From:	mneideng@****.caltech.edu (Mark L. Neidengard)
Subject:	Riot footage
Date:	Sat, 16 Dec 1995 22:18:57 -0800

>>>>>[
Ok folks, here it is. Some nice footage of what _really_ happened at the
start of those riots. Lord help us.

+++++include footage

A warehouse. The most obvious object in view, dominating over half the
visual field. It is large, rising over five stories above the cracked and
littered concrete, with generous amounts of grafitti and no visible windows or
doors. The camera seems to be positioned about three stories up, regarding the
world through a fish-eye lens. The warehouse appears to be directly across the
street. As time passes, the camera pans slowly left to right and back again,
revealing glimpses of other drab buildings fading off in either direction along
a rubbish-strewn street. The weather is a deep overcast, coloring all the
sunlight filtering through the clouds a depressing gray. Though it is midday,
there is no traffic.

After a moment, a red overlay reading "Cue Audio" flashes briefly, followed by
the start of a soundtrack. The only noise audible at first is the rumble of
distant engines, presumably coming from a microphone attached to the camera.
Then, a terse male voice breaks in, barking: "All Units Confirm." A
transparent overlay window pops up in the lower left corner of the footage.
It seems to be a high-resolution street map, with several solid dots marked
in red, arranged roughly in a circle. One by one, five smaller blue dots add
to the ring, followed by five green ones. After several seconds, one of the
blue dots begins to move toward the center of the circle. The camera suddenly
breaks its pattern of observation and abruptly pans to the left, zooming in to
follow a tall figure in a longcoat walking onto the scene. The figure's
motions are clearly audible through the microphone, and a luminous green box
forms around the figure on the footage. At the same instant, the moving blue
dot on the map is surrounded by a triangle, and a line from one of the red dots
marked with range and bearing appears. The figure, probably a man by its
posture, walks to a certain spot on the street in front of the warehouse and
stops, reaching up to manipulate something on its collar. "Ready," a voice
says.

Nothing seems to happen at first, but as the camera slowly pans away from the
figure, some sort of faint atmospheric disturbance interposes itself between
the man and the camera. Its thickness is difficult to judge, but it appears
to extend roughly three times the figure's height into the air, and a similar
distance radially. "Confirm," comes a tense male voice. "Do it."
The man
nods, appears to take a deep breath, and then looks up and says something too
muffled for the microphone to catch.

+++++audio overlay

The soundtrack abruptly switches, blaring out a cacophony of high pitched
voices squealing and babbling in utter disunison. As a label reading "Redmond
Metro Educational Authority" flashes briefly on-screen, a male voice shouts
out "Settle _down_ you kids. The good Lord _knows_ how much tribulation and
sin is a'waitin' for us in the streets of our city. Let us not test the
mercy of the _Lord_ overlong with an abundance of Babel!" This is met with a
chorus of giggles and laughter as the background noise abates slightly. The
sound of an electric motor whining to life is barely audible in the background.
The character of the reveberation of the audio suggests some sort of bus, and
a crowded one at that. The din of boisterous school children forms a stark
contrast to the silent figure displayed on the video.

The seconds drag on into minutes without much happening. The longcoated man
is getting visibly nervous, reaching up more than once to wipe sweat out of his
eyes between furtive glances down the street, shifting from one foot to
another. Then, a screeching of tires and blaring of horns erupts from the
audio, accompanied by yells from the schoolchildren. These yells die away to
some sort of hush, punctuated by the drivers voice: "The Lor' does...give
dis'plin over His...childr'n..." Then a different voice speaks, deep and
sibilant, a sonorous cadence seemingly coming from everywhere at once.

"In the beginning...God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was
without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the
Spirit of God moved over the surface of the waters."

