White Shadows

Interlude 1 - You'd Tell Me If You Were A Cyborg, Right?

Someone knocked on the door. Halpris, aka Preston Holly, slid his bookmark into place, closed the novel he'd been reading, and commanded the knocker to enter. In walked his daughter Halyas (mortal name, Jasmine), who looked like she hadn't had a good night's sleep in quite some time. If Preston knew Jasmine's greatest flaw, it was her tendency to over-punish herself for failure. Such as her recent failure to stop his dark counterpart's would-be rockstar daughter from attempting to rescue Ross Whelan's little Breakers.

Jasmine was, however, alert enough to catch sight of the book on his desk. After identifying its title and author, she gave her father a sneer and asked, "Still reading mortal novels?"

"If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times," Preston said with a smirk to match her sneer. "The mortals are so, so gifted at coming up with ways to terrify themselves. And this Mr. Deaver may be one of the most gifted of them all." He stroked the purple cover of Solitude Creek. "This one reinforces a few ideas from my own playbook. Ideas I'd like to see you put into action in the Prime 'Verse."

Jasmine nodded curtly. "Which dimension? Not Hell again. I'm not used to the UV levels there." She held her pale arm up to the electric candlelight of the chandelier above to prove it.

"No need to worry about your SPF," Preston laughed. "You're going to Heaven on this one. And you'll very likely get to run into your old, erm...acquaintance." He watched as her face clouded over briefly. He knew she never liked to be reminded of her short-lived (but not short enough for his taste) school-days dalliance with Troijen's elder son. In any case, he went on to ask one more question. "You know what to do in that event, right?"

"Of course," Jasmine said, swallowing her nerves.

"Good." Preston folded his hands over his book, which he desperately wished to get back to reading. "But first, do you have any news? I imagine you came here with a report of some kind in mind."

"Yes," Jasmine said, clearing her throat. "Um...the Breakers are both in Tahoe Free City as we speak. Our source there confirmed their arrival. She also confirmed that one of them is dead now. How, she wouldn't say - but she did tell me that it took several days to get his Second body repaired and ready to use, so it must have been some serious damage he endured."

"Hmm," Preston said. "So that fool Whelan really did intend to kill the Breaker who didn't break, as it were."

"Possibly, yeah," said Jasmine. "Though if you ask me, I'd want to pin the blame on that mental patient he worked with. Cabrera - the wife - she was quite unstable, from what I've heard."

Preston pursed his lips. "Unfortunately, without Whelan and his crack team, our plan could never come to fruition." He stood up and walked over to the door, opening it for Jasmine. "Serve our cause well," he said, hugging her goodbye.

"I will, Father," Jasmine said in the flattest voice she could manage.

After Jasmine left, Preston crossed the room and approached the window behind his desk. The blackout curtains were drawn tightly shut, but if he opened them just a crack, a piercing white bolt of sunlight came streaming in.

The East Coast was no longer in darkness. This meant that, despite the science squad's best efforts, the sphere was well and truly on the verge of breaking down completely.

The sunlight faded a little bit, allowing Preston to peer through the narrow gap between the curtains without hurting his eyes. (Ironic though it was that he had developed such sensitivity, even light scrivs had their limits.) Now it was roughly on the same level as the Hellish sun on a hot summer day - except the sky it was illuminating was green instead of red.

The usual all-encompassing darkness would return soon - but only temporarily. And not long after that, it would be gone, replaced with a more mortal-like cycle of day and night.

Not to mention, any of his people left behind on the sphere when it finally failed would die a horrible death, either falling miles to the ground, being asphyxiated, or both.

All he needed to do was keep the mortals in line long enough to return his people to their rightful place in this universe. He didn't want to kill them. It had never been his plan, contrary to the popular belief spread by Troijen, or even his own traitorous father.

Itwas far more likely, based on the psychological details he'd taken away fromthe novels of such master thriller writers as Deaver, Harris, King, andPatterson, that the mortals would live up to their names and drive themselvesto extinction.