The Revolution

**MatrixRefugee**

(( Wooo! Glad to see this making a come-back! I've been missing it!))

Iovai

((I must confess, I may need new e-pants.

That's how much larger this has made my e-peen.))

**Vanil**

Two Years Before

Seven Nights Prior to the Death of Anome

The girl pulled the black latex of her long, ankle-length coat tightly about her as she made her silent way through the streets and back alleys of the City, just as the night clung to the great buildings that towered above her, like a shroud of starry, midnight gauze. It was a convincing enough evening, and as her large, brown eyes glanced upwards once, the girl almost forgot that it wasn't Real. Or was it...for that was the question she had asked herself her entire life, and even now, Awakened, she was still not entirely certain that this was the one answer, for each step felt as one might feel in a sleepwalk, dozing awake as the claws of the beast rose all around her prone form, ready to pounce and...

No, the girl stopped herself. She couldn't afford that train of thought now, for it was that very train of thought that brought with it nightmares, twisted numbers and skittering green beetles that haunted the insides of her eyes when she closed them in the Real; opened them to face yet another day that wasn't really another day, for within the tunnels of the Real, there was no sunlight, and inside the Matrix, there was no sun at all.

‘Do you ever have that feeling...where you're not sure if you're Awake or still dreaming...?'

She had arrived. Straightening the beret that perched atop her long, straight-backed hair, the girl raised a gloved set of delicate fingers and rapped on the thick, pitted steel of the industrial door that sat at the end of the brick-lined, rubbish-strewn alleyway she had made her way down. A muffled shuffling responded from behind the closed portal, before the peep-strip slid aside with a metallic clang. A pair of beady, black eyes scanned the knocker's slender figure suspiciously before a voice slithered on out.

"The corroded sun sets..."

"...but gives way to a new dusk," the tanned girl recited evenly. The eyes seemed to regard her for another moment before glancing up at the earpiece fitted into her tanned ear. "Take that out," it hissed as a hidden latch rattled. The girl nodded and slid the earpiece from her ear, the Machinist transmissions it ferried muting themselves to her as the steel door swung aside. Nodding in polite thanks to the hunched, shadowed figure, the girl stepped inside and found she was in a tiny chamber of brick, doubtless an old, derelict sewer entrance of some sort. At the end of the chamber sat a set of chipped old stairs that spiraled downwards into darkness. It was down these stairs that the girl descended and found herself in the center of what was probably a snake-way of low brick tunnels, further leading to her belief that these were abandoned sewers of some sort.

A pedestal of the same, moss-eaten brick stood at the center of the chamber, around which huddled a small mass of crowded, shadowy figures, all clad in flowing apparel coding of black material and quietly whispering amongst themselves, as if a single word spoken too loudly would bring the whole of the Agents down upon them. Gingerly, the girl pulled her glossy collar higher and moved to join the one figure she was certain she recognized. "Good to know I'm not the only Machinist here."

The older woman turned to regard her with the icy; aloof expression knew exemplified the methods of this woman, for this woman was called ‘IronChimera', a member of the Chambers of Shaolin, which was group that had worked fervently with the Machines since the formation of the Truce between them and the city of Zion. "Well met, AlicethePattern," IronChimera said slowly and evenly, apparently entirely unfazed by the cluster of specters they both now stood amongst. "It is good to know that I am not the only one who thought it prudent to come here, as well." Alice noticed that her fellow Machinist had likewise done away with her earpiece.

"The only Machinist, anyway," Alice replied tentatively as she eyed the other figures evenly, marking the few faces she knew. She could make out not a few that she knew that the Machines had wanted dead for some time. The girl could feel pairs of eyes scanning her as she did them, and got the distinct impression that paranoia was at an all-time high among all of them.

The indistinct murmuring went on for what seemed like an eternity, broken only by the faint dripping of distant sewage and moisture, and Alice couldn't help but get the distinct impression of being sealed inside a tomb. Finally, distant footsteps sounded from one of the passageways that led away from the chamber, and the figures clustered around the central dais hushed abruptly and turned to uncover their source, the two Machinists following suit. Alice's large brown eyes squinted through the gloom and, like specters from some other place, a dark place in the back of her mind, darker than the tunnels in which she now stood, trod three figures from the surrounding mist, all three of whom were likewise garbed like assassins on the night's prowl. In the middle, perhaps the shortest of the trio and the only male, was the Blood Drinker known as ‘Vanil'; the one who had called this meeting in the first place. Alice scowled as she recognized his pale flesh and arrogant features. She was somewhat familiar with the Exile, and was well-versed in the file the City Department of Energy kept on him. What had lain within had been cryptic, but not cryptic enough to hide what the man was capable of. IronChimera remained largely impassive, at least, in appearance, but she was good at that, Alice knew.

To his right stood an elegant, fair-skinned woman who Alice recognized immediately as the one self-styled ‘Lady Return'. This one had a record even longer than Vanil's own, and was arguably one of the most notorious Merovingian operatives in the Matrix. A well-known member of the inner circles of the Exilic order, the woman wore a crown of stark-white hair and a long, elegant black dress that hugged both the damp stone floor and her almost absurdly ample proportions, her icy, beautiful face lined with makeup applied with a perfectionist's care. Or a hedonist's.

The one to Vanil's left, however, was not known to Alice, although the girl couldn't shake the feeling that she felt as if she should. The Machinist again got the distinct impression of sleepwalking as she eyed the other figure, also female and taller than Vanil. This one showed off curves to rival the Lady Return's encased in tightly-strapped black latex, along with a full shock of chestnut hair done up in a manner to the former's own, but her flesh, unlike that of her two companions, stood apart as a hue of rich, almost coffee-toned tan. She, along with her two companions, wore deep black sunglasses.

"My apologies with regards to any difficulties all of you may have had with coming here tonight," Vanil said clearly, addressing the whole of the assembled operatives and Exiles, his gloved hands clasped behind his back as he strode to stand at the head of the dais in their midst, the length of his long black croc skins flowing with him as he moved, "but I assure you all that it was necessary."