"And God said, Let there be LIGHT!" At this, a chorus of fevered screams
bursts forth, followed by the sound of shattering glass and wrenching metal.
"And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the
darkness! And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called...Night."
"You _motherfucker_!" a voice cries out, and the chatter of gunfire briefly
drowns out much of the screaming. "Ho...holy fuck, motherfuckin...*ulp*!" The
young voice is trails off into a choked silence, followed by a faint metallic
"chack...thunk...cha-chack": the sound of a clip being ejected and replaced.

"And there was evening, and there was morning...a first day," the voice
intones. The young voice begins again, now constricted with anger. "You wanna
fuckin' mess with me, _bitch_?!" The weapon, perhaps a light pistol by its
sound, fires again, this time as single shots fired in rapid succession,
accompanied by the gunman's shouted curses. The passengers of the bus are now
in full uproar, as screams of terror mingle with cries of pain. Distantly the
bus driver can be heard to mumble "..watch step....n'b'crfl...closing doors..."
as the bus careens onward. The shooting finally stops momentarily. "And Mom,
Pop, fuck this," the voice says in a fierce growl, and a final gunshot rings
out, followed by the sound of something metal clattering to the ground.

The amount of screaming declines slightly, mainly comprised of female voices
in various states of hysteria. The sound of a horn blares out, followed by
an almighty crash and the scraping of metal on metal, but the bus's
progress seems unaffected. The cries are piercing, and serve only to accent
the tension in the posture of the figure on-screen. "Shut up, Goddmanit!"
a boy's voice yells. "Just..shut the fuck up!" More and more male voices
join in, increasing in anger as the girls refuse to be quiet. There is the
sound of flesh slapping flesh, punctuated by a cry of pain, followed by "If you
won't shut up, I'll _shut_ you up!" "Stuck up slut!" someone else near the
microphone shouts. "I'ma fuckin' give you somethin' to _shut_ your big mouth!"
"NOOO!!" a girl yells, and the sounds of a scuffle break out, quickly expanding
to fill the entire bus. The sounds of ripping clothing, growls and yells
of anger, and cries of pain are horrendous, overwhelming the senses.

Just as the audio is becoming unbearable, it abruptly switches back to the
feed from the camera, resoundingly silent after the din of the bus. "Heads
up! Bogie at 9 o'clock! School bus!" shouts a voice. "What? What the fuck
is...HOLY SHIT!!" An inset window appears in the upper-righthand corner, a
camera tracking the progress of a Redmond Metro schoolbus, part of its front
and much of one side crushed in and scraped as if from some sort of crash. The
bus appears to be traveling at over 75 kilometers per hour, heedless of
pedestrians or imperfections in the pavement. The inset camera zooms in on
the windows of the bus, many of which are smeared inside with a reddish
substance. Inside is a mass of what appear to be children, scrambling around
each other in some sort of insane frenzy. One young black boy can briefly
be seen sinking his teeth into a Latino elf girl's breast before the tangle of
arms and legs obscures them from view. "Incoming, incoming," the terse voice
snaps again. "What in Bloody Hell?..." Now the rumble of a school bus is
perceptible in the audio, approaching at an alarming rate. The longcoated
figure adopts a fighting stance and stares pointedly down the street to the
right. The camera pans to follow his gaze, in time to catch the battered bus
streaking down the street. It shows no signs of slowing down. "Oh, DREK!"
the figure shouts, and dives headlong out of the way of the bus as the camera
follows it past the warehouse. At its velocity, the bus is unable to avoid a
utility poll, and crashes into it with a resounding "crunch", coming
instantly to a stop.

"Third units, converge!" the voice barks out, and suddenly several of the
dots on the tactical display begin to blink. A muffled whine starts up, and
the camera lifts smoothly up and forward, banking abruptly and drifting
slowly toward the bus. The motions of the blinking dots show them to be
rapidly approaching the scene when one of them abruptly winks out. "We lost
number three!" a different voice, this time female, cries out. "Get
your..."
her words are cut off by a high-pitched electronic beeping, obviously meant as
an alarm. One of the green dots near the last position of "number three" is
now flashing, surrounded by a red border. "There he is! Get the fucker
_now_!" All the red and green dots begin moving, accelerating toward the
point of conflict.

