A vibrant purple wart bubbled up on Gat's face.  He could see it like an irritant at the bottom arc of his peripheral vision.  He let it fester, feeling the static on his cheek, allowing it to agitate him as he prepared to attack. He raised his arm to watch his dagger form and sizzle.  He liked to charge his dagger short with a bristle of spurs.  The effect was a golden claw that caught, tore and serrated viciously.  It was more painful to use than a clean blade when it caught on the strings, but he liked the pain.  It relieved his anger.
    Gat gathered speed with accelerated circles around the empty third ring.  As if on a pivot he dropped off the ring entirely.  With his uncharged dendrite he grappled the ring and spun around twice, letting his limb elongate as he hung from it.  When he let loose he was moving so fast that he left trails of purple energy streaking off his orbs.  He tucked into a roll to preserve his inertia and flipped countless times ascending into the atmosphere, past the farthest ring and into the ionosphere wash that coated the strings. 
    His dagger cut the ionosphere opening the subtlest tear during entry.  There was only the faintest splash of static as his orbs and then his stat was nearly obscured in its murky fog.  A near perfect dive.  The cleanness of the approach was crucial to the technique.  The goal was to preserve his speed in order to put that much more energy behind his dagger when he hit.  In a flash he hit the strings.  The resounding explosion generated an aftershock that blew a massive crater of ionosphere out around him.  He was exposed by the blast, stuck by the collision of his dagger for an excruciating instant with the strings in an electric storm.  Bolts escaped from the contact point between his dagger and the strings.  The attack caused a massive orchestrated wave to run through the strings, pushing them outward and forcing them apart. 
    The impact forced a powerful shockwave inward toward the rings and triggered a sharp audible pitch.  It rocked the entire set of bands and knocked about both of Gat's sibling sparks noticeably as the tsunami disappeared into the Non.  Neya held her ground through the reverberation.  Tevye was seriously jostled as his stat lost contact with the ground. He had to grab a hold so as not to topple toward the center vacuum.
        From Neya's vantage point she could grok why Gat liked the bristle dagger.  It caught the strings like a grappling hook and made the impact last longer forcing the entirety of his charge into them.  She usually went for a straight blade, stiletto thin and longer.  It allowed for a tight hit and the whiplash of it provided extra leverage.  She was nowhere near as powerful as her older sibling.  She was also not quite ready for the residual hook that his bristle dagger forced.  It kept him attached far longer, hooked on the backlash, whereas her blade was deflected quickly.  She didn't yet have the energy to expend. 
    Gat had reached the age of overcharge.  He needed to drain regularly.  In fact, Neya might argue that he should be draining more often so that she didn't have to deal with his surly attitude all the time.  Gat seemed to like becoming more and more aggro so that his attack would have that much more ferocity. She understood it, she just wasn't ready for it, and didn't know if she ever would be.  She preferred grace to brute force, a clean slice to a maul.
    It took so long for Gat to get blasted away by the repercussion of the strings that Neya began to worry for him.  For a split second she wondered whether she would need to extract him but before she could act he was blown free.  He toppled crown over stat until he was in range of the fourth ring.  He still had the wherewithal to grab it and pull himself down.  The gyroscope of his stat was barely turning and his coloration was severely faded. 
    It took a moment until he had the strength to raise himself upright.  When Gat finally rose, he was as black as the Non.  As he moved along the ring slowly his stat began to collect energy and to accelerate, kicking up a healthy sprinkle of sparks behind it.  Soon he had regained his indigal composure and his crown began to spark with fresh life.  Gat looked up at Neya and smiled.  It was a weery smile, but sinister.  He had a sly look of self-satisfaction.  "I nearly broke it wide open, didn't I?" 
    "You opened a pretty good window in them, for a second," Neya agreed. 
    "You should have gone for it," Gat zapped.  "You could have broken through."
    "I don't think so.  It wasn't quite there.  I don't think I would have fit." 
    "You don't have the initiative.  You should have tried.  A second hit at the right moment and we might have busted out." 
