An Unexpected Call to Arms

[Kelly MacAryn]

The studio-apartment was unfurnished, unlit, and relentlessly gray. There was a kitchenette, which was a study in brushed steel and unpolished granite. There were sanitary facilities, with tile and fixtures the color of a dead man's tongue. There was also a single bedroom, painted and carpeted by someone with a design sense that evoked all the nostalgic warmth of the inside of a bank-vault. It smelled like carpet-cleaner and ozone, and probably always would. 

This wasn't a place to live in - it was a place to hang yourself from a ceiling-fan. Or, alternatively, to think and plan with no distractions. Kelly had rented it earlier in the afternoon for the latter, less depressing purpose, and it was for that purpose which he was using it now, pacing the empty bedroom in the dark. 

The traveler was frustrated. He'd come this dismal little corner of Tier-Four in the hope of recovering some further details of his past, but the cues he was attempting to work off of, his pre-existing knowledge of Pepsi and recognition of the origin of Pepsiman's accent, had turned out to be too vague. Pepsi and the accent came from a planet called Earth - but he'd apparently been to a lot of different Earths, many of which had both Pepsi and the nation called Japan. All the associations he was able to scavenge were a contradictory jumble of images, facts, and conflicting histories. Finally, recognizing that this was a futile approach, Kelly turned his fractured mind towards more productive tasks. 

He was ahead of schedule in his plans to establish a power-base in Coruscant. Far, far ahead of schedule. Yes, he'd want to do a couple more contract jobs for other companies to more firmly establish the Alan Mayhew identity, but his VIP status with PepsiCo gave him a firm foothold in the corporate world, with a vast array of advantages and the possibility of real power down the line if things went well.   

It was time to raise the curtain on his criminal enterprises. In the long term, these might arguably be the more important of the two ventures: if his efforts to foster progress came back to bite him, there was only so much that corporations could do to protect him from the Empire before it started to cut into their profit margins - as a criminal on the other hand, Kelly could create a situation where the profits seemed dependent on his survival. 

Of course, that was contingent on him managing to successfully establish a second false identity.

I need a schematic of the city's superstructure - one that shows maintenance tunnels and emergency staircases, utility conduits, ventilation shafts.... I can't go into the smuggling game without an advantage, and if I get scanned at a checkpoint while in the wrong identity then the whole masquerade falls apart. 

So where would he get such a a schematic? It certainly wasn't the kind of information a government as paranoid as the Empire would just leave lying around, especially not with the rebel threat on the lower tiers. They would probably try and keep it off the public Dataverse. Even asking about it would be tricky. 

Hrm.

Kelly stopped pacing. He activated the Dataverse link in his wristcom, projecting a glowing window in the gloom, and ran a search for libraries and data archives in Coruscant, eliminating the ones attached to government offices, accredited universities, or anywhere above Tier-3. 

That left only one result.

[Kelly MacAryn]

Disregarding public lending-libraries and private collections as useless for his purpose and inaccessible respectively, Kelly's best option was the 'Archives of Ultan'.

Tier-Five, hm? This is going to enlightening in more ways that one, I'm sure. 

 With that in mind, he closed his Dataverse link and left the empty, darkened apartment, locking the door behind him. 




There was simply no better way to describe it - the fifth tier was dismal. 

Stepping out of a graffiti-caked, piss-soaked stairwell that could have swallowed a city bus, following a descent beset by roaring gusts of smog-tainted air and the subtler perils of poor maintenance and inadequate handrails, the traveler's first impression of the place was that somebody had taken Tier-Four, with all of its vibrant energy, electric atmosphere and dark promises, cut it off at the knees, and shot it in the back of the head. 

Gray, sickly light filtered down through an omnipresent haze. There were tall buildings, seventy, eighty, or even two-hundred stories high, clustered througout the city as though huddling together for protection from the tenements and commercial blocks nipping at their heels, but even the greatest of them didn't approach the dizzying stature of the mighty towers that ruled the skylines of the first four tiers. The architecture was bland and unimaginative, just faceless boxes made of steel, glass and concrete. Some places tried to stand out, with signs or marquees, or even gargoyles, but the sheer volume of pollution made it all look the same. Everything was filthy. The narrow streets, choked with ground-cars, were lined with garbage - newspapers and drink-containers, discarded plastic and rotting food. A patina of grimy soot covered every available surface. Trees lined some of the wider avenues, but they were twisted, yellow and sick. The air tasted like lead. 