The video switches to a different airborn camera, moving swiftly and deftly
down the street at a height of two stories. A drone rapidly streaks in from
a side alleyway, forming up about five meters in front of the camera and about
a meter lower. The drone, resembling a bloated miniature helicopter with
some sort of immense protruding weapon, makes an abrupt left turn down a
side street, a move that the camera duplicates with nauseating speed a moment
later. The camera shows a street littered with trash and lined with boarded-
up buildings, desolate save for a van parked two blocks down near an
unconscious transient. All this happens in an instant, as a bright flash
erupts from the roof of the van, accompanied by a tremendously loud whine.
Within half a second the leading drone disintegrates amid a nearly solid
stream of tracers as the camera attempts a frantic evasive dive to the left.
It doesn't make it. Within another second, the picture jerks violently and
quickly switches to a different aerial camera. "FUCK!" a voice yells.
"ROCKETS NOW NOW NOW!!" An new inset displays still another aerial
camera, this time climbing rapidly and skimming along buildings as it
approaches the van. While the main camera slows down, the inset suddenly
swivels horizontally by ninety degrees and slides sideways around a building
to reveal the van from the other side. Instantly a green diamond forms
around the van, followed by a blur of small munitions fired from out of the
camera's view. Almost immediately they impact the van, exploding on contact
and flinging shrapnel into the surrounding buildings. With blinding speed,
a piece of metal decapitates the transient, who never regained enough
consciousness to flee. Even before the flare of the blast dies down, a green
box forms around a spot in the smoke and rapidly streaks offscreen, the camera
pivoting and setting out in pursuit.

"That's It!" the female voice shouts. "Use it _now_!" A soft beep
can be
heard, and the border around the tactical display turns red. Free of the
smoke, the inset camera now shows some sort of humanoid shape moving at high
speed across the street, running straight for a building. The figure is
not pumping its legs, but seems to be drifting slightly off the ground. The
figure grows more tangible over the next two seconds as the camera swoops in
for a firing position. The red vector on the tactical display indicates 87
kph as the figure runs straight for a solid brick wall. The figure, presumably
the wraith, suddenly makes an incredible leap _toward_ the wall,
triangle-jumping off in a black blur headed straight for the camera, far too
fast for the eye to follow. The inset vanishes almost instantly, followed by
a chorus of "_Shit_!" from the audio. The main camera careens around a
building in time to see the wraith vanish down an alley, some sort of smoking
debris in its wake. The camera immediately shoots skyward as it careens toward
the alley, obviously hoping to go above the roofs of the adjoining buildings.

The camera jerks hard into level flight, shrieking over the shadowed alley
between smokestacks and antenna protruding from the surrounding roofs. A
dotted box appears around something in the gloom below, followed immediately
by a muted hum and a high speed stream of tracers shot into the box. The
target shows no indication of slowing down. "The bus, Val!", barks a voice
as the Wraith, still taking bursts of fire from somewhere beside the camera,
breaks out of the alley and onto the street from the start of the footage.
The camera abruptly slackens its pace as a van screeches around a street
corner one block down and starts toward the wraith. The wraith, its speed
even more apparent from a stationary vantage point, streaks over to the bus,
some signs of activity still evident through the obscured windows. The wraith
"skids" toward the rear of the bus, sinking its arms through the metallic rear
grill and into the engine compartment. Still retaining momentum from the dash
across the street, the wraith spins its body around with athletic grace, the
bus still in hand! Simultaneously, the roof of the onrushing van erupts into
twin bursts of fire.