    In fact, the thought had crossed her mind that there might be a way to coordinate attacks.  If they were able to time consecutive assaults so that the first spark pushed the strings outward and the second spark offset the shockwave with an attack elsewhere in the atmosphere, the third might be able to pry open a hole.  She wondered if they would be able to pull something off like that, the three of them, once Tevye was a little older.  The idea was still formulating, but it had potential.  That said, she wasn't about to give Gat the pleasure of agreeing with him right now.  Not when he constantly antagonized her.  "I would have had to fight the shockwave. How would I have gotten any momentum?"
    "You didn't try, how do you know?"  Gat felt weak.  It felt good to drain a little, he was burning way too hot.  Now he just felt groggy.  There was a pit in his middle orb that felt like he was housing the vacuum of the Non inside him. He was a hungry shade who swung from empty to gorged with no modulation.  "Its always up to me isn't it.  You're too content!  Where's your hunger?"  He nearly envied her contentedness.  In these rare moments of pain and exhaustion he wished that he could feel it.  Usually he despised it.
    Gat turned his attention to their younger sibling.  Tevye was a baby but he had a fierceness that Gat appreciated.  He had a softer tone as he zapped Gat "You ought to give it a try Tev."
Tevye hated string duels.  Tevye never understood why he would bother, if Gat couldn't cut the strings, why would anyone think that he could.  It was terribly painful for one, but the worst of it was how weak he felt afterwords.  He barely had the energy to form a dagger, let alone to attack the strings.  He would have rather honed his skills with practice at diving, riding and maneuvering as he built up his strength.
    But Tevye knew tht Gat would not relent.  Rather than be ridiculed, he would accept the duel and take his charge.  It was a rite of passage.  He wanted to be powerful like Gat.  He already had dreams of immortality and of freedom outside the prison of the strings.  A world away from his Other, where the Non could not find him and he was more powerful than any spark, ens entium among ions.
    Tevye mustered all his strength, the dagger at the end of his arm stretched out like a bolt of green lightning; and through sheer will, he charged at the strings.   The whirl of his stat spun under him as he raced toward the strings.  He stretched out his bolt as he slashed blindly at the strings.  He could feel the impact all through him, a black wall slamming him fluxless.  In a flash he was struggling against the strings, draining of life.  He broke free and fell inward.  It seemed he would get sucked straight in to the center if he hadn't risen when he did.  Black as the Non, still clinging to his stat, he let the undercurrent pull him to the third ring.
    "Real great game you've got here, Gat," Tevye grumbled.  Tevye's zap was so weak that Gat couldn't make out what he'd said. Gat nodded his top orb partronizingly.
    "You barely made the strings so much as tremble, little streak."
    Tevye had gotten quite sick of this sort of ridicule from Gat, but he was so weak that even the tiny bit of energy he'd gotten from Gat's zap had made him feel better.  Soon enough Tevye regained his green tone and turned his attentions to his sibling, Neya.   "Why don't you try it, Neya?"
    "Maybe she'll have better luck than you, little streak," zapped Gat sharply.
    Neya attempted to intercept their dialogue, she hated the way they would always be zapping at one another and leave her out of conversations. Gat's attitude towards both of them always angered her.  The only time he ever talked to either of them was to give them grief, or call Tevye green. She hated always being stuck in the middle between them.  Finally, frustrated, she suggests that Gat just go and slam a Hotspot.
    "You're too awkward to break the strings with force."  She continues.  "Remember Connie?  She didn't just charge ahead like a bully like you do.  She was graceful. She didn't always talk down to us.  She was even nice to you!  Connie could make the strings resonate like a chorus… it was beautiful to listen to and the harmonic would part the strings nearly wide enough to escape.  You are a constant cacophony, and just mean.  I miss her." 
    "Exactly, see where her harmony got her?  She got pulled into the center just like every other spark."
    "At least she lived well."  Gat was trying to come up with a response when he found himself thinking about hotspots.  Perhaps it was time for him to take that step.  Hotspots were balls of star fire formed from extra juice that collected on the strings. Sparks with the fever for forever often slammed hotspots to get enough power to pose a real challenge to the strings.  Gat's sister Connie had warned him that most of the sparks who slam hotspots burn too hot then rush to meet the Non to make it quit but Gat believed in the legends that slammed hotspots and lived.  He believed that if he became strong enough
    