Even the sky above was oppressive and foul, a thick layer of hazy mist floating high atop it all, through which the underside of Tier-Four's superstructure could  be glimpsed, barely more than a kilometer up. It was a massive latticework of crisscrossing ducts and support-struts made hazy and dreamlike by particulates and water-vapor, as though an unfathomable metal monster was forcing its way into the world, trying to replace the heavens themselves but not quit succeeding yet. In places, it barely peeked through the bottom of the clouds, far too low, shockingly real and solid, like a promise of the end. 

As Kelly walked through the subdued clamor of the streets, swimming through crowds of defeated people with their eyes fixed firmly on the sidewalk or locked on the screens of Dataverse devices, he realized he was being watched again. This time though, it wasn't government surveillance or corporate data-mining. Hungry eyes stared out of the imaginatively graffiti'd alleyways. They peered from wildly painted shadows made as unremarkable and gray as everything else by exposure to the filthy air, taking note of his fine clothes and upright bearing. Among the crowd too, a rare few straight backs and proud faces floated, meeting his gaze with stiff nods of passing acknowledgment. 

If I'm not careful I'm going to get mugged.

Of course, no sooner had he had that thought than someone emerged from the crowd in front of him and grabbed him by the shoulder. 

The traveler didn't allow himself the luxury of surprise - he simply reacted, grabbing them by the wrist, bracing the back of their hand with his thumb and twisting hard. In order to spare his ligaments, the victim had to torque and straighten the rest of his arm, which made hyper-extension a simple matter of applying pressure. Kelly was rewarded with a cry of pained surprise, and the quiet clicks and pops of bone grinding on bone.  

He frowned. The black-haired young man whose joints he was abusing so maliciously didn't seem to fit in on Tier-Five. The unfortunate fellow was dressed in clothes befitting a different technological era:  simple, black cotton pants, a hand-tailored shirt and a leather vest under a worn, wine-red doublet. His boots were sturdy and looked hand-made, and his hair was as long as Kelly's, pulled back in a similar style.

A doublet? Camelot, has to be. Or possibly somewhere on the Moors. 

Kelly let him go, and the man stumbled back, rubbing his arm. The crowd flowed around the two of them, sparing them only furtive, nervous looks.  

"I apologize," said the traveler, smiling thinly and adjusting the fit of his jacket. "Reflexes."  

The man shook his head and looked him in the eye.  "No need, sir. 'tis I who should apologize for grabbing you so suddenly. It's just that I could see by your bearing that you are a man with a keen sense of his surroundings. You were watching the crowd and the shadows in equal measure. It was my hope that you would prove to be a Prime, or at the very least a man of action."

He looked down and flexed his arm. His elbow clicked, and when he met Kelly's again he wore a wry smile. "Obviously I was correct on the second count, for certain." 

Kelly studied the man more closely. He was fit, and whip-thin, with the kind of body a person got by eating enough to survive and be active, but not much else. His face was broad and honest, with wide cheek-bones and a nose that was slightly too small, but he had a hunted look about him. He kept glancing away as he talked, his eyes continually drawn to high places and shadows. 

"Who are you?" asked the traveler. 

"I am called Conrad, sir. Conrad Forester. I am a man of Darkshire." 

Darkshire. If the AMBR database was even remotely correct, it's not a place for the inattentive. No wonder he's so observant. But what is he doing on Tier-Five? And why is he looking for Primes?

Kelly's chest felt cold. Darkshire was one of the potential major crisis points he'd identified in his initial, frantic analysis of the Omniverse. If the weathered and war-beaten settlement were to fall, the center of the resistance to Count Dracula would collapse, and the vampire lord would be able to finally consolidate his control of the Pale Moors.

Which, aside from raising the possibility of a whole range of potential horrors for the rest of the Omniverse, will make eventually removing him much more complicated... 

Out loud, he asked, "What are you doing in Coruscant?"   

Conrad's face turned grim. "I'm one of many, sir, sent in search of aid. Darkshire's scouts have detected an army of abominations massing on the moors. We fear an attack, and our own forces may not be enough to weather the storm. Will you help us?" 

Wonderful. Fantastic. Absolutely brilliant. This couldn't have waited a couple of weeks? Or even six hours? The archives will keep, and obviously I have to go - but I'm in no shape to fight a war. I can't even fly, for fuck's sake...

So I guess I'll just have to do what I can. 

Kelly sighed. "Yes," he said.

To his mild surprise, Conrad didn't waste time on thank-yous. He simply gave a clearly prepared set of instructions, where to go and who to meet, and disappeared back into the crowd. 

His mind beginning to spin with necessary preparations, Kelly turned around, heading back towards the staircase, and eventually, Tier-One, and the gate to the Nexus.