A silence followed. At least necessity was something she could begin to connect with, Alice thought to herself. Finally, Vanil introduced the two women flanking him, raising each palm in turn, as if presenting them to those gathered. "May I introduce the Lady Mataru to you all?" He gestured to the tan woman before doing the same with her pale compatriot. "I assume you all know the Lady Return."

"A pleasure," Return said to all of them in a high, arrogant drawl, her lips, painted a deep, voluptuous violet, curling into a sickly sweet smile that, to Alice, hinted at very deep depths of hidden cruelty.

"You all know why you are here," Vanil began, "and yet you do not. Allow me to provide some illumination for your tame human eyes. I'm certain you all know of my recent disappearance, and were I a better Exile; I would probably apologize to you. But I assure you that it was a necessary disappearance, and that nothing that I say or do to and with you in this place tonight," the Blood Noble went on evenly, gesturing about the dank, murky confines around them all, "will be accidental. There are no accidents."

Another period of quiet came next. Some of the assembled shifted uncomfortably in the dark, others running their fingertips over their weapons, surrounded as they were by others they typically wouldn't surround themselves with. Alice could feel the tension all around her. It was thick and sticky, as if the sewage chamber were secreting ooze from the cobbled floor. Finally, Lord Vanil spoke up once more.

"I am here to make you all an offer."

"An offer?" called an operative of the Devil's Advocates, his fedora pulled low over his face to keep any errant drips of moisture from above out of his eyes, and Alice recognized him as LinksLife, the young protégé of the Great Wyrm. Alice knew the ladder well, and knew how dangerous an entity he was. The boy was probably here on his behalf. "If we'd wanted to hear an offer, we'd have called Flood."

"I can offer you something no one else can," Vanil replied in that calm, sensual accent of his.

"And what," LinksLife asked, "is that?"

"I can't tell you." It was a simple answer to a simple question, but it was so much more than that, too. Return rolled her eyes and ran her long, elegant fingers through her snow-hair. Mataru eyed her sandals and smirked softly, missing nothing.

"And why," Alice found herself saying out loud, "can't you tell us?"

Vanil opened his well-formed lips to reply and then paused, either lip parted and affording for a perfect view of the pair of unnatural fangs that hung from his crimson gums. Turning then to Alice, the Exile raised an eyebrow, narrow and dark; hawk-like, and said what the girl already knew; what IronChimera had dreaded hearing ever since Vanil had appeared to them.

"You have to see it for yourself."

~V

**MatrixRefugee**

(( You, my dear, are an artiste at describing atmosphere, building suspense to the point that the ready is ready to cry out, and then leaving them breathless for what comes next. Well done... and I can't wait to see what comes next.))

**Vanil** · 03/20/2008 15:29:37

"Do we all really have time for any of this pseudo-philosophical poppycock?" one of the assembled called out. "We get enough of that from the Great Wyrm already, and we already know that guy's nuts."

"Then leave," Vanil snapped back, his voice echoing harshly about the chamber, his lip curled in mild disdain. "I haven't time for the ignorant. Those of you who choose to leave may leave, and those of you who choose to stay may stay. I will not force you to choose either. I cannot. Just know that, in the end, you may find yourself wishing I had."

No one moved. Alice herself felt paralyzed, as if she'd stumbled into a puddle of glue and that the soles of her shoes were adhered fast to the stone, and that stepping out of them would get her feet dirty, and she couldn't well have that. So she and IronChimera just stood there and listened.

"The Merovingian has authorized the creation of a clandestine body of silent authority with the greater syndicat." Vanil held his gloved palms outwards, as if beckoning the group's attention to him. "You all should consider yourselves privileged beyond measure to have met here tonight. It isn't often humans have the opportunity to attend meetings that never meet." The Exile accentuated every word strongly and clearly; each syllable a bullet casing. "The ultimate burden of creation and command of this body will be mine to bear. I am not offering you a position in my cabinet. I cannot tell you what I am offering; I can only tell you what you must do to find it."

"Are you asking us to join you?" Alice replied before she knew rightly what she was saying.

"No," Vanil said with a small, devious smirk. "I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm offering you a chance to find what you're looking for."

Alice heard IronChimera shift uncomfortably to her right. It was funny, Alice would later remark to herself, because she would be unable to recall the woman ever seeming uncomfortable before. "What are we looking for?" Chimera asked.

The pale man laughed. It echoed down the dank, shadowy passage to his back, and Alice got the distinct impression of snakes slithering up the walls. "I'm not the one you should be asking that question."

The woman didn't answer. Alice just kept staring at her feet.

'Do you ever have that feeling...where you're not sure if you're Awake or still dreaming...?'

---

The Present

"Let's get this over with," Chemuel said a bit loudly as she threw herself into one of the Masquerade's jack-in ports, the chair rattling slightly beneath her ever slighter weight.

"You seem like you're in a rush," Zdn1 responded as he lay back in the port adjacent to his Captain's.

"You like visiting the Haunted House?" the young girl asked her operative, a tinge of scorn present in her voice.

"Actually," the man replied, an errant finger rising to scratch at his stubbly chin, "I've never been."

"Lucky you," Chemuel snorted. Zdn1 shrugged, closed his eyes, and tried to relax for her. He could tell she was on the edge of something, and he didn't want to be the one to push her over whatever edge that was. He heard the distant hum of the Matrix code and the clanking of machinery as Aoide, Ekizeba, LinksLife, and R0ukan all settled into their berths as well, the soles of their boots clamped to the base of their seats and their heads back like spouts; ready to pour their minds out into the Matrix like tea into a kettle.

But no, Zdn1 reminded himself, it wasn't to the Matrix that they were all going. If only it were.