The audio and video suddenly go into slow motion, clearly showing the wraith
swinging the entire bus off the ground and through the air, releasing it
towards the van in a smooth, graceful motion. The bus seems to take
forever in its impossible flight, traveling approximately at a thirty degree
angle to the street. The slow motion of the camera shows the bus colliding
with the van inch by inch, the van slowly crumpling as the combined mass
slides sideways into a boarded-up storefront. The footage accelerates as
the two vehicles crash through the wall, reaching full speed within two
seconds as an enormous fireball erupts from the wreck. The wraith begins
to move again, but suddenly comes to a halt, stopped by some unseen force.
An enormous burst of flames erupts from the wraith, accompanied by one stream
of tracers from the camera and another from off to the right. However, as
the flames of the blast recede, the wraith appears unscathed despite the
streams of ammo pelting it, and making a motion as if throwing off something
from its being, abruptly starts moving again, ducking under store awnings in
an effort to avoid the hail of bullets. It turns rapidly onto a short side
street with the camera in pursuit, at the other end of which the figure from
the start of the footage is waiting. He has some sort of rod in his hands,
but no details are evident as the wraith accelerates to well over 90 kph
as indicated by the tactical display. The man seems to realize his mistake,
but has no time to dodge as the wraith crashes into him at full speed, sending
the both of them bodily through the wall of the building at the end of the
street.

"Around the back!" yells the female voice, ragged with tension. One of the
inset cameras zips up and over the building, stopping over yet another decrepit
street. Several homeless people in ragged clothing are on their feet, glancing
around in bewilderment. Suddenly the dotted box forms around something hiding
in the shadow of a dumpster, and the camera swoops in again. The stream of
tracers comes once more, but stops abruptly as an "Ammo Out" indication
appears onscreen. This time, the wraith steps bodily into the dim light and
hurls what appears to be a sewer lid at the camera, apparently catching it by
complete surprise. It jerks out of the way, but not fast enough, as the
footage jolts greatly and the camera careens wildly into a crashing stop on
the street, its still-functional camera pointed at the pavement. The main
camera is by this time several blocks down the street and closing rapidly.
The wraith then begins to run at its full speed, knocking pedestrians asunder
as it flees down the street towards the more populous part of town. All of the
remaining red and green dots are now in pursuit, while three of the the four
remaining blue dots are stationary and blinking.

Several insets now appear, both aerial and terrestrial, as the chase
continues. It is difficult to make sense of the blur of different images,
but in the terrestrial shots, the pedestrians in the wake of the wraith are
acting strangely, apparently attacking each other or themselves with whatever
weapons are closest at hand. In fact, several people are even jumping out of
windows, one of them falling into the path of a camera and disappearing with
a jolt out of sight. The aerial cameras seem able to keep pace with the
wraith, but the terrestrial cameras are faring worse, probably because of the
abysmal state of the roads. The wraith makes a difficult target, and none of
the bullets that do hit have any visible effect. As one of the insets
displays its "Ammo Out" message, a new voice with a strong Mexican accent
breaks in: "Okay _vato_, here I come with a boot up your _ass_!" The word
"Armed" flashes red in the inset as it swoops toward the wraith from behind.
"Wait!..." the female voice starts, but before she can finish a tremendous
explosion shows in the rest of the cameras as the "armed" inset vanishes.
All but one of the aerial cameras manages to avoid crashing in the massive
turbulence, struggling to regain a sight on the wraith. There is now a
massive crater in the street, and all of the nearby buildings have the front
walls of the bottom five stories blown away entirely. Body parts from the
pedestrians in the area mingle with debris at the periphery of the blast zone.

"Fuck _that_ mother...SHIT!" the Mexican voice comes again, and one of the
cameras suddenly zooms in on a dark spot some 80 meters down the street.
Even as the cameras begin to move toward the spot, the wraith rises slowly
from the ground and accelerates once more down the street. "What the _fuck_
is going on?!" One by one the inset windows indicate "Ammo Out", and the
wraith seems to streak through the thickening crowds with confidence, leaving
a mass of brawling, maniacal poor people in its wake. Then, the sound of
sirens becomes noticeable on the soundtrack, as if heading directly for the
microphone. In seconds, the distinctive flashing lights and loud motor
noises of a Lone Star Heavy Response Team appear down the street. At this
point, the wraith makes a wrenching turn and crashes through the front door
of a tenemant, vanishing from view. The aerial cameras immediately fan out
and surround the building, but no sign of the wraith is evident. Meanwhile,
the terrestrial cameras slow uncertainly as the Lone Star vehicles draw
ever closer.

