The Jackrabbit- The mind of Jay Ethelon was broken decades ago by the man who became Talon. As the delirium worsened, he has become a darker, deeper man than those days, with an undiscovered secret that has made him the victim of attempts on his life. There was a time when his friends were his everything, but times have changed. A year and a half has passed since Jackrabbit stepped away from the OWF, and now he is alone. A betrayer in their midst broke their little gang apart, and the Jackrabbit is forced to confront the demons of his mind with nobody at his side.

Vanilla- The girl who calls herself Vanilla has felt misunderstood her entire life. The Jackrabbit was the first person since her sister Cassie that Vanilla could finally feel comfortable with. But when her ex-boyfriend proposed to her, the Jackrabbit did something unthinkable. A dark secret has forced Vanilla to abandon those she loves, and everything she once knew is in doubt as she attempts to survive life on the streets.

Stevie Guile- For nine long years, Stevie put his personal life, and his own identity, aside to join the lunatic Jackrabbit on the road, protecting him from the endless organisations trying to enslave him. But when a traitor was revealed, Stevie was forced into hiding. An encounter with the omnipotent Hive-Mind has left Stevie reeling, and out of his depth in a war he only thought he understood. Forced out of his quiet office life by the enigmatic Zero People, Stevie is attempting to reassert control of his own life as it begins to untangle once again.

MIND BOMB

The rain had subsided at last, giving way to a milder climate � drier, for sure, but still cold with it. Vanilla felt the clinging, cloying damp in the air, and her clothes felt as though they would never be truly dry. Her dark RAWR hoody had become a shell of its former self, and her jeans encased her legs, the bottoms torn and dragging on the concrete as she walked. She had tried to stay under shelter as she travelled but store owners and home owners alike had shooed her from their properties. Six months ago, she had been offered kind words, sympathy. She had looked like a lost little girl back then. Now she looked like a street urchin, a homeless beggar, �probably a drug addict�. It was no wonder at all that nobody wanted her around them. When she was a teenager, dying her hair odd colors and wearing a nose ring to play at being the rebel, she had often thought she felt alone. Nobody could understand her, nobody felt or thought the way she did. An outcast, she had called herself. Vanilla gave a snort of contempt at her own former self. That Vanilla had had no idea what it meant to be alone. Almost a year on the streets had since taught her that truth of loneliness, and she deserved every moment of it. She had taken to talking to strangers, striking up pointless conversations with passers-by. People grabbing baskets outside superstores, people collecting cash at the ATM, queueing for tickets at the pick-up. Most made a face at her, turned away. Some collected their bags and made a hasty retreat. A rare few would listen to her ramblings, listen to her talking about her ballet-dancing sister, about some old wrestler from a bygone year, about a rabbit and an enigma and a cowboy. About the places she�d seen and the things she�d done. Nobody talked back, though. It was like she was talking to herself. The colonnade she was in had served her over the previous night. It was a wide opening of concrete, but ancient buildings skirted the perimeter and provided meagre shelter from the elements, though their open columns had left her vulnerable to a frightful draft of air. The sun had come up, to her relief, and early morning had brought a crowd out to the market stalls, the fresh fruit and vegetables lined up in trays, meats stacked in rows, flowers propped up in display pots. The market-sellers would have been up for a few hours now, setting up the stalls in the open area. �Probably still got more sleep than I did,� Vanilla thought aloud. She hadn�t slept properly in� in� she couldn�t recall. As the early birds began to arrive for their pick of the produce, the colonnade had filled up and Vanilla stirred from her restless slumber. She had lost her bearings on her location, though that had ceased to matter long ago, but she knew the direction she was heading in. She�d read clippings of newspapers and had seen the headlines. New Legends of Wrestling was back. It was a name she had heard a hundred times from the mouth of the Jackrabbit, spoken of with a joyful fondness. A happy time. She had no destination in mind, and heading towards the most recent NLW show seemed as good a destination as any. What she hoped to find there, though, she wasn�t really sure. �Two dollars fifty, full basket of apples. Three dollars fifty, box of strawberries. Nice crisp five-dollar bill gets you both!