Vision Dance Science

Nadjinsky wavered at the verge of consciousness. He reeled in a mental spiral, unable to clear his thoughts. His own eyes forced a kind of aperture synthesis. He was so exhausted that he could not reconcile his own vision. His mind refused to blend the input from his own eyes into a resolved image. His brain was too tired to self-calibrate.

Who would have thought it? Valieri Nadjinsky, the unremarkable academic with the political savvy of a sea turtle. That he, of all people, would hit upon an observation of such magnitude. Just before his infamous discovery he had been demoted yet again. This was not new. Nor was it official. He had simply been systematically superseded by nearly every young buck that had joined the lab in his tenure. He fell behind by virtue of not advancing.

SVOSD Observatory had been so different when Nadjinsky had been brought on. His mentor was a true genius. Jerzy Ukastowitz had not only been a great scientist, but a man of deep principles. He believed that space was one of the few refuges of the peaceful physicist.

Those early years of Nadjinsky’s career were some of the most precious moments of his entire life. The opportunity to have worked with one of the greatest minds of cosmology in one of the most prestigious radio observatories in the world, it was an honor that Nadjinsky could not give himself credit for. Nadjisnky, with all his self-deprecating social awkwardness, gave himself credit for very little.

He was socially inept. This fact was painfully obvious. He was committed to the search for truth at all costs. The result was an inability to compromise. The line between conversational debate and confrontation was unclear to him. He just didn’t get the social cues that most people take for granted. He didn’t know when to back off. For that matter, he also didn’t get the cues to advance.

It was Jerzy’s insistence on international collaboration and peacetime research that was his inevitable undoing. Since Ukastowitz had been unseated the lab had become more of an enterprise than a monastery of science. As capitalism infiltrated the old socialist regime, the lab began to pander first to telecommunications firms from the west, and then to military interests. Once it had been privatized, wholly owned by an international conglomerate, everything changed. The caliber of scientists hired by the lab was perhaps the most striking example. The new breed came in groomed for posturing and politics. They knew enough science to be dangerous but their political and financial ambitions were far more aggressive.

In this environment Nadjinsky grew more and more isolated. He withdrew to his little corner, often exaggerating his difficult persona in order to carve out more space to work outside of the commercial projects now dominating their portfolio.

Tonight was to have been Nadjinsky’s night. He had been the first astronomer to observe the anomalous energy in the tail of the comet. The findings he published described an energy ribbon that revolved around itself in a non-circular and erratic orbit. His discovery had earned him the prestigious SLAVA award. Ever anxious to laud itself, his company had gone all out to celebrate with a black-tie affair. They imported delicacies from across the globe and hung banners. The event was heavy on posturing and marketing.

Nadjinsky had not wanted to go. He really just wanted to remain invisible. He loathed idea of feigned adoration from this swarm of mediocre sycophants all pretending to be his closest colleague only to appear in a photo with him in some socialite rag. After much deliberation he finally reasoned that by not attending he would be sending a message that would push him further into the light. The last thing he wanted was to make a statement. He was not an activist, he was a scientist. He would swallow his discomfort for a night rather than become some spectacle of idealism by accepting in absentia. That kind of arrogance really disgusted him. He would not be that guy.

He was not a regular drinker. He was too studious for that. But in trying to quell his discomfort the liquor must have snuck up on him. At one point he had found himself surrounded primarily by clients. These were executives in tailored tuxedos with wives virtually busting out of their gowns.

“So, Val, do you mind if I call you Val?” said an overly tanned man with a fat face and hair that looked dyed contrasted against his gray eyebrows. The man’s wrinkled frown lines wrestled with his tight eyes in an awkward age shift dysphoria. “Any places around here you would recommend summering? We’ve been thinking in investing in a little land out in the Eastern Block, maybe on a lake somewhere. Got any suggestions?”

“Where do you go to unwind after you come up with your brilliant ideas?” the woman goaded.

Nadjinsky swilled his vodka and excused himself but he couldn’t seem to escape. As the main event he couldn’t hide in a corner as usual. He wound up next to coworkers, sales and marketing types who were working their pitch. They patted him on the shoulder like old chums and introduced him as if he were a trophy.