+++++assemble-edit

The entire audio/video stream, tactical window and all, is replaced by the
view from a single aerial camera, cruising about a story off the ground and
following in the wake of the Lone Star group. The video quality is stunning,
and the clarity of the audio reveals every nuance of the rumbling vehicles and
screaming pedestrians. Many blocks down the street, three vans seem to be
coming to a stop, while three armed drones of some kind are visible hovering
around a building about four blocks down on the left. The Lone Star vehicles
are abruptly slowed by a flood of people crowding into the street directly in
front of the convoy, several being crushed as the vehicles skid to a halt.
The figures are armed with everything from baseball bats to submachine guns,
and are assailing the armored vehicles in fury, heedless of the number of
their own getting trampled underfoot or shot. All the vehicles activate
their military weapons pods, causing machine guns, rotary assault canons, and
other weapons to suddenly bristle from their protected turrets. This does
not daunt the mob at all, and as people begin to stream in from other parts
of the street someone lobs a Molotov cocktail that hits the leading vehicle
in the windshield, showering everyone within several yards in broken glass
and burning gasoline. A black man with a crazed expression and a grenade
pistol emerges from the crowd and fires several shots in rapid succession at
the vehicle, breaching its front armor and shredding everything in the cockpit.
At that point, another vehicle with linked miniguns returns fire, causing
the man and several people near him to instantly vanish into clouds of pink
haze. The gunner turns his fire on the vans down the street, shredding two
and badly damaging the third as it squeals off out of sight. All three of
the visible drones and two out of sight fall next to a volley of small missiles.

Other Lone Star weapons begin to open fire, blowing holes in the onrushing
crowd. But more and more people are streaming out into the street, running in
from blocks away and pouring in from side streets. Several of them are on
motorcycles, and objects which could only be grenades are being thrown in all
directions as what appears to be a full-scale riot proceedes. The camera
rises hastily away from the mass of people and vehicles and slides backward
over the lip of a roof, protruding just enough to catch all the action. One
building after another catches fire as incendiaries and explosives mingle
with the sound of gunshots. The Lone Star vehicles are currently holding their
own, but the street is being made impassable by the raw accumulation of bodies.
Several canisters of gas are belatedly launched, only adding to the confusion
as the crowd seems to pay little attention. The situation is worsening by
the second, and those seconds drag on into minutes of footage before the noises
of backup ground vehicles and air power can be heard.

Then, something strange happens. A golden streak, like a time-lapse
photograph of automotive headlights, shoots into the picture from the left.
The streak seems to terminate directly above the embattled Lone Star
vehicles, but the impression is fleeting as an explosion occurs at the
terminus of the light. The camera is jostled tremendously and the audio is
instantly cut out as every window for blocks is blown out and the members of
the crowd within a wide radius of the Lone Star vehicles are crushed into the
ground like ants. Parts of the facades of several of the nearby buildings
begin to crumble as the pavement under the blast cracks and starts to give
way. The camera, still stabilizing, spins rapidly on its axis to sight along
the streak, suddenly zooming incredibly far in to show an fifteenth-story
rooftop some eight blocks away. Silhouetted against the dark gray sky is a
suit of powered armor, roughly seven feet tall by the relative scale of the
building's windows. The camera immediately begins to slide backwards, climbing
slightly up and switching to a wide-angle lens as the zoom tries to keep pace
with the camera's motion. The figure raises one of its arms, palm towards the
scene of devastation below. The palm begins to glow, and transient arcs of
energy begin to leap from the figure to the devastated Lone Star contingent.
Then, the figure abruptly stops, swiftly raising its hand in some sort of
gesture. No sooner does this happen than a volley of missiles streak in from
somewhere far to the side of the camera, detonating in an immense explosion on
the rooftop. The camera pivots slightly to reveal a trio of heavily armed
light helicopters and a constellation of about twelve drones, each sporting
some sort of weaponry. The lens is still wide enough to show the rooftop in
the left corner. Distantly the rest of the crowd on the street can still be
seen, its orgiastic frenzy somewhat dampened as the realization of what is
happening seems to dawn on its members.