� Vanilla didn�t have a dollar to her name, let alone five. Her stomach growled at the thought of fresh apples or strawberries though, it had been a long time since she had eaten. Her stash burned a hole in her jeans pocket, that crumpled little bag that she had still failed to sell on. She moved closer to the counter on instinct alone, casting her eyes over the fruit. It was fresh, ripe, and the best of the batch was lying there on the top. The market-seller was distracted selling watermelons to a lady. She could smell the strawberries, could practically taste the apples on her tongue. Her stomach gave another involuntary rumble, and she tried to cast her mind back to the last time she�d tasted fruit. She couldn�t remember. Yet here they were, lying in the early morning sun; lying within arm�s reach. Just one apple, that would be enough for now. That would satiate the hunger for a time. An apple that meant so little to anyone else, but so much to her. Sustenance. She wanted it. No, she needed it. Vanilla reached her hand out. �You after an apple?� She recoiled, her hand snapping back to her side. The market-seller had caught her by surprise, and he loomed over her in a black apron like a dark tower. Vanilla turned on her heels to run, leaving the man behind. Leaving the fruit behind. �Hey, hold on now...� It was the market-seller, but the tone in his voice froze Vanilla still. He wasn�t yelling or shouting, he wasn�t enraged or scornful, there wasn�t that usual sound of disgust. Despite all her better judgments, that instinct telling her flee, flee... She turned around. The market-seller was still at his stall, and he had palmed the apple she had reached for. He reached back and threw the apple at her� no, to her. She caught it clumsily against her chest, and her eyes darted suspiciously back to the large man. What did he want? Was this some kind of trap? �You look hungry, little lady� he said, shrugging those broad shoulders. �Maybe that will help a little.� He was offering her the fruit? No trap? She didn�t understand. Her eyes not faltering from his big grinning face, she tried to formulate the words. Thank you she wanted to say, but she couldn�t. It caught in her throat. Instead she ran, clutching the apple tight to her chest as she did. She darted around the pillars in the colonnade, kept moving without looking back. Had she stolen from him? She didn�t understand. Her legs didn�t stop until the bustle of the market-stall was out of her sight. A small stream ran under the embankment, and she found a convenient ledge in the stream bank just down from a crossing. Collapsed against the dirt mound, she finally pulled the apple out from the flaps of her hoody. She allowed only a second to savor the glow of the ripe skin, before sinking her teeth into it and forcing the ripe flesh into her mouth. The waters pooled on her lips and streamed down her chin, but she continued hungrily, gorging the first food she had eaten in days. The sweet taste was bliss, the most divine thing she had ever eaten. She picked at the remnants with her teeth, until only the smallest center was left of the core. It lay ravaged in her palm, her withered stomach grumbling- but now with contentment at the offering she had enjoyed. The sweet fruit that had been given to her by another. Willingly, without begging or stealing. Why had he felt the need? What had she done to deserve his kindness? Without his intervention, she would have stolen the fruit from him, ran with it like a bandit, like a fox in the night. The market-seller had caught her in the act, he had known her intent. But he�d given the fruit and she had taken it. She had taken his mercy, his compassion� mercy she didn�t deserve, compassion she hadn�t earned. He had gifted her life, but he didn�t know what she had done. How could he? He couldn�t know that she betrayed everyone she loved, hurt everyone that had cared for her, the only true family she had ever known. Jed. Stevie. Jackrabbit. She had handed them all over to Tero Haber. She had been the traitor in the group, and she had cost Jackrabbit everything. She had fled, not because she could not bear to face them. She had fled because she could not bear to face herself. She was guilty of her crimes, and she needed to be punished for them. She didn�t deserve anyone�s mercy, anyone�s compassion. �I don�t deserve THIS!