"Well ducklings, now that you're all buckled in, I'd like to wish you a pleasant stay aboard Masquerade Airways." Tamur4's tinny voice sounded throughout the Cradle as the digital keypads and consoles that lay arrayed about the prone human figures began to work themselves. The dull jack-in needles hissed metallically as they slid into position behind the base of each operative's skull. "I'd like to remind you, Chemmers, that this is indeed a non-smoking flight," the dodgy program chided Chemuel amusedly.

"Mm." It was the only satisfaction Chemuel was going to give her invisible tease, but it seemed enough for Tamur4, who giggled nonetheless. It was also the last the girl was to hear, for at that moment, there was the telltale crack-hiss of the jack-in procedure initializing, and Chemuel felt liquid mercury run cold through the cracks in her brain as the needle slid itself into the back of her head.

~V

**MatrixRefugee**

(( Whoo. Two good things today: Hearing that Jack Thompson got drop-kicked out of the Florida Bar Association, and seeing a shiny new chapter of your magnum opus!))

**Vanil** · 04/02/2008 13:35:04

When Chemuel had closed her eyes, what she had seen was Real. Oftentimes, when she opened them within the Matrix, the girl saw things that she could have stretched to be Real; perhaps even things that she wanted to be Real. No; things that she, beyond any doubt she may have had, wanted to be Real, for Chemuel's affliction was Vanil's affliction, and she supposed as the endless streams of digital data streamed through her mind's eye that this was in part what had brought the pair of them inexorably so close together so long ago. Like he, Chemuel wanted more than anything that which she knew she could not have, and it was this impossible desire that had propelled her forth, first in his name and later in hers, forward.

And now it was this very same thing that was sending Chemuel in full circle, somehow, as if fate had cyclically conspired to deliver her from whence she had come. And now that cycle had encircled her, trapped her in its baleful center like an inescapable ring of coalescent destiny; a ring Chemuel knew well and had fled from for her entire life.

At that, something deep within Chemuel's digital essence offered up a small, forlorn smile; a gesture that hinted at the sadness she had felt for months now, a sadness that was as much a prison as fate. That was how it was with Vanil, she knew; knew better than anything in either world. He would take hold of you and put you somewhere you didn't think you wanted to be until you realized that maybe you did, and for a time, everything made perfect sense, and everything was perfect. But soon enough, it would all fall apart, and then you would fall apart, and it would all be on your shoulders at the end of it as to whether any of it was worth anything in the end.

And that was where she was, Chemuel knew. In the end.

Chemuel would have damned Vanil then; would've damned the beautiful bastard to Hell, but she remembered that there wouldn't have been much point. She was already there.

When Chemuel opened her eyes, she was not in the Matrix, and unlike the vague, ghostly veneer of Reality the Matrix projected about itself like a settling mist or a musty film, this place made few attempts to seem Real. And that's what was so terrifying about this place, Chemuel remarked silently as she looked down at her snakeskin heels and was met with her reflection in the polished black stone that lay beneath her. It wasn't Real, but it could devour you whole, just the same.

Chemuel's reflection blinked. She herself had not. She shook her head, and her reflection smiled slowly up at her. Chemuel raised her gaze.

This was Neverwhere: Vanil's Construct; his haven and his hideaway, his ideal and his demon, and it was to this place that Chemuel and the rest had come to find the one who had written it.

Chemuel had never seen this place here though. It was a garden of sorts, but like everything else that was (or more accurately, was not) in Neverwhere, it radiated a palpable aura of cold, creeping evil, like something that would wrap itself around your ankles if given the chance and snake its way up your RSI and leaving nothing but a dead void behind it. Aura or no, the thorned vines that crept their way around the garden with no sky seemed more than up to the task. Chemuel felt a nagging urge to look down again, but found that more of her didn't want to than did want to.

"What beautiful décor," Aoide said sardonically. Quietly though, for she didn't want to draw the attentions of anything unsavory.

"What were you expecting?" R0ukan replied matter-of-factly, as if black Nevergardens and poisonous inky creepers were merely par for the course. "Flowers in bloom?" How the vines grew; none of them knew, short of by water that wasn't there and a sun that didn't exist.

THEY ARE A REFLECTION OF DIGITAL NATURE.

There was no voice, but had there been, its intentions would have been clear as day. Chemuel and the rest turned to confront a product of a twisted nightmare.

It was tall and sinewy, like a living whip. The gist of its Residual Self-Image was that of a human's, but the thing's Exile was painfully obvious. It moved and stood with an unnatural gait that managed to come off as immaculately graceful and loping all at once. It twitched periodically, even when standing entirely still, as if afflicted by an endless series of tiny seizures. Its flesh was that of a sickly gray pallor and was stretched tightly across its Matriculated skeleton and musculature, like whoever had done the disservice of spawning the monster had gotten impatient and used less of it than had been originally called for. It was naked aside from a crisscrossing series of black leather straps and belts that had been secured in haphazard rows about its body, and if it had once been possessed of one gender over the other, it no longer suffered such a normalcy. The operatives could tell why it hadn't spoken out loud as they knew of it, as one of these straps was wrapped tightly around the Exile's head and between its rows of pointed teeth, in conjunction with an identical strap that obstructed its eyes.

But more unnerving than even the monster's appearance was the pair of curved, serrated blades strapped around its thin bony wrists. They were polished to a mirror-sheen and hung dangerously at the thing's sides, and none of the operatives had any doubt that it would have been perfectly capable of bisecting one of them with a single, jittery stroke.

It was if a madman had taken a lame cripple and warped it into a sadistic murderer.

"How so?" asked Zdn1.

THESE PLANTS ARE NOT PLANTS, JUST AS THIS PLACE IS NOT A PLACE. THIS IS THE NATURE OF ALL THINGS DIGITAL. THESE PLANTS ARE A REFLECTION OF DIGITAL NATURE.