“We only hire the best minds here at SVOSD. We focus on excellence here. Our technical resources are graduates from top universities. And they all have impeccable backgrounds, top level clearance. Only the best and you see the result. Award-winning researchers at work for you,” said the colleague as Nadjinsky pried the unsolicited arm off his shoulder.

The other coworker continued as Nadjinsky tried to back away. She seemed to be coming toward him without actually moving. He felt suddenly claustrophobic. She was looking at him but talking to the prospects “You know that we offer the most sophisticated satellite tracking systems in the world. We can guarantee complete monitoring with a five-nine SLA on access to all dashboards and reporting services. We offer a best of breed solution for both military and consumer verticals.” Nadjinsky bolted for the doors to get fresh air.

The crowd of cigarette smokers gave him no reprieve. The dusty air felt suffocating, thick and coarse. People were everywhere, and they all wanted him to make small talk. He ran for the bathroom and locked himself in a stall until he recovered his composure.

He waited in the stall until he heard the telltale quiet of silver on china and the din calm into dinner conversation. He felt completely vulnerable, still sweaty, his hands trembling as he made his way to his reserved spot at the front of the dining room. It was as if every eye in the room was trying to deconstruct him. He tried to eat, though his appetite was lacking, while blatantly avoiding conversation with the executives he had been seated with. They quickly turned their attention to one another, giving him a chance to drink a couple more shots. By the time that Nadjinsky was presented with his award he was well out of it.

He couldn’t remember exactly what he said, but he knew that it wasn’t very complimentary. At some point he remembered a long and awkward silence in the banquet hall. He remembered saying something about sacrificing integrity for accolades. He was pretty sure that he bemoaned the quality of the research and the lack of true investigation. One phrase kept repeating in his head. “I became a scientist to give with my mind, not to sell off my soul. I did not know that I would be expected to be a prostitute.”

At the end of his speech he had walked out. He had managed to find his way back to the lab, although he couldn’t quite recall how. He was exhausted and delirious. He was not so much drunk as lucid. He felt ashamed, and yet, he felt a rare sense of pride. He had spoken up for himself. He was known for arguing about ideas, but he never spoke up on his own behalf.

Now, reset by the strangeness of the night Nadjinsky returned with a newfound fervor to his work. Feeling the creative surge of self confidence mixed with confusion Nadjinsky sat at the monitor. It regurgitated the last imaging of the eAlpha ribbons taken before Aion disappeared behind the sun. Nadjinsky has looked at this same series of images so many times he could calculate its fourier transform in his sleep. At this point passive observation might get him further than conscious analysis, he thought, cynically. At this point, he was hoping for a revelation. Nadjinsky dropped back in his seat and rubbed his eye sockets. The sting brought tears to his eyes.Is it possible that eAlpha is a form of light which does not have a standard speed? He flips through his journal. The nucleus of the atypical atomic structure may have an orbiting counterbalance with a fluctuating mass that causes the barycenter of the eAlpha to shift. However, there does not appear to be a massive orbiter. If the barycenter is in fact shifting then some form of energy must be accumulating or escaping in order to have a similar effect on the nucleus. For the mutation of organic matter to correlate with the presence of eAlpha there must be some form of energy being released. Is a strong internal force altering the velocity and / or the angular momentum of orbiting electrons? This would explain why eAlpha does not appear to be radiating and its particles seem to follow a spiral, rather than a circular orbit. This would not, however, explain the mutations.A fluctuation in mass of the nucleus could potentially explain how an atomic structure could maintain spiral orbit. Though the escape of electrons creates lesser elements through radioactive decay, it has not been shown to change the mass of the nucleus. Perhaps these particles are not escaping but rather being drawn into the nucleus. Perhaps the particles are fusing with the nucleus, but if so, only for nanoseconds at most. Even if the nucleus is absorbing particles, some form of radiation must still be escaping. Still, the observed human mutations do not appear to be the result of classic radiation exposure. He’s fading fast into a cushion of hazy flashes. The cloud is swelling softer and he is slipping. He squints his eyes to blur the images of the eAlpha spiraling green monochrome on the screen. His need for sleep enhances the monochrome to Technicolor. His eyelids are a screen projecting his dream state. eAlpha is a movie playing over again and again on the inside of his eyelids. In the pool of his eyes, floaters waddle. Snap, inspiration. He bolts upright in a flash. “Virtual particles, it has to do with virtual particles.”