� she yelled, her voice cascading off the flowing stream. She launched the apple core, and it hit the water with a dull thud, disappearing under the surface. What had once been sweet warmth inside her, felt now like a poison. The acids were the scorn she heaped upon herself. She could see in her mind the benevolent smile of the market-seller, but it wasn�t his smile, it was Jay�s, it was the Jackrabbit�s. And it taunted her for what she had done. Like the apple inside her taunted her- the generosity she didn�t deserve, the kindness that she wasn�t worth. Vanilla pushed two fingers to the back of her throat without another thought. She had to have it out, could not contain the guilt any longer. The food came back up as quickly as it had gone down, her throat retching the bile up onto the mud under her feet, the chunks of barely digested vomit slapping to the ground. She coughed and heaved until there was no more to lose, and when finally it was gone, she dropped her head into her hands. She would not weep. She wasn�t allowed to weep. Her stomach growled. Another meal lost. * * * The moment I heard that NLW was back, I knew my old life was over. My days of being �Stevie Mills, Office Ace, Spreadsheet Superman� were finished. For two years I had tried to forget the word wrestling, forget the name Jackrabbit. But it was never going to stay that way. I should have known better. My office browsing history would be enough evidence that I�d never really put that stuff behind me. NLW was the inevitable catalyst that I knew was coming. I�d liked the quiet life, don�t get me wrong here. Two years without watching my ass, two years without hearing a single gunshot. I�d almost gotten used to using my birth name again. But it wasn�t to be. The Jackrabbit had gone off the grid shortly after OWF closed down. The Movement took over and forced him out, but honestly the timing couldn�t have been better for us. My�. shall we say, �unsettling� � encounter with the all-seeing all-knowing man-god called The Hive-Mind had given us the information we needed. Vanilla had sold us out. Tero Haber had used Vanilla�s intel to put us in a metaphorical box, and the end of �Rabbit�s run with OWF meant we could cut our ties and get back underground before it was too late. It wasn�t the same this time though. When NLW had closed its doors on us in 2008, we had stayed on the road and kept on running. My association with the Zero People gave us all the heads-up we needed. And �Rabbit and me� we were tight, we kept busy and we kept ourselves to ourselves. Easier said than done when your road buddy is a six-foot-tall man child. But we did it. This time though, it was different. Jackrabbit was different. Whatever had happened between him and Slayer in OWF, and then later between him and Talon � it broke him. It made him something he had never been before. He was� like he was possessed. Vanilla�s betrayal� well, he didn�t handle it well� And me? Well, with Vanilla gone, and �Rabbit gone, and all that shit The Hive-Mind put in my skull. It was time to call it. I left the Zero People. I hung up the suit and tie and traded it for� well, a different suit and tie. But you catch my drift. I felt like the revolution had passed me by. Stevie Guile became Stevie Mills once more, and I settled into the good life. There were no white picket fences, no dogs named Rover, but it was close enough. Safety. Tranquility. Not getting hunted by mad men or threatened by psychotic OWF wrestlers with daddy issues once a week. So thanks a fucking bunch, Jack Sullivan. NLW is the one thing that could have dragged the Jackrabbit out of his hole. Excuse the pun. NLW was the best thing in his life, the only good memories he had to hold on to. Where GWO was vengeance and violence, and ICWF was loneliness and solitude, and OWF was� well, god, I can�t even describe how dark that shit made him. But NLW was Jackrabbit�s white picket fence. Fusion dominated that company, and that�s just what everyone remembers. But �Rabbit used those good vibes that Fusion gave him, and he dominated the singles division in that place too. Don�t believe me? Just look up his record. He was getting the W over the World Champion on a semi regular basis, just never got the shot to make it count. So I knew he�d come back to NLW. We were too late to stop him, and that one�s on us. The Zero People fucked up. NLW made the fun-loving happy �Rabbit, and now it�s got this pissed-off chain-wielding maniac for its troubles. So it was with all this crap heavy on my mind that I�m walking back into one of the Zero People�s cell complexes for the first time in two