Madness!

Atticus said quietly to Belle, "Family time is over. I know you also just got an EGO message from Corporal Lebeau, that we are needed in the War Room immediately, as it appears that there is a video from Lady in the War Room awaiting our Command team. I say we view it as soon as we get there, even if nobody else is present. We can fill in the team later, if needed. However I really want and need my Snow Angel back and know she needs us more than she thinks."

'"Some of the team are still not back on base! Sandy and Volo are on their way back from Red Deer, and Vo and Kaj were investigating the crime scene of Iri's abduction! Plus Kaj and Wolfram don't have EGOs, and I don't know about you, but I think they both may have different perspectives that could help us plan our next move, so lets just have LeBeau send Lady's message to our encrypted data pads, although let's you and I view it first" Suggested Belle to Atticus.

Once the order had been given to LeBeau to do as Belle suggested, both Atticus and Belle dutifully took out their data pads and saw a close-up of Lady Christianna's chalk white face suddenly dominate the data pad screen. Lady's face looked haggard with large dark circles around her eyes that were not part of her makeup. Her hair was dyed black, but in pigtails that made her look even younger than her seventeen years. To Belle, her voice sounded tired and unsure, as if she had been under a great strain for some time, although once Lady finished her prologue to Atticus and was actually making a speech to what appeared to be a room of Indogenes with Inguisitors scattered among them, she spoke confidently and with a fervent belief in what she was saying.

Lady began with her signature smile in place, although to Belle it seemed much sadder that usual, "Hi Atticus. Hella all. I'm okay. Erica, Brody, Iri and all my brain trust okay. Wrong not to tell what I'm doing. Telling you now... Miss you Atticus. Hope kids are... okay. Better off with you. Need to do this," Lady slowly licked her lips as if her mouth had suddenly gone dry as tears welled up in her pink wide eyes and she forced a laugh, "Second class hero, first class villainess. I... miss you Atticus. Wish I could see you but... can't till I'm famous like you, like Belle. Worthy of you. Worthy of... me... Must be villainess... ruthless... enough to get job done. Belle taught me that. Only villains don't worry about how they reach goals. Heroes worry about how, villains only about ends. Think if world is ever going to be safe for children... for people, ends justify means " Lady could be seen shrugging her thin shoulders as she blew a large gum bubble, then popped it loudly as she ended her monologue, "So villainess. Deal. Awesome. Listen please..."

Belle and Atticus watched the video in silence that showed Lady standing confidently on a stepstool as she addressed a room of sullen Indogenes and smiling Inquisitors, but their smiles seemed forced to Belle. Lady seemed both sincere and sure of herself in her speech until the end of it, when she asked her audience if there were any questions, and she seemed relieved when there were not. There was no postscript after the speech, just the data pad screen going black and then LeBeau's voice informing them that was all there was that was transmitted.

"Thank you, Mr. Lebeau," Said Belle EGO to EGO, adding, "Please send that transmission to all active team members!" Then she turned to Atticus, her blue diamond eyes wide, "Let me assure y'all Atticus, I never advised Lady to be a villain! When she was my protégé, we would discuss the nature of good and evil and that villains had more leeway to reach goals because they could afford to ignore how they reached them, but heroes never can! I had not idea she would fixate on..." The edges of Belle's rose petal lips turned down into a frown as she let the sentence trail off, asking, "Atticus, this is neither your fault or mine, so get such thoughts out of your head! I know I'm going to try my hardest to do so, because we need to focus on our next move, like what in tarnation are we going to do to save Lady from herself!"

Belle called the nurse to take over care of the twins in the base nursery, then Belle and Atticus left for the War Room, all the time Belle hoping Atticus didn't notice her beginning to hyperventilate as she frantically controlled it using the techniques taught her by Vo ad Volo both.   

"Thank you, Miss K'Shaa," said Arnim Mueller-Stahl. "For your pleasant company and your care. I better watch out then. And if you are worried about my pride then I don't have any prejudices about strong and independent women. Actually - all people I know don't have such prejudices. It's a 21st Century after all. I have seen women even in battles and they fought better than lot of men would. Not to mention female hospital personnel who fought for our lives when we were there. Seeing that kind of efforts makes one proud about women. You can be sure that I will call you when I am in trouble. It was a rare privilege to spend an evening with you, Miss K'Shaa." He klicked his heels - one real, one artificial - together and bowed, just like Wolfram von Eschen did, when Lu left.

