Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 21:52:57 -0500
From: Vctr113062@aol.com
Message-Id: <960217215256_146995086@emout06.mail.aol.com>
To: jevans@MIT.EDU
Subject: Winter 8/16

*****************************************************************

	Ultratech's headquarters was in the midst of a decadent metropolis. The air
carried a foul taste and nauseating smell. Smoke's coughing fits became more
pronounced. His Power should have shielded him, just as mine protects me from
frostbite, but perhaps there were trace amounts of artificial poisons in the
smog. 
	The city's buildings were badly in need of repair. Its streets were filthy.
The alleys were worse, littered with rotting garbage, metal needles embedded
in plastic cylinders, and fecal matter. Insects crawled freely amidst
festering pieces of discarded food. Changes in the slight cross-breeze
brought the stench of urine. Loud metal boxes on wheels clogged the paved
roads, belching black soot as they rolled past. People huddled together,
crowding the sidewalks like a herd of cattle. Their body heat combined with
the high summer temperature bore down on me.
	This place was a sewer.
	"It's not too late to call Ultratech up and ask them to send back their
limousine," Smoke remarked. "Then we wouldn't have to walk through this
mess."
	I was sure I hadn't spoken that last thought aloud. "If you are referring to
that squat black mechanical beast-"
	"With luxury seats and air conditioning."
	"-then no, I shall not have anything to do with it. I've endured being
swallowed by a vile artifact once. No more!"
	"It was only a thought."
	After three hours of travel on foot, we reached Ultratech's address at the
intersection of Dickerson and Main. Curiously, both the traffic and the
pedestrians shied from the entire block, making the area appear deserted
except for the background noise. Sirens, yelling, and nasal commands voiced
several decibels louder than what a human being should be capable of blared
in the distance, peppered with echos of rattling gunfire. 
	Ultratech's residence was an extremely long rectangle stood on end, lined
with neat, horizontal rows of square-shaped windows. The tower stood apart
its grungy surroundings in that it was sparkling clean, every centimeter
polished, every window perfectly clear. Instead of reeking garbage, the place
smelled of unnatural chemicals. Looking up the rectangle's incredible length
strained my neck, and I nearly walked into a metal beast placed haphazardly
next to the road's raised yellow border. Two of the thing's wheels were
missing, replaced by brick piles. Wire tips poked out of the smashed wreck of
its eyes. Nailed to its mouth was a metal plate with the raised English
letters "COMBO." I stepped gingerly around the wounded beast.
	"Smoke," I said, "bide a moment. Are you sure you wish to enter dressed as
you are?"
	"Do you know, I was recently thinking the same about you? While the
ceremonial Lin Kuei uniform is appropriate for intimidating peasants, you do
rather stand out in an urban district."
	"What I meant was, why aren't you wearing your mask?"
	"It makes no difference any longer. I haven't worn it in months." A strong
sense of finality accompanied his tone, like the <thump> of closing a musty
book.
	"If Ultratech knows what you look like, it may use that information to
persecute you and your family."
	"The Lin Kuei are my family."
	"Of course, they are the family of every clan member. I was referring to
your biological relatives."
	He folded his arms, fixing his eyes on Ultratech's spotless tower. "My...
'biological relatives' were casualties in a protection war between the Lin
Kuei and the Black Dragons. The Lin Kuei would have executed me as well if
not for your grandfather. It was his decree that I should be Tested first. He
thought he sensed something in me. Killing innocent bystanders was nothing
new to him, but to accidentally destroy a potential wielder of the Power
would be, in his words, 'a waste.' I passed the Test, earning the right to
survive as one of the clan.
	"So you see, when I say that the Lin Kuei are my family, I am being quite
literal." He coughed several times and cleared his throat. "Shall we go
inside?"
	He had changed in more than just appearance. The Smoke I remembered never
talked about himself. The person standing next to me had become notably more
loquacious and amiable. Lin Kuei do not consider either trait a virtue.
	Perhaps his disease was unhinging his mind.
