant DEMON dogs because... well... you get what I'm saying."

"No, I don't, detective."

"One attack dog can take a man down. One attack dog can take a LOT of men down, if those men see something ELSE when they look at it."

"So the attacks on police officers was just an elaborate test of this... supposed 'drug'? A test that may or may not have involved attack dogs?"

"Yes."

"And how was Brooks involved in this?"

"Which-"

"Either."

"Well," said Dobbs. "That's where the story gets interesting."

"ou escaped?"

"I escaped," Jason repeated.

"And how did you do that exactly?"

"Well, Its all kinda blurry-"

"Of course it is. Trying to remember the same lies you told earlier takes a lot of effort."

"See," Jason sighed. "THAT kind of attitude almost makes me sorry I did what I did."

"Right," said the interrogator. "Because this is the part of the lie... umm, excuse me... part of the STORY where you... become some kind of superhero?"

"Say what you want. There are cops in this building that SAW me save their ass. "

"Dressed up in clothes and with weapons that you stole from the other Brooks."

"Exactly. That's how I got away. They had me in this cell. They were testing the doctor's chemical on me, but they must have left the door unlocked or something. I'm not sure how I got out... the chemical makes your memories fuzzy."

"How convenient."

"Talk to the cops," said Jason. "You'll find lots of 'em who don't remember things. Or who aren't really sure about what they saw. Are they all lying, too?"

"Maybe," said the man sitting across the table. "But go ahead with your story."

"I get out of this place they were holding me-"

"Which was WHERE, exactly?"

"The tenement. Downtown. The one that blew up."

"So you admit you were there?"

Jason sighed.

"Go on," said the detective.

"I figure that if this guy looks like me, then I can use that to get away. I grab his gear and sneak out. But by then, Braxis had already started his test on the cops."

"Testing his... hallucinogenic bio-weapon that is ALSO a cure for cancer?"

"Right."

"So instead of WARNING the police, you..." The man flipped through his notes. "...you try and save them?"

"Yeah."

"And you didn't just turn yourself in at that point because...?"

"Because the doc had already bought himself some cops. When I was a prisoner, I heard voices. Conversations. I couldn't tell who, but I knew that some people on the Rock Springs PD on the doc's payroll. They were volunteering their own co-workers as test subjects."

"But you have no idea who?"

"No."

The interrogator took a deep breath. He looked tired. He also didn't believe a word of what Jason was saying.

But he didn't HAVE to believe it. That was the beauty of it...

"So... you're expecting me to believe-"

"No, what I expect you to do," Jason said forcefully. "Is to write down what I'm saying. Then take a look at your evidence. You want to make me into some kind of terrorist, but there's more evidence to support MY story than there is to support YOURS. Now are you going to let me finish?"

"Tell me about the girl," said the interrogator.

"Ashley?"

"Yes. How did SHE get involved in this?"

"The doc likes blondes."

The interrogator gave him a long, cold stare. Jason returned it in kind.

"That's it?"

"That's it. Check out her place... you'll find physical evidence that Braxis and his goons kidnapped her."

"Yes, there's evidence. Blood, tire-tracks, and shell-casings. Shell-casings that match the kind of gun that YOU admitted to carrying."

"Guns I stole from my twin. There's no telling what he did with them before I took 'em."

"So you and the girl were prisoners together."

"Together... but separately."

"Did you help her escape, too?"

"Yes."

"And she got re-captured when you did?"

"Yes."

"And who killed Maria Velazquez?"

The question was a sudden change of direction meant to throw Jason off. It didn't work.

"Attack dogs," he said calmly.

"Did you see it happen?"

"No."

"But you were there."

"Yes."

"At what point did you start shooting at the police?"

"That wasn't me, that was the other me."

"Ohhh... and where were you when that happened?"

"Hiding."

"And the blonde guy with the swords... he was with you?"

"Uhhhh.... who?"

"h, HIM!" said Ashley.

"Yes, him," her interrogator said with obvious weariness. "Do you know who he is?"

"Of course!"

"Well....?"

"He's the guy that helped us escape. The second time."

"The second time," said the detective. "After the giant dogs?"

"Yeah, after that."

"But before the shoot-out at the hospital."

"Yeah, before that."

"And his name is...?"

"Sebastian."

The detective scribbled down the name. The police already had Sebastian's name from the nurse at the hospital, so there was no need to keep it a secret. At least, that was what Donovan was whispering in her ear.

"Last name?"

"No idea."

"Any idea where we might find this... 'Sebastian'?"

"No. And you probably won't be able to."

"Why is that?"

"Because he's... like... ya know... all top secret like James Bond..." Ashley shrugged. And smiled. It was her 'stupid blonde' smile, to which she added an additional: "Ya know?" for extra effect. It was working quite well.

"No. I don't."

Ashley's smile widened.

"Ms. Ricks, were you... romantically involved with this 'Sebastian' character?"

"You mean did I have sex with him?"

"If that's what YOU mean."

"Hell yeah! Five or six times, right there on the floor! Oh, my GOD he has the BIGGEST- I'm just kidding. No, we didn't."

"I'm not in a mood for jokes, Ms. Ricks."

"I can tell."

"SOoooooo... this person helped you and Brooks escape at the hospital?"

"Yeah... after the thing with the dogs didn't work out, Braxis decided to do some more testing on people."

"To cure cancer?"

"And just about everything else, too. But get this... THIS time, it actually WORKED."

"The mysterious cures in the local hospitals?"

