The Dancing Lily

[_______________Danyx]

A vid-report plays on a holo-net monitor in an empty room. The owner of said monitor hums happily away in the shower, oblivious to the small news report.

"MISSING PERSON: Sunny Botos/"Jax" Craddock

Omni Corp reports the dissappearance of one of their employees, "Jax" Craddock.

Some may remember hearing of her last year, the report on the woman who's parents had crashed in unfriendly territory many years prior, leaving a toddler orphaned. The toddler was found by a clan 'bot and was raised by clanners as Sunny Botos, as the malfunctioning 'bot had found her under a dirt encrusted sign reading what it thought was Botos, sun, when in reality it was an old sign that advertized under the grime, "Go to sunny...".

Her case came to the public eye last year when she left the clans and joined Omni. Finding she was an orphan with no true identity, Omni doctors were able to find a genetic match between her and the missing couple, Omni employees, Robert and Liusadh Craddock, assumed dead.

Word now comes that this Omni agent, known as "Jax" Craddock, has gone missing and even Omni investigators are stumped

More news on this at the 22:00"

[_______________Danyx]

Investigators comb the apartment from front to back and front again. It didn't take very long, such a small apartment. Neat, clean, no signs of a struggle, and yet...

The table has a plate of half-eaten food. A fork laden with some vegetable sits askew beside the plate, as if it had been dropped before reaching the diner's mouth. A goblet of wine sits near, mostly drained of its contents, lipstick on the rim.

Credit chits sits on the vid table. An expensive ring sits on the back of the sink. No sign of burglary.

No sign of anything but an abrupt departure.

Clothes hang neatly from hangers, portraits hang from walls silently looking on...and dust settles.

[_______________Danyx]

Dust....it finds its way everywhere on this planet. No air filters can clear it all, no security field can conquer it, and yet, its irritation almost soothes her.

She remembers the clans, her childhood. Officially she was a ward along with at least a dozen others to a woman who couldn't remember most of their names in her constant drunken stupor. Unofficially, they were all street rats. A malfunctioning 'bot had rescued her against all odds, and brought a toddler from the wilderness to the city of storms, to Athens. Such odd things happened to her. One leading into another, a series of luck and coincidences adding up to a storm inside, much like the one building over the horizon. Athens was out there, across the horizon, across the years and across her past.

She turns from the horizon and returns to her shelter. The entrance to a collapsed, abandoned mine does nicely for a cave. A small fire burns in the pit she dug near a wall, where the tunnel collapsed and sealed away its secrets. The fire's smoke trails away into a crack of that sealed tunnel wall. "Not completely collapsed, eh?" she says smiling to herself. Good of the old mine to take away her fire's smoke and protect her presence.

She lays on her cot, listening as the crackle of the fire is slowly hidden by the sound of the storm now raging outside, and by the sound of the storm, she falls asleep, and dreams...

[_______________Danyx]

She walks through a dust-storm from Athens to Rome. A series of events pass before her. There is nothing for her with the clans. Dirt, grime, unrest. Always unrest. They call this planet their home, that they too, should reap the precious lode that turns the eyes of the galaxy to this red planet. It is their home, they have a right. It was their forefathers and grandfathers, generations before them that signed those employee contracts to come to this planet. It was not the children that agreed to work under the yoke. They were not born employees, they were born free inhabitants of Rubi-ka. It's about rights. It's about freedom. It's about their fair share. And still, the greed and corruption is there, despite the way they point their fingers to Omni and accuse of the same. Oh, there are good people there, people who really believe in their cause, they fight for freedom, but it's a cause that brings only more war, only more death. She looks back one more time, over a red, warring land and above it, godlike puppeteers hover over the people pulling strings of emotion. They manipulate terrorists in the name of freedom. She does not fear those puppeteers, they anger her.