	It didn't matter; now was not the time to think about such things. I
approached the entrance to Ultratech's great tower. Their front gate was no
common portal. A balanced array of four doors positioned at cross angles to
each other rested in the center of a transparent glass wall. Strange. The
rectangular doors were made of thick glass, framed with metal borders; heavy
rubber lined their top and bottom edges. A long black handle ran horizontally
across their breadth, positioned slightly above waist level. Through the
glass, I could see the carpeted interior of Ultratech's front hall. Two
security guards stood at attention near the clover-leaf doors. In back, a
muscular black man with a pair of boxing gloves dangling from his belt was
speaking to a willowy, bored-looking receptionist. The boxer was clearly
agitated about something, for he banged the desk's surface with his hand.
	I pressed on the handle. The door gave a surprising amount of resistance,
due no doubt to its heavy weight and that absurd rubber padding dragging
against its bottom. Leaning forward, I pushed with both hands. Once I got it
moving, it rapidly picked up speed, curving away and to the left. 
	"Sub-Zero, wait one moment," Smoke suddenly called. "Perhaps I ought to
demonstrate-" something abruptly silenced him. I turned around to see what it
was, letting the door swing outward. Another of the four clover-leaf doors
was barreling toward me. Attempting to evade it, I found myself confined
within a wedge-shaped cubicle. The heavy object picked up speed. When I
shoved against its momentum, the door I'd opened also slowed, well short of
opening into the room beyond. Glass and metal boxed me in on all sides.
	It was a trap!
	My pulse pounded. Reflexively, I kicked out at the third wall of my
artificial prison, a curving pane of glass between the doors. Vibrations of
shock traveled up my leg. My heel hurt from the impact. The wall was not an
ordinary glass pane; it was many times thicker and stronger, while retaining
deceptive clarity. But I was no ordinary prisoner. I sent the Power into the
material, chilling it to such an extreme that my next kick shattered it.
Splinters of frozen glass dug against the thick cloth of my uniform without
cutting through it. The security guard directly in front of me was not so
fortunate. Shards sank into his face and arms. He staggered back, groping for
his weapon but unable to draw it because of the transparent wedges lodged in
his hands.
	"Freeze!" yelled the second guard, leveling his firearm at point-blank
range. I obliged, casting a stream of the Power into him. He was so close
that he didn't have time to pull the trigger before the Ice took hold. I hit
him with an open hand chop to the side of the neck. He collapsed, the pistol
slipping out of his fingers. Wasting no time, I turned and drove a third wave
of the Power into the glass wall. Weakened, it easily fragmented in response
to a backwards thrust kick, clearing a path for my escape.
	"Where do you think you're going, terrorist?" snarled a breathy female
voice. It was the receptionist. She vaulted over her desk like a gymnast and
sprinted toward me, carrying two short sticks tipped with yellow, one in each
hand. When I hurled a stream of the Power at her, she evaded it with a
forward flip. I turned an instant before the spike of her high-heel boots
could plow into my ribs; instead, it pierced my shoulder. The force spun me
halfway around. I flowed with it rather than fight it, turning the flight
back into a series of handsprings. 
	"You're not getting away that easily!" The receptionist covered the ground
between us in a handful of long-legged strides. She was slightly faster than
me. In order to elude Ultratech's trap, I'd have to take her out. Smoke
yelled something, but I couldn't afford to distract myself listening to him.
	I waited until she was nearly upon me before dropping low and driving my
fist into her midsection. She tried to jump above the attack like before, but
was so close and running so hard that she never had time to leave the ground.
My attack was doubly strong because she had thrown herself into it. The
receptionist folded in half, pressing both forearms tightly against where I'd
hit her. I swung the back of my fist at her temple. She fell to her hands and
knees with a shuddering groan.
	I'd have to end this quickly. Stepping forward, I curled my second and third
fingers of my right hand into a cat's claw and jabbed at her throat. She
moved to deflect it with one of her sticks, but was too disoriented to
maneuver it properly - or so I thought until a brilliant beam of golden light
shot from its lemon-tipped end. The light beam burned my fingers like a
torch. If not for the guards I wore, my hand would have been split in half.
My breath hissed through my teeth.
	"Did that hurt, lover?" she sneered. "C'mon, you can tell me. Don't be shy!"
