OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO oOOOO OOOO. OOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" .OOOOOO OOOOOo OOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOO oOOOOOOO OOOOOOO. OOOO oOOOO OOOO .OOOO OOOO OOOOOOOOo OOOO OOOO" OOOO oOOOO OOOO OOOO "OOOO. OOOO OOOOo .OOOO' OOOO .OOOO" OOOO OOOO OOOOoOOOO "OOOO. oOOOO OOOO oOOOOOOO..OOOO OOOO "OOOOOOO OOOOoOOOO" OOOO .OOOO"""OOOOOOOO OOOO OOOOOO "OOOOOOO' OOOO oOOOO ""OOOO OOOO "OOOO OOOOOO |---------------------------------------------------------------------------| | | | There Ain't No Justice | | | | #97 | | | |---------------------------------------------------------------------------| - Dark White - - 03: Discovery - by IronHorse Stark paced about his apartment trying to find the rationale behind his last act. The little girl had done nothing to deserve the reward he bestowed upon her, yet he brutally snuffed out her life just the same. I've got to find my _focus_, Ka, he growled at himself. Killing those who opposed him, even in the slightest, was justifiable, but now deriving pleasure from the mindless slaughter of innocents? I must be going crazy. --+=*=+-- "What's wrong with you?" Joey Russo and the translucent apparition known as Great White, also as Warren Zeeber, "sat" in the living room of the home of the deceased Jennifer Sanders. "I'm dying," replied Zeeber. "No. You can't." "But I can..." Russo began to cry, barely even knowing this "man", he was already attached to him in a way which is only common of young children and lovers of myth. "But... but... I thought you were immortal." "Be calm, Joey... I am un-dying, but I'm not quite immortal." "Huh?" "My body, more aptly maybe, my _soul_, can live in an innumerable amount of hosts, but the host can, and does die." "But you're without a host now." "Yes, and I am nearing the end of the time that I can survive without one." "Then why don't you just go get a new host?" "I can't." A sudden glimpse of brilliance flashed upon Russo, and he surprisingly understood. "You mean you won't." "How do you mean?" "Ms. Sanders." "Yes. She was very, very, dear to me. And she gave up her life for another." "And so you won't take the life of someone else just so you can live..." "You're one smart kid, Joey. But there's more to it than that. So much more..." --+=*=+-- Eddie rose from underneath Lisa, in the gingerly manner he moved to not wake her you wouldn't think he was the abusive boyfriend that he is, but one look at the make-up that now so poorly cloaks the bruises upon her face and you would be sure. This man was a creep. His purpose for not waking her was of no concern of her either, more of subterfuge, so that he could get into her purse and steal the money he would need to further his quest. Sniper equipment was quite expensive. Just as he put back her wallet and turned around, Lisa stirred. "Hi," she cooed. "I'm going out," he said flatly, and turned out the door. --+=*=+-- "See, before, when I took over someone's body, I was able to take them over within minutes of them _already_ being dead. One time, I actually got to a host just over an hour after he died and it was still okay." "But now, after my encounter with Projector, a super- villain that manipulated the Astral Plane, things are different... combined with my natural limits on host worlds, I think things are really bad." "Whadda ya mean?" "Well, for one thing, I can no longer possess someone who has died. I _must_ have a living form. I tried dead people, yes, even one who died right in front of me, but nothing happened." "Then how do you know they need to be alive?" "Because I already tried someone who was alive." After a pause which Joey knowingly did not interrupt, he continued. "It was horrible. The man I took over didn't just die, he was erased." "Erased?" "Yes, erased. Completely gone. His thoughts, his mind, his soul. All gone." "But... he, like, went to heaven, didn't he?" Another pause. "I don't think so..." --+=*=+-- Stark sat looking blindly at his television, absorbed in his own thoughts for the past hour - thought that would turn blood cold. The little girl, her beautiful face showing little through the mask of blood and broken bones that was his doing. The man, lying on the street, insides burning from his own stomach acids, all the while tearing his own mid- section apart with his own hands trying to stop the pain. The woman. Fighting first, then submitting in fear and fatigue as he raped her, then her after sex glare, ( he could tell despite her own desires she had an orgasm, and he realized she must like it rough ), shattering like plate glass as he pulled out his knife and killed her. And