"People saw him. Just ask... you'll get the same description I gave."

"And the boy?"

"Tomas?"

"Velazquez, yes. He disappeared from the hospital, and was later seen in the presence of an older man you claim is Dr. Anthony Braxis."

"He was another test subject. The kid had some kind of brain damage, and the doctor's magic juice cured him. Sort of."

"Sort of?"

"Well, he was still a little weird. Ya know?"

"And what happened to the kid at the hospital?"

"I don't know. He just sort of... went up in smoke."

"e vanished," Dobbs explained. "I was too busy getting SHOT to keep an eye on him."

Her two interrogators had a whispered conversation while shuffling the stacks of paper in front of them. Finally, they returned their attention to her.

"You don't know where Sebastian is."

"No."

"You don't know where Velazquez is."

"No."

"And you don't know where Dr. Braxis is."

"No."

"And the story you've told is completely true."

"Absolutely."

"Are you willing to submit to a polygraph, detective?"

"Absolutely. Bring it on."

"We WILL test you."

"I know."

"But you also know," said the other interrogator. "That polygraphs are inadmissible in court. So you aren't too worried about what it says about your story."

"I'm not worried because I'm telling the truth."

"Your story is a fanciful fabrication, with JUST enough truth in it to match up with the evidence. We don't believe you. And a jury won't believe you."

"What jury?" said Dobbs. "The jury that's going to try and convict me for murdering a man that's still alive?"

"No," said one of the men. "The jury that's going to convict your friend BROOKS for murdering... how many cops? Ten? Fifteen? The state is gonna rip this guy to pieces so that each little chunk can have its own little electric chair. YOUR testimony... and this FAKE STORY... isn't going to save him!"

"That's not my problem," said Dobbs.

"And then there are the accusations that members of the police force were involved. You can't just make statements like that about your fellow officers without-"

"The fellow officers who attacked me in my cell? Those fellow officers?"

"Attacked? Or were they attempting to subdue an escaping prisoner?"

"What were they doing down there in the FIRST place, hmm?" said Dobbs.

"Securing prisoners during an attack on the headquarters. A perfectly plausible-"

"Have you tested them?" said Dobbs.

"Polygraph-"

"No. A physical. Did you check the results of their physicals?"

The men glanced at each other... and Dobbs knew that she had them.

"Those were all perfectly healthy men, detectives. So how many of them turned up with weak hearts or damaged livers... or other side effects of the doctor's drug? HOW MANY turned up with brain abnormalities? One of them? All of them?"

"Their physical condition-"

"Corroborates my story. You ARE testing everybody from the hospitals, correct? All of the mystery cures?"

"Some testing is being done-"

"And the results?"

"We are not privy to the results of private examinations-"

"Bull. You've seen them. You've seen enough to know that SOMETHING happened. You may not like my explanation, but so far its the only one you've got that fits the facts."

"That doesn't mean its true, detective."

"Doesn't have to be true, detective."

Dobbs and the investigators stared at each other across the table.

"Any more questions," she said.

"As a matter of fact, yes," said the second investigator. "Who caused the explosion? Your 'story' hasn't mentioned that."

"I heard it was a gas leak," said Dobbs.

"A convenient gas leak that destroys this doctor's supposed lab and all evidence of Brooks's kidnapping? That's a bit TOO convenient Ms. Dobbs."

"Braxis had cleared out of there anyway. You weren't going to find anything."

"So why blow it up?"

"I have no idea. Maybe you should ask Brooks."

"Are you saying HE destroyed the building?"

"No. But if there was anything left in there worth blowing up, he would know. He was the last one in there."

"Are you sure, Ms. Dobbs?"

"Positive."

t was what the rescue-workers were calling a world-class catastrophe: An explosion so big that it completely disintegrated one building and caused all of the adjacent ones to collapse, killing everyone in side. The death toll had the potential for the upper hundreds, although the resulting fire kept rescuers at bay for almost three days. But strangely enough, relatives of people living in the area had reported them missing well BEFORE the fire. The general consensus was that the police had done nothing to prevent the disaster, even though one of their own detectives was reported missing and presumed dead. Perhaps the 'gas leak' and explosion was an attempt to cover something up. If so... it was a success. With the fire now contained, it was unlikely that investigators would uncover anything of interest within the burnt-out ruins.

"You're thinking too small, Henderson."

"No, I think I got this one pegged..." The two men conversed via the headpieces sewn into their containment hoods. Even though the fire was out, some flames were still smouldering within the debris. The air around the burnt-out tenement was borderline toxic. "Insurance fraud. We oughta be looking at the owner on this one."

"Guy torches his own building to cash in on insurance?"

"The month before its condemned. Open and shut. Only his guy... or whoever it was that did that job... gets out of hand. The explosion is too big. Instant disaster. No witnesses."

"You know, a lot of the folks in here was missing before the big boom. What about that, eh?"

"He scares 'em away! Or kills them ahead of time and leaves the bodies layin' around in the apartments so it looks like they died in the fire. Hey, did you see the body they pulled out this morning? What the hell WAS that thing, eh? Looked like something out of a horror movie-"

"So you think the owner did all this, eh?"

"Like I said... an open and shut case."

"Hey, you know the guy who owns this building?"

"No. Doesn't matter... they're all crooked-"

"He's my uncle."

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

"Oh.... uhh, hey I didn't mean-"

"SHHH!"

"What?"

"I heard something. Over here."

One of the men knelt down and held his hand up for his partner to stay silent.

