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Diver Deeep the Third

Explosions rip across the Eastern version of Sanctuary, leaving glitched textures before wire-frame collapse and fade from the region.

Mishil - "What the Hell is happening !?"

Magistrate - Holding Asherah, smiles to Mishil, "Only what must be."  He turns back to Asherah, leaning for a kiss to her return, "Evacuate."  

They fade away.

...

Mishil - "! Fuck !"

('Revenger' live by Herosyn)

The people pack into the Xinhua Hunter ships among the many assorted, the hunt leader overlooking until taking her position at the flagship's bridge.  

Teacher loads the (Eastern airship version) schoolbus and slams the door, more fading all around.  Ice cream ninjas bounce in pirate galleons refitted (internal plating and yes planks come off sometimes) for space travel.

All emptied, Mishil watches the last mountain range explode to wire-frame decay.  She checks her back strapped rifles, one on each side clipped to her pack to fire fore.  One last look around at the empty sands, a gust ... twirling dervishes.  

She puts on her bubble helm and lights her rocket-pack to a hover while the dervishes conspire to twist the land before gone, dragging the massive and mixed fleet spinning into the vacuum of its disappearance.

Aboard the various craft time the pilots struggle for control of their crafts while fearful time is killed as they drag through the slipstream for what seems forever. 

The band from the Urani Marketplace plays to entertain (hoping BP will play themselves) among the increasingly hungry populace while outside Mishil weaves through checking formation distances and hulls.

The stabilized central fleet of the hunter-ships take center as smaller ships struggle for control on decaying engines and declining fuels.  The fleet begins extending clawed arms for ship capture, dock and boarding to hold them steady, a few get harpooned and dragged.  

Around the fleet every ship similarly equipped for boarding begins to do the same until they all fly as one under the main fleet's core.  

 

~ The Continuing Adventures of Diver Deep ~

 

Akari and Mariko run through the crowded walkways, circles around the annoyed workers until teacher pulls the stop sign.  The fleet explodes over Sanctuary as one craft while the citizenry looks up at the new city in the sky.

 

chapter three, in which saturday begins in the morning  

(alarm clock rings)

 

('Hey Bulldog' by The Beatles)

 

Beginning at the house wreckage, through the cul-de-sac and the neighborhood surrounding.  Lives begin, lights go on, breakfasts are made, sunny day.  Dogs are walked, bla bla bla.  

At "You can talk to me" in the song, the shadow of four Army Chinook helicopters flying over the fields, a large square shadow apparently suspended between them.  

Life in the cul-de-sac, teeth are brushed, showers taken, breakfast eaten.

(Second "you can talk to me") A golfer swings not bothering to notice the shadow looming over as it follows the shot.  The shadow and noisy winds flows over the cul-de-sac.  

The Chinooks drop the new house atop the wreckage of the old ... (song ending) the doorbell rings, Felicia answers.  A delivery, a conspicuous box, their address no name, no return.

Felicia - "A moment."  Switchblade (wide postal eyes), she cuts the tape ... she looks at him holding a bowling ball bag.  "Really ?"

Postal - "I ... just ..."

Felicia - "It's about the right weight ..."  She shakes it a bit, "Feels right.  For bowling.  Which I've heard of."

She opens it and looks in, Yorick opens his eyes and looks back.  

~ Exchange Rates ~

She slams it shut and looks at the confused postal.

Postal - "I don't ... know ... things ..."

Felicia - "No we're good !"  Slams the door.

Postal - "But ... I need you to ..."

Felicia - "No you don't !"

Mom - (the kitchen) "Who was it ?"

Felicia - "Nothing !"

A sigh from the kitchen as she runs up the stairs, cooking noise pointedly resumed, a sigh from the other side of the door.  The sound of dragging steps, a door slides shut, a sullen engine putters off.

like night chasing the day ...

