In a painful burst of light, the dream returned... or the memories.
That white room and the watchers had returned again...
The screaming of questions would start soon...
The embarrassing beginning moment in the new day would also be waiting...



"Where am I?!"

There in the mid-darkness of his room, scanning around for any sign of any other presence than his own, he released a long and slightly annoyed sigh into the room. Gabriel was fed up with this intrusion of his brain. He liked things to make sense, and he would point out 'who wouldn't?' to anyone who asked why it should make sense.
Reaching out for a cool glass of water he kept by his bedside he was reassured that the embarrassment he was expecting wasn't there. But there was a voice inside his head, or rather a proverb that kept bouncing around against his ears...
Never count your chickens before they’re...
This was interrupted.

"Wet the blankie again pup?"

Western had somehow said between his mighty grin, entering the room. Gabriel lifted himself to rest his back against the backboard, drawing a long flow of water between his lips. Replacing the glass down his eyes looked toward his friend.

"It's always that dream, and it makes me sweat for some reason... not wetting the blankets..."

"Sure lad... I'm sure that's what you used to tell your Mother too."

Gabriel grunted with nothing else to say. Western took that as a sign to start readying breakfast for everyone and so he left the room with Gabriel to get freshened up. Throwing his coverings away he kicked himself out of bed and headed toward the shower cubicle with a dry towel.



Two people entered the dining area.
Two people had to react before something untoward happened to them.
Thundering his fists into the table that had been laid and set before him a large atrox named 'OpticBig' sent the once neatly placed cutlery whistling toward the two people who had been called into breakfast by the aroma of cooking. Gabriel weaved his head in between three forks, the prongs embedding into the wall by the door as several plates followed. Tucking himself down and rolling toward the now slanted table he received chunks of crockery on his coat.
Master Miyashimo moved as a flash, catching a knife in one hand and a fork in the other then using the knife and fork to catch one of the plates that hurdled toward Gabriel before it contacted with the wall.

"Little Miss Strimple is a little aggitated that his breakfast had to wait until you two arrived..."
Nodded Western, laying the table up straight again, then returning back to the skillet.

"OpticBig not girlie... Opticbig man that smash Clannies” Strimple chuckled in his throat at a more than likely thought of a past moment.

Breakfast began and finished in near silence, save for a simple amount of pleasant chitchat.
As the table and floor where being cleared away, Master Miyashimo laid a palm across Gabriel’s shoulder.

"It is good to see you yet again young Gabriel, we were not sure if you would make it."

A brief moment of unsettlement moved across Gabriel’s gut. The feeling had shown upon Gabriel’s face as the Master had moved his head back slightly and a frown had drawn down the Masters eyebrows.

"Damon? Something is wrong... maybe Western's preparations were not so thorough?" Chuckling as the others cleared away, Miyashimo leaned forward to Gabriel to whisper.
"Maybe we should speak later young one, go help the others."

Gabriel nodded, leaving Miyashimo to settle down in the main room of their apartment level.



One shot was all it took.
Fatally passing through the target's head, the body that once belonged to Elisha Forjeit slammed into the behind wall and it slid to the floor. A boot pressed against the shoulder of the body and turned it to face the ceiling.

"Always leaving the last moment toward death to yourself…"

Gabriel slowly moved into the dull-lit room and looked upon the contracted assassination.
Western knelt down over the body and opened up its jacket finding a few hundred credits that he transferred into his own account and a small pistol.

"I was wanting to look into the chest. Traps take time to disable."

Western picked a ring from one of the body's fingers. This was the second contract of the day and had been the furthest from the city any of them had been. Out into the Lush Fields and toward a cave hideout where Mr. Forjeit had been attempting to create a weapon to destroy ones soul.
But then what was to stop them from doing it again. If such a weapon was used upon them to stop them from coming back to continue their work would make some logic. It seemed pointless. Unless of course the transference was traced so that Omni-tek would send the Guard to receive Forjeit into custody from the last point of his genetical saving. It must have worked that way as each time one such mission was taken; it was always a different target. And there were so many of these scientists around.

"Best part of these missions... the rights of the loot. Not only is the credit rating fair but these things can fetch us quite a nice juicy amount. Mal? You have to snap out of these random trances mate... got to keep your wits about you in mission. Although technically it's cleared now."

"Bear... " Gabriel began to start on a question but decided to leave it until he began to make it clearer for himself to describe it to anyone. "We heading on back now? I have some gear I need to let loose in the Trade sector."

"Sure thing Mal,” Western paused to clip his mission token onto his neck board.

As he turned to enter a room that should have lead them back toward the exit, one of the mutants Forjeit used with his tests leapt from the doorway knocking Western to the ground, his weapon already raised and firing. The mutant raked claws across Westerns chest armour finding flesh across his shoulder. Gabriel swung his rifle from his shoulder, took a careful aim at the creatures’ shoulder that linked the next arm to attack and released the bullet knocking the next attack into empty space. Fluid from the wounded shoulder sprayed across Western as he replaced the cartridge in his energy pistol and filled the mutants mouth with brilliant blue light.
Smouldering from its mouth and ear socket, it crawled slowly not even managing a distance and the life departed from it's body. Western lifted his arm to eye level and slammed a healing stimulant into it with his free arm.


Barry Gabriel lowered his body down to meet the surface of the table at eye level. Within the sixth dish something contracted in the middle of its mass. It quivered slightly and relaxed back into the plastic floor. Making a note on his screen once he returned to full height he arched his neck back until it clicked, moving his head from side to side to stretch his muscles. Turning around to his utility cabinet and reaching inside with one hand, his fingers found the nano-formula projector and aimed it toward the again flexing object. A collection of light filled the dish and then soaked into the dish’s content.
It flexed.
Then splintered the dish into fragments on its descent.
Within his mind he spoke out with an inner smile. The programmers were doing a fine job on the system. He closed the projector and released a spray onto the now free material that had broken out from its confine. Within a breath it had collapsed on itself and faded away.
This project was finally coming to a close, and there would be plenty of budget left for the continuation onto the project’s finalization stages. Refined notum; enriched into a protein serum, that would eventually become a resistant to any nano programme. It had already been tested though. Barry Gabriel had only to make the experiment legit through company law. Out in the land of Rubi-Ka, his project was already within a specimen dish of Company making, hidden from the eyes of those who would certainly see to it that no such advanced could occur.
There was a chime from Gabriel’s main door.



“Malachii, I’m regretful that you had to hear the latest…”

“…Master… I didn’t even know he was here… what was he doing here?” A rising tone of anger had started to mix in with a slight shock in Gabriel’s voice. Master Miyashimo looked hard into Gabriel’s eyes then nodded with a grunt.

“You will soon be over this, your Father’s arrest was a surprise to me. I will be finding out what I can young one. That is no excuse to not continue in your work here. Western is currently within the holo-world, I suggest you go join him right away. Blast away your frustrations.” Master Miyashimo left the room taking with him some data pads that he had earlier placed upon Gabriel’s bedside drawers. With a sudden heaviness set up on his thoughts, Gabriel followed in the Master’s request to allow Western’s dry wit and overpowered weaponry to settle the discomfort buried into the pit of his gut.