As the aircraft streak toward the building, the smoke clears, showing the
figure standing precariously on some twisted metal beams left from the
blast, its armor badly damaged in several spots. Some sort of blue glow is
surrounding the figure, making visibility difficult. The figure makes a
gesture as if grabbing something, and then makes a throwing motion toward the
aircraft just as another volley of missiles is unleashed. A ball of red
seems to fly from the figure's grasp, reaching the formation just as the
missiles reach the building. As the top of the building explodes into a ball
of fire, the red ball expands in an instantaneous flicker, leaving some sort
of milky white wall over fourty-five yards in diameter around all three of
the helicopters and most of the drones. The wall then seems to collapse,
though the effect is again too fast for the eye to follow. In its wake, all
the vehicles are pulverized, torn asunder by some monstrous force. Then,
some sort of concussion wave emanates from the center of the zone of
devastation, swatting the remaining drones out of control and rocking the
camera a moment later. The blast blows back the instant flames that shroud
the building. Silhouetted against them is a black, humanoid shape, falling
in the wake of the devastation. However, instead of plummeting downward,
the figure manages to push off some part of the building and makes an
incredible leap towards the roof of a nearby twelve-story building, landing in
a tight crouch and quickly standing to survey the street. The figure is
difficult to make out (even as the camera tries to zoom in): it is roughly six
feet tall, its slim, possibly elven profile broken up by the shredded edges of
what might be clothing. The curves of the figure's profile suggest a female.
Its hair is long, gleaming silver as it blows freely against the backlighting
of the fire, and its ears seem to be well over half a foot in length. The most
arresting characteristic is the figure's eyes, glowing an intense, blinding
violet.

The figure seems to rapidly scan the street below, and is in the process of
raising its arm when one of the remaining drones climbs erratically above
the building's lip and opens fire with a high-velocity machine gun. The figure
is knocked a step back by the barrage, but instead of falling under the
stream of bullets, it stabs its right index finger at the sky. Within a
fraction of a second, a massive bolt of lighting bursts from the clouds above
and blows the drone out of existence. With superhuman speed the figure then
turns back toward the street and once more raises its hand. Its palm again
starts to glow, and as the figure concentrates on the crowd below, arcs of
energy begin to leap between all the objects in an immense area centered on
the convoy. Wherever an arc touches any object, a large section of material is
blown free, disintegrating into dust. The buildings in the area, already
weakened by the previous explosion, begin to collapse, crushing everything
below even as they moulder away. The street fares even worse, pavement
breaking in large chunks as everything on top begins to fall into the sewers.
All the bodies littering the area crumble instantly, and even the armored Lone
Star vehicles are breaking up. Suddenly the command vehicle explodes from
within and a black shadow, apparently the wraith, bursts free and tears off
down the street. It is now over nine feet tall, and seems to be traveling in
excess of 250 kph! It is the only object not visibly affected by the arcs of
energy.