The Exile's non-voice was exceedingly disturbing, due mostly to the fact that, while it did not speak, they all could hear it not speak. Its words were less words and more inflection; ripples across the coded miasma of Neverwhere that somehow conveyed that which they inflected to the Sinners and Masques. It was a radical concept, and it hurt Chemuel's head to think about. "Who," she asked, "are you?"

I AM CALLED ‘THE HOMUNCULUS.' THIS IS A WORD, AND THIS IS NOT A PURPOSE. I AM WITHOUT PURPOSE.

"If you have no purpose," Aoide replied, "then why are you here?"

Somehow, in spite of its warped visage, the Homunculus laughed. Its non-tone was entirely devoid of any identifiable aspects; entirely devoid of age, gender, and emotion. It was like listening to a murderous, sexless child.

I AM HERE BECAUSE I WANT TO BE.

"It's an Exile," Zdn1 decided.

I AM CALLED ‘THE HOMUNCULUS', BUT I AM ALSO CALLED ‘EXILE'. I MADE THIS CHOICE THAT BROUGHT ME TO BE EXILED: I ONCE BROUGHT OTHERS TO LIFE, AND NOW I WISH TO MOCK THAT PURPOSE. I WANT NOT BUT ONE THING NOW.

Chemuel raised an eyebrow. "And what might that be?" The Homunculus laughed again, and the girl wished it hadn't.

I WANT TO KILL.

"So why serve Vanil?" Aoide replied.

LORD VANIL LETS ME KILL. COME, HE AWAITS.

~V

**MatrixRefugee**

(( Whoo! Spooky....))

**Vanil** · 04/04/2008 17:27:58

As it turned out for the group, following the hunched, cavorting figure of the Homunculus as they made their way deeper into the halls of Neverwhere was just as unsettling as opening their eyes to the Construct for the first time. It felt particularly unusual to Chemuel, Aoide, and Zdn1 because of them all, these three had spent the smallest time here, although Aoide seemed to be fairing markedly better than her companions.

As the humans and Exile neared Vanil's inner sanctum, the digital verticality of the Construct's writing became more and more pronounced with every step they took. Massive, jagged Corinthian pillars rose to the limitless ceiling all around them, hewn of mirrored obsidian that swam as one gazed upon it and ringed with flocks of still, leering gargoyles whose stone wings fluttered in a breeze none could feel and whose eyes followed the seven figures far below. The walls whispered to them.

Finally though, after what could only be called a finite eternity in this haunted Construct, the operatives finally did arrive at that sanctum. Some of them had been here before, but most had not, and yet they were all still struck with the notion of wondering what would happen to a mind that were to linger for too long in such a place. And as their eyes rose to the monolithic, bladed throne that sat in the very center of the vast, grandiose chamber, not a few of them wondered again if the answer wasn't exactly that which lay before them.

"'Said the spider to the fly,'" Vanil recited in that accent of his.

I HAVE BROUGHT THEM HERE AS YOU HAVE COMMANDED, LORD VANIL.

The Homunculus knelt on one gangly knee before Vanil; seated with his arms resting at his sides upon his Neverthrone. Ekizeba, R0ukan, and LinksLife mimicked the gesture, their voluminous black fabrics pooling around them. Chemuel, Aoide, and Zdn1 however, remained standing.

"So I see, Homunculus," Vanil replied to the Exile's non-voice before making a gesture with his gloved hand and sitting upright, his pale face rising to meet those of the operatives gathered before him. "I assure you; there's no need."

"Gang's all here then?" A lone, diminutive female figure slinked out from behind the Neverthrone and stood at Vanil's side, her dark hair slightly askew as she leaned against the obsidian surface. "Good, I got tired'a waitin'."

"Patience is a virtue, Morraeon," Vanil answered with a little chuckle.

"What's she doing here?" Chemuel demanded as LinksLife, R0ukan, Ekizeba, and the Homunculus rose.

"The same thing you are, Chemuel," the Blood Noble said simply before addressing them all once again. "Your anxieties may be laid to rest. The Fragment is mine." Vanil smiled slowly, the tips of his fangs glittering in the darkness of Neverwhere. "The Surgeon is making ready even as we speak."

"Well," Zdn1 said, "that's good. You look..." he tried to continue before his voice trailed off and was lost amidst the shadows that surrounded them all.

"Your face..." Aoide followed softly before her own did the same. The Blood Noble's pale skin was crisscrossed with angry black veins that seemed to be trying to force their way to the surface and suffocate him. His figure seemed even slimmer than usual; almost emaciated.

Vanil sighed lightly and placed two fingers to his temples. "My Residual Self-Image is decaying at an extreme rate. The Surgeon estimates that, without the Fragment of your One, I will die within three nights."

"Only this time, for good," R0ukan added for emphasis.

"Yes," Vanil answered. "For good."

"Good thing you aren't dying," Chemuel said tightly.

She wasn't here for the same reason Morraeon was.

~V

**Vanil**

The stay in Neverwhere turned out to be no less unsettling than their entry had been, and to Chemuel more than any of them. The girl was quite convinced that the Construct was intelligent, and that it was watching them as they made their way through it, measuring each step they took as they awaited Vanil to summon them all together once more.

At this moment in what could most closely be associated with time in Neverwhere, Chemuel found herself in a sort of vast art gallery that ran the length of her vision, which was admittedly somewhat restricted by the shadows of this Construct. Along the walls of the gallery hung great picture frames of diamond-black, each long and narrow as they crawled their way endlessly towards the distant ceiling held aloft by the pillars that seemed to plant themselves everywhere here. Within these frames though were held glittering rippling mirrors, and as Chemuel stopped to take more time to observe one, her reflection looked back at her, her brown hair tied back from her freckled little cheeks. Glancing up, Chemuel could make out the words ‘Causa Omnibus Est' carved into the crown of the frame.

"That's one of my favorites," said Ekizeba's reflection as it joined Chemuel's.

"Mm," Chemuel answered.

"Do you like it?" Ekizeba asked.