Anacostia was a place of contradictions.  From the exterior the
buildings seemed locked in the stone architecture of the 1900s.
They were rooted on solid earth as if risen like a tectonic collision
from the pavestones of old cobble streets.  There were few glass
and steel structures save the nearby Nationals stadium and a few world
war era military sites.  The headquarters for the Department of
Homeland Security was squarely situated in a historic neighborhood that
had successfully fended off both the intrusion of a McDonalds and of
moderately priced housing under the preservationist banner of historical
integrity.  DHS occupied the former campus of a civil war era asylum
in a rehabilitated structure that had the turrets and towers of a nineteenth
century fortress.

The understated institutional interior of the facility had been upgraded
to accommodate the tastes of the top brass. Mahogany and
oak even older than the building itself had been reclaimed from barns
of farms long since consolidated by agribusiness conglomerates and used
to upgrade the conference rooms and executive offices.  Granite
and precious metal leaf had been supply chained in from across the planet
to compliment the medals, portrait frames and honors that adorned the
walls.  Beneath the façade, between the old stone and the even
older decor an uber-modern information infrastructure had been installed
that could rival AMES.

In a nod not entirely
unconscious to its own legacy, the department had set a situation room
in the very room where the office of strategic services had infamously
tested truth serum cocktails of henbane and mescaline on less fortunate
subjects.  To the majority of the participants in this room the
history of the place was irrelevant and the wiring was something that
middle managers worried about.  These were representatives from
the top corners of the Department.  The men greatly outnumbered
the women, and some of the women had broader shoulders than the men.

At the farthest end of the table, stage right of the illuminated
screens, were several individuals, one woman and two men from the Directorate
for National Protection and Programs.  Stage left sat two men from
the Directorate for Management.  Both groups were greatly outnumbered,
as always by the swarm around the head of the table furthest from the
screens.  This was a hybrid public, private and quasi-governmental
contingent that collectively fell under the umbrella of the Directorate
for Science and Technology.  .

Of the DST, a heavy ratio
fell into the portfolio of the Director of Innovation / Homeland Security
Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA).  This group included
specialists in biological and chemical warfare technology as well as
transition experts – a portfolio that specialized in moving the glacier
of national defense systems.  Amongst them sat several smartly
dressed wolves of the private sector.  In the collective nom de
guerre of the department, these executives were known as Dulce Phase
Associates.

In the jargon of the Small Business Innovation Research Program,
cooperation in homeland security enterprises was organized into phases
delimited by zeros at the end of the line item.   Beyond the
billions they moved into Dulce Phase.  These companies and their
worldwide subsidiaries would be the inevitable recipients of the no-bid
contracts awarded to black budget projects representing the most ambitious
of defense visions.

Twin oversized flat screens
projected a bulleted list in a blue font with a glossy header and marketing
flair to the presentation that would have seemed an uncomfortable juxtaposition
of sales pitch and military debriefing to the uninitiated.  To
the people in this room, it was simply a West Point style professionalism
that was expected of them all.  As the presenter, a square-jawed
and tightly cut man clicked on the remote, a set of new bullets dissolved
in on screen.  The points summarized common mutations that were
being reported in industrialized countries.

With the skill of a well
rehearsed orator he spoke to the bullets without reiterating them.
“I don’t have to tell you that understanding these mutations is
going to be essential to national security.  Obviously, many of
you are already initiating major research programs to study these subjects.
I also understand that you are isolating certain mutants.  This
is all reasonable strategy, and I commend your quick action.  Our
country is better off for your initiative.”

A weary looking man in
military officer’s uniform interrupted, “Jeth, stop gushing, you
come off like a Phase 1 suck up.”

Jeth redirected without losing a beat.  “Let me cut to it.
You need to do more than understand the mutations.  You need to
own them.  You need to control them.”

A woman from the side of the room, noticeably removed from the controllers
that had seats at the table spoke up, “What you are suggesting
has ethical implications that go beyond even the constitution.
From where I sit, both as an American and on behalf of The Office of
Policy, I must object.  This government can not condone any program
that would venture into anything resembling what you suggest.”
She seemed uncomfortable even repeating the idea.

