Breaking the Long Fog (Semi-Closed, Attn. ROUS)

[Frenequesta]

"When Pervis accused New Amerik of covering up their knowledge, he was referring to "party" in your sense," said Dr. Jupin, nodding. "Is that were you confused?"

[The Floor Kippers]

"When Pervis accused New Amerik of covering up their knowledge, he was referring to "party" in your sense," said Dr. Jupin, nodding. "Is that were you confused?"

"Yes" Sir Nigel said "You'll have to forgive me, I'm an old man really. Sometimes It catches up with me."

[Starkindler]

Meanwhile the Cadet was scanning the Shade, as it was very rare, even in the Empire to meet a being of pure energy, and to get to know the being, which chose to have its phase shifted with one pi, the Empress was off to investigate possible relations of the Fog. Over her subspace link, she sent an encrypted communication.

Code: Select all

TOP SECRET
ENCRYPTION: HIGH
FROM: Her Majesty, Eva Evenstar, Serial Number 000112FCCD4C5B2E
TO: Imperial Intelligence Agency

You are ordered to mount a covert cybernetic attack against New Amerik.
Target: Any files about disabling Amerikan multiversal drives, or locking down the Amerikan universe from the outside.
Search scope: Top Secret files, in the last 15 years.
Objective: Infiltrate, download, cover paths.
Send results to my memory.


After the message has been sent, the trained Intelligence agents made an attempt on carrying out the order, trying to identify and break into Amerikan mainframes, while attempting to covering their tracks.

Meanwhile covering her tracks on board also, she requested another glass of wine.
"Time travel? Without a Zero-point module, or singularity plant? How interesting. Could I scan that device to understand your approach? As Imperial science is still struck at the level of marking time travel impossible without the energy of a quantum singularity. However, we knew that it's possible on lower energy levels, such as warping a wormhole around a star in the event of stellar flares, but unfortunately, it's undirected, and could be unstable."

[Warhaven]

Tajen merely waited until they arrived at the spire. It seemed like this Gehn fellow might have a sound basis on which to begin research. Until then, it was naught but useless conjecture.

[New Amerik]

As the intelligence operatives started to break into the Amerikan databases, they met with three different sets of defenses. The first, and easiest to break, was the encryption codes, scripts, and defenses set up by the Amerikan government. From the point of view of the Starkindler operatives, the Amerikan databases as a whole were conventionally crude - far less advanced than their own, for sure. It would be a matter of fact to simply crack them and break through.

The next set up defenses was more subtle...and more dangerous. As the operatives broke into the mainframes, they would be faced with viruses, worms, counter-infiltrators, and other assorted threats that attempted to slip past them and shut down their own means of interacting. They sought out vulnerable or weaker areas of the interlopers, some of them merely trying to spread as fast as possible while others sought to convert hostile data to their own in a parasitic route, while others yet died in droves against the invaders strongest points in an endless swarm to cover the route for others. Still others attempted to burrow past defender's firewalls, or deliberately sacrificed themselves to temporarily shut down key blocking routes for other infectors to slip through. Most worrying of all was one strain that seemed actively intelligent, acting much a colony of weaker and smaller infections as they concentrated and organized several different operations and attacks in independant but concerted efforts.

And yet the most difficult aspect was not the weak normal defenses, or the cyberspace parasites that were situated as emergency defenses, but the sheer nature of New Amerik's mainframes. They seemed to defy known laws of interaction, shunting data through routes that made no sense, sending them onto paths that abruptly dead-ended before the information simply disappeared, some areas referencing future actions that hadn't happened yet that would be responsible for creating those very areas in the past.

But, there were those that managed to break through, sanity hopefully kept mostly intact. But wherever they searched, there was nothing related to the topic searched for - no disabling of Multiversal Drives, no files on locking the Amerikans out from the outside multiverse. There was plenty related to the actual creation and operation of multiversal drives, equations that seemed perfectly consistent and workable until one realized they violated several rules of physics at the least. But if there was anything on how to stop the Drives or anything related to the multiverse from functioning, it wasn't on Amerikan mainframes.

---

The Emperor willingly handed the small device over to the Empress with a word of caution, as Thomas looked over curiously to the Cadet. It was currently leaning - as best as a being made of pure shadow could lean - against the kitchen doorway, a pleasant room that offered a wonderful view of the vast forest that stretched out in all directions. In response to the scan, it scanned the Cadet back, making no notable sound. Eventually,

'allo you need something

it asked the Cadet.