As I jerked the injured member away, she reached forward made a grab for my
face. Her fingertips merely grazed the surface of my mask. She swung her
light-blade on line with my neck. I bent over backwards in a kickflip,
evading her strike and whipping the insteps of both feet at her wrist. She
spat a curse as the weapon flew from her hand and activated her second
light-sword. The girl advanced, this time keeping the side of her body
turned. She'd learned better than to charge me with a full-forward run. 
	The girl made a wide swing at the edge of her light-sword's range. I dropped
underneath its arc, and transformed a backward somersault toward her into an
upward kick, pushing off from the ground. My heels struck the wrist holding
her second light-sword. This time she did not have the opportunity to curse
before I snapped to my feet and drove my stiffened knuckles of my left hand
toward her neck.
	"Stop it, both you!" Smoke exclaimed, deflecting my strike with a chop of
his forearm and interposing himself between us. "This is a misunderstanding!"
	The receptionist glared around him, at me. "I see your friend is covering
for you, terrorist. Are you afraid to finish what you started?" 
	"Girl," I growled, invoking a frigid blue nimbus of Power around my good
hand, "you talk too much."
	"I said STOP!" Smoke shouted, extending his flexed palms to physically push
the girl and me apart. To her, "We are the Lin Kuei delegation. Ultratech
invited us. We have a four o'clock appointment. Our card." From his vest, he
withdrew a scrip of rectangular paper with the written words "Lin Kuei" and
the clan's abstract sigil.
	She glanced at the card briefly, but did not move to take it. "Your friend
is a psychopath. He destroyed the front door and attacked two of our guards."
	"That front door' is a trap!" I spat. "I expected Ultratech to try an
ambush, and I am not going to submit!"
	She looked curiously at me, then back to Smoke. "He is also completely
delusional. Is he a hallucinogen addict?" My eyes narrowed.
	"Can we at least agree on a truce?" Smoke pressed, glancing from me to her. 
	"If you'll keep your pet psycho on a leash," she sniffed.
	"From this moment on, I am sending you into the traps first," I warned him.
	"Sub-Zero, that door isn't-"
	The boxer I'd seen earlier suddenly shoved Smoke aside. "Hey, outta my way
you clowns!" He turned to the receptionist and demanded, "What're you gonna
do about dis permit? I'm signin' up for the Killer bash cause I _need_ the
money, not t' pay some damn hundred dollar registration fee, you bitch!" 
	"Clowns?'" I repeated, softly.
	"Bitch?'" she repeated, even more softly.
	"You heard me. So, what're you gonna do about it?"
	She smashed the hilt of her remaining sword into his jaw at the same time as
I threw the Power into him. While he was paralyzed, I hit him with an
overhead slam to the crown of his skull. She kneed him in the groin. He
collapsed.
	"At least you agree on something," Smoke commented.
	"I don' need this shit. I really don'," boxer grunted, first crawling, then
limping painfully to the trapped set of doors. They should have swallowed him
up, but he merely pushed on one and kept pushing until it rotated halfway
around, letting him out. 
	He made it look so easy.
	Smoke asked, "Truce?"
	"Truce," I muttered, staring at the outlandish doors as they slowed to a
stop.
	"Truce," the girl agreed. "Hey guys, you can lower your weapons. The
situation is well in hand." I turned my head. She had addressed half a dozen
additional armed security guards, all pointing their firearms at me. They
must have come in response to the commotion. The guards holstered their guns.
Two of them approached their injured comrades, while the remaining four kept
uneasy watch on us. "You're still breathing only because they didn't want to
risk hitting me or your civilian friend, Zero," the girl smirked.
	"That's Sub-Zero.'"
	"Zero."
	"I am called Smoke," said the teacher, bowing. "And you, fair maiden,
are...?"
	"Orchid. Flattery will get you everywhere." She smiled broadly, revealing a
perfectly even set of gleaming white teeth. Her expression changed to one of
puzzlement as she noticed the smoke trails rising from his collar. "Are you
on fire?"
	"Only in the metaphorical sense. Your beauty is quite incendiary." Her smile
returned. I turned away in disgust.
	"That smoke isn't toxic, is it?"