"No," Chemuel answered tersely.

Ekizeba flexed her slender fingers, wrapped tightly in glistening black latex, and pushed her shades up her tiny pale nose as she eyed their reflections. "Why don't you like it? It's a true painting."

"And what," Chemuel shot back suddenly, her eyes still fixed on her own, "is true? Whatever V says it is? Whatever the Merv says it is?"

"Whatever I believe is true is true," riposted Ekizeba.

Chemuel shook her head and lit a cigarette with a click. "There's nothing to believe in, other than what you create for yourself." The girl gestured to the mirror before them, her reflection doing it right back. "That's what this means. That there's nothing else but what you have." ‘Or what you don't have,' she added with bitter silence to herself.

Ekizeba pulled at a strand of her wild raven hair. "I believe in the Masquerade. I believe in Vanil."

Chemuel laughed and exhaled a long stream of smoke. "And I hate them both. What's your point?"

Ekizeba nibbled on her small lower lip for a time before answering. "I choose to believe."

"Yeah," Chemuel replied, "you and all the dead as*holes." The Captain of the Schrodinger's Cat, like Ekizeba, knew that she had done things a niggling part of her told her were wrong, but unlike Ekizeba, Chemuel knew that she herself had done these things not for the Masquerade or for the Merovingian or for Vanil. No; she had done these things for Vanil himself, and that was what always made it okay in the end. Chemuel had done what she had done as Vanil's second-in-command for him and for him alone.

No, not for Vanil. For Dante.

"I believed once too. I believed in someone, and he threw that away. Threw it away like garbage." Chemuel struggled to keep her voice steady, and she was largely successful. Her hand was another story; her cigarette shed flecks of smoldering ash as it trembled.

All was silent for a long moment. The two girls just stood at looked into the mirror. "You know," Ekizeba finally said, nodding to the mirror finally, "I can see you in there. I can see you, but I cannot see Lord Vanil."

Chemuel pursed her lips and blew another trail of tobacco smoke. "Ekizeba," she replied, "I like you, dear, but let me give you a piece of advice. Mind your tongue around me when it comes to this." Her reflection spoke to Ekizeba's own as Chemuel said this. "I don't believe in Dante Nihilson anymore. He's like the Matrix. You want him to be Real, but he's really all just a big sham." At that, she turned on her heel and strode away, her footsteps echoing emptily throughout the gallery and her elbow in her hand, her fingers still clasped around her smoldering cigarette.

Ekizeba watched Chemuel go before she turned back to the mirror and watched. "I want to believe," she whispered.

---

Elsewhere, if such a thing could exist in Neverwhere, two others would speak in hushed tones to one another.

It began with the click of heels against the cold obsidian. Brooding from his throne, Vanil pushed his shades up his pale nose and looked up in time to see a tall, female figure draw closer to his stately dais. "Aoide," he called out with a small smile. "I've been waiting for you."

"Have you?" the woman answered, matching Vanil's expression as she stepped towards him and stopped upon the shadowy glass that was the first dais stair. She was older than the nineteen year-old Chemuel, and as Vanil let his hidden eyes stroll down her narrow, curved avenues, he could make well the distinction. "Why would the Prince of Darkness wait for anyone?" Her tone was teasing. She was different here with him. Her icy demeanor was somehow damp and thin.

"You know the answer to that," Vanil replied, his smile widening, "only as well as you know yourself, my dear."

Aoide's bright copper eyes narrowed a tiny fraction. "I've done as you commanded. I baited them into coming here for you, and I've kept Chemuel; Dylan, safe. All of the pieces are in the places you wanted them to be, Dante." Slowly, the human woman took a step, drawing closer to the Neverthrone.

"Yes, I know," Vanil hissed. "Well done, Aoide. You know that I need you to continue to do the second, among other things. Chemuel mustn't come to harm at such a critical point in time; not with the Matrix balanced upon the edge of a knife."

Aoide snorted, smirked, and continued to climb until she stood over Vanil; still seated with his gloved palms placed squarely upon the gargoyle-maws that crowned each armrest of his. "You don't want her to get hurt, Dante. It's a perfectly human emotion." She paused then before asking, "What other things?"

"Hm?" Vanil pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose again.

"What other things?" With practiced, cat-like grace, Aoide reached down and lifted them from his eyes, and his eyes burned red-hot in the gloom of the Construct.

Vanil blinked his long, narrow lids. "It stings, Therese."

"Does it?" Aoide smiled slyly and raised her fingers to her cat suit's zipper tab. "Maybe it's the view."

Vanil laughed, his fangs glittering. "Yes. Maybe."

Neither said anything else, for nothing else needed saying. The inner sanctum echoed with the sound of a zipper being pulled and the muffled slap of latex hitting the floor.

~V

**Vanil**

Iovai turned the key over in his calloused fingers, the moonlight catching the ‘V' etching displayed prominently upon its silver surface. The serrated end of the small object seemed to shift as he did so, and the Machinist had a strong feeling that it was more than a trick of said light. The key was like Vanil the Blood Drinker, in that though it could be consistently counted upon to do that which it should, in this case: open a passage to Neverwhere to whomever possessed it, but it also could never be counted upon to do so in the same manner twice. Like Vanil, the key Iovai now held seemed to change and yet not change, and like Vanil, the diminutive object certainly should not have existed.

And in a way, Iovai supposed, it didn't.

Iovai was aware of the existence of several Neverkeys throughout the Matrix, although how many truly existed within was likely known only to Vanil himself; hidden away like tiny tokens of coded terror for those who sought them. The ever-affluent (Iovai rolled his eyes at that) Agent Gray had given the Machinist operative this particular key upon Iovai's acceptance of this mission of assassination; although where the sentient program himself had acquired it Iovai did not know. It would not make sense for the Machines to possess a means to enter Neverwhere and yet not do so until now, unless they either had a reason for keeping Vanil alive or had only just acquired said means. Either way, Iovai was certain he wasn't being told something.

