| From: | Mike Goldberg <michael.goldberg@*******.COM> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Midnight revelations (Denver Saga #9 -- last part) |
| Date: | Wed, 2 Jul 1997 02:28:53 MST |
Midnight Shadow's
>>>>>[ I must be cursed. At least it was for something different.
+++++ continue transmission
Midnight shuts the door and sighs. He reads the pads again and turns
them off. He drops his spell which Geiger immediately follows by
dropping his spell.
Geiger opens the bedroom door, and says, "We can be social again."
He tosses the headset to Midnight. Midnight calmly puts it on and
hands the datapads to Geiger. "Have Doc tear them apart later to make
sure there are no tracers in it. Looks like I will take the job
because there is something that worries me with one of the details. I
could be wrong, but if I'm not, Shields may be into something bigger
than he realizes, and that could be deadly."
Geiger says, "'Anyone stupid enough to take that nickname?'"
Midnight says, "Only me. Where was I? Oh yeah, Griffyn, tell me,
what if it was a community of humans that he wiped out? What if it
was a community of sympathetic humanis activists that he wiped out?
Would you be so bent on revenge?"
Midnight says, "More to the point," Midnight points to Easy and says,
"You work with a person who has helped wiped out a policlub chapter.
What makes taking out a policlub on free will, any worse than wiping
out a community because you were forced to? Yes, there is really no
excuse for it, but what would you do if it was Doomsday or Whirlwind
instead who had done the killing because a spell told them to? To me
it is no different, since I have been there. If I would be willing to
help them [Whirlwind and/or Doomsday] out of the controlling spell and
not take revenge on them for what they have done, then why shouldn't I
be willing to help the Wanderer?"
Easy shrugs. "We all do what we feel needs to be done. I take it the
Wanderer wasn't killing for pleasure? If not then I have no problem
with it. I could hardly claim to."
Midnight says, "As far as I can tell, he didn't give a damn one way or
another. To him, killing was a job he had to do for a variety of
reasons. Money, food, please his "god." I don't think pleasure ever
entered the equation. Not that I have completely psychoanalyzed the
man, but mostly, I think if asked now, why he did it, he would say it
was a job and he had to do it. When asked if he would do it if it was
not part of a job, his response was, 'Why waste the time?'
Midnight says, "I think it ultimately comes down to this. I have done
a lot of things that I do not particularly like to earn money. Money!
He didn't do it for money. He did it because someone played juju
with his head and he didn't know any better. He thought the wraith
was God and that he was doing God's business. I felt the power of
that wraith. I would be hard pressed to dispute his claim because the
wraith was that powerful. But, the Christmas bloodshed didn't happen
because we wanted it to, it happened because of the wraith. The
Wanderer would have never taken us on head on. It's stupid. And
every time I see a Thunda mention, I think of two things. I think of
what he did, and I think of what Diana did in response. The wraith
would have been proud."
Midnight whispers something into the headset and sits down. After a
little bit he sighs and shakes his head.
Griffyn looks sympathetically at Midnight and begins, "I know all of
the arguments, and I've been through them before. I helped a man who
was under the control of outside influence before, and I wish to god
that I would simply have waxed him like he deserved. That mistake
ended up costing me a dear friend, and I don't know if I'll ever
forgive myself for that mistake. I will .. no, I _must_, hunt
Wanderer until I am sure that he is no longer under the control of
that creature. I will not allow another tragedy that I could have
helped avoid." Griffyn closes his eyes tightly for a minute, resting
his head in his hands before looking back up to continue the
conversation.
"Sprinkler is alive. I'm pretty sure of it. He is in a safe place.
And no, he didn't visit our lovely fixer. Someone wants Sprinkler to
take the blame. Same someone did try to blackmail him into some
interesting actions that he was considering at the time when the hit
on Shadowfox took place. The hit on Shadowfox panicked him and he
somehow didn't follow up on the blackmail problem. His disappearing
act didn't spare him the guilt of what was going on, only made it so
that he didn't know if they followed through or not."
"Blitzkrieg ...." He picks at the threads of the carpet for a while
trying to avoid the topic. Geiger whips up an illusion of a fire robot
chasing around metallic flies and every once in a while zapping one.
The antics seem to engage Midnight and he doesn't seem to want to be
disturbed. Its like Midnight is trying to think (or not think) of an
answer that won't tear him apart.
After a few moments, the fire robot begins uttering "Only YOU can
prevent forest fires!" in a squeaky voice every time it zaps a fly:
and the flies come apart in different ways: diving to the carpet in
flames, expanding like balloons before bursting (that one flew around
the room, twice orbiting Midnight as it deflated), exploding in arcs
of electricity, dissolving as if in acid. Through it all, Midnight
clings to the antics as if it is the only thing holding him back from
severe depression.