many ghosts before, his first two kills. They should have never opposed him. He had no choice... really he didn't... they were asking for it... all of them... He roused as a political commercial came on the television and in minutes he had his focus. He found his Ka. --+=*=+-- "My race are travelers, we normally spend no more than one hundred and fifty years on any one world," spoke the apparition Great White. "In fact, the longest amount of time we _can_ possibly spend on any one world is just over two hundred. But humans are weak." "How's that?" asked the enthralled Russo. "Your race doesn't live as long as others, therefore, neither do I when I inhabit your kind." "Why don't you just inhabit someone from another planet and then come here?" "I can't. For me to travel though space I must shed my 'host', and I don't know how to fly a space craft, nor have I ever needed one." "So, why don't you just pick up and leave?" "Because, there's a little more to it than that. I need host energy as a kind of booster, to launch me towards my next destination. Without one, I can barely fly." "Wow..." and Russo had a thought. "How much energy do you need?" "All of it," replied Zeeber, knowing where the boy was headed. "Oh." "Yes," said the lightform. --+=*=+-- "That's a beautiful scope you got there," said the salesman as Edward Lynch envisioned his target between the cross-hairs of the high power lens he was going to buy for just one purpose. "Yes, it is," he said, laying it upon the counter. "I'll take it." "Planning on taking down some big game with this baby, huh? That's $327.46" "Yes, actually." "I heard some guy down in Africa actually took down an elephant at three-hundred yards with this thing," continued the salesman as he handed Lynch his change. "But then, you don't look the elephant hunting type, am I right?" "Ya never know," Eddie replied and left the store. Watching Eddie cross the lot and pull away in his car the salesman noticed a bumper sticker on the driver's side trunk. It showed a cartoon elephant vacuuming up money and people with it's trunk, beneath it simply read: REPUBLICANS SUCK. --+=*=+-- In the land where Stark lived, there were no Republicans, no Democrats either, in fact, there wasn't much of an election any more seeing as most people never even bothered to go out and vote. Those too poor to bother minding trivial concerns as to who wrote the laws they broke to survive really didn't care who was supposedly running the country, and the other thirty percent of the population was so rich, they may as well have been above the law. So eventually the bigger party just swallowed up all the smaller parties by simply buying them out or, more likely, buying the voters ( those that were real anyway ), and drowning them out by a lack of support. The incumbent, Victor Waterford, had been the incumbent for the past seventeen years. Few people bothered to notice he was also the richest man on the planet. Before _and_ after the fact. All that was about to change. Victor Waterford sat in his office in the capitol building, doing what most high level government officials did in this world, evaluating the vast amounts of his money, and deriving ways about getting more. The intercom buzzed. "Yes?" "Line one, Mr. President, it's a man who says he must speak with you. I don't know how he got the private number..." "That's okay," the President said, cutting off the secretary, "If he made it this far, he must be one of the generals." Or the leader of a drug cartel planning on wiring me the little known 'government ignorance' tax, he thought. "Put him through." "Victor," the voice on the other end said enthusiastically. "Who is this? Don't you know who you're speaking to? I'm the President god damn it!" Waterford hated it when these slimy drug dealers thought they could treat him as an equal when he knew he was more than any of them combined. "Calm, calm, Victor, we wouldn't want me to get excited now, would we?" "Who is this and how did you get this number?" "Does Julia ring a bell?" "My wife?" "Your ex-wife." "What did you do to her!?" screamed the President, simultaneously pushing the button to summon his men. "Whoa, whoa, whoa big fella, don't get your panties all in a bunch just yet. We wouldn't want any more harm to come to Melissa, now would we?" "My daughter? What are you doing to my daughter!?!" "Well, lets just say she it won't be a white wedding anymore..." "You son of a bitch," screamed Victor as three men in dark suits rushed into his office. "And so sweet... only thirteen?" "Twelve!" "Twelve... my, my... You know, Victor, she's one hell of a fuck." TRACE THIS BASTARD, Waterford wrote quickly on a piece