FRAGMENTS
by Damien Hunt

The sweetest price he'll have to pay

The day the whole world went away.

-The Day The World Went Away, NIN.

I write for no other reason but to stall my own hand in what I now know I must do. My conviction wavers as my son lies sleeping peacefully mere feet from me at this very moment. However, perhaps my work does require a final note to be complete, in case I fail. He or she who reads the transcripts of my work and believes in the truths they reveal will need to know the final revelations the fragments have opened to my eyes. Read closely and study well the visual records left with these transcripts, for the fragments shall come with me. Should I fall into darkness the detailed photographs will point the way for the continuance of my work. All mankind might escape this hell, but only if I do not fail. The Eskhatos fragments must be united in completion. No, it is indeed my own frail heart that holds me back from the task at hand. I must face it, I must begin. Setting down these last few truths will only undermine the acceptance of my findings. You, who reads my final words. Study my work and the photos of the last fragment I discovered. When you have finished translating it and piecing it all together, you will come to the same horrific conclusions as I have. I love my son. I shall endeavor to love the world as I love him and bring its deliverance from this shattered garden. I shall not hate. And may the Circle of Azure Hyaline have mercy on my poor damned soul. Amen.

- Final Transcript of Father Agapae, December 12th, 2299.

Tears splash down upon the fresh inked parchment as the old man slowly finishes his final transcript. His hand wavers as if in pain, the twin streams of sorrow leading up to his deep hazel eyes. Full of a warm strength, that of faith and intelligence, steadily draining away down his weathered cheeks to spill over his desk. Binding the stained parchment away with the rest of his notes he whispers under his breath a final word, "amen," and lays to rest his life's work. Already packed and ready, he wastes no time and with the slender piece of razor sharp glass comfortably set in his hand, he kneels down next to his sleeping son to say goodbye.

"Dad?," ignorant to his father's startled surprise the young son says sleepily with a touch of excitement threatening to rouse him fully from sleep, "is it morning already?"

A father, good and caring with all the love for his son reflected in his quiet voice says quietly, "no Dannyel, it is not yet morning, go back to sleep"

The excitement still remains in the young boy's voice, but he is obedient and still weary with sleep, "ok dad, can I have my cake for breakfast?"

With a silent nod, the father gives into this request by his son to help him slip back into peaceful slumber, "goodnight Sevv, sleep well my son."

"Goodnight dad," already the boy's eyes are slipping closed, "I love you dad."

It would be hours later, when the last of his tears had long since dried up, that Father Agapae would bring himself to rise from his son's bed and begin his journey. His eyes dry and empty of that warm strength, but finally opened to the truth, the robed priest leaves behind his past and focuses upon the future.

The cab slips through the shrouded streets, its wipers struggling back and forth in an uneven beat to clear the hydration mist from its nicked and scratched window. The streets pass by rapidly on both sides of the avenue, all right angles in a efficient and simple grid of square blocks to make up the city officially designated sublevel three of sector twenty seven. The amber rain begins to slack off, the cycle's hydration coming to an end and settling in a low mist over the entire sublevel. Soon even that would fade, clinging to the buildings and streets before running off into the drainage system. Never mind the chemical residues left behind, rumored to infect the populace with some unknown plague or drug, so long as the sublevel is all squeaky clean. The thick loops of phosphorescent lighting above the street already beat a clearer white illumination down onto the conduit lanes that the cab continues speeding down, not that there is much to look at within the zone. But it could always be worse.

"This your first visit to sector 27?"

The passenger flinches at the sudden sound of the cabby's rough voice and it takes him a moment to let his slick black synthetic leather briefcase slide out of his death grip and answer the question. His voice is nasally, more of a whine than anything else, the kind of voice that feels like nails down a windowpane and the cabby has to force himself from finishing the job right then and there, "um... yes, yes it is... are we almost there?"

"Yeah, sure, we are almost done, hey welcome to boomtown."

The confusion within the nervous suit washes over his face, fighting with the fear for dominance over his face, "um... boomtown?"

"Yeah, what us locals call sector 27, has a nice ring to it, don't cha think?"

"Um... sure," the nasal voice fades, thankfully, and the little suit sinks back into nervous silence as the cab continues to weave through the traffic.

With a quick click, the cabby flicks on the news feed over the vehicle's speakers. Radio chatter fills the silence of the taxi as it continues to weave through the rugged lanes of sublevel three, not the best part of town to be in, but not the worse. The unblinking eyes of a hard nosed reporter, slightly resembling a female, stares out of the vid screen as her almost rebellious fevered voice drones on throughout the news feed, "Father Mercy is still at large, nor for more than twelve long months the vigilante killer has terrorized the streets of sector 27 without any serious response from local LAW enforcement. What secrets are being kept from the media about this murderer who attacks with apparent randomness and yet always seems to slip from the grasp of the law, why is he killing, could his emergence as a murderer be related to the sudden increase in terrorist bombings of our fair sector and..."

"Great place to live, eh?" the suit jumps again at the sound of the cabbies amused words, his pale hands grasping the briefcase to his chest like some snot nosed little kid clutching a teddy bear and squeezing his eyes shut in order to dispel the bogie man, "hey relax pal, were here."

Outside the taxi was the suit's destination, a rust covered warehouse complex bearing the razor sharp carved metal sign designating it as "The Edge", a seedy club on the lower end of sector 27 catering to the angst ridden and those seeking the darkness. Not that any of them knew real darkness, the Zone kept it at bay outside in the demon ridden wastelands. The cabby snorts slightly at the sight of the place, such foolishness always annoyed him.