But how would that make this any different from anything else? The truth was many things, but obvious was not one of them.

"Are your men ready, Captain?" Iovai asked, turning to the man that stood with him.

"Yes, sir," the Blue nodded in reply, his voice muffled by the gas mask that concealed his features below his helmet. "They know the risks and objectives. High-risk and search and destroy."

"Nothing that doesn't ping as a friendly leaves the environs alive," Iovai restated with as much confidence and assertion as he could muster. "Is this clear, Captain?"

"As crystal, sir," the masked Blue answered before turning to eye his men, Iovai following his gaze. Dozens of SWAT officers stood at attention in ordered rows, their guns held to their flak vests and their black-garbed figures silhouetted in the night by the pulsing emergency lights of the tactical assault vans and police cruisers. They may have been human, but to Iovai, it was as if they were those Machines that kept them asleep in their pods; expressionless, synchronized, and deadly.

It was time. Nodding to the Captain who in turn gave a hand signal to his squads to order their readiness, Iovai turned back to the doorway that lay before him and slid the Neverkey into a lock that shouldn't have fit it and turned, letting the door swing open into the great dark beyond.

---

Somewhere within the shadowed recesses of that beyond, perhaps some time before and perhaps some time after her exchange with Ekizeba, Chemuel was paid a visit by the Surgeon. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" she had asked.

"It's quite simple, my precious and dearest," the sickly avian Exile had rasped unappetizingly, "but I doubt you will draw any pleasure from it. What is pleasure, anyhow? A word? Why is it your kind pursues something so empty so fervently?"

"You going to tell me what this is about," Chemuel had replied, "or are you going to keep wasting my time? I've done worse to V's lackeys than let them say their piece for intrusions like this."

The Surgeon ‘tisked' reprehensibly and shook his masked, desiccated cranium. "My precious and dearest Chemuel, you have cancer."

"You're lying," Chemuel replied. "Get out."

~V

**NegativeEight**

[[this writing is genius, and intelligently painted with detail. I can see every image in my head as I read, I almost have to shut off my computer to stop reading and return to my studies. I could read it over again. I really like the story.

I demand a book on this!

But again, I type, Brilliant!

]]

**Vanil** · 04/24/2008 18:29:18

Some time after Chemuel had found herself confronted by the Savage Mortician in Neverwhere, she and the rest had been summoned to bear witness to what they had been told would be the end of this latest crisis. Vanil had told them what had happened and why it had had to happen, but Chemuel was not so naive as to make the assumption that she and the rest had been told everything. It had always been Vanil's way, she knew, to hide the truth within half-truths, like something magnificent secreted away behind a sea of transparent veils. As you moved each veil and stepped forward ever closer to that magnificence, its silhouette would change a little bit; become a little bit more Real, and when and if you were to finally part that final veil and find what had been there all along, you were liable to find that it had been twisted so extensively from what you had been originally told was true that you were more than likely to turn away.

It was this way with Vanil, Chemuel liked to think, because Vanil was this way. The closer she had climbed towards Dante, the harder the going had gotten, and when she had finally reached as close as she was liable to have gotten, she had found something that had thrown her back out. And now, as she and the rest stood once more before the Neverthrone, though Vanil was no more than several yards from her, the girl felt as if she had never been farther.

"Are you rrrready to begin?" the Surgeon hissed from Vanil's side. Chemuel eyed the creature expressionlessly. She had no reason to express any emotion over the lies it told her.

"More than," the Prince of Darkness replied a small chuckle from his seat. "I've always wanted Neo up inside me."

A few of the assembled smiled just a bit, and R0ukan actually laughed out loud; an echoing thing that was swept away in the momentum of the moment. The Surgeon nodded vigorously before hoisting the metal briefcase; remarkably similar to a briefcase that had not long before held Vanil's own kill-code for transport to the Machinist operative Iovai, and snapped the latches open with a pair of clicks. Slowly then, very slowly, the unscrupulous Exile pulled the case open.

Within lay a needle. It was a rather unimpressive thing, aside from the golden aura that shone from within. It pierced the darkness of the Construct, spreading to all corners of the inner sanctum no matter how dim. Vanil's own pale skin took on its hue, and the black, corruptive veins that marred his face and neck stood out only more starkly in the sudden glare.

Gingerly, the Surgeon took the needle from the case and snapped the latter shut, placing on the obsidian by his boots. "Are you certain, Lord Vanil?" the rogue program asked in that grinding, nasal voice of his. "The last time this wassss done..."

A black glove shot up and pulled the Savage Mortician downwards impatiently by his collar. Vanil's fangs glinted dangerously in the light of the Fragment-needle. "I'm certain, Surgeon. Fulfill your sorry purpose so I can end this ridiculous political charade." It was only after his fellow Exile nodded feverishly that the Captain of the Masquerade let him loose once more.

It turned out to be a decidedly quiet event, like a whisper against the gale that, just beneath the eyes of Reds and Blues alike, threatened to engulf the Merovingian and the whole of the Matrix. Vanil merely bared his slender neck, into which the Surgeon gingerly stuck the needle, and the Sinners and Masques watched as the golden glow faded once more from the sanctum.

They all waited.

Nothing happened.

Vanil licked his lips and asked the Surgeon what was wrong. The Surgeon said that he did not know, and that everything had been done as Vanil had commanded it be done. No digital halo descended to rest upon the Blood Noble's pale brow. No divine voice of power filled the Neverhalls. No burst of power roared from the Prince of Darkness' RSI. The lines of binary corrosion remained however, ugly and dark, and when Chemuel and the rest saw those, they knew that none of these things had happened because nothing had happened. Nothing had changed.

Nothing had changed. Vanil was dying, and the Matrix was now poised upon the brink of an Exile civil war.

"What," Vanil asked slowly, rising slowly from his bladed Neverthrone, "is wrong?"