At night she sits up in bed staring at the bag sitting on a stool across the room while her parent argue through the wall about the origins of spaghetti ...

and then sunday comes after saturday

Felicia, extremely tired hunches madly over her Game-Brick, the sound of a heavy engine outside crushing pavement, the door bell rings ...

... wide eyes ...

Mom - (from the kitchen) "Well !?"

...

She opens the door ...

Mariposa - A tank parked behind her, peering up at Hector.  "um ... have you seen my friends ?"

...

Felicia - "Nope !"  Slams the door.

... 

Mariposa - Through the door while Felicia locks it and leans against it terrified, "oh."  A sigh and the sound of shuffled sad steps, a tank engine, crushed pavement, gone.

Mom - "Well !?  Who was it !?"

Felicia - "Uh uh !"  She runs upstairs.

...

Mom slams the knife into the cutting board.

Mom - "Now.  Exactly What the FUCK. Do you even THINK you know about Spaghetti !?"

Dad - "I'm ... thinking the accurate history of it ?"

...

Mom - Grabs the knife and points it, "This will be continued."  

She resumes slivering the garlic.

Dad - Rolls his eyes and turns for the TV, "Nooo doubt."

The death glare ...

Upstairs Felicia stares at the bowling ball bag into the night ...

~ two

Felicia - Running down an empty street in the diving bell carrying an upside down cop car, cops inside shooting pointlessly.  "You there ... ?  I need to know what the fuck is going on."

Gijo - Soda slurp sound, "Here.  No idea.  We're good, comm's disabled, just please don't hurt them.  Which brings us to what the hell are we going to do with them."

Felicia - "No idea.  Things happened.  But that's not what I mean."

Gijo - "Yeah that ..."  Clears throat.  "No idea.  I'm just the gunner with the world's largest swing piece but apparently that doesn't rate being told things.  But the talk is that the universes are colliding yayyyy ..."

Felicia - "What do we do ?"

...

Gijo - Breaks out laughing, "First let's figure out what to do with these fucking guys ! ...  And then we find out.  Okay ?"

Felicia - "Okay.  Um ..."

(laughter from inside the suit while the it carries the car over a hill from sight, cops still shooting and screaming into the useless radio)

________

Aedera looks up with Mishil at the sky formation, the smaller ships refueling and being repaired before separating here and there, others appearing to solidify their structure for a settlement.

Aedera - "You come from that other world.  It's complicated.  But it's also very simple.  When Sanctuary was stolen, your world grew in the vacuum of its absence.  And now that it returns, the secrets hidden in your land return home."

...

Mishil - "Home ... I've never known it.  There's a lot of words people throw around I've never known ... but ... okay.  This will do."

Aedera - "For lack of option I'm afraid."

...

Mishil - "Do you drink ?"

Aedera - "On occasion."
________

The bell suit hangs lopsided with one arm stretched to a struggling police helicopter, the other to a heavy freeway railing pipe.

Gijo - "What I do know is that the solar system is passing through a dark matter cloud."  (true)  "And it's going to be for a very long time !"

Felicia - "How long."

Gijo - "Like a thousand years long, it looks like.  What we can track of the expanse says two hundred definite, but it's like it's own kind of storm.  Arms pretty much like a extra-dimensional hurricane."

Felicia - "Or a solar system."

Gijo - "Exactly.  And I also heard some soldier chatter from the Dirge ... it's a warship."

Felicia - "Warship.  Got it."

Gijo - "Yah.  It flies.  Anyway I hear them babbling in their armors about everything us being made of dark matter and or energy.  Something their captain believes ... though frankly no one's ever considered him all that scientific before."

__

The grinning captain is handed an honorary doctorate (star on the teeth) from the school's college by Ms Aedera, the soldiers cheer, many blinding photos are taken.

__

Gijo - "But apparently there might be something to that.  On my end, it's all just gravitational corrections, running the fields and comm.  So I only know what I know and I know it's a lot more than I know.  I'll see if I can get a sec with the pilot."