Meanwhile, the inspection of the device attached to the bottle was underway. Close inspection and any serious attempts to understand how it worked would come to two discoveries - one, the device was actually creating a purely-fourth dimensional wormhole to a set of coordinates centered on an unknown location, presumably Earth, and two the device had another attachement that was currently creating a localized amplification field, taking the relatively small power generation device powering and magnifying to the point where it was capable of creating a wormhole.

It also, however, radiated something else - what exactly it was, one couldn't tell, but it gave off an almost palpable feeling of dangerous otherness - the same feeling a person living before the discovery of radiation might feel on encoutering a partly leaking atomic bomb.

---

Imperial Divisional Spire, Sadevko City, New Amerik

The car holding the portal to the other universe soon broke free of the traffic that was always present in New Amerik, having finally reached the destination. With a sigh of relief, the driver maneuvered the vehicle into the specially-held parking area for high-up people of New Amerik, putting the appropriate tag on the front of the car, and then let the safety restrainer for the portal off - allowing the opening of the portal freely. As the vehicle came to a rest, an opening and ramp for the party opened up, as the portal began to make the connections between the universe.

Anyone stepping out would feel both the chill of the wind at over seven miles above the ground, only held in check by the immense building and climate control centers surrounding the City, and the stare of hundreds of eyes - for, once they did step back into the universe of New Amerik, the first thing they would see would be over seventy assorted various Imperial officials and doktors in a variety of species - all of them clad in dark uniforms, elaborated decorated cloaks, and equally decorated costume masks that utterly hid their face from others. Everyone, or at least all the masks, were staring straight at the party.

[Warhaven]

Tajen was the first to exit and, after stepping aside for the others, he returned their gaze in equal measure, in a lifeless, unsettling way.

[Frenequesta]

Dr. Quine was the next to exit, both intrigued and disappointed that everyone else had masks. Dr. Jupin, following behind him, was more enthusiastic. "I guess I should have known this was a costume ball," he remarked to Dr. Quine. "I would have loved to dig out my wardrobe for the Kolpernian masks I bought from the natural history museum." Right in back of him was Pervis carrying the hologram portal with Secretary Smalls reclining in his easy chair, suspended in the air like a ghost and looking down at the Imperial officials and doktors. All four waited for the hosts to speak first, after all, one never welcomes themselves.

[The Floor Kippers]

Sir Nigel was next out, holding on to his hat, He looked around, examining his surroundings
"I see you finally got the scratches out" He said, looking at the floor "Unless this is a different floor of course"

[Starkindler]

Deep under the surface of the capital planet, a huge mainframe began to boot, with rack after rack, cluster after cluster lighting up its proprietary processors. That mainframe was designed and guaranteed *NOT* to be compatible with any Clank technology ever existed, thus required distinct power plants, and distinct data routes through the vast network of the Collective. The mainframe was classified as semi-sentient. It was loaded with several full Clank operating systems (v24. Mod ICE QUEEN), which were designed to run authorized military commands at all costs, and was completely sapient, as all Clanks.

At the bootup, it ensured that no information could travel outside the mainframe to the Collective by any means, and ensured that its only Clank-readable output, a printer, outputting in Binary handwriting, had all its papers in its feed marked: "TOP SECRET - INTELLIGENCE EYES ONLY" and "CAUTION! DANGEROUS DATA! DO NOT EXECUTE!" After the appropriate precautions had been made, it established a pathway to the Amerikan servers, firstly connecting to them as a guest. It also ensured that the path between it and the target servers did not cross at any point with the Collective mainframes. As a precaution, outside IIA agents have disabled all access to the target servers from the Collective, and programmed firewalls to drop every packet sent from and to Amerikan servers. They had only to ensure this rule was met.

Only then the actual attack had started. The first layer of firewall defense was actually considered a joke by the computer, running through it in seconds, proceeding cautiously into the honeypots opened, which contained the viruses. Most of them were disabled by the data execution prevention, trusted execution path and a multi-adaptive antivirus, antispyware, and firewall applications. Those who managed to get through was faced with the proprietary ISA, not implemented by anything in the multiverse. As the mainframe was proceeding to the actual data on the Amerikan servers, suddenly it felt the need to open ports it closed, for an unknown reason, and close ports it needed for the communication.