At its appearance, the crowd bursts into a renewed frenzy of activity,
lashing out at each other to form a mosh pit square blocks in size. The black
figure rapidly spreads its arms wide and shouts something, bringing its hands
together rapidly in some sort of gesture aimed at the crowd. A streak of red
shoots from the figure's outstretched arms, striking the crowd slightly ahead
of the wraith's position. Instantly, the entire street is obscured by a solid
mass of flame, rising over sixteen stories into the air! All the buildings
in the area not covered by the flames begin to wither and crumple under the
heat, bursting into flame on contact. The flames last an agonizing five
seconds, and then the figure breaks its gesture and starts to run towards the
edge of the building. Even as the flames begin to receed, the figure makes a
graceful running dive off the building, gliding at high speed by means of some
unseen assistance towards the devastation. The fireball vanishes within a
second, all buildings within it transformed into crumbling, raging infernos.
The camera begins to move for a better angle, dimly showing the charred remains
of hundreds of bodies against the cracked and viscous concrete. The dark
silhouette of the wraith is still visible, climbing to a standing position
and fleeing just as the black figure touches the ground. The rest of the
visible mob, battered and burned by the onslaught, is now in full stampede,
stampeeding in blind terror and trampling its members as it surges away from
the scene, progress impeded by more rioters clogging nearby streets. The
wraith is about seventy yards away from the figure and departing rapidly. The
figure suddenly repeats its previous gesture, and again a horrendous ball of
flames erupts around the wraith, setting yet more buildings on fire.

This time the inferno only lasts a second, as the figure begins to sprint
toward the devastation, accelerating to well over 90 kph. The camera lifts
up slightly and starts following the chase from a distance, revealing the
wraith, this time visibly faltering as it "runs" into a high-rise tenement
about a block beyond the immediate radius of the blast. As secondary gas
explosions rock the surrounding buildings, the figure comes to a stop in the
middle of the zone of devastation and smashes its fist into the ground. The
surrounding debris, some of it still on fire, suddenly leaps from the ground
and flies toward the figure, spiraling around it at a distance of about twenty
four yards and quickly forming a solid barrier of rubble well over a meter
thick, spinning nearly too fast to see. The hemisphere of debris begins to
move at a rapid pace toward the wraith's last position, still accreting
material from the surroundings as a heavy assault helicopter slides into view
around a street corner several blocks distant and opens fire with all its
weapons. The barrage of missiles impacts the wall of debris in a tremendous
explosion, blowing bits of concrete and metal many stories into the air, only
to have them return moments later to the wall of debris. Moreover, the
figure's advance does not even slow down; instead the wall of debris begins to
erode the buildings adjacent to the wraiths' hiding place. The brilliant
spray of shells from the chopper's rotary assault cannon appears to be
completely ineffective. Within seconds the whirling wall of debris reaches the
wraith's building, grinding it into scrap in moments.

Just as the roof is beginning to collapse, the wraith emerges from a skylight
and makes a prodigious leap onto the roof next door and promptly fleeing across
it. Instantly the wall of debris ceases spinning, centrifugal force sending
the wreckage flying in all directions at many hundreds of kilometers per hour.
The helicopter is almost immediately torn to shreds by the shrapnel, and
explodes. Some of the rubble actually reach the camera: the picture jars
violently and the camera begins erratically descending toward the ground, its
flight only barely under control. Some of the rubble actually hits the wraith,
knocking it off the roof and onto the sidewalk some fourty yards away from the
black figure. Quickly the wraith struggles to its feet and begins to charge
toward the figure, its body wreathed in a red glow. But before it can take
more than two "steps" the black figure makes a final gesture, pointing at the
wraith with both hands. A solid stream of brilliant blue-violet flame lashes
out to strike the wraith full in the chest, both beings becoming surrounded by
a violet glow. The wraith seems to struggle for about three seconds, but then
sinks to its knees and collapses, its form seemingly dissolving under the
violet glare. The camera finally loses all semblance of control and begins
plummeting toward the ground, showing the figure slowly lowering its arms
against the backdrop the crowds still swirling in the distance. The violet
aura seems to flicker, and dies out like a snuffed candle flame. The black
figure is now clearly discernible in the lurid glow of the fires: a negroid
female elf, strikingly beautiful. The violet fire fades from her eyes and
she collapses, the last thing visible as the camera crashes into the ground and
goes dead.

+++++end footage
]<<<<<
-- V-12 <22:12:04 / 12-16-56>