Finally, the last metallic fly dies. The fire robot seems to >
extinguish after a few moments from boredom.
"Awww..." says Quinn, dropping her own illusions and chuckling.
"Thanks for the assist, Lady." Geiger says, smiling. "I'm pretty
darn tired from everything else that has happened today."
Midnight snaps back to reality and says, "Blitzkrieg is alive. You
actually knew that answer already, or you wouldn't have asked. You
knew the answer when I said that the Wanderer was in London when I was
last there. He was the non-friendly witness of Blitzkrieg's death. I
used that to keep up the charade and he played it perfectly. Although
he did give us some fits when he we had to fight him off of Sprinkler,
but that just made it all the more believable that the Wanderer was a
reliable witness."
Griffyn visibly relaxes. He looks as if he's going to ask something
else again, but evidentally decides against it.
"Sprinkler, unfortunately, doesn't know enough to give us leads to
follow on who was blackmailing him or who wanted to frame him. The
only curiosity I had in following the fixer was that I wanted to see
how Sprinkler was portrayed. It was either a trained actor, or a
magician, and I'm edging toward the latter. An actor would have kept
the act up about being a decker and not sharp in a business deal.
Since Shadowfox did all of Sprinkler's negotiations, Sprinkler doesn't
have that kind of business know-how to cut deals like that. The
person who talked to that fixer, knew how to bargain. But being
magically active, doesn't exactly lower the potential number of people
who could pull that off."
"Any more questions for me to answer, before I return the favor? By
the way, Quinn, who ate all the pastachio ice cream this time around?"
He smiles mischievously.
Griff shakes his head no. "I have some more, but they will keep until
the Colleen situation has been handled."
Quinn gives Midnight a look of offended innocence and a halo grows
above her head. "Weren't me this time. You mean we had some, and
someone else scoffed the lot before I got to it?"
"I'm afraid so. I have my suspicions of who did this most foul deed,
and by darn rights, I will have them persecuted from here to the
market to get more of it. Justice will be done!"
Geiger lets loose an eerie howl and then just licks his lips. He
looks satisfied and says, "I personally think it was FireWraith."
FireWraith pops her head in the room and says, "I don't think so.
Don't touch the stuff. I think it was you, Geiger, and you are just
up to your old tricks!" She exits the room.
Midnight strecthes a little and focus his mind back to the matter at
hand.
Midnight pauses for a brief second before saying, "I am trying to
accomplish two different things. First and foremost, I'm trying to
find Nightmare. I believe that the reasons behind what happened to
Nightmare explain some of the present difficulties being experienced
by Blitzkrieg.
"My second task is a little less certain, but it overlaps your purpose
a decent amount. I want to find out who is blackmailing Sprinkler and
why. I suspect the why involves whatever is happening to Colleen. I
was wondering if you could shed some more light on what is going on
with Colleen. What do you know about why she was kidnapped? Is there
some credibility to the fact that she and Sprinkler know some damning
fact? Is this part of why someone pulled what looks like a hostile
extraction on Scourge? I'm not sure if the why will bring us any
quicker to where are they, but it would be nice to know if we are just
playing the part of a puppet being pulled on strings for some untold
purpose."
Griffyn grunts. "We don't know any more about why she was snatched
than you do at this point. We've been on the trail, but they've been
a step ahead of us the whole time. Based on the subterfuge that was
played with the Sprinkler look-a-like, I'm even less certain about
what was going on, given the fact that it's looked like Colleen may be
behind the attack on Kor and her subsequent disappearance. Now, I
think it's possible that the same person or persons who was behind the
Sprinkler gambit were also behind the Colleen snatch. I don't know ..
I could just be paranoid."
Midnight sighs. He then says, "I think my team should be in the loop
for when you deal with the London fixer. At this time, it is our only
solid lead. Besides, Keys needs to be in Europe to better follow-up
on our other lead that was provided by War.
Quinn chuckles. "And I can arrange accomodation. Do you want to stay
on a building site at Glamis, in the Wild Lands at Strathrory, or can
I trust you people not to destroy my house in Regent's Park?"
Geiger says, "Keys will need to be put up in a building, but
preferably not your house in case she messes up."
Midnight says, "I guess the rest of us should be at whichever place
will notice our coming and goings less. Judging how Kansas City went
though, I would vote against your personal house. Harder to explain
if things go wrong."
Doomsday glances in the room a brief moment and says over his
shoulder, "Ya mean when, right?"
+++++ end transmission
Yeah, Doomsday, he means when -- at least knowing our fragging record.
]<<<<<
-- Croaker <09:28:24/07-02-58>