years. It�s not exactly how I�d left it. You have to remember, when I left the Zero People in 2014 we were a small close-knit group of revolutionaries with a single, simple agenda. Maintain the balance of power. That �Zero� stands for neutrality, equilibrium. It stands for protection from those who would do harm to twist the shape of the world into their image. Essentially, we were a bunch of geeks. Keyboard warriors who felt � who knew � that our skills put us ahead of the curve and ahead of the people we were interfering with. A small group of us banding together to make a tiny difference. A lot of people didn�t understand that- my father least of all. �Using computers to make a difference�- he basically disowned for me that little bombshell. �Sa�prised, boy?� says a voice beside me. Surprised? Yeah, that�s a fucking understatement. Forget a �small group banding together�, there�s people everywhere. Computers crammed into spaces. Hell, computers crammed into computers. Three keyboard warriors to each desk. At first count there�s got to be� forty� fifty� of us now? In a space that barely used to fit ten. �I don�t know what to say� I say, lamely. �You�ve been� recruiting hard, Jed.� I turn to my long-time companion, my friend, Jed Kingsley. Most people discover a sports car for their mid-life crisis. This big black bastard discovered mixed martial arts and helped found a revolutionary movement. �And I�s just one of our complexes. We�re settin� up around tha country, Stevie boy. There�s a war comin�, remembah?� His thick Brooklyn drawl is like music to my ears. �I remember.� It was me that tipped them off, courtesy of the Hive-Mind. �And with these� wha tha� news calling �em? Fatebreaker Incidents�� �People left in broken psychological messes. Yeah I heard about- Hey, isn�t that where we used to keep the microwave?� I point. It�s a two tier secure shell server station now. �You bin gone a while, boy. Times move forward� we move forward,� Jed points out the obvious, scratching his bald head. �But you�re still wearing the wife-beaters..� �And you still wear that damn yellah cap.� I put a hand on my lucky baseball cap protectively. This thing is the best part of not working in an office anymore. �S�good ta have ya back, boy.� I look around the complex, soaking in the atmosphere. The constant hum of computers is a welcome sound, the clacking of keyboards another. But the chatter of so many people is new, desks and chairs pushed against more desks and chairs, the incessant glow of dozens and dozens of screens, two big 50-inch bastards hanging off the far wall. It�s like Mission Control in here. I�m trying to pick out some faces I know amongst the crowds, some point of reference to find my bearings. This isn�t like coming home; this is like walking into a new world. A brave new world, but a new one all the same. Some dudes are stood over where the mini-fridge used to be. I think I recognize Reece Hendricks. Only think because he has a big black box thing strapped to his face. �You�ve got VR in here�?� I acknowledge. �I assume he�s not playing Call of Duty.� �Don�t be ridiculous,� Reece interjects, shouting over the din. �We don�t play that shite.� Jed walks me over to where they�re stood. �I don�t unnerstand it much ma�self, boy, but these new kids... They swear by this shit. Reckon it�s tha future.� �I�ve done my reading. They could be right. The possibilities for interfacing�� �Possibilities are possibilities,� Jed cuts me off, as I continue to watch Reece flailing at the air, a small control module in each palm. �Don�t change tha� we got work ta do.� �A job?� I ask. I wasn�t expecting this, not so soon. I�m still mourning the damn microwave� �Yeah, a job. We got something we need ya ta do..� �I can�t, Jed� I cut in quickly. �I�ve got to find �Rabbit. NLW�s open and he�s�� �Yeah, we read tha intel, boy. Your crazy buddy is doin� just fine in NLW, so I hear. And he ain�t goin� nowhere wi� round robin on tha go. We�re keeping surveillance�� �Surveillance!� I catch myself yelling, and notice the eyes staring at me from around the room, see a couple of those VR sets lowered from faces. I adjust my voice quickly. �Surveillance ain�t what he needs, Jed. He needs guidance. He needs friends...� �He needs you ta stay focused on what we� doing here. You know wha� kinda precipice we� walking here. With him. With Haber.� �Yeah, I know.� I bite my tongue a little. I owe this man my life, and not just once. And I know he�s just following orders too. As if he can read my mind, he gives me the brief. �Mr. Blanc has been compromised.