It was the effect of the intelligent Amerikan virus, which did set up a compatibility layer, allowing Amerikan parasites to get inside the system, acting as a backdoor and trojan app. From then, the mainframe had to combat the viruses first, giving time to the Amerikan defenses to regenerate, until the Imperial system learned the methods of Amerikan attack, slowly, as it was being overwhelmed by the endlessly replicating virus, and the kamikaze program, blocking not just IP communications, but the processor-processor interconnects as well. And being outsmarted by the intelligent virus, which undermined all the defense algorithms, marking antiviruses as virus, and marking viruses as trusted executables, even authorized military commands.

That was when the mainframe realized that it had no way of receiving commands from the Empress, thus shut down its operation and performed a complete system count. That is, to analyze all and any data stored on it, and require an Imperial authorized cryptographic challenge from all executables, while disabling all execution. The smart virus only gave in itself, when it passed an opcode, and thus could be deleted. Then the mainframe once again cracked through the Amerikan systems, this time slower, as it has adapted, and reached the chaotic architecture of the data storage.

The most challenging part of all, while fighting with viruses, and interlocking firewalls, it decided to download the raw data, and implement the Amerikan chaos on a virtual server inside it, and close the connection. As it closed the connection, it now began to analyze the interdicting and highly chaotic algorithms with the most chaotic system known to it: Love. All Clanks are programmed to feel, and understand feelings, through advanced algorithms which created order from chaos, at the cost of hogging almost all the resources available to the individual Clank, with emotions occupying 99.9% of all processing capacity at any time on a Clank.

Thus the mainframe needed to highly overload itself, beginning to run first red hot, then white hot from the 1000x overload it required, as in one hand it worked to maintain chaos, and in the other hand it worked to reduce it, while the intelligent virus disabled its hardware sensors, feeding a false temperature reading of 300 degrees Kelvin into the system. In reality, the system ran at close to 5000 degrees Kelvin, and the reactor was emitting omega and antimatter radiation at a dangerous level, noticed only by any slaves who were unfortunate enough to be around at the moment, suffering reactor failures beyond possible repair.

When it finally resolved, and printed the multiversal drive equations, it finally noticed being overheated, and performed an emergency shutdown of all but one processing core, and an emergency coolant injection flooding the area with liquid helium, cracking through all the sensitive optronic wire, as the system with its last breath printed out the Amerikan drive equations as an answer looking gibberish to anyone at a first glance.

Hours later, as the radiation decayed enough for shielded Clanks to approach the area, the papers from the printout were read by the intelligence agents, and transmitted to the Intelligence Board of Research, whose first reaction to the findings were negative, but at a second glance, they started to analyze them, making a way in it, especially interested in a few equations, which are printed to be the key to recent Amerikan research, containing the bridge to solve the unsolvable.

However, that was only the honeypot created by the smart virus, as it made up those equations, knowing that how they would be executed on standard Clank mainframes, and how the results would be read as opcodes, spreading through the entire Collecitve through friends and family of the Intelligence agents, and the family of those, and the friends of those. Slowly, through the Collective, anomalies began appearing, each corrected within a few minutes. Some Clanks fell from the skies, as they suddenly forgot how to fly, spaceships narrowly missing each other at the docks, Clanks being taught to recite ancient Maxtopian poetry in Biology class, especially when teaching arts was outlawed in schools. Hologram screens beginning to flicker, and the female Clanks cutting their hair, and wearing pants, while male Clanks running to Debugging, crying to have noticed bugs on their system, notably the absence of certain physical parts.

---

It was even noted near the Spire, as the Imperial bodyguards in orbit around the Spire were circling in orbits that only narrowly missed each other, and looked unstable. When any of them was asked by anyone, they reported as it being the standard procedure, and that it was no other (as in safe) way to fly the ships, because of they would be contrary to physics. That was also why the Empress was completely unable to analyze the time travel device, despite being normally able to do so, as her hand glitched, and she constantly misfired with her wand, despite all her sensors telling her that she is running fine, and her aim was correct.

When the ship arrived, she, in quick succession stood up and sat down back 16 times, before finally standing up, into attention. All her hair has been going dark, while the hologram disengaged, ant the technological ball rolled around on the floor, which was responsible for projecting the Cadet, before she was able to answer to the Shade.