Felicia - "Pilot ?"

Gijo - "The one flying the planet through the slip stream.  Which I understand to be very stressful so she's not always in so good a mood.  Which is to say she can be a complete and regular bitch."

('Mass Appeal' by Gang Starr)

Gijo's cannon contacts inwardly from the inside of the sphere to out, locking vertically from the grid-work shielding surrounding the world as it passes though the slipstream.  It's own global overlay turns until it settles over the main sphere's cockpit structure at the fore, the Earth turning behind.  

The structure is simple, worked into the grid nearly web-like and random, tendrils passing here and there in sparks.  The core is simple silver, appearing much like a greater seed ship.  

A steady beam guides the Earth's path from the cockpit's own cannon, a greater mass generated ahead, dragging the rest through spacetime.

~ The cannon seals over the cockpit.

Gijo climbs down a ladder into a dark room, glitch standing at the center near a dark slab chair, pouring electricity from both hands building mechanisms all around as others burn out in sparks.

She screams turning, replacing more, as they begin to self modify and absorb the older components.  Still ignoring Gijo she throws the whip-like lighting downs it extinguishes across the floor.

She turns for the chair and throws herself into is while glitch watches uncomfortably ... the lightning in the floor fades at her feet after a step back ...

Glitch her fist on the chair's armrest, six nearly Qabalistic appearing pillars, spin up from the floor slowly before charging and setting.  The fore cannon ceases.

A sigh ...

The chair spins facing.

Glitch - "Okay now What !?"

Gijo - "Um.  I was ... ust w ..."

Glitch - "Why the hell aren't you at your post !?"

...

Gijo - "It's like right there."

Glitch - "And What the fuck if something Happens !?"

Gijo - "I can be there in three seconds."

Glitch - "Anything can happen right now !  Anything can get Through !  This is THE MOST PRECARIOUS TIME !!!"

...

Gijo - "Three seconds ... um I just ..."

Glitch - "Bullshit."

...

Gijo - "No I really ... can ..."

Glitch - "Up that ladder ?  No way in hell.  You're too weak."

Gijo - "Oh fuck you missy.  Let's just count that attitude out loud."

She runs off "One alligator ... Two alligator ... Three ... all ... i ... ga ...tor ..."

Gijo - "! I'm in my chair !"

Glitch slams her fist on the other armrest, the cannon hard decompresses sent spinning to the other side of the sphere. 

...

Gijo - Voiced over, "So I didn't get anything."

...

Felicia - "But you do know something."

...

Gijo - "Um."

('You Only Live Twice' cover by Pain Teens)

As Diver Deep falls endlessly from the skyline's highest peaks in the night, belly flopping the world ...

Felicia - Inside the suit, "Alright you two.  You need to meet, you two holding out trusted adult figures.  Let's have it.  Grandma Great !  Meet Gijo bo-Letzir."  

~ split screen on ~

Maiden - "Oh ! hello !"

Gijo - "Hi !"

Maiden - "Ohhh ... she talked."  Clears her throat.  "All of it.  I'm sure.  All true."

Gijo - "Talk ?  What's a talk.  I'll never talk."

Felicia - "What could you possibly know about it anyway, gunner."

Gijo - "Aaaa ... not a damn thing !  All that maiden shit's got nothing to do with me and that Middleton experiment is one freak show I do not need to ... ! FUCK !"

Felicia - "Busted !"

Maiden - "Hehe ...

Felicia - "Don't get me started !"

They look away from each other on the screens, arms crossed.

... the suit falls ...

Felicia - "What's so experimental about Middleton ?  I've never ever even been off island !  And I don't think that's a good comparison either," 

... the suit falls past the skyscraper lights, their bases getting broader toward the ground ...

Gijo - "Your turn."

Maiden - "It's a crossroads."

Gijo - "Something new."

Felicia - Crossroads between what and what ?! ...  Oh shit hang on."