"....h-help..." came a weak cry from under the rubble.

"We got a live one. We got a live ONE HERE! GET ON THE RADIO-"

The rescuer began pulling at the planks of burnt wood.

"DON'T!" his co-worker shouted. "You could shift the load!"

"I can SEE HIM!"

"...s-somebody up there?"

"Right here, sir! Hold On!"

"Stop pulling at that, you could cause the whole thing to-"

Too late. The rescuer put too much pressure on one piece or wood, causing it to snap. The 'snap' was followed by a long, low rumble that quickly became a tremendous CRACK as a mountain of rubble shifted several yards to the side, crushing and grinding anything unfortunate enough to be in its way.

The men scurried for safety. Orders and requests for status blared over their headsets as a cloud of dust and ash erupted from the ruins.

"Where was the guy? Where was the guy!?" Henderson shouted to his partner. "He wasn't under that, was he!?"

"YES!" The second rescuer charged back up to where he'd heard the voice. The ash reduced his visibility to almost nothing. "IS ANYBODY THERE!"

He listened.

"...you f#$king idiots...."

"THIS WAY!"

Both men felt their way through the dust and discovered a shallow pit that had been beneath the section of rubble. The shifting debris had uncovered it. At the bottom of the pit, trapped beneath the remains of a dining-room table... was a one-armed and badly injured man.

"Well?" James Royce sneered up at his saviors. "Are you two monkeys gonna RESCUE me or NOT!?!"

"re we done?" Ashley asked the detective.

"No," he replied. The man made a few last-minute scribbles on his sheet of notes.

"Did I get all the questions right?"

"Just make yourself comfortable," said the detective. He gathered his notes and stood up. Someone in the building... probably in the room next door... started shouting. "You're going to be here a while."

The man unlocked the door and left the room.

There was some more shouting and what sounded like a brief scuffle outside. It died down quickly.

"You shouldn't have done that," Donovan whispered into her ear.

"Done what?" Ashley said quietly. She knew that the police were watching her through the 'mirror' on the wall. They were probably listening as well, so she kept her voice to a low whisper.

"You know what."

"How's everybody else doing?" Ashley asked, changing the subject. She got the distinct impression that Donovan was shrugging, even though she couldn't see.

"Not having as much fun as you are, I assure you."

"Well, what can I say... I'm bored and that guy was an asshole-"

"-Someone is coming."

The door unlocked. A sheepish young detective opened it and leaned into the room.

"Are you, uhhhh...." he began. He looked around the room as if searching for something.

He found it on the floor under the table: A pair of men's slacks and white boxer shorts.... both belonging to the previous detective, who had left the room completely naked from the waist down.

"...uhhhh..." The detective gulped, unsure if he should go in and retrieve the pants or not.

"You'd better believe I'm pressing charges," said Ashley. "I thought I was safe here, and this guy just drops trou in the middle of a police station! What kind of department are you people running here!?"

"He... that.... I'm sorry, miss." The detective left the room, slamming and locking it loudly behind him.

"HEY!" Ashley shouted after him. "SOMEBODY BETTER COME AND GET THIS GUY'S FUNKY UNDERWEAR! AND I WANT SOME PIZZA!"

"ou're playing some kind of game, Dobbs. You, Brooks and the girl. You're playing us for fools."

"What... our stories aren't matching up?"

"Of course they are. Matching up a little too well. As if it was all fabricated ahead of time."

"OR as if it were true. But then, if we made it all up then all you'd have to do is keep asking questions and we'd slip up eventually. You've been asking questions for what... three days now? Doesn't look like its going to happen, does it?"

"Detective-"

"I want out of here."

"E-excuse me?"

"You've asked all the questions you could possibly ask at least twice. I've answered you. Now I want out."

"You're not going anywhere, detective."

"What are you holding me for? Murder?"

"Of course not. But there's still arson, and assaulting three officers, not to mention the escape..."

"Fine," said Dobbs. "Then I want to see my lawyer."

"You said you didn't want a lawyer. You ALL said you didn't want lawyers-"

"I've changed my mind. If you want to charge me with defending myself against people who attacked ME in a jail cell... and then charge me with escape when I was KIDNAPPED... then I want a lawyer. Right now."

"ell the next guy that if he isn't bringing any food with him then I'm not answering another damned question!" Jason demanded as his interrogator left the room. His demand went unacknowledged.

"How long is this gonna go on?" Jason said quietly.

"Just a few more hours," Donovan whispered.

"They letting us go?"

"No. But this has gone too long," Donovan replied. "Sebastian will be breaking you out tonight. We have work to do on the outside... if we have to do it as fugitives, then so be it."

"Breaking me out? Of a building filled with cops? Is he up to that?"

"He's Sebastian."

"-of course he's up to it. What about Ashley?"

"She's too valuable to leave here, but the detective will stay behind. If she escapes with us-"

"Us?"

"-with YOU, it will only worsen things for her."

"Oh well," said Jason. "I can't say I didn't try. It was a good plan-"

"It wouldn't have worked, Jason. Not for you... the charges are too serious. They would have found a way to put you in jail regardless of the story OR the facts. That's what these people do."

"But we helped out Dobbs. And we got 'em to examine all those people Braxis 'fixed.' That's good for something, right?"

"I didn't say it wasn't the right thing to do. Only that it wouldn't work. But now we have to look after ourselves. The longer you stay here... unarmed..."

"I know, I know. Evil magnets and prisons don't mix too well."