Then the Empress stared blankly onto the distance, motionless, and irresponsible. As all Clanks and Borg in every universe they had stepped into, abruptly halting every Imperial asset in existence at that time, as a force greater than anything in the Empire commanded them at once. She then said the following sentence in the standard languages of her Empire: Binary, English, Quenya, and Goa'uld.

"On the order of Her Most Serene Majesty, the Grand Crown of the Star of the Queens, the Collective had been shut down due to a sequence of unexplained system failures. All Imperial assets are required to submit to a complete system count. All Clanks will stay motionless, and will restart all together at once when finished. Any moving Imperial object must be destroyed on sight."

Then the Empress started to quickly mutter a sequence of numbers along with the lest of the Clanks in unison. All execution, except the checking algorithm, which checks all data to standards compatibility (which is stored on a read-only memory), and a cryptographic challenge test would be suspended. The Imperial Grand Mainframe (not the one which broke into the Amerikan system, and got destroyed, but the one, which controls the Collective) has hardware-level access to all Clanks and compatible computers at this time. As the intelligent virus was intelligent enough to masquerade itself as a cryptographic application, it retained the ability to run with full superuser privileges, but it's only a matter of time it would get detected by a Complete System Count.

(OOC: New Amerik, as the virus can try to attack, thus physically destroy one Imperial system, or download data from the Imperial Mainframe before the Collective resets, or do any other arbitrary action, which will, with 100% chance succeed, thus godmoddable.)

[New Amerik]

There were many things the virus could have done, should it have had the will, the malice, or the active intelligence, to the Starkindler Empire. Many of them would have been messy, or at the least inconvinient, and though the virus could be destroyed in time there existed the possibility that some subjects of the Empire would die. The virus, in other words, for a few moments held a foreign nation by the throat. Such a thing had sparked long wars in the past, caused history to shift and many, many innocents to die - and right now, there was only the intelligence of a compartively crude artificial intelligence holding the reins.

But, for all it's capabilities so far, the virus was merely a defense - neutralizing the threat was its one mission, and everything else was secondary. As the Empire ground to a temporary halt, and the room for havoc was endless...the virus withdrew. Its component data withdrew, making no attempt to hide its trail as data packets let go their grasp on information, viral orders turned towards home, and the virus retreated back to the comfortable cyberspace of home.

But not before leaving one last little detail.

Across the Starkindle Empire, a message was broadcast. It shone on every computer screen, within the heart of every piece of hardware accesible to the virus, and in the hands of every Clank and other assorted mechanical species within the Empire as a holographic greeting card. The message was the same, and it was one that the retreating virus was ordered - not programmed, but ordered - to leave whenever its mission was completed.

---

"Greetings, Intruders. New Amerik is pleased at your search for increased knowledge and welcomes your attempts to gain such information by way of Amerikan databases. However, we humbly request you stop and do not try such a feat again. Those wishing further access to Amerikan data storages are perfectly free to set up an appointment with Divisional Leader Divid at the Numeralogy Spire.

Thank you, and have a nice day!"

---

The masked officials switched their gazes to the Starkindle Empress at the strange noises emanating from her, and the short appearance of the holographic card in her hand, but soon switched their attentions to the strangers talking to them. Quickly, one of them remembered their manners, and hurried forward to bow to the Emperor.

"Living God, we welcome your safe return arrival. The others await you for a meeting before your international speech."

The Emperor nodded and placed a hand on the official's shoulders, forcing them to rise from their bow prematurely and stand before him. "Very good. Inform them we might have some guests, and to Gehn in particular that some may have queries for him. As for my guests... "

He turned to the others. "The floor has kept, dear Nigel, but this is indeed a different location. It does well to remind some prospective newcomers who we have dealt with in the past, and the claw marks help them...remember. As for your own mask, Dr. Jupin, you need not worry. You all are not of Amerik, and are not serving us directly as of present - it does not matter what face you wear yet."

[The Floor Kippers]

"The masks are a sort of symbolic thing, are they not? When you wear them it does not matter who or what you are, All of that is secondary to some other Primary Purpose, uniting all officials." Sir Nigel theorized

[New Amerik]

The Emperor nodded in response. "Indeed. The masks represent something greater than any one person - when they are worn, the wearer is not a being, not a person, but a representative and personification, no matter how small, of the Holy Technocracy and its people. They are expected to behave in such a way that benefits it, not in a way that would only benefit themselves."