	"Short-term exposure shouldn't be a problem. Um, there aren't any children
or pregnant women in the area, are there?"
	"Oh, no, but if you stay here you might set off the-" A loud, continuous
wail assaulted my ears. I shifted into guard stance, but in place of an
attack a steady stream of indoor rain streamed down from the ceiling. 
	"-fire alarm," Orchid finished, shielding her eyes from the downpour. "Damn.
Of all the days to forget my mascara."
	"Can we continue this someplace else?" I sighed.
	A distant exclamation from the boxer carried through the jagged holes in
Ultratech's glass wall. "Aw, no! My CAR!"

*****************************************************************

	I smelled Blood River's source before I could see it. 
	Human bones floated in sanguine red pools dotting the side of the paved
stone path. The blood steamed and gave off heat, though not as much as the
river itself had. The bubbling pools became more frequent the closer I
approached the trail to Leucrotta Castle's front door. Fresh surges of liquid
red pouring out large circular openings of mortared stone constantly fed
their depths, yet the pools never overflowed. Golems carved from the
surrounding rock watched over the sometimes trickling, sometimes gushing
streams. I envisioned the liquid seeping down through vents in the rock, to
the bed of Blood River itself. 
	A great deal of clutter lay strewn about the intersection between stone
pathway and castle trail. Among the piles of junk were rust-covered weapons,
moldering finery, and an open coffin with an elegant black chandelier resting
on top. The arch I had glimpsed earlier was surprisingly humble; merely a set
of smooth grey stones, cemented into an arc about twice as tall as I was.
Bats fluttered and roosted on rock formations nearby; some even flapped their
way across the gulf to the castle, though they avoided flying too close to
the arch.
	Except for the flying mammals, my surroundings were deserted. Neither
sentries nor stone golems watched over the archway. Beyond, Leucrotta Castle
itself had no gatekeeper, no soldiers manning the turrets, nothing save more
bats. Hadn't the sphinx said the castle was "heavily guarded?" 
	Following my suspicions, I gently lobbed a pebble into the arch. The instant
it flew under the curving structure, a brilliant red flare engulfed it. I
dove to the ground and covered my head as an explosion shattered it into
countless pieces. Discharge of a Power at least equal to Pyre's accompanied
the burst. 
	Stepping to the side, I tossed a second pebble around the arch, toward the
pathway beyond. Another red flare surrounded it as soon as it reached the
space above the castle's front road. As I took shelter, I glimpsed the
crackling red sheet of force enclosing the path, like a tube. 
	Though I could not be sure how much time had passed since I arrived within
Limbo, I felt like I'd been up for days. Warnings against sleeping in Limbo
remained fresh in my mind. I had to find a way into Leucrotta Castle, and
soon. The wards guarding the castle's front were too powerful to deactivate
quickly, and the gulf's sides were too steep to scale. 
	Wait. How could liquid be constantly flowing out of the sewer openings? This
was a high elevation. Where was the fresh blood coming from? 
	I navigated around the edge of a blood pool and pressed closer to the
largest drain opening. Inside, I saw a tunnel that angled sharply to the
right. With a short run, I gathered enough speed to clear the pool and leap
into the opening's mouth. Its pouring red contents reached up to my knees.
Wading around the bend, I saw a rusted iron gate. The arm of a floating body
poked through it. A few more rotting corpses jammed against the grate's lower
teeth, forming a limited dam. Like the remains piled upon the dragongods'
battlefield, none of the bodies gave off the smell of corruption. There was
only the warm tang of fresh blood. 
	I studied the rusting iron grate. The crisscross holes in the barrier were
big enough to let through bones or skulls worked free from the various
corpses, yet a shade too small for me to navigate. No matter; a little Ice
would fix that. I curled my hands around one narrow middle segment that had
almost completely rusted, and called to the Power. Once frozen, the already
weakened iron bar became so brittle I destroyed it with a single punch.
Stepping through the opening, I waded upstream.
	More corpses blocked my path. One, headless cadaver was special. It was
dressed in a black, full-length bodysuit. The fabric was tough, resisting
decay, and supplanted with long rectangular guards on the hands, shins, and
knees. 
	This unfortunate had been one of the Lin Kuei.