Jeth nodded with
a sly mixture of overt pity and mock empathy.  “With all due
respect, Ma’am”, he lingered on the honorific long enough to make
it clear he meant it as an insult. “You must believe that if you act
ethically that others will not use your own idealism as a weapon against
you.  Believe me, the first time your tail is kicked while your
head is in the sand you will rethink your ‘ethics’.”

There was a palatable
discomfort in the room.  Few participants willed themselves to
look squarely at Jeth.  They would have pretended to work on their
mobile phones, faking an urgent response for some high priority decision
that only they had the authority to make, but they couldn’t.
There were no cellular signals, encrypted or otherwise coming in or
out of this room.  They were forced to be present.  Yet, nearly
everyone in the room avoided Looking at Jeth.  They looked down,
they glanced around at one another, avoiding eye contact or personal
acknowledgment.   Something about him solicited a cognitive
dissonance that noticeably made people turn away.  He was well
aware of it.  It was a response that he had grown familiar with.

Jeth was a handsome man.  The guy had been the captain
of the football team and prom king. He was tall and had the build of
a man that was still active. He was still broad and hadn’t folded
over himself like someone who’s body transformed at a keyboard and
monitor.  It was unlikely that he had even spent long enough at
a computer to put together the presentation that he was now delivering.
He carried himself with confidence and was easy to look at, that is,
until he began to speak. His callous voice spoke volumes.  Jeth
Harbinger’s voice was a grating damaged thing.  He was still
articulate, you could understand him, but it was unpleasant to listen
to.

For those that knew anything about him, and nobody knew much more
than basics, his voice was a scar that revealed history.
Jeth had been gassed in a skirmish as a young mercenary working for
a private defense contractor just out of high school.  The resulting
stint in quasi-military healthcare inspired him to start a biotech defense
contractor.  His ambition married with his ability to spot genius
had put him on the map.  His ability to co-opt geniuses, whether
through greed or fear, via blackmail or ideology, had made him powerful.

Jeth got agitated by the
lack of backbone in the room. “We are behind the eight-ball already
people.  We don’t even understand what is at the root of these
mutations.  There are god-damned Polacks working out of sheds with
nothing more than a personal computer who have figured out more than
what we’ve come up with.  We are going to get our asses handed
to us by Derkas who don’t give a shit about ethics.  They’d
as soon kill every one of their own than give us our precious peace
and liberty.”

A political looking man
with a head too big for his body and a suit colored to strike a natural
contrast against a green screen spoke up. “Mr. Harbinger, I understand
your enthusiasm.  I think everyone here understands the urgency
of this situation.  Further, we will take it under consideration
that your company has proposed to provide services to the portfolio
of Innovation in the field of biological transformation research.
However, we will need to ask that you maintain civility in your discourse.”

“I have to agree with
Morgan, Jeth,” said a studious looking man from DNPP.  “We
really shouldn’t make any decisions until the probe intercepts the
comet and we are able to analyze the sample.  We will know a lot
more after that.”

Jeth tried to correct
without projecting visible emotion.  “My apologies for any offense
ladies and gentlemen.  I think you all know that I am passionate
on this subject.  However, that is not a reason for doing business
together. You also know that BKKN is a company uniquely qualified to
assist you with any objectives that you have in the arena of mutation
research.  Our facilities are state of the art and we are extremely
well secured, unquestionably the most secured facilities in the nation.
Our subsidiary already provides security for most of your labs.
Further, we are already contracted to assist in analysis of the sample.
I know I speak for all of BKKN when I thank you for this opportunity
to participate in this truly historic inquiry.”

A project manager type,
a tightly buttoned-up woman from the side of the room steered the meeting
to an end with a summary of takeaways that got drowned out by the noise
of people packing up, murmuring and shifting.  As Jeth closed up
his laptop he noticed a few defense men lingering to have a few words,
most likely over whiskeys in a corner office.  He smiled.
This was how business was done: formal obfuscations and backroom negotiations.
He was good at what he did.  Even when what he did was not always
good.