The suit belly-flops a cop car through the ground, gone, the crater consuming those surrounding.  The protest cheers and carries on around it.

Felicia - Echoing from the crater, "Okay now Talk."

 

 ... leading into the inevitable Monday of Doom ...

 ~ the bell ~

 

 

Passing the teacher's lounge where Teacher and Bus Driver arm wrestle.

 

Teacher - "Teacher ... !"

 

Bus Driver - "Bus ! ... Driver ..."

 

Teacher - "TEACHER ... !!!"

 

Bus Driver - "BuuuUSSS ... DRIVER !!!"

 

They struggle, but neither hand budges, the table crashes, the door slams shut.  Felicia walks with Romeo and Ambrose past a sports looking guy excitedly telling a story about a his professor's rocket-ship and planet sized monsters,

 

Felicia - "Who's that ?"

Romeo - "Don't know him.  Plays 'American' football.  So ... don't know him."

Ambrose - "He's the quarterback, and the sole reason the team's come back."

Felicia - "You care !?"

Ambrose - "Oh yes.  All my people enjoy watching your kind run at each other angrily."

Felicia - "That's ... disturbingly huge ... but why football ?  Isn't there some kind of ... stupid ... special ..."

Romeo and Ambrose - Suspiciously fast, "No."

Romeo - "But I would like to know why it's American football and not Real football."

Ambrose - "Oh please it's the same game."

Felicia and Romeo - Immediate, "The Hell it is !"

Ambrose - "Humans running at each other over a ball.  Same game.  That's why it has the same name.  It's how it translates, to us, and the rest is provincial.  And his name is 'Flash'."

~ credits ~

('Eagle Force' by DJ Lord and Kool Kieth)

Interlude

Caldera already occurred

Behind the Decibel, Caldera follows with a shriek, in the cockpit at the nav station with Shaw ~

Timepiece - "I have to tell you, there is no going back.  Once you've left a timeline behind, it's gone.  Differentiation.  Anything done in the past will differentiate the future leaving going back, the only possible outcome."

He looks around, at the hold where amid the tiny spider drones Zelda practices trying to pick up Carson's sword enough to swing, Carson watching over.

Selene in the furthest corner at the hold's apex where the motorcycle powers the drive, Auto at the wheel, then back to his station.  Auto looks over to him.  

Shaw - "I know.  At least that was always my theory, amid the many propositions about 'going back'.  We used the arcs of spin, a planet on a solar system moving through a galaxy, that galaxy moving as well until relatively reaching near light speed for short hops here and there, across the stars ... 

"So yes, 'time travel' did come up in out philosophies.  They debated.  It made sense.  No going back."

Timepiece - "I am sorry.  I wish ... "

Shaw - "That you could go back.  I know."  A hand on hers with a smile, but I know a place we can go."  Eyes back to the station and hands at work.  "These are good numbers robot."

Auto - "Thank you D'Wa-Kil."

Shaw - Smiles, "Hm ... there is an inevitable dimension set in physics which by nature will be equidistant, from all things."  A laugh, "Pretty much just because it's an obvious calculation.  So we're not the first to understand that."

Timepiece - "Equidistant, from all things.  By its nature.  So that means ... "

Shaw - "From this storm as well."  Tapping the buttons ... the sword clunks to the ground again.

Carson - "Yesss ... "  He looks to Selene.  "Child of honorable death, play with the knives ... "

...

Selene - "I was going to run away.  I was planning it."  A sad laugh.  "And then I did !"

Carson - "No.  No no no no.  They told you to go.  To live and feast another day I was there.  You were walking."

Shaw - "It's only running away ... when you've got no destination."  Last taps, "There we go.  Sanctuary."

They port out over the massive tree growing on an asteroid, waterfalls flowing over into mist and away to time, tendrils though all as their matter becomes among the equidistant.  