After that he sat behind his desk, took out his notebook and started to write...Unexpected meetings tend to be inspirational and when Muse visits you, the you better seize the opportunity and have a date with her. 

_____________________

Aforementioned Wolfram von Eschen rushed into airport like he was gone with the wind. His tall figure cut through the crowd just like an ice breaker at work. Even bald guys in yellow and orange robes avoided to step on his way. "Hare..." tried to yell one of them, but Wolfram just snapped: "Krishna! If you want to avoid a damned reincarnation then you DO NOT slow me down! Verstehen Sie! I have never seen anything like this in Frankfurt am Main." Men in yellow evaluated correlation of strength and had to give up. It was easier to tame raging bull than pass a brochure to Wolfram. Thanks to his decisiveness he made to the plane undisturbed, greeted people on board, mumbled: "Gute Nacht alle zusammen." what meant - "Good night everybody" and after settling himself comfortably into the plush chair, fell asleep right away. 

"Hello Candace. You are a real eye-candy indeed. If I wasn't taken then..." and Volodja smiled to her in his most warm and friendly manner before cuddling in with Sandy in one of the seats. When hailer interrupted their comfortable travel in each other arms, Volodja listened Sandy and said:

"I am not a Professor Henry Higgins from "My fair Lady" to judge you by your language, my girl. I don't think, like he did, that fancy language is everything. If you want to improve it then I will gladly help you with that. But you have lot of qualities, so few cussing words won't mean a thing compared with the rest. They are part of you but not all of you  - you are beautiful, my girl. Both your soul and your looks are beautiful. Don't you dare to think other way about yourself. I love you and want you. All of you.



But Lady...I am afraid that she is fallen under wrong influence and it could destroy her. Mentally. She still searches herself and I am sure that being Mistress of Sorrow isn't her thing. Those damned fanatics won't care about anything when they follow their cause. Human life or human mind doesn't mean a thing. The cause is all that counts. And even if Lady became their figurehead, that doesn't mean that she isn't been taken advantage of. She is just a kid, damn it! Sorry about that, my girl.

I understand her motives actually. She wants to become somebody, but she picked wrong measures to achieve her goal and its our duty to convince her about that. We have to figure out how because she must be separated from his gang of merry inquisitors. Just to avoid their attempts to influence her any more. I am usually for personal choices, but in this case we are dealing with bunch of experienced political intrigants. And their way is not the bast way for Lady. She is not the material. If you look at the video you will see what I mean by that. We must convince her that she might become to somebody without having to be Mistress. That the image she applies to have is controversial and it's still not too late to stop. But we need to lure her away from her new "family" first."

Wolfram von Eschen woke up because of the hailer call as well, looked at the message, watched the video, muttered something in German under his nose and fell back asleep.

Volodja looked into beautiful eyes of Sandy Bell and embraced her tenderly. "We will succeed in that," he said. "I am sure. Now we have just sit and enjoy our flight and having each other because we can't do anything else about saving Lady at moment."

________________________


Marcel Lestrange thought about nicknames as well. "Quelle coïncidence! What a co incidence!" he would have been yelling if he could read Lena's mind. "Pumpkin and Honey Bunny?" he asked himself. Or should they use something more impressive? Decisions, decisions...



"If you are not mind then Lena and I will visit the local restaurant. All this bargaining made me hungry," said Marcel. "Come, my love. Let me treat you with a decent meal before we leave this place. And you can decide what we are going to eat." Gluttony in Lena's mind started to make suggestions right away.

"How nice and naive", Taffer thought, watching Lady's message which Belle transferred to the team. There was another important detail he noticed in it and that he wanted to share with the team. After a minute or two Vo called the team to another meeting in the War Room so he excused himself from the company of Diabolical Duo and aimed his steps back to the War Room. When saw Haele in the room, an idea came to his mind and he exclaimed "Just a moment please!" after which he yanked the emergency power switch, turning off most of the equipment in the room.

"Haele, you're an energy being, so could you please tell me if you feel any unusual electronic activity here now?" He asked as his EGO scanned around the room as well.

Haele's suit spat a beam of light from its sleeve, pointing at the desk with a sparkling dust on it.

"Nanites, right?" Taffer concluded, "Can you destroy them?"

The beam became even brighter and dust particles flashed, emanating a sound of broken glass. The dust ceased to sparkle and now looked more like a dark sooth.

"Great", Taffer appraised and then turned the power back on, switching computers on one by one, looking at Haele after each switch.

"That one", Haele pointed at one of the computers, "Unusual transmission at boot-up".