"Wha, what is wrong?" The suit had calmed down again and was looking at the cabby in a surprising amount of curiosity over the harsh snort, "how much do I owe ya?"

"It was a quick trip pal, a thirty should do it," there was a pause as the cabby looked over the nervous suit, "and nothing is wrong, just that, you sure you want to go in there? It is not the best place to hang on a night off, let me tell you."

The suit just nods and passes over his credbase to pay the fare, which the cabby swipes to take the fee while shaking his head, "alright pal, your funeral, ya know if your looking for a hit of something, Cloud Nine or maybe CrystalFix is your fav, I can get it for ya. No need to be slumming it, ya know?"

The suit actually looked pissed off for a minute there and a bit of a grin began to pull at the corners of the cabby's lips before he forces the laugh away. The suit just begins to shuffle across the seat, his hand reaching for the door handle to leave, but pauses right at the door to look back at the cabby, his dead eyes suddenly filling with hatred, "ya know what, fuck you, cunt. I know how to handle myself better than you would think, not that you would think you low income cab pushing fuck puppy!"

The rant trails off as the suit grasps the doorhandle again and begins to climb out. The cabby, his grin now fully spread across his face in an almost gleeful amusement whistles at the suit, causing him to turn back, half in and half out of the taxi. The cabby is holding the suit's credbase in his hand, waving it slightly, "you forget something?"

Scowling in disgust the suit climbs back in to grab his credbase and finds himself nose to nose with the cold steel barrel of an Angel Hate class 1 ordnance pistol and dollars to diamonds its is fully loaded, just waiting for some pissed off low income cabby to gently squeeze the trigger and make a mess.

"Yeah," the smugness of the cabby's voice is clear as the grin across his face, "who is the fuck puppy now?"

A dark stain appears and spreads down the inner pant leg of the oh so very expensive designer suit as the thin little man turns another shade of pale white and begins to tremble, "here I was going to wait till you had a little fun before I plugged your worthless hide, but you've pissed me off. And the name is Corl Fain, just for the record." The suit trembles his last time as a slug is introduced to his frontal lobe and makes quite the mess all over the inside of the taxi. He is found there soon after by those brave enough to investigate the Angel Hate's scream, half in and half out of the taxi, brains half in and half out of his head. His arms frozen in a death grip around an empty space that might have once been filled by a briefcase.

"Again the bombings have moved across sector 27 in no discernable pattern, set off in random areas, some of which have been heavily populated while other explosions in sublevel four have claimed no lives or even notable structural damage. Like the murders of Father Mercy, who appeared at roughly the same time as the bombings, there is no set pattern or schedule, the only constant being that both mysteries continue to claim lives without hindrance by the local LAW enforcement..." the news feed chatter girl continues to drone on with her impassioned speech, theories of conspiracy and the like until she is interrupted quite abruptly by a new face. Perhaps not entirely new, the same unblinking eyes and somewhat androgynous features with a slightly male aligned perspective this time, his voice more monotone. It was as if they had been grown in the same cloning vat. Regardless of the new face, the two patrons of the coffee shop, the only two, were paying absolutely no attention to the feed.

The couple both wore thick dark robes, but their similarities began and ended with that. The tall thin nameless one sat straight and motionless accept for the slow graceful movements of his hand as he maneuvered the hot coffee mug to his waiting lips, hidden enshrouded in the dark shadows of his deep hood. The other, whom had been scolded twice already with the name of wretch by the tall fellow, was short, pudgy and hunched over his plate of warm mushy gruel, slobbering it up like some starved animal amid a series of excited grunts and pleased growls.

"He gonna want a fourth bowl of that?" the nervous voice of the coffee shop owner snaps the tall enigmatic fellow out of some kind of reverie and with a scowl of annoyance the hood dips into a quick nod.

"I would hope so," the cold slow voice slips out of the shadows of the hood, the annoyance still dripping from his cold words, "for your sake he had better, it is never a good thing to leave wretch... hungry."

As if to lend credit to the tall fellow's threat, wretch looks up from his empty bowl, face covered in a layer of mush, only one of the many layers of filth crusted over his features like some kind of animal. He growls, a rumble that echoes within his fat gut and the shop owner quickly replaces the bowl with a fresh one, which wretch slams his face eagerly into.

"Don't worry," the owner nearly pisses himself as the pale scar covered hand of the tall fellow falls upon his shoulder, the robed enigma somehow slipping off his stool and behind him in the moments it took to fetch another bowl of mush, "he wont hurt you tonight my friend."

There is no time for relief to enter the owner's mind as a second pale scar covered hand encircles his neck and something small, but so very sharp slices open his throat, "I have saved that pleasure for myself."

The coffee shop owner sprays his warm life blood over the counter, his neck slit open from ear to ear, he thrashes a little bit, but the strength within him fades rapidly as the fountain continues. Held on his feet by the pale hands of the tall thin robed murderer, the shop owner begins to die. Finally, after the last of the corpse's twitching ends, he is dropped to the ground and the robed figure begins to clean the blood off of the obsidian ring bound about his pale finger. Looking up he sees wretch perched on the edge of the counter, lapping up the thick pool of cold blood.

"Wretch, we are leaving. We have duties to see to."

The pudgy short animal like wretch climbs down off of the counter and nods, long tongue still cleaning a mixture of blood and mush off of his face as he follows the other out into the conduits of sublevel three.

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