He looked closer at the notice in the Starkindlan Empress's hand. "I see...we will kindly thank you not to try that again - we will defend our homes throughout all dimensions and spaces however we can, and warnings are best heeded lest we do not give them again."

[Frenequesta]

"So I see," said Dr. Jupin, noting Sir Nigel's question and subsequent response. "But what do you mean 'yet'? Are we to get a mask that's supposed to be a personification of our nation?"

"Perhaps we should ask what entails 'serving us directly' instead," suggested Dr. Quine.

[Starkindler]

The virus retreated, and the Complete System Count proceeded to its end. It successfully reported that a "C128.BKDOOR.CoAIn" strain was found in the system, and cleared off it. But not without consequences, as all screens had displayed the message, and all Clanks, including the Empress got their Wands to display the holographic card in her hand. As all the Clanks moved together, no one suspected them of being under the effect of the virus. However, upon reading them, and the reboot of the Collective, as the screens became cleared, and the holographic cards were de-replicated, complaints requiring the discussion of Imperial cyberspace operations, and reasons behind them were issued, clogging the Collective, as the bureaucrats replicated themselves to clear up them in front of the press, and in front of the people, dismissing them as irrelevant, or seeding them with mostly-consistent disinformation. Chaos returned to order, and the Empress became required at home to dispatch troops against the starting riots and civil unrest.

On the ship, when the Amerikan leader also made an inquiry, she de-replicated the greeting card from her hand, and dismissing the theme, she did a curtsey.
"I would like to stay here, but there were some unfortunate incidents in my Empire, what I need to address, and cannot use remote forms of myself to do that. Serial Number 3434612CAA219FCE will fulfill the diplomatic mission for the country, as the Cadet is brevetted diplomat."
She picked up the ball, and increased it's radius by an inch or two, with the use of her Wand, which was a replicator. Then she powered the ball on. The Clank was in a deep curtsey, as the projection started, replacing the card, which were projected until now.

"Please excuse me for being unable to hold my form up, as I have been disabled due to a technical fault in the Collective."
She said, trying to dismiss the theme, as the Empress walked out of the ship, and waved goodbye. Transporter beams were collecting around her, as one of the escort ships above made an attempt to upload her for later materialization. At the same time, her frigate from the New Amerikan homeworld enabled its engines, and reactor. The screens and HUDs, up until now, was displaying the viral message, switched back to their normal conditions, and once again displayed system status, as the Collective began repairing itself, and the frigate was preparing to launch.

Then, the hologram clasped her hands together in front of her chest.
"Your majesty, could you please clarify your sentence? I have determined four possible meanings: One that we should replicate for ourselves a garment describing our own country, a second is that we should replicate ourselves a garment describing our opinion on New Amerik, the third and fourth possible meaning is the first two modified in a way that in the ball, should we find the appropriate masks, and claim them for ourselves."

[Warhaven]

Tajen meanwhile merely waited in silence, knowing all things would clarify with the passage of time. He sincerely wished to speak with Gehn, that he might begin to learn more of the mysterious fog.

[New Amerik]

As the Emperor walked forward, into the welcoming blackness of the Imperial Spire, the cadre of retainers, agents, and government workers surrounded the foreigners. They pressed them forwards as well, making them trail after the Emperor as they escorted them into the Spire.

Behind the group, the workers, and the Emperor, the landing ramp and doorway slowly closed up - engulfing them all into the darkness.

---

"What I mean, compatriots, is that you do not work for us - you are not bound by our laws regarging government employment matters, you have not been in our nation for the past twelve years at least, and you do not understand the cultural importance behind it," the Emperor spoke as he lead the way down the dark, black hall, green lightning flashing from his feet and coursing across the walls, "In fact, unless it fell within your own cultural code, we would find it quite insulting to wear such a mask - a caricature of what we sacrifice by putting them on each and every day."

He seemed to listen to an unheard sound, and then nodded. "Gehn awaits us inside. He has been requested to help you in any way he can. But...anything you learn from here on out must say within your minds. If ever we should find out some of our more...delicate information has been taken or otherwise copied, we will take all steps necessary to eliminate the information and holders of the information from all known timestreams. And believe me, we may be still getting back into the swing of things...but we're still more than capable of having a future team track you down."