of paper. "You are an idiot, you know that, don't you?" "A little tight at first, but I broke her in..." "You'll never get away with this..." "Did you know she's a screamer? Real loud too." "You're insane." "You know what, Victor?" "What's that?" "I think she liked it." "You bastard." "I think she loved every minute of it." "I'm going to get you." "Maybe you will. Oops, sorry. Time's up. Tell your lab boys better luck next time." And the caller hung up. "Damn. Almost had him," said a man in front of a portable computer to the President. "I know. He knew. Just find him." The phone rang again. "Sir, it's Pendelton, he's at your house. Your family's gone." "What about the guards?" "Dead. All five of them. We don't know how he got past them all, but he musta been a big son of a bitch, he got Hamell." "Just find him." "Yes sir." --+=*=+-- Stark hung up the phone and looked over at the little twelve year old girl sitting tied up near the fire place. She was pretty, wasn't she? And it looked like she was one of those lucky early bloomers, certainly that wasn't padding inside her nightgown. He sat down in front of her. "Uh... you're not going to rape me, are you mister?" "No, Melissa, I'm not going to rape you... And if you're nice, I might not even kill you." Melissa Waterford was very afraid. Just hours ago, before the long car ride up here to the mountains, she saw what was left of five top level security guards after this man had gotten through with them. It looked as if they didn't stand a chance. At least two had their necks broken, and the big man, Hamell, he was on the floor making a weird gurgling noise she didn't understand, at least until she saw his tongue on the other side of the room. And she still didn't know what became of her mother, though she did fear she was dead. "But... if you kill me my dad won't give you what ever it is you're looking for." "But of course he will... You're just... insurance." --+=*=+-- "You know what you have to do?" said Russo, sitting straight up as an idea struck him. "What's that?" "Take over the body of someone who is going to die anyway... someone who won't miss their life." "But what about their afterlife?" "Hmm... I know. Take someone who doesn't deserve an afterlife. A death row guy." "That wouldn't be good. Then I'd be on death row." "True..." "But... if I found someone who did escape the system..." "Yeah... someone who should be in jail anyway..." "But I can't. I don't have the power in me to go anywhere further than Michigan." A pause. "Then we'll find someone evil in Michigan." Perhaps Joey's exuberance was rubbing off on him, perhaps he was finally getting over the fact that Jen was gone, whatever it was, something was finally kicking him into motion again... as long as it wasn't too late. "No, Joey, _I'll_ find someone evil in Michigan..." "But..." "No buts, it'll be faster this way... Then I'll come back and see you... I promise." "No fair." "Nothing's fair kid, nothing..." Great White made a feeble attempt at hugging the boy and then shot out through the window and up into the sky like a bolt of lightning. A very weak bolt of lightning. --+=*=+-- And a few hours later... "Let's go babe." "Where we going Eddie?" Lisa asked as he pushed her out the door with the half-packed bag he threw together for her. "Detroit." "Back to the states? For real? Great!" Lisa quickly got into the car and Eddie slammed shut the door. The states? Yes, he thought. Elephant hunting. .... to be continued. ú ùþ ú ú þù ú ÛÛÛÛÛÜÜÜÜþÜÜÜÜ ú ù ú ú ù ú ÜÜÜÜþÜÜÜÜÛÛÛÛÛ ±±±±ÛÛÛßÛ²ÝÛÝÛÛÝþ Üú úÜ þÝÛÛÝÛݲÛßÛÛÛ±±±± ±±±±²²²²²ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÜþúÝ ù ù ÝúþÜÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ²²²²²±±±± ±±²²²²ÛÛßßÛßÝÛÛÛÛÛÝÜúþ þúÜÝÛÛÛÛÛÝßÛßßÛÛ²²²²±± ²²²²²Ûß þúßÞþßþþÜùþ þùÜþþßþÞßúþ ßÛ²²²²² ²²²²Ûß ú ù ù ú ßÛ²²²² ²²²ÛÝ ÝÛ²²² ²²²ÛÜ Phoenix Modernz Systems: 908/830-TANJ ÜÛ²²² ±²²²ÛÝ Cyber/Chat: 908/506-0610 ÝÛ²²²± ±±²²²ÛÜÜÜ VapourWare BBS: 61/3-429-8510 ÜÜÜÛ²²²±± ±±±²²²²²²ÛÜ Yellow Submarine: 404/552-5336 ÜÛ²²²²²²±±± ÛÛ±±±±±±²²²Û Urban Discipline / VaS World HQ : 313/464-1470 Û²²²±±±±±±ÛÛ ÛÛ±±±±±±²²²Û RipCo ][: 312/528-5020 Û²²²±±±±±±ÛÛ ±±±²²²²²²ÛÜ ÜÛ²²²²²²±±± ±±²²²ÛÜÜÜ ÜÜÜÛ²²²±± ±²²²ÛÝ ÝÛ²²²± ²²²ÛÜ ÜÛ²²² ²²²ÛÝ ÕÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ͸ ÝÛ²²² ²²²²Ûß ú ù ³ TANJ Mailing Address ³ ù ú ßÛ²²²² ²²²²²Ûß þúßÞþßþþÜùþ ³ PO Box 174 ³ þùÜþþßþÞßúþ ßÛ²²²²² ±±²²²²ÛÛßßÛßÝÛÛÛÛÛÝÜúþ ³ Seaside Hts, NJ ³ þúÜÝÛÛÛÛÛÝßÛßßÛÛ²²²²±± ±±±±²²²²²ÛÛÛÛÛÛÛÜþúÝ ù ³ 08751 ³ ù ÝúþÜÛÛÛÛÛÛÛ²²²²²±±±± ±±±±ÛÛÛßÛ²ÝÛÝÛÛÝþ Üú ÔÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ; úÜ þÝÛÛÝÛݲÛßÛÛÛ±±±± ÛÛÛÛÛÜÜÜÜþÜÜÜÜ ú ù ú tanj@pms.metronj.org ú ù ú ÜÜÜÜþÜÜÜÜÛÛÛÛÛ