No one had an answer for the Merovingian executor. He least of all.

"Why is it not working!?" Vanil screamed suddenly, his crimson eyes darting from one blank-eyed stare to the next. "WHAT IS WRONG!?" He whirled about to face the Surgeon. "You," the vampire snarled accusingly. "You told me that I was correct; that my calculations had been exacting. YOU HAD TOLD ME THAT THIS WOULD WORK!" The lines of decay criss-crossing his visage looked as if they would burst.

Chemuel felt the floor tremble beneath her heels, and turning her head, she could hear the sound of a distant detonation elsewhere in the Construct.

LORD VANIL. OUR ENEMY HAS FOUND US.

The Homunculus loped into the chamber, flanked by a pair of Succubi whose perfectly-smooth and voluptuous RSIs had been encased in tight latex cat suits of glossy black, their shapely hips and thighs encircled with belts of tiny throwing knives, many of which Chemuel could see were missing. "What!?" Vanil shouted as he spun to face the bizarre program.

THE STEEL-MACHINES HAVE COME TO KILL YOU. NEVERWHERE IS UNDER ATTACK.

Chemuel's fingertips were already at her temples. She had been right. It wasn't over.

It was just the beginning.

~V

**Vanil** · 05/14/2008 18:54:07

Their many footsteps echoing throughout the seemingly endless Neverhalls of the Construct of the one they had been sent to destroy, the SWAT teams made their way as quickly as they dared into Vanil's outer sanctum with Iovai at their head, their breaths short and heavy through the gas masks that gave their helmeted heads the appearance of leering black skulls, and in any place but this they might appear as menacing. The floodlights and red laser sights mounted on the barrels of their sub machineguns tracked through the darkness that swirled around them as they moved, for Iovai had briefed them all on the sorts of horrors that he believed dwelt here.

"Are we close?" the Captain asked Iovai from his side.

"We are working through the outer sanctum of this place," the Machinist answered, his lime green trench coat entirely out of place amidst the oppressive black of the Corinthian spires and SWAT Kevlar vests. "It's possible Lord Vanil doesn't even know we are here, which means we might catch the fugitive unprepared." It was a distant hope, Iovai knew, but he also knew that the Blood Drinker had never expected the possibility of the Machines moving against his little corner of the digital Free Space and would in all likelihood have little in the way of countermeasures in place out of sheer inhuman arrogance.

That, and Iovai knew that even a distant hope was hope enough in the most vile of Constructs.

"Movement! I have movement!" The call to attention over the kill-team's radio channel marked an end to both their quick trek and Iovai's hopes. His eyes gazing into the shadows that ringed him and the rest, the Machinist could see something moving...no, writhing within their inky depths. The distortions grew larger and more pronounced as the sights of the SWAT soldiers trained upon them. His eyes narrowing behind his System shades, Iovai blinked and stared hard into the folds of black, sentient velvet for something; anything...

And the shadows blinked back.

"Dear God," the Captain whispered to himself, his MP5 locked in a death grip, as the darkness; the Neverstuff, coalesced to form an expressionless visage of deathly, almost plastic-white; like that of a cruelly-human mannequin and emaciated limbs contained in long jet-black fabric. Its eyes were like pools of tar; windows into a world of creeping madness, and when it opened its toothless mouth, no sound escaped; only the gaping void of Neverwhere and the chill of old death.

And then Iovai saw the assault weapon clasped in its clammy undead grasp. "Fire...fire!" the trench-coated Machinist shouted to the rest of the kill-team as he raised his own Bullpup rifle and put a three-round burst of digital lead into the foul non-thing's stomach.

The impact was to be a vile one however, for when the still-forming monster (for that could only be what it was, wrapped though it was in the guise of a human Residual Self-Image) fell back onto its heels, there was to be no cry; no sound of pain; but rather only the chafing of boot heels against the obsidian floor of the Construct as it stumbled with the projectiles before, with some effort, righting itself with what seemed little effort and took a step towards Iovai. The Machinist watched as the wounds in the thing's torso bled streams of swirling Neverstuff that trailed behind it and knew well that they might as well not be wounds at all. The buzz of running Information in his ears, the operative saw that this horror was repeated ad nauseum all around him as more of the deathless Shades materialized from the shadows that crawled ever closer to him and the rest.

Iovai heard gunshots all around him as the battle began in earnest: a battle between the living and the dead, reason and insanity, and one that would not only be fought for the human soldiers' mission, but also for their very souls.

"What the Hell are they!?" Iovai heard the Captain scream over his earpiece as the hall erupted into a firestorm and knew that a Blue such as he could never even begin to fully comprehend the ultimate terror of what they now faced. Of these Shades the Awakened operative knew little, but he knew enough to know that when one died while jacked into the Matrix, the mind experienced a sudden separation from the body, and what followed was a quick, quiet death for both.

Neverwhere, it seemed, was not so wasteful.

Gritting his teeth, Iovai leveled his rifle at the same Shade as it stepped closer and, flicking the weapon to full auto, let loose. Flames filled the man's lenses and a crescendo of deafening bangs his ears as the shadowy code-apparition reacted with surprising agility and wove around many of the long, sharp rounds; the defensive subroutines that it had served it well (but not well enough) in life doing the same in death.

But nevertheless the good doctor's aim proved true enough and several of the projectiles found their mark, tearing into the Shade's plaster-white flesh and blowing open ugly gashes that bled showers of raw black Neverstuff. With a silent scream, the ghostly doll-thing dropped its own gun and fell, convulsing as it melted away from whence it had come; its grossly wavering limbs becoming tendrils of wriggling darkness as its digital mind-soul was pulled back into the shadows; back into the Matrix of the Construct Iovai knew well it would never escape from.

Whether this mission was suicidal or no, Vanil had much to answer for.

