cruise

"Come in, come in." The Future Capabilities Analysis Communications Director smiled his best, conveying reassurance and warmth with a naturalness borne of, well, nature. "Welcome Candidate..." - a flicker of his eyes towards the screen - "...136A2BF. Please be assured our analysis is infallible, and promises to ensure you a happy and satisfying life, where possible." The candidate looked uncertain and more than a little overawed. There were few who did not, however. Such a dramatic shift in their lives was bound to be unnerving. The F.C.A.C.D. smiled again. "Do not worry, I am here to record any questions you may have. Please sit do

Aran was momentarily blinded as the dawn poked him the eye. He'd considered sleeping with his head at the other end of the bed, but the sunlight made a very effective alarm, and a Paladin was judged, among many other things, on his punctuality. Swinging his legs off the edge of the wooden cot that was the only furniture in his unadorned, stone-walled room, he began his morning ritual of exercises and stretches. ## Zandea looked carefully around the darkened atrium; she knew it would not be long before the sun rose above the walls of the building and she had to be well clear of the area by then. With luck the merchant, like most of his kind,

The door buckled beneath a force no human should have been capable of applying. With a final scream it wrenched free and collapsed to the floor, the thunder of its death throes echoing within the empty laboratory. Gabrielle Schwarz stepped over the wreckage and looked around quickly. She knew alarms would be sounding throughout the nearest Crey security post, and that a response would be likely already be on its way. She also knew they knew who they were dealing with. Crey had access to all the superhuman datafiles. "Ebon Angel," the computer would say, "Official hero registration number zero, zero, five, one, eight, nine, six, two. Known ab

A myriad twinkling stars, hard and sharp and crystalline. They burrowed into flesh and rained down into stupidly upturned eyes. Without the screams, the singing of the glass shards as they died on the hard ground was beautifully musical. The remains of the window sat in the frame around a jagged maw, frozen open in horror at what had befallen it. The awareness that worse was to come was slow to arrive, a slinking dread that palpably moved from person to person as they each finally noticed what had made such a dramatic entrance. A gelatinous mass sat innocuously amidst the panic, strait-jacketed by mass of coiled wires, one LED blinking red

"Thraxxyk the Unpronouncable is gone." I wiped the spit of my face and looked up at Bob. "Another one?" Bob nodded. "Yup. Slain in his Inner Sanctum just as he was about to perform the Rite of Undoing. Some do-gooder crawled in through an air-duct, apparently." "That's, what, five in this last month?" "Six. Ry'kk, Lord of Constonants, went a couple of nights back." I shook my head. Things were looking grim. "What is it with all these damn heros that keep showing up, just when a decent oppressive regime gets going? Do they have any idea of the time and energy it takes to instill complete terror in an entire population?" "I know, I know,"

A pure, cleansing pain drove all feeling from her mind. Icicles hammered into her brain, and snowflakes ran through her blood. The power was immense, filling her beyond capacity, a raging torrent forced into the cavity once called Dira. Then, just as suddenly, it froze. The pressure remained, an unspoken threat that for now was content to wait. What had been Dira tried to move, but failed. There was no fear, emotions too warm to flow amongst ice. Distant memories slowly distilled from the frozen core, and gradually the ice retracted to its source. A pretence of warmth returned to limbs, and the figure stirred. Ice surrounded her, jagged shar

\"What kind of time do you call this?\" \"Three in the morning, same as most people.\" \"Don\'t give me none of your smart-arse remarks!\" \"Don\'t ask me stupid questions then.\" Greg brushed past his father, Sam, in the lull born of surprise his remark bought him. The silence was longer than usual, Greg getting halfway up the stairs before, \"How can you talk to me like that!\" came from below, reverberating in the narrow hallway where his father still stood. \"It\'s easy,\" Greg replied automatically, \"I open my mouth, expel air from my lungs using a combination of diaphram and chest muscles, varying the pitch, volume and tone of the

Jack watched the small beetle crawl along with dismay. It looked such an innocuous creature, but he knew from prior experience the damage they could cause. He picked the grey-shelled insect up between finger and thumb, and watched it\'s curiously spiked legs carry on moving back and forth. Jack wondered absently if the boll weevil even realised it was no longer on the ground. Shrugging, he crushed it, and resumed his diligent search for anymore of the pests, wishing once again he had any pesticide left. \"Hey, Bob,\" he shouted to his brother, \"when did Rogers at the store say that next load of gunk was in?\" \"Two to three weeks he reck