"Even greater", Taffer said, plugging the offending device off, "Anything else?"

"Nothing more that I can sense", Haele replied. Taffer looked out of the doorway, making sure no one is listening at the door. Then he closed it and made his Decoy stand next to it with its sensor sweep on so that no one could sneak in with their Cloak on.

"Thank you Haele. Sorry for stealing the show, but this room was visited by unwanted people too many times. Yes, one time is too many", Taffer explained, "So I have to make sure we're not eavesdropped. Now I must say, that part I said about the Trolley Graveyard was a ruse to give some misinformation to our spies if we have any. There's no Core in the Graveyard. Its whereabouts remains unknown since Nim was defeated. I have the controls to those scrappers as well as Vo and we can monitor the activity there at any time we have the connection. If any of the Inquisitors show up there, we'll know we've been spied and how fast the information is spread. Atticus, I do remember your no-deceive-Lady order, but that doesn't mean we can't deceive spies in our ranks if there are any. If you wish so, we can place a message for Lady that this was a simple check for spies. If it wasn't her who sent them, then I'm sure she's smart enough to understand that someone acts behind her back.

And moreover, the rarest part is actually the Terrasphere, not the Core. It's an enormous database which contains all the DNA's of Votan plants and animal life. That is, if someone really wants to recreate some nice habitable landscape. If you want to only wipe out all life and leave the lifeless desert behind you, you won't need a Terrasphere. The Core, the Cell and the Matrix will suffice to start the Terraspire. That's what was done at the day of Defiance, and that's what Nim tried to do.

Now, that's another thing I want to share with you since I have the word already. Look at the recording Lady sent to us. See those smiling bunch of Inquisitors? To me, they do not believe in Lady's words the slightest, and it just confirms to me that she's being manipulated with some much more evil thoughts in their minds. The question is, how they are planning to exploit Lady's naive plan to build Paradise and when they are going to backstab her. Okay, I'm shutting up now. Vo, you have the word."

Belle Starr gave Vo Kshaa's hand a quick but firm squeeze before letting go, then with a sidewise glance of her beautiful blue diamond eyes and a equally quick smile, thanked him for his help overcoming her panic attack more than words ever could. She surveyed the War Room, wishing Volodja and Wolfram were back so that there psychological experts could give their opinion, but Taffer had them on communication lockdown, rightfully fearing spies, Any communication transmission outside of the base could likely be monitored, particularly if the Inquisition was using Olmec technology. Belle surveyed the room, noting that Chloe MacGyver sat in the back at her work console, the pretty redhead still sitting in her wheelchair with her foot in a cast. Belle nodded to her, as Chloe nodded back with a smile, reminding Belle that she needed to again try to convince Chloe to accept an EGO implant, particularly if she was going to be an active member of the team.

Belle spoke up, "I don't think it's common knowledge, but I met an Omec when I was lost in the mines below Defiance the last time we were there! Maybe I just got lucky, but he didn't seem any more dangerous than any other folk, however I didn't have to fight him, we just talked as he led me to an exit, but my EGO did record the unique Omec energy signature and let me tell y'all - his energy levels went through the roof! So there are Omec on the planet, but I haven't heard of any in Paradise! Chances are though if we have cloaking tech, they have some ten times better than ours, so they could be here and we just don't know it!" Belle's pretty freckled face turned grim as she gestured to Chloe with one pale hand, "There's something else y'all need to know, but I'll let Chloe share with y'all the other bad news!"

Chloe looked up with intense green eyes at the overhead where a picture of Lady's haggard chalk face from the video she sent them was frozen, her ruby lips turned down in a frown as she said in her thick Australian accent, "Poor fuckmuppet, Lady is in for it, by Crikey! Belle had me look into what Iri was researching, curious why Lady didn't take her then and there instead of waiting till later! I came to the conclusion that either she hadn't formulated her plan so far to include kidnapping of Indogenes, or she wasn't sure she would have access to more Omec control rods, or maybe both. I don't think it was because that time was of the essence for her escape, as Lady had Brody copy some files from the work station that Iri had been working at from a computer in the Infirmary just before Lady and her entourage left. Iri had some pretty sophisticated locks on the info, so she must have been awfully worried that someone besides her would access it, but Brody found a back door, although the information has since been deleted by Iri. Unfortunately, it was like closing the chicken coop door after the dingo has already eaten your prize rooster. Anyway, I was able to trace through an old record menu and found a separate file of Dark Matter notes that discussed what was in the file. Evidently, it was an Omec formula for a drug that kept Indogenes mind controlled for life, and which was used on the Omec planet to keep the Indogene enslaved for the long term."