"So be ready. We go just after sunset."

ven though the unfortunate event had only happened twice, all it takes is one time to start a reputation. The Rock Springs Crime Lab was home to some of the most advanced forensics researchers and equipment in the country. It had its own morgue... under-used, but still large enough to serve the post-mortem examination needs of every police district in ten counties. It also had a history of letting the occasional corpse out for an evening stroll from which they never returned. The first incident was an unidentified John Doe. The corpse was presumably stolen by person or persons unknown. The second was the body of Brandon Phillips who, as it turns out, wasn't really dead to begin with. He woke up, pulled a gun out of his lower intestine... literally.... and killed two employees on his way out of the building.

That was not what the Crime Lab administrators would call an 'acceptable track record.'

Security for the corpse of 'Jason Brooks' was taken a bit more seriously. There was a guard stationed outside the morgue door. Cameras spied on every hallway intersection between the morgue and the exit. The exit and the morgue door were accessible only by a security card and a 7-digit numerical passphrase. This one was NOT going to get away.

At 5:01pm, the only employee working in the morgue left for the day. He secured the files and paperwork, and left exactly 59 minutes early to get ready for a date he had later that evening.

At exactly 5:08 pm, the security guard outside the morgue responded to a call on his 2-way radio. He was told to report to Administration ASAP. It seemed there were a few 'discrepancies' in his resume, as well as an interesting item in his police background check. At 5:09, the guard left his post.

At 5:11pm, the security cameras went out. The guard in charge of monitoring them had focused his attention elsewhere... specifically, at the cameras in another section of the building, where two female interns were several minutes into a workplace lesbian tryst that was not to be missed under any circumstances. The guard was recording every luscious second of it. It would be all over the internet by this time tomorrow. And the guard would be out of a job.

At 5:12, the night shift arrived. The thin, owlish-looking man was 12 minutes late. He had agreed to arrive early that day, but an unexpected visitor to his house had delayed him. David Kerman ignored the empty space where the guard should have been. Without a moment's consideration for the missing guard, he slid his access pass through the slot and punched the 7-digit code into the keypad. The door buzzed loudly-

-elsewhere in the building, a door-access indicator lit up. It buzzed... and buzzed... and continued buzzing until the guard reached over and, without looking at the camera monitor (which was blank), hit the 'acknowledge' button.

The morgue's interior was bathed in sudden, harsh light as Kerman hit the switch on the wall. The door closed and locked behind him. Kerman walked over to the file cabinet and unlocked it. He flipped through the contents until he found the results of the preliminary autopsy of one 'J. Brooks.' He pulled the file out carried it with him to the wall of rectangular metal doors... the refrigerators.

Kerman glanced at the number scrawled at the top left corner of the folder. The number was 42. Kerman went to locker #42 and opened the door. Cold air drifted out across him. He grabbed the handle and slid the sheet-covered body out of cold storage. He removed the stained sheet and looked down at the body.

"Oh, this was a nice one," said Kerman. He slipped the autopsy folder under Jason's head, then reached behind his own neck with both hands and began to peel the skin away from his jaws. "...I hope the cold didn't ruin it TOO much..."

With the bottom half of David Kerman's face hanging loose beneath his nose, the demon's jaws opened wide. The tubular tongue slithered out of the multi-hinged hole and-

At 5:16pm, there was a massive structural failure in the ventilation grate directly above the body of Jason Brooks.

WHAM!-
KRA-THOOOONG!

The heavy aluminum grating collided with David Kerman's head. The demon stumbled back from the corpse-

-as Sebastian dropped from the ventilation duct and landed on the table below, with one foot on either side of Jason Brooks' abdomen. Two swords slid from their sheaths.

The demon's eyes widened in surprise. Then narrowed-

Sebastian flipped off of the table. The demon's barbed tongue whipped past his face. Sebastian's swords swept across its path twice, and when his boots hit the floor they were accompanied by five bloody, twitching chunks.

"EEEENNNNNN!" The demon squealed as it retracted the stump of its severed tongue.

"Where is the other?" Sebastian demanded, pointing one sword at the demon's chest.

The thing wearing David Kerman's skin spat a thick glob of digestive acid at Sebastian and darted for the door. Sebastian dodged the sizzling globule. He lunged after the demon, but it sprang out of reach at the last instant. The leap stretched the stolen skin too far, sending ripped flaps of skin and clothing fluttering to the floor

The demon landed by the door. It immediately turned-

-the INTENTION was to spray a horizonal arc of acid across the room, catching Sebastian by surprise.

But as soon as the demon turned, Sebastian's sword plunged into the center of its chest.

"URK!"

The perfectly-thrown blade impaled the bile-producing glands and ruptured the muscular sack of acid that the demon had in place of a heart. The deadly spray became a brief gurgling fountain of acidic bile. The hilt of Sebastian's sword hit the floor with a loud CLANG. The rapidly-dissolving blade remained in place while the demon's hands punched the buttons on the keypad.

The door opened, and the demon streaked down the hallway, leaving a trail of sizzling footprints that ate away at the floor tiles.

Sebastian was right behind it, stopping only to snatch up the hilt of his ruined sword before chasing the demon down the hall.

The demon headed for the main exit.... then veered toward the stairs.

The elevator doors opened, and a security guard stepped out... right into the demon's path.

There was a soft 'rip' as the demon's claws punctured the skin of David Kerman's fingertips. There was a louder 'rip' as those claws disemboweled the guard and thrust the shocked and still living body into Sebastian's path.