� Yeah, we call our top guy Mr. White. You never seen Reservoir Dogs? �Important files got leaked out. Could be Haber. We need you to find �em� and erase �em.�   * * * Howard had lived a long life. Longer than most. To him, the years had been like months, months like weeks, weeks like days. Unlike most, Howard knew time as only an instrument of the mind; an instrument he had harnessed, polished, wielded. And with his time, he had learnt much. Though he had watched friends, companions, even lovers wilt away before him, he had kept his will to move on. That desire drove him, and drove him in his goal of knowledge. As his body had grown weak, Howard had kept his mind fresh. His brain was the muscle that would not fail him. Once he had been called a sage, now he was �that old-timer down the block.� Howard�s memoirs lined the walls of his small apartment. Every day had been captured in its entirety, each new shred carefully documented and maintained. Howard bound the books himself, each volume in dyed leather, each chronicle ordered in chronology. Howard did this, not for himself, but for those who came after him, that the Old Knowledge would not be lost. To this end, Howard had taken on the boy. The small ginger boy was sickly, for sure, but Howard would teach him to keep the mind alive. He played behind Howard now, with small wooden trains that clipped together cunningly with magnets. Howard could hear the clacking of the toys behind him as he stood from the rocking chair. Now he would light his candles. As the sun set each day, Howard lit twenty-two separate candles around his room. One candle for each of his lost loves, gone but not forgotten. This small simple act kept Howard moving, and this was the exercise he gave to his body each day. The candlelight illuminated the small study beautifully, and by this light he would write the day�s memoir, the latest volume. Howard struck the first match, and lit the first candle. It had been a long time since he had seen Rosetta�s face, but her name remained in his mind. So too her favorite beach, her favorite color, the very details of the gown she had worn when they met. He glanced idly, as he did each night, to the shelf that stored the details of Rosetta. A second match followed, another lit wick, this time for Monica. And a glance to Monica�s shelf. The third for Erica, fourth for Rita. He continued to move around the small square study, shuffling his feet inch by inch to the next candles. Fifteen for Alex, sixteen for Casey, seventeen for John. As Howard reached the eighteenth candle, Michael�s candle, he heard something that sounded like footsteps in the corridor. He checked the floor to be certain, but the young boy hadn�t moved from his train set by the chair. Howard�s hearing had been failing him for a long time now, so he dismissed the sound as a trick of the ear. Until he heard a second. And a third. Now Howard was certain, somebody was approaching the study from the corridor. The floorboards gave away each step, and yet still Howard doubted. Nobody had visited him since the boy had been left with him, some three years back. �Who goes there?� Howard muttered to the darkness, and the candles flickered. The door creaked open. The candles� light was gone and Howard felt the pain of his body melt away in an instant. The room now a dark void, he called out, his voice suddenly renewed. �Who are you? Why have you invaded my home?� He heard the sound of laughter somewhere in the distance. �This isn�t your home any more, old man. You are in my realm now.� The voice echoed around the void, and the sound of laughing again. Howard was surrounded at once by twenty-two lights, flickering torches encircling him. He knew better than to believe them his candles though. He had been visited this way once before, a long time ago. �You have entered my mind,� he said as a large figure appeared in the void, toned muscles under wild blonde hair, a pair of grey jeans above black boots, a silver chain around his neck, dragging on a floor that was not there. Most bizarrely, a thick golden championship belt sits around his waist, the words NLW World Heavyweight Championship emblazoned across its shimmering surface. �Yes,� replied the Jackrabbit. �I have.� The old man that the Jackrabbit had seen in the study was gone, replaced in here by the younger specter that he likely imagined himself to be. This man was not pale or withered, but healthy, vibrant, wearing clothes that better befit period dramas. It was simple for him to pluck the memory of twenty-two lights from the man�s mind, the most visual recollection he held dear. The young old man would not see it, but to the Jackrabbit�s eye the silver orbs were all around him, this man�s destiny spread out like fabric. �Leave me, at once� the man demanded, and there was a flash of fury on his fresh face. �You do not have the right.