Glancing over his shoulder, Iovai saw that many of his soldiers had not been so lucky. The Shades were merciless; tumbling black figures bearing waxy ivory death-masks that herded the humans into rings of men and women that stood back to back as they fought back desperately, their firearms blasting again and again into the darkness that surrounded them; threatening to consume them whole. And it was into these rings that the Neverthings scythed like the chaff to the wheat, ripping SWAT officers to pieces with cruel martial arts subroutines or retorting with their own volleys of gunfire. Iovai watched with a distinct twinge of something somewhere between regret and horror as the wounded fell where they stood, their weapons still discharging in their death grips as they were promptly dragged off by the relentless Shades or, in some cases, flights of small gargoyles whose eyes glinted like malevolent coals; proxies of Neverwhere itself, to become the very things they now faced.

What is fear? The perverted refusal of oblivion? The stark realization of inhumanity made through humanity? The sight of dozens dragged to a fate worse than death?

Fear is just a word.

~V

**Vanil**

One Year Before and the Present

A man had once said that there are no accidents. To say that he had been right would have been presumptuous at best, but to say that he had been wrong would have been unwise.

An accident is a word. The concept of arbitration begets the word ‘accident', which in turn begets a connection. ‘Accident' is really a way of saying ‘something that happens for no reason'. Truly, this connection is a matter of perspective, and the choice to bridge the gap between chance and fate merely a choice. In this world and this life, a perspective holds no more power than those who hold it and give it credence.

But in dreams, one's perspective becomes one's Reality, and anything is possible.

A world away from Neverwhere in the now, a Serpent dreamt a dream, and in the past a girl called ‘Jico' dreamt a dream within the Matrix. These two dreams were one dream to the Serpent, however, for the Serpent did not believe in accidents. All dreams were of the same dream to him, a dream that encompassed all people, places, times, and ideas and wove them together into a Pattern of incalculable vastness. Over time, the Serpent had learned to interpret the volume and nature of this Pattern and in doing so had stepped arguably closer to omniscience than any before him.

But the Serpent was no god. The Serpent was still just a Serpent.

The Serpent saw a school. A school for children. Hammerville High. Though he himself had found his humanity challenged in the past, the Serpent saw the boxy building and allowed himself a moment to marvel the methods his old nemesis was willing to employ, how low that Exilic malefactor was willing to stoop to see what he wished done. It was regrettable that the one the Merovingian had proclaimed his ‘Seraphic champion' had as much power in the Syndicat as he did now, but the Serpent was a patient thing and persisted with the comforting assurance that he knew he would rise to power in time. He had and did see it.

He had seen that Vanil was anything but seraphic.

"What's the situation, Captain?" the Serpent heard the police officer ask, the glare of police lights reflected in his badge.

"The fugitives are inside," the Captain answered as he rubbed his forehead. "Their leader is refusing to budge until they're provided safe passage out."

The newcomer bit his lip. "And the kids?"

"Class was in session."

"God d*mn it."

As the two men spoke, the Serpent saw an unmarked black sedan pull up and come to a halt behind the neon yellow police barricade that ran a perimeter around the school. The engine ran idle and then silent, and out of the sedan stepped three men in suits and dark rectangular sunglasses, men the Serpent recognized as Agents Gray, Wilson, and Wong. "We'll handle it from here, Captain," Gray stated as the three of them approached the police officers, their dress shoes crunching through the gravel and their ties fluttering in the noonday wind.

"What?" the Captain replied, an expression of confusion claiming his face. "We were told that we were to stand by and await further orders."

"There's been a change of plans," Agent Wilson said simply.

"Your orders have changed," Wong followed.

"Order the entry teams into position," Gray finished as he and his compatriots began to turn away. "Immediately."

"But...you can't just...these kids are still in there," the Captain stammered. "There's a whole classroom still in there!"

Gray turned back at the human's words and raised an eyebrow. "I am aware of that, Captain."

Lifting himself from the ordered chaos outside, the Serpent remembered the Pattern of the school and those within, and it was within one of the unremarkable classrooms that he found Vanil and three of his black-garbed Masques: SeventeenDead, AlicethePattern, and Jico, along with a teacher and his teenaged students on their knees. "They say that your demands will take time," SeventeedDead was saying to Vanil from behind his bandana as he snapped his cell phone shut in one hand, a semi-automatic in his other leveled at the teacher's profusely-sweating bald head.

"We don't have time," the olive-skinned girl called Jico answered with a voice like steel. She brandished a MAC-11 in each gloved hand, each training with well-controlled distaste over the prone, whimpering student body.

SeventeenDead shrugged and pulled the hammer back on his handgun with a click, his sickly yellow eyes blazing with hateful relish. "Then we should cull them all. No one who matters will miss them." His hostage trembled at his words.

AlicethePattern made a noise, her own weapons holstered at her sides. "That's horrific. I won't allow it." The small girl glanced at her Captain for support.

Vanil raised a gloved hand to subdue them. "Don't waste your bullets, Seventeen." Though his shades hid his eyes as always, the Exile's eyes were fixed on a particular girl, one of the students they held at gunpoint. "We might need them."

"Them?" Jico asked, nodding towards their prisoners. "Or the bullets?"

Vanil wasn't listening. Instead, the Serpent saw the master of the Masquerade kneel next to the adolescent he had been eyeing. "Are you frightened?" he asked softly in a voice like honey.

The shapely, brown-haired girl didn't answer. She kept her eyes on the floor away from Vanil's, and both Alice and Jico pursed their lips. Gently, Vanil raised a slender finger and ran it through the girl's hair. "Would you like to come with me?" he whispered.

Had the Serpent have had a head in this dreamscape, he would have shaken it at this. But he didn't, so instead he simply watched as the girl opened and closed her lips, as if she couldn't find the words she wanted to and looked up into Vanil's sunglasses at her reflection.

And it was then that the lights in the classroom flickered and died.

Vanil's expression turned foul as he rose before the girl he had chosen could speak. "Those fools," he snarled as he drew his gun and fired.

~V