Surely this human would stop and help one of its own rather than give chase-

Sebastian danced around the shrieking guard like a car weaving past a traffic cone.

The demon leapt up through the elevator's ceiling and scurried up the cluster of cables toward the roof. It was fast. The demon's natural form spider-like... it folded itself into a humanoid shape to move among its prey undetected (inside a stolen skin), but now that it was running for its life, it was unfolding extra appendages and using them for extra speed. There was no way Sebastian could catch it in a vertical climb.

Sebastian pulled a 9mm semiautomatic... with silencer... from his belt and aimed it up through the hole in the elevator's ceiling. The elevator shaft was dark, but with severn shots he still managed to put bullets in three of the demon's eight legs... slowing it down juuuust enough.

Sebastian went after it.

The morgue was in the bottom level of the building. When the demon reached the first floor, it looked down.

The savage and beautifully painful slaughter... the happy glee of the killing blow... the orderly mutilation of the still-twitching corpse... it was all clearly displayed on Sebastian's silent, sneering face.

This human was clearly insane.

The demon climbed faster.

By the second floor, the human was starting to fall behind again. The demon decided to speed things along by cutting through the cables. They were high enough now that the human would either die or be seriously injured in the fall. Three slashes of its claws severed the largest of the cables. The others went with even less effort. The demon looked down again, expecting to see the human falling to its doom... or at least to a very painful return to the bottom floor.

But instead, it saw Sebastian and grab a small steel pipe running up the wall. He swung away from the slack cables at the last second and kept right on climbing. The demon's attempt to stop him had only narrowed the distance between them.

The demon climbed with increasing desperation until it reached the mechanical room on the roof, where the cables ended. One kick removed the door, and the demon sprang out onto the curved surface of the Crime Lab's dome. For a second, it considered waiting until the human emerged, and then surprising it.

But the last couple of surprises hadn't worked out too well. The demon opted for escape. The adjacent buildings were too far for a single leap, but the courtyard beside the Crime Lab had more than enough coverage for a quick dash. The demon's lower legs folded in half, and then sprang back to their full length, propelling the creature's elongating body into the air and out over the curve of the dome-

The gentle whoosh-whoooshing sound reached the creature's ears an instant before the severed elevator signal cable... weighed down by the broken hilt of a longsword... wrapped around its lower right ankle.

Sebastian lassoed the demon's leg in mid-air and then yanked on the cable, snatching the creature out of the sky and sending it crashing back into the dome.

The impact snapped one flailing appendage off, and cracked several of the others. Gravity dragged the creature downward along the curved roof unto the makeshift lasso around its ankle tightened once again-

-then it started going back up.

"EEEEEE!" The demon squealed when it saw the human at the end of the 'rope.' It quickly slashed the cable and then tried to position itself for another leap. It's clumsy, bleeding appendages tangled got tangled around each other-

THOOOM!

Sebastian landed on top of the creature.

He landed sword-first. The blade went into... and out of... the creature's torso, pinning it to the rooftop like an insect. Before the creature could even attempt to attack with its claws, Sebastian snatched the long knife from his belt and plunged it into its upper abdomen.

He then made a downward, diagonal slice... ripping open the demon's bulging gut The liquified remains of David Kerman sprayed out onto the rooftop.

"EEENNNNNNGHGG!" The demon thrashed wildly beneath Sebastian. Sebastian took the blade and placed the tip against the creature's throat.

"One thrust will end it," Sebastian said calmly. "Tell me what I want to know and I'll kill you here and now. Otherwise, I'll drag you away and torture you for hours. Who summoned you?"

"SSSSS!!" The creature tried to spray acid into Sebastian's face. But it had none to spray. Sebastian removed the knife from the demon's throat and thrust it into the hole he'd already slashed across its abdomen. The blade's metal... blessed by a priest... burned like a red-hot brand. The sizzling stench of scorched demon flesh tickled Sebastian's nostrils.

"I've already emptied one stomach," said Sebastian. "Shall I go for two? Who summoned-"

"Kill! Torture! Not worse than what happens if I speak-"

Sebastian's knife pierced the secondary stomach and began a long, slow incision-

"AAAAAEEEEEEEETTTSSSSSS!"

"Name him," said Sebastian. "Name the man who summoned you here. Was it Braxis-"

"HAS NO NAME! IS NO MAN!!"

"Woman, then-"

"DEMON! DEMON SUMMONED! DESTROY THE BODIES! DESTROY THE EVIDENCE! MAKE EVERYTHING GO AWAY!"

"A demon summoned you? A demon... summoning other demons?"

"PLEASE, NO MORE PAIN! I CAN SAY NO MORE!"

"Why stop now? From what you've said so far, it sounds like you've got a LOT left to talk about-"

"NOOOOOO!" The demon began thrashing and flailing with renewed vigor... pulling against the sword thrust through its torso. Claws slashed at Sebastian's arms. When he drew back, the demon tore away from the blade-

-ripping itself open from lower chest to mid-throat.

"KKK-K-KSSsss...."

The foul heap began to dissolve almost instantly. The sound of the sizzling flesh nearly covered the high-pitched scream from the garden below. Sebastian looked down.

There was a woman staring up at him... screaming at the top of her lungs. She had seen everything.

Now she was screaming so loud that the bottom of her face was coming undone.

Sebastian smiled. Vultracnid scavenger demons always travel in pairs.

The second demon's scream ended abruptly when it caught Sebastian's murderous stare.