� �The right is mine,� the Jackrabbit replied, �because I have taken it. Just as I have taken this championship belt around my waist. Much like that of Draco, much like that of Nick Perry� much like that of NLW, your fate balances in my hands. And tell me old man, what use to you are all the words you�ve scribbled now? What good does it serve for you to remember Rosetta, Monica, Erica, Rita�� �Stop that! How dare you use their names...� Howard was clearly affronted, and he approached the Jackrabbit with his fists balled. To show him his folly, the Jackrabbit duplicated, and became two, four, eight, twenty-two Jackrabbits encircling the man, one to each flame. �You�re strong,� Howard observed. �You know your art well.� �Art is for artists. I know this game better than well, old man. And you are playing it. You think seeing it once gives you a mastery of it?� The Jackrabbit laughed at the idea of it, and the many Jackrabbits laughed with him, their voices merging and blending together, a cacophony of hilarity. �I don�t need to master it, intruder,� Howard responded, a new confidence burning in his imaginary eyes. �I never wished for that at all. But I have learnt much in my years, and I do know it. Perhaps better than you, I think.� The Jackrabbit was incensed by the man�s sudden confidence, and decided to set fire to half of his Jackrabbits in defiance. The display was dazzling, a quicksilver inferno of cackling, gibbering mannequins. �You are skilled,� Howard continued, unflinching from the burning apparitions. �Strong� but random. Uncontrolled. Unwieldly.� The Jackrabbit was in Howard�s face suddenly, filling his mind�s eye, a rage in him that could threaten to do irreparable damage in this place. He reached out, taking the two nearest quicksilver orbs into his hand, squeezing them, and Howard flinched, his younger specter rubbing its head in an unconscious act. The first orb popped into a torrent of quicksilver, and Howard screamed out. A woman flickered for but a moment before Howard�s eyes, a saddened frown on her sumptuous lips, her blonde hair� her auburn hair tied in a bob, her blue eyes� green eyes� her hazel eyes deep with� loss�. �What is her name!?� the Jackrabbit demanded. �Do you remember, old man?� For a moment Howard looked to match the Jackrabbit�s own anger, but instead he sat, his younger self able to bend into a cross-legged stoop in this void. The man�s serenity seemed to only anger the Jackrabbit more, and he pushed his palms together. A second quicksilver orb exploded, spilling its ooze around them. �And what about her!?� Howard began to mutter to himself... �Rosetta, Monica� Monica�� The next name was lost to him now, that knowledge had spilled down the Jackrabbit�s chest. �So you come here as an assassin,� Howard surmised, remaining calm despite the pain in his mind. �No, not an assassin though. A bomb.� The Jackrabbit had heard enough, and he lashed out wildly, damaging orbs around him. As his guard faltered, Howard could see the orbs around them, could see the memories that he had cherished for so long. Some were not his but that of a boy, of a girl, of a seamstress, a soldier, a nurse, a politician, a fisherman, a lord. And somewhere in amongst all of those, he saw the origins of a thousand tomes, his library, torn asunder by his mental assailant. Howard had lived a long life. Longer than most. And that life dripped away in front of him at the fury of the Jackrabbit. He had had ten lovers once. Nine lovers. Eight lovers. He had had two lovers once. He had known many years. Once. Now he knew only the laughter of a mind bomb.   * * * The Jackrabbit left the apartment through the door he had come in, calm, serene. Inside was a study, and in that study was an old man, a confused and senile old man. Eventually he would be found, and taken to a nursing home, where he would be treated for one of the many names they gave to his condition. They�d never know an entire life-time had been torn asunder. The Jackrabbit stepped out onto the street, bathed in candlelight from the window above. A figure beside him offered him a jacket, coal black, which he pulled around himself, tucking the chains in tight beneath the collar. �All done and dusted?� the figure asked him calmly. �I changed a detail or two� the Jackrabbit replied, stifling a laugh. �But it�s done, as you asked.� �Good good,� replied Tero Haber. �Then let�s go home.� Click for Part 2   * * * 1.