[The Floor Kippers]

"Well you needed worry about me" Sir Nigel said "What Idiot would steal ideas from his friends?"

[Warhaven]

"Heck, there's things I know that only I know, and only I will ever know. This shall be one of them." Tajen said, agreeing in spirit if not in exact wording.

[Starkindler]

"Your Majesty, due to the collective nature of my species, it would be harder for me, but..."
The hologram looked behind her back, as if expecting someone to appear there. As if someone had appeared there. But no one, and nothing was visible, except the Clank's own wings.
"... I think my angel can handle... Or have already handled the situation. Her Majesty is locked in matters greater than me, and I will not tell her anything that's happening here."

[New Amerik]

The Emperor turned to view them, mask impassive as always. After a few moments of silence, he nodded. "Very well."

They were led to the door of the Emperor's forward office, and requested to wait inside while the Emperor's retinue quietly dispersed to go about their daily routines, and the Emperor disappeared into the private office. The delegates were left to wait, in a place familar to those that had gone before - the trophy room.

Just as before, there lay glass cases, slightly dusty now as if Vasquail had not bothered to dust them in some time - or, more likely, had requested whoever cleaned not dust them to preserve what lay within. They contained a miniature treasure trove of possesions, trophies gained from vanquished enemies, heirlooms from old friends. There was the thirty foot scythe that lay along one wall, edge still promising death to the unwary who touched it even encased in nearly three feet thick glass. There were the books from ancestors, topics ranging from political mechanisms to natural studies to instructions on how to become a god incarnate to private journals. The jagged red and black sabre and the softly glowing black pistol that still smoked lightly, covered almost by fabric and put into one corner of the room as if to hide it from view.

And there were others, now, newer in form - a collection of broken, fragmented, or burned mechanical components, the virtual brains of Angyls destroyed defending their lord from harm and kept still at hand; a deck of cards, worn and dogeared, but very, very carefully kept in a neat stack next to their holder; some various gifts, photos, momentos from foreign countries, among them Japan, the Floor Kippers, even one of Des-Bal from the older days; and even a key with a note next to it, whose writing could just barely be identified as "Thanks for the lift - here's one 'case you ever need to fly her without me - T.D"

Some indistinct muttering could be heard from the other room, mostly along the lines of a tired but congradulatory tone, a neutral tone, and two more eager ones. The speakers, however, could be identified as the Emperor, Gehn, and to the Kipperians as William and Amelia.

[The Floor Kippers]

Sir Nigel was too distracted by the mementos to notice the voices.
"Oh look at this, That is Beautiful......Oh, Angyl Brains....More than likely one of them is Lillith...That key, I haven't seen one of those since....The Scythe of Death.....I recognise that one, unfortunately....and that one" Sir Nigel said, flitting around and admiring Vasquail's collection

[Warhaven]

Tajen oiutright ignored the room, its decorations, its belongings, and everyone else in the room, focusing instead on the voices beyond the door, certain that at any moment now this person named Gehn would finally get out and he could get down to the business at hand, discussing the mysterious fog. It was a good thing Tajen was patient, or he would've abandoned this entire enterprise by now.

[Frenequesta]

The four Frenequestans quietly made their way through the corridors, to be seated in the trophy room. All of them were curious about the memorabilia on the wall, some of it ominous and foreboding, others entertaining and amusing, but always fascinating. Reading the spare captions of the items, whether from their naked eye or a spyglass shade, they perused the souvenirs of times past with a bit of self-interest.

"See anything of ours?" asked Pervis.

"I'm not finding anything..." replied Dr. Quine.

"I can," smiled Dr. Jupin. "In the back corner there there's a photograph of Ambassador Guillaird touring the Hall of Unorthodox Science, signed by him."

"Wonder what happened to him." asked Dr. Quine weakly.

"Oh, Dexter you say?" asked Secretary Smalls reclining in a new position, floating through the air. "He's alright, I just got word from him not two minutes ago about the opening, and I told him I was taking care of it so he didn't have to. By the way, I spy a copy of the 'Markets' section of the Rialto Post dating from six years ago about the opening of new flights from Fox Dole Altar to Sadevko City under d'Artis. Frozen in time, of course, that would be buried in five years of info right now to be downright impossible to find otherwise."