This appears to be of Kaki Tales, magistrates home distant in the roots of the tree, but their approach only seems to push it away.

Shaw - "Technically we've fooled physics into thinking we, are all points, in a removed universe.  This is the height of your drive's potential.  Finding this."

On his readout it shows the shields extending in a bubble around the island.

Shaw - "As we shrink this field, it will draw it, closer to us.  This is how you land here, their own standard procedure."

Timepiece - "You've been here before."

Shaw - "Yes."

She waits for more answer as he sets the shields and gets up from the station to join the rest, where Zelda and Selene both pick up the sword and run at Carson, striking the shielding mechanisms while he twitches playing dead.

~ Caldera ~

As they approach the ship responds to entering the island's field, now within its singular point.  They circle for landing in what would appear to be somewhere between the time of Kaki and Ishi Tales.

A founded land but not a developed one.  The people gather from their homes in the unpaved streets to see the ship's survey until a lop of empty field clumped in stone from a tree's branch catches the eye, the Magistrate below waiting.

Not a place of such technologies, but clearly accustomed to it.

Temples spread, in compare with traditional Sanctuary the symbols and structure are all there, but different.  The platforms of the great tree are more developed here, having begun with the tearing of the land, but still the bearing of a land born in gunpowder.

All are very well armed, but only when greeting newcomers.  Not many come and you can see the curiosity across their eyes.  Demons caught in the woods look to the ship, this a new thing to some while to others a yawn as the succubus pulls the incubus' attention back.

The landing before the Magistrate, a short bow as they exit.

Magistrate - "Greetings wise travelers who could find such a place, I ... "  As Shaw exits.  "Ah.  Hello Shaw, what is it this time ?  Come to steal my book again ?"

They all and crew look at him ...

Shaw - "Well actually.  Yeah."
________________

Asherah and the Magistrate break out laughing at the head of the table.

Asherah - "The sheriff ?  Of a marketplace ?  Oh Mr Shaw I do love your lack of boundaries."

Magistrate - "Indeed, as fine as your last ploy."  He turns to Timepiece, "He came here as a book collector, bidding everything you can imagine for this book in my collection.  Claiming it was on another's behalf."

Asherah - "Offered us worlds.  Entire planets for our people."

Magistrate - "And every color of gem, seen or un.  Had to fish him out of the library."  Leans toward Shaw,  "He seemed to have gotten lost.  Now who was that bidder again ?"

Shaw - ... "Kro ... "

Magistrate - "It was Kronus.  Destroyer of worlds."

Asherah - "Had none left to offer us at all."

Shaw - "Well forgive me if I though my life was worth more than a book."

Magistrate - "Forgiven."

...

Zelda - "Wow.  That was a lot.  This is really good food."  Looks around, "Good food yah ?"

Carson looks at her gumming salad leaves out of his mouth like a cry for help.

Magistrate - "And then when he failed, he set the bidder up to be murdered by his own son, to save himself."

Shaw - "Well.  Forgive me for thinking my like was more important than that guy that you hate.  Who was going to kill me.  For not stealing your precious book."

Asherah - "Actually that one was pretty clever.  Framed it like a revolution."

Magistrate - "Hmmm ... so why do you want it now, 'sheriff' ?"

~ two

~ as Selene wanders the gardens ~

Doe - "Hey.  You know I invented the wheel ?"

Selene - "What ?"

Doe - "It's true.  They say it happened a lot of places at once, but I was really the first."

Selene - "Like ... really really ?  This is a land of gods ... is there ... like a god for that ?"

Doe - "Nah.  Just a really good idea."  Smiles, "I've got four of them now, wanna go for a ride ?  Just in time for the rally."

Selene - A laugh in wide eyes and a bit of confusion before a smile, "Okay."

They enter the workshop and it's brass tubed hotrod of a steam powered thing, he hands her the goggles with a smile.  Lights the fuse and a pipe to wait, the engine fires and the steam begins to pour.