The demon ran into the garden, sprang over a decorative hedge and headed for the street.

Sebastian grabbed his sword, sheathed it, and darted back up to the mechanical room. He secured one end of the cable to a piece of heavy equipment, then started down. The severed cable wasn't long enough to reach the bottom, but it would get him close enough. He repelled down the side of the dome. When the line ran out, Sebastian hugged the building and slid down its surface in a semi-freefall, letting the dome's curve slow his descent until he was close enough to push off... flip in the air... and land on his feet near where the second demon had been standing.

By now, the demon was almost to the crowded street... running so fast that its skin was peeling off. But it was still in its slower, humanoid form. It could still leap great distances, but Sebastian could catch it in a straight run.

Behind him, an alarm sounded in the Crime Lab Complex. Sebastian ignored it. His eyes narrowed to the back of the fleeing demon... the street ahead of them... and the office building on the other side. If the demon got inside, all it needed was ten minutes to clean another skin and slip away unnoticed. But it only had a twenty second head start, and that was fading fast.

The demon plunged through another hedge... paused... and then leapt across four lanes of traffic in a single jump. Screeching tires and swerving vehicles turned the orderly traffic into anarchy as the drivers looked up to see what the hell-

Sebastian landed on one startled driver's hood, boots destroying the freshly waxed surface.

"HEY!" The driver shouted, but Sebastian paid him no attention. Eyes still fixed on the demon, Sebastian flipped over the next moving car, and landing on the edge of the opposite lane. The first car would have missed him by exactly three inches, but the driver swerved anyway-

-careening into another car, which abruptly hit its brakes...

...setting off a chain reaction that brought traffic to a quick and ugly standstill.

Before the first profanity left the lips of the first driver, Sebastian was across the street, chasing the 'woman' through the gathering crowd.

"MOOOVVVE!" Sebastian roared.

People moved. Quickly.

The demon hung a left between two buildings. Sebastian drew his sword and swung it as he approached the alley.

The demon's clawed hand appeared-

-SLICE-

-and then disappeared.

"TSSSSSST!!"

Acid sprayed out of the demon's gaping mouth-

-and jetted in a sizzling arc over Sebastians right shoulder as he spun and slashed-

The demon turned and sprang away, avoiding Sebastian's blade by less than an inch. It glanced up and sprang again... landing on the wall, where it immediately began climbing. Extra appendages burst from its
sides to aid the effort.

Growling, Sebastian ran for the fire escape. He grabbed the edge of it and flipped upon to the lowest level without bothering to extend the ladder. He followed the demon up the wall-

The demon stopped and spat several globules of acid... not at Sebastian, but at the fire escape.

The lower half of it began to pull away from the building... taking Sebastian along with it. Sebastian hopped up onto the railing and leapt for the wall. Gloved fingers found purchase between the bricks, and he kept climbing as the fire escape collapsed beneath him.

The demon climbed another few yards and then tried again, this time aiming at Sebastian.

The instant the demon's head swiveled toward him, Sebastian let go with one hand and pushed away from the wall... swinging away from the spray of acid while dangling by his fingers. He swung under the upper half of the fire escape. He planted his feet on the wall and thrust himself up and out... just managing to catch the edge of the fire escape. He flipped up and landed in a crouching position-

TSSSSS!

Acid sprayed over his lowered head. He leapt for the ladder on his right...

TSSS!

Another globule sizzled past him on the left.

The demon continued upward, and disappeared over the edge of the roof a few seconds later. Sebastian kept climbing. When he was just below the roof, he pulled his knife-

The demon's head leaned out above him, mouth open and-

-Sebastian plunged his blade into the side of its neck.

SSSHLLOCK!

Then yanked it out and plunged it in again.

SSSHLLOCK!
SSSHLLOCK!
SSSHLLOCK!

"EEEEEEEEE!" The demon pulled away and, dripping blood and acid from its gaping neck, scurried across the roof as Sebastian pulled himself up. Still holding the knife in one hand, Sebastian chased it.

Even using all of its legs, the demon wasn't very fast. The appendages were made for leaping and climbing, not running. Sebastian had almost caught up with it when it reached the edge of the roof-

And leapt upward and across to the next building. The building was higher. Sebastian couldn't make the jump.

Sebastian stopped and ran back toward the center of the roof, where a large flagpole thrust an oversized American flag high into the air.

Sebastian drew his sword-

CLANG!
CLANG!
CLANG!!
KrrrrrEEEAAK!

The flagpole began to lean... and the further it leaned, the faster the metal gave way. Sebastian planted his foot on the pole and pushed it until it ripped free of its supports and fell over completely-

CLANG!

The tip of it landed on the adjoining roof... and began to roll toward the edge.

Sebastian sprinted across the moving pole and leapt onto the next building an instant before the pole slid away and fell into the alley below.

The demon was gone.

The door leading to the stairwell was closed. The handle didn't budge when he tried to open it. He ran to the edge of the roof and got there in time to see a shadow vanish around the side of the next building. Sebastian backed away and made a running leap...

Landing on the next rooftop, he sprinted to the opposite edge and saw the demon running into the alley below. It was a dead end.

This was obviously some kind of trap. Even a demon as dumb as a Vultracnid wouldn't run into a dead-end alley.

Sebastian drew his sword-

The demon made a series of quick gestures at the wall

-and the wall OPENED UP! The bricks pulled away like a door; smoke and screams poured out from the other side. The demon looked up, and spotted him.