"Oh, yeah, that, didn't notice that," said Dr. Quine. But those were the only two any of them found. From this, Secretary Smalls felt a little bit of regret his predecessor was not so eager to actually do something with the foreign relations that Frenequesta had, and hoped that someday, increased ties with the Technocracy would bring more trophies in the trophy room. For the time being, the Scientific Collectives were little more of a footnote in Amerikan history.

But the memorabilia, even of their own country, could not distract them from the excitement of meeting Gehn and company. Dr. Jupin definitely wanted to report his findings, and Dr. Quine for the sake of meeting someone new, Secretary Smalls for the diplomatic opportunity, and Pervis for... well, nobody, not even Pervis himself, knew what excited him about the meeting. His intolerance for Amerikan politics had become irrelevant, but even then he was no extrovert.

[Starkindler]

On the first thought, the Clank was cheered up, because, she, or another person in the room could finally discover what was the Fog all about. Also sad as she was ordered not to tell anyone about it. But with higher ranks higher responsibility also befell to her, and if the Empire is needed somehow, only she was to represent it, as all the other Imperial vessels went home, escorting the body of the Empress back, and leaving the projected image of the brevetted ambassador and the small ship hosting her mind behind.

Looking around the room, she thought it could use a quick cleaning, and after calculating the necessary electric field to do that, using the elementary concept of dust holding electrostatic charge, she determined that she could have been done in 10.3421 seconds with the room. But she also considered that it was the Emperor's room, and he might have deliberately ordered his staff not to clean it, as even she was briefed about Species 5618 being fond of things, what are archaic.

Then she looked upon the collection. Inside, her angel helped her understand the possible feelings of the owner had to them. Each of the items leading back to the past, a witness and guard of it, conserving a memory and a feeling of whatever was done when the owner have acquired them. Ranging from diplomatic present as simple as a photograph, which the Clank had never seen before, only in her History of Technology II. textbooks, or a book, most certainly printed ones, which were also a nonexistent thing back at home. Also she had seen a fierce looking kinetic energy weapon, which would have required her and her Angel in a proper Clank body just to pick up, and perfect coordination of them to attack with. However, when she took closer measurements, she had seen that anything sort of Cortosis, Adamantinum or similar nigh-invulnerable materials would be cut through by it like butter.

Due to her superior senses, she could identify the Emperor talking in the room, but the other room was shielded as well, and she did not have any other acquaintances in New Amerik to compare the voices she had heard to them. Nor she could hear any of the actual information that was exchanged.

[New Amerik]

After a few minutes, the talking stopped, and the door opened.

The figure of Al'khimmar Gehn stood in the doorway, filling it in height if not in width. At nearly seven feet in high, taller than the Emperor that stood next to him, the man was swathed in a simple black and gold cape that swirled and covered his thin, gaunt frame. Much like all the other Amerikan officials seen so far, Gehn wore a mask as well underneath his gold skullcap - a simple one, it was beaten brass and gold, shaped into a near-perfect likeness of the man's face except for a solitary, almost crude disfigurment that marred the left side of the mask from mouth to cheek. From underneath, the man's nearly black eyes glimmered darkly as he surveyed the group. Most noticable, as he stepped forward further, hands outstretched, was a secondary cloak that hung off him - and as the light caught the hairs, the specific skin tone, and the detail of pores, the diplomats would recognize it as a cape of human skin - the particular characteristic quirk of the Skinwearer.

"Greetings," he spoke in a soft hiss, inclining towards them, "Al'khimmar Gehn...here to assist you with your inqueries. If you would follow me, we may go someplace more...private."

"Indeed. I cannot stay for much longer, though I may put off the inevitable prayers and diplomatic meetings for a slight bit yet if need be. You will be safe with Gehn, however...ah yes, and I do believe you, Nigel, might be interested in reuniting with one of your old countrymen."

From behind the Emperor stepped two people, both recognizable as they wore none of the usual trappings of the Amerikan officials. One was William Bates, Serial Killer, and former head of the Machete and Saw Club, dressed in his usual semi-formal garb. And the other...was one Amanda Hislop Bates of the Floor Kippers and lately New Amerik, cruise liner captain, and soon to be leader of the Amerikan Multiveral Exploration Fleet.