Rome, she is wrapped in a cocoon of peace. Clean streets, opportunity, hope. Parents she does not remember come from here. It must be right for her, shouldn't it be? She sees her new friends, laughing, happy, all believing in their cause as strongly as her child-mates in Athens. Her friends fight against terrorists. They fight for peace. Does not Omni own the lease to this planet? If they do not want to bear the yoke of the corporation, why do they not leave Rubi-Ka? If they do not want to live with Omni's rules, why do they insist on living on Omni's planet? It is more complicated than this. Before her above a great, strong city, looms more puppeteers. There are good people here, who want to do right by all the people of Rubi-Ka, but those who pull the strings, tug at greed and selfishness.

She stops at a crossroad. Both roads lead to good people, people who beleive. Both have reason and justification. But above them both are manipulators that lead the people like toys, action figures dancing to the puppeteers own music, to their own ends.

She is in her apartment. It has taken time to siphon off the funds from her own accounts so that she could travel the road less traveled. Great care was taken in finding a scientist in Jobe that would take her agent nano-programs to another level. It is time. She drops her fork. She decides to take one thing with her besides the clothes on her back. There on the table before her is an an ornate, carved jade box projecting a holo of a golden lily, a strange variety. Genetic manipulation gave it "y" and "x" chromesones, and the ability to move, to sway on its own without a breeze to guide its dance. One day she will own a real one, but for now, she is content to take her one possession with her, a holo of that dancing lily or dan'lily, the official name of its variety, danyx lilium.

Standing, she deactivates the jade holo-cube and puts it in her pocket. She is patting that pocket as she leaves, and she is still patting that pocket when she awakens from her dream, in a cave, lost in a howling storm.

[_______________Danyx]

She awakens to the sensation of horrid itching. The nanos have been busy while she slept, remolding her face, her fingerprints, her genetic print. Long gone are the days of barbaric surgery with intrusive incisions, but even still, it takes time for the nanos to do their work, to make the transformation complete and not just an illusion.

She had noticed the first thing to change was the mole on her face. Well, some were kind and called it a beauty mark, but to her, it was a mole on her right cheek, brown as her eyes had been. She looked into the metal travel mirror she kept always at hand since the nanos had been implanted. Now green eyes looked back at her, almond shaped eyes, not round. Her mouth was fuller today too, she noticed. It wouldn't be long before she could get on with her life, but what then? A test was in order. Yes, a test. She would do it today.

[_______________Danyx]

Funny, meeting the soldier in her own backyard, well former backyard. His working codename was EternalForce. He didn't recognize her, didn't even blink when she used her new name. He'd asked if she wanted to interview for InternOps after she had said she was an agent. They had just lost one recently, in fact, this was the backyard her apartment shared with several other tenants. She smiled politely, joined him in the training grounds with a 'Crat named Ammicus.

Two days she worked with the men, talking to them, letting her new genetic dna sluff here and there to see if any sniffers caught on. After two days, she deemed she was safe, and disappeared again to begin her new life.

Omni and the clans danced in a conflict that had played on throughout history, conquerer to conquered, kingdoms to empires, forces rising and falling time and time again, and doomed to repeat the dance to eternity. Now there was something bigger on the horizon.

Jobe scientists had pulled a curtain back from a bigger stage. Would she find in that other dimension more beings like the humanoids here, caught in a parallel, never-ending conflict, or had they found the door to the backstage, to finally come face to face with the puppeteers?

[_______________Danyx]

She stood in line with the others who had signed the contract, waiting for their turn to meet Drake Rodriguez. This would be the hardest part of starting over, actually starting over from scratch, pretending to learn new skills that were second nature to her, pretending to struggle.

She flipped her golden hair and rolled her eyes. Okay, so one thing had stayed the same, her vanity, her pride. She almost burst out laughing at the little pop-gun they gave her. And the armor...they call this armor? Maybe for wrestling leets!

She had come to Jobe with all the other hopefuls, for whatever private reasons they had. She had to begin the course and finish the test with the others. When it was her turn, Mr Rodriguez asked for her name. She squeezed the jade holo-cube in her pocket and said, "Jayde, Danyx Jayde."

"Alright Danyx, are you ready to take some tests? Here, put this bracer on."