Sebastian threw his sword-

The demon leapt into the opening, and the wall swung closed

CLANK!

The sword bounced off of the bricks and landed on the concrete.

"DAMN!"

"Slowing down in your old age?" said Donovan. The ghost of Sebastian's father appeared beside him... arms folded and looking very smug.

"I let it get away." Sebastian lowered his head. "I'm sorry."

"You're lucky you can even WALK, let along chase demons across rooftops. You did your best."

"It was just a Vultracnid. A scavenger... not a fighter. I should have been quicker."

"You're injured."

"Injury is no excuse."

"That's nonsense, who told you-"

"You did."

"Well... I suppose I did." Donovan's expression went from smug to concerned. "You know, Sebastian, I probably told you a lot of things that... now that I'm dead-"

"It said a demon summoned it."

Donovan's went from concerned to MORE concerned. Sebastian could almost see the gears shifting behind his father's semi-transparent skull.

"That's... distressing," he said.

"And it disappeared into a trans-ethereal portal."

"Are you sure?" Donovan looked down at the alley.

"Positive."

"Scavenger demons are nowhere near adept enough to summon that kind of magic."

"I think its still there," said Sebastian. "It made some kind of signal, and the portal opened. It may be permanent... just closed. Invisible."

Donovan stared at the brick wall for a moment, then shook his head.

"We need Brooks. He'll be able to tell if something is there."

"Are they finished playing their games with the police?"

"No. But time has run out. And if there are permanent demonic portals in this city... then it may have run out a long time ago."

"ere's the latest.... same as before."

Lieutenant Carver Holt was acting chief investigator of the very large, very complicated mess that Rock Springs had gotten itself into. This one had everything: Corrupt cops. Arson. Murder. Shootouts in hospitals. Maybe even terrorism if the press decided to spin it that way. And with the chief of the Rock Springs Police Department recovering from gunshot-wounds... a true testament to his inability to handle his own city... then it fell upon the shoulders of a relative outsider to settle things. That outsider was him.

For now, anyway.

Holt considered his assignment to his mess to be only temporary. But the more this went on, the less temporary it seemed. Holt took the folder from the detective and placed it on his desk.

"Who is this?" said Holt.

"Dobbs, sir," said the detective... an experienced investigator on loan from internal affairs.

"Mmhmm..."

An antique radio sang a Mozart symphony from its place on the corner of the desk. Holt hummed along as he flipped through the handwritten pages.

"Yep.... yep.... yep.... yep.... All bullshit." Holt tossed the folder back at the detective, who's name he couldn't remember.

"It's all the same, sir. I've talked to every one of these people... we ALL have. They're not cracking, and neither is their story."

"But I'll tell you who IS cracking," said Holt. "The three cops who assaulted Dobbs."

"They flipped?"

"Like pancakes. Admitted to the assault... among other things. One of them even starts spouting off about the 'new world' that this Braxis goon is gonna create when he returns. They all admit to being in with the doctor... but have no clue as to where he is now."

"Why'd they go after Dobbs?"

"He wanted Dobbs, and they went to fetch her for him. So ends our 'assaulting an officer' and 'escaping custody' charges against the detective."

"I hate to say this sir, but... but what if the story is true? We HAVE evidence to back it up. We HAVE a corpse that looks exactly like Jason Brooks. We HAVE murder victim that's still very much alive-"

"Had," said Holt.

"Excuse me?"

"We HAD a murder victim. Brandon Phillips disappeared from his suite at the hospital earlier today"

"But he was under guard-"

"Yes indeed he was. Doesn't change the fact that he's gone."

"We didn't even get a chance to question him!"

"Convenient, isn't it? Are you ready for another one?"

"Sir?"

"There was an intrusion at the Crime Lab. Someone got in with the Brooks corpse-"

"Don't tell me... it's gone, too?"

"No. It's still there. We just don't' know WHY its still there. Looks like whoever it was either changed their minds or... hell, I don't know. But somebody TRIED to take it. Cameras didn't catch anything. But there were quite a few people who say they saw a young, blonde man with a sword."

"Well, that's good-"

"He was chasing a monster."

"That's bad."

"And I suppose you were questioning witnesses when the news came in about Royce."

"Who?"

"Detective James Royce. Partner of Detective Marilyn Dobbs."

"Oh, that one. He'd dead-"

"Not any more. Searchers found him in the rubble. Alive and very pissed off. And quite talkative. There's been no official debriefing, but so far he's corroborated almost everything Dobbs has said."

"Wonder-drugs and chemical weapons?"

"Well he didn't say THAT... but he did say that there were TWO Jason Brooks and that one of them was working for Braxis, as was Brandon Phillips AND Tomas Velazquez. Says he was kept prisoner in the building and that the doctor blew it up. Luckily, he survived."

"My God, this thing gets deeper by the minute."

"But I'm not finished."

"There's more?"

"Oh, yes. We're finally getting call-backs from New York, Chicago, Atlanta..."

"Braxis?"

"Wanted as a material witness in the disappearance of several psychics. Apparently he has a thing for clairvoyants. And guess what Ms. Ashley Ricks does for a living."

"I know. I hear she's pretty good, too."

"So, we have a gentleman doctor who may or may NOT be a serial killer. Our very own 'Jack the Ripper'... right here in Rock Springs. Looks more and more like HE'S the villain of this story, not Brooks."