"Lady and the Inquisition now have this formula, and Iri was nervous enough about it to delete it from our files, even though she was a guest only officially permitted to look for files that could help Chase regain his memory, albeit too late," Interjected Belle in a worried tone, "We have to face the fact that if Lady and the Inquisition has the formula, she may have mass produced the drug already using the Inquisition resources, and now has a way to capture the minds of all the Indogenes on Earth that evidently can't be countered!" 

As Belle unveiled the bad news to her colleagues in the War Room, a machine in Haele's lab dinged that it had finished it's job of scanning for fingerprints on the map Lena had stolen form Micor Newlo, the Inquisition's second-in-command. The scan had found two identifiable set's of fingerprints, and sent the information directly to Taffer's EGO. The first set was Micor Newlo's, which they had on file from when he was incarcerated in Freedom, Alabama. The second, which they had from stolen Votan Collective records, was Governor Skarr's.  

*****

Unbeknownst to those in Fortress Kshaa, Micor Newlo, the Castithan Master of Stealth and the Inquisition's right hand man was enjoying the view of Red Deer from the balcony of the Red Deer Hilton's penthouse. He was pleased that it had recently been vacated, so that he could move his base of operations to both a more suitable and more comfortable location. He smiled as he took in the fresh air, wondering if the air would taste any sweeter once the Inquisition's plan in Red Deer was executed. Suddenly, his encypted hailer rang with a long distance call from the Presidio bunker in the San Francisco wasteland.

"This is Micor Newlo, how can I help you?, " Micor's handsome smile widened, as he relished the rich sound of his deep voice saying his own name, but it quickly turned to a frown as the call progressed, exclaiming, "WHAT?... You let her do what?... No communications were to go in or out of the Presidio while I was gone; were my orders unclear?... Just make sure this DOESN'T happen again! I don't care how you do it!...Good, because if you don't, heads will roll and your's will be first!"

Micor hung up without even saying farewell, which he usually made a dramatic production of doing, but he was fuming as he thought, "The little brat is going to ruin everything! I wish the powers that be would let me put a bullet in the runt's brain, the useless female, but that is counter to my orders. For now, she is untouchable, but only for now! At least things are progressing well here in Red Deer! Almost all the canisters are in place, and the authorities here are completely in the dark, thanks to Omec technology!"

Micor poured himself a glass of wine, then sipped it savoring it's rich taste to console himself, thinking, "Some things humans really did get right!"  

  

Belle Starr bit her lower lip, fighting back the tears, hating with all her heart what Chase was forcing himself to become, and said, "Chase Lonehart, don't cross that line! Once you let the monster out, it's hard to get him back in, believe me, I know! Listen, Lady is not Nim Shondu! She is a confused teenager suffering from post partum depression who wants to make the world better but feels impotent to do anything about it without taking drastic measures! Nim Shondu was a crazed psychopath who wanted to kill all humans, and in the end just destroy everybody!"

Belle played the tape again of Lady's opening message to the team, stopping it before it got to Lady's speech to the Indogene captives, then said with a flash of anger in her blue diamond eyes, "If you had met Nim Shondu, you would have seen the decades of hate in them! They were dead eyes, full of hatred for all things living! Now look at Lady's eyes, more full of confusion then anything else! I'll tell you this right now, I believe she would never hurt Iri on purpose, and my bet is somebody exceeded their orders in hurting you! Every kidnapping of every Indogene was done without killing anyone and a minimum of amount of injury!"

Belle started the film again, and shortly after Lady began her speech, the camera panned the audience, with Belle stopping the film and pointing at two Indogenes in the corner of the frame huddled together, saying, "There is Iri and Eren, obviously unhappy, but unharmed! Lady is no Nim Shondu no matter how much y'all want her to be! I personally saw Nim Shondu drop Von Bach off the Golden Gate Bridge on purpose, and he reveled in his cruelty! I couldn't do anything to stop Von Bach's death, and even though he was reborn later, I never will allow myself to stand to the side helpless again while an innocent is killed in front me! Whether y'all choose to believe it or not, Lady is an innocent, and I will not let you murder that child!"

Belle took out her Solstice Wolfhound pistol and handed it to Chase butt first, the muscles in her freckeled cheeks quivering in emotion as she said coldly, "If you plan on killing Lady, then you might as well kill me first, right here, right now, because if you don't, I will stop you - period!"