The car tears off, and through the paths of the land, use your imagination.  It's all there until an open field, with many other likewise vehicles converging toward a distant train from every part of the woods.

Onboard the train, the passengers grimly load their old rifles in anticipation, song volume lowers (2:50).

Doe - "It's a train that passes through out world between two others without letting anyone else get on."  Looks to her with a smile, "Which we find rude."

Selene - Smiles ahead, "Train."

Doe smiles ahead with, "Train." 

Volume up, he accelerates hard to join the pack as the train's passengers open fire.  Heavier rollers fire their grappling hooks and tree beams to start pulling individual cars from the line and track.

Doe - Lines up the car to one less gunned and more scarred, grins over at the top goes down (he invented the convertible), "And also, they're rich.  Do me a favor and take the wheel a sec, I'll be right back."

Selene - "What !?"

He ejects and lands on the roof while she struggles over to his seat and looks over the crazy steam pressure controls and grips the wheel.  Looks up to the windows and there he is, gun drawn holding up some frightened Victorians ...

She looks ahead and maintains control amid the chaos, swerving around another car flipped by its own grapple into a wreck.  Doe jumps to the other seat with filled bags.

Doe - Pops the secondary controls on his side, "And now we're rich too."  Takes control, "You're good.  Now let's get the fuck out of here and eat some cake."

They pull away from the rest just as a car is toppled from the track, taking all those behind it, converged upon.
________

Magistrate - "We are aware of the universes collapsing through time, it's very hard to miss.  And without it we will cease to have meaning."

A look to Asherah, she nods back.

Magistrate - "What have you got to trade ?"

Selene - Walking in with Doe, clothes disheveled and hair a sideways mess, "One seat on the ship.  For him."  Clears her throat and looks away, "We're in love now."

Magistrate - Staring in recognition, "It's you."

Selene - A bit confused, then forcing to confidence.  "Yes.  It's me."  Faux aloof, "I require him."

...

Asherah - "It must be them and they need to be.  They'll need it."  A hand to his, "It was never ours, just borrowed time so brief, but I have adored it."

Magistrate - A long look into her confident eyes, and smile of assurance.  "I was so fortunate to know you.  To have lived these many lives beyond my age."  Into the kiss, "So until we are another way."

Still kissing her, he slides the book suddenly across to Doe.  The world shakes as he puts a hand down to stop its skid reflexively.

He looks at Selene confused ... she looks back playing confident but eyes telling him she's got no fucking clue.

Doe - "Um."  Then boldly, "Thank you.  I ... will read this book."

Asherah - Smiles away from the magistrate's lips, "It's for naming things."

He picks it up to another quake of the world, the residents now aging away, the Magistrate and Asherah walk out with, the sky now filling with the aberration.  Deep within it, Caldera smiles.

...

Magistrate - "Our world was always just a tale, you will be the universe now." 

Asherah - Looks to Selene knowing, "We will give you what advantage we can.  Survive."
____

As the board the Decibel and prepare.

Magistrate - A look after Doe, a laugh to Asherah.  "The machinery lad."  A smile back and they look to the sky.  Already visibly aging, he draws the sword.

Asherah begins growing as vines around him, then into a tree as they become one, growing massive in his image, his sword tall as a redwood.  

 

The spider does a strange jutting side to side dance behind Caldera waiting, the cut on her face from Charon freshly bleeding.

 

Hard thrust through the middle of the cloud, it eats away at them, but constantly regrowing to fill in.  Swing after swing hacking through to Caldera, who waves it off with her wand streaming their destruction.

The ship launches once again to flee, Caldera watches with a smile then returns attention the this massive thing attacking.  It pushes harder and harder through, sapping the land and burning away its form until only the Magistrates final strike in life, halving her wand.

And then they're as the ship jumps away.

The Decibel explodes again into the slipstream, the ever encroaching storm behind, to credits on black.

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