"But this... FABRICATION that they've come up with. A cure for cancer-"

"His wife died of cancer," said Holt. "And this man's records confirm that he is smarter than all the brains in this building put together. But not too stable. A death like that might push him over the edge. One part of him might want to contact his dead wife... thus the infatuation with psychics. Another might want revenge... revenge against the cancer that killed her and against anything that gets in the way. Thus... the good doctor turns mad scientist and off we go to Rock Springs."

"So you're believing the story, then?"

"I'm believing that it's POSSIBLE."

"Possible or not... nobody's gonna buy it. The FBI-"

"And that brings me to my NEXT bit of good news. The feds are avoiding this thing like a plate of three-week-old sushi. First they tell me that agents are on the way. That was two days ago. NOW they're telling me that they have been officially ordered NOT to get involved."

"Ordered by who?"

"Same people who ordered the ATF to turn around and head back home before they even got on the interstate. The feds don't want this. Hell, the STATE doesn't even want this. Seems to me like there's a concerted effort to keep this thing as local as possible."

"But that's NOT possible, sir," said the detective. "The press-"

"You talk to any reporters?"

"No! No, sir! If there's a leak, then it isn't-"

"Calm down. There's no leak. There's no leak because there's no reporters. I haven't had a SINGLE phone call from a SINGLE news agency."

"Sir?"

"You read the newspaper?"

"Not lately?"

Holt pointed to the morning paper on the coffee table.

"Take a look."

The detective picked up the paper and scanned the first few pages.

"The explosion is still front page," he said.

"And the shoot-out was front page when it happened. But nobody is connecting the two. The press is making up their own theories. They don't even WANT to know what we think. We're sitting in the center of the biggest story in the state... and you'd have to walk SIX BLOCKS to find the first reporter. That's not an exaggeration, either... I actually did walk six blocks earlier this morning. And do you know how many calls I've gotten from the governor on this?"

"None?"

"Two. He called to make sure that this was kept low-key. And I was not, under any circumstances, to make any statements to the press. Then he hung up on me. That was the first call."

"And the second?"

"Twenty minutes ago, he called back and told me to let them go."

"Let who go?"

"Everybody."

"Sir?"

"If we didn't have an open-and-shut case ready for a grand jury by tomorrow morning, then we let everybody go."

"SIR!?!"

"He didn't want to hear the evidence. He didn't want to listen to any statements. We could have the worst terrorists since Osama Bin Laden... he didn't even want to know. If the case isn't solved by tomorrow, let it go. That's what he said."

"Are you sure that was the governor, sir?"

Holt nodded.

"So, detective, you tell me: Do we have a case?"

"No, sir. The case we have would get us all laughed out of court. The evidence supports the SUSPECTS more than it helps US."

"That's what I thought."

"But we can't just let 'em go, sir-"

"I've got orders from my boss's boss's boss that say otherwise. So what am I gonna do... go to the feds? I DID that. They hung up on me too."

"Sir, this is a conspiracy."

"Damn right it is. And whoever is behind it... whoever wants to keep this thing quiet... if they're powerful enough to control the press AND the feds, then a nobody like me is just gonna end up roadkill if I don't get out of their way."

"NOBODY is powerful enough to control the press, sir. Nobody."

"Well..." said Holt. "I can make YOU chief investigator if you want-"

"Sir!? No, sir!"

"That's what I thought. I figure we're into some top secret government shenanigans here. This drug... if it existed, it would be one hell of a weapon. The kind of weapon that the good guys aren't supposed to have. But maybe we DO have it. And maybe it got out of hand. Maybe the folks that made it decided to sell it to some people who ALSO shouldn't have it... and the CIA or the NSA or whoever the hell they are, they show up at the last minute and shut the whole thing down. Some people get hurt. Some stuff gets blown up. End of story. And now, maybe... just maybe... its in everybody's best interest if this whole episode never happened. The OFFICIAL story... is that there IS no story. Whatever the REAL story is... we don't want to know. Get the picture?"

"So... we're going to let them go? Tomorrow morning?"

"No."

"Good. With another twelve hours, maybe we could-"

"We're going to let them go tonight."

"Huh? But-"

"Another twelve hours will be a waste of time, and you know it. Either this story of theirs is TRUE, or they've rehearsed it so many times that we'll NEVER get them to slip up. And Dobbs has requested a lawyer, so we're not going to get anything out of her. If the others do the same..."

"We're letting them GO!?"

"This case is done, detective. Over. Finished. They want everybody free by tomorrow morning... so if I let them go tonight, then I'm ahead of the game."

"But they're criminals!"

"Can we prove that?"

".....no."

"Then open the cell doors and stand aside, detective. Besides... if these folks are mixed up in something as big as this seems, then I'm sure they'll all meet with unfortunate accidents by the end of the week."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, what are you waiting for. Go let 'em out."

"Yes, sir."

The detective spun on his heels and left the room. He slammed the door behind him.


Holt sighed and turned up the music.

"It's done," Holt moaned. "Just like you asked."

The music on the radio faded into a warbled blast of static.

"...well done..." a voice hissed/growled beneath the distortion.

"People are going to ask questions-"

"You will be protected. And rewarded for your service."

"What about Brooks? And the others? What happens to them?"

"Your concern is misplaced. Their fate is their own... unless you wish to share in it."

"Is Braxis one of yours? Like Royce? Is that why you want this investigation stopped-"

The static rose in volume and pitch until it sounded almost... almost... like a man screaming in agony.

Then the radio cut off.

"My God," said Holt. The electronic shriek still echoed in his ears. "...what have I done..."

copyright 2005 by Dark Icon Entertainment