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 a power and an intent to do harm. There was a time when his friends were his everything, but times have changed. A betrayer in their midst broke their little gang apart, and the Jackrabbit now stands as the weapon of an unlikely ally- the scheming Tero Haber. Haber has given him a mission – a test of loyalty – destroy the mind of his former ally Vanilla. His searches led him to Spyke- the first victim of the Jackrabbit’s new agenda- but the lead was cold. Now he continues his journey to cause damage to one he once cared so much about.

Vanilla- The girl who calls herself Vanilla has felt misunderstood her entire life. But never more than when Tero Haber forced her to betray Jackrabbit and Stevie in order to save her big sister, Cassie. For over a year, Vanilla tortured herself for her crime by living rough on the streets, barely surviving. But a chance encounter with unlikely ally Jenson made Vanilla re-evaluate herself, and now she seeks her own redemption.

Stevie Guile- For nine long years, and at the behest of the hacktivism group the Zero People, Stevie put his personal life aside to join the lunatic Jackrabbit on the road, protecting him from the endless organisations trying to enslave him. This path led him to a disturbing encounter with a psychic named The Hive-Mind, that showed him that he barely understands the world he lives in, and that he’s out of his depth in a war he only thought he understood. After years off the grid, Stevie returned to The Zero People for a mission that has lead him down a dangerous avenue into a world of Virtual Reality interfacing that he barely understands, and now he finds himself trapped in the machine with no way back to his body.

DEFUSED

There is no shade. The field stretches around me as far as the eye can see, the grass looks like it hasn’t seen a mower in years. It stretches to the skies, dancing in the wind, side to side, giving off a fragrant scent of summer. I think I can make out- yes, daffodils actually dot the horizon, little buoys of yellow in the sea of green. The breeze blows gently, caressing my hair where it sits loose under my yellow baseball cap. My tie matches- my tie always matches- a saffron yellow sat on a pristine shirt of crisp silver. My grey suit is over the top of that, though I wish it wasn’t. Despite the breeze, the sun is glorious, too hot for a suit, beating down on me from above with not a cloud in the sky to mar the azure blue. Somewhere in the far distance a lark sings, the only noise amongst the peace of the place, but I keep my path undistracted, trudging on through the high foliage, leaving a Stevie-shaped indentation behind me as I move. As I come out into the clearing, I see an unexpected set-up; a welcome one. A table large enough for six, but with just two chairs, empty, sitting alone in the center of the clearing. Their oak is polished, reflecting the dazzling sun light, and on the table surface sits a single tumbler, a jug of fresh lemonade beside it, and cupcakes, white icing freshly melted on top. I take a seat, be rude not to. I pull off that suit jacket, slinging it over the back of the chair, glad to be free of it. The tie quickly follows, I tug the knot loose and toss the yellow strip over the suit. The lark continues its lullaby somewhere, but my intent is on the lemonade. I take the jug, gently pour a glass, watch as the cool clear liquid fills the tumbler. The smell of lemon overwhelms the senses; it’s freshly squeezed. Lifting the tumbler, I take a long gulp of the drink, allowing the sweet sensation of the sugar to slide coolly over my tongue and down my throat. I reach forward, taking the cupcake from its plate, allow myself to enjoy the smell of the freshly-baked mix for just a moment before taking a bite out of the side, making sure I get a fair helping of the sticky white icing. “Aaaahh,” I sigh, contently. Pushing the chair back just enough, I bring both of my tired feet up onto the table surface, allow myself to relax and soak in the atmosphere with my refreshments, cake in one hand, tumbler of lemonade in the other. The lark has stopped its song, leaving the tranquility of silence to wash over me. Just the gentle swaying of grass in the breeze, the slight fizz of the lemonade in the jug. The sun beats down on my cheeks, my newly bared arms, and my skin bristles at its caress. “Hello Stevie boy”, says a voice, and I look up from my reverie. The second seat is occupied, large dark muscles, a wife-beater, a pearly smile on that big bald head. “Jed Kingsley”, I respond, greeting my old friend. My mentor. The man who brought me into the Zero People and turned my life around. Better or worse. He has his own glass of lemonade, sips it in the summer heat, and I hear panting down by his knees. Under the table, two dogs, pitbulls I’m oh-so familiar with. Jed’s boys. “Smoke?” he offers the pack of cigarettes; I wave it off. He knows I don’t, but he asks anyway. He pockets them, doesn’t light up himself. Maybe he considers that a politeness. “Saw yer intel, boy” Jed says, that thick Brooklyn drawl amiss in this serene atmosphere. “I don’t understand it though, Jed” I reply, and he simply flashes me one of those winning smiles. “KiteShark, a front fer tha Council, just like we s’spected.” “Sure, sure,” I’d ripped KiteShark’s assets from their Wall myself, inspected them in the Void. “I get that. But that’s only the first front.” “Right,” Jed said, reaching down to pet Rosencrantz. Pretty sure the pitbull is giving me the evils; he does that. “A front-within-a-front.” “But why?” I ask “What for?” “The second one is Tero’s”, Jed answers matter-of-factly, like this is all shit I should know. I don’t. “Tero’s?” I echo back. Take a bite of my cupcake, buy some thinking time. Delicious buttercream filling, my favorite. “Stevie...” says a different voice on the wind, carried away over the fields. Carried away to where the daffodils bloom, their amber arms swaying, where the larks live to give their song. I take another swig of lemonade, another bite of cake. The sweetest lemonade in the world, the tastiest cake on the planet. “They don’t know,” Jed says, bringing me back to the table. “They?” “Tha Council,” he clarifies, slipping a piece of cupcake down to Guildenstern, the nicer of the two pitbulls at heel by his ankles. “Tha Council don’t know.” “Stevie...” the voice from another time, a distraction from the moment, from the beautiful sun-kissed heat, the perfect polished table, the serene silence of the field. From Jed and the truth. “Council don’t know, and nor does ya ‘Rabbit.” “Stevie… wake up, snap to. Losing it in there, topman, grip slippin” I recognize the voice in the wind. The jargon. “Seph?” I say to the sky, failing to hide the surprise… and the disdain. What does he want from me now? “Nix the daydream, topman. I’m scripting you an interrupt.” What does that even- <//sys.interrupt.accepted[] The sun goes out. The grass withers. The lemonade jug smashes to the ground. The smell of summer is erased from my nostrils as I stare in horror at the field slowly becoming an ash pile stretching out in front of us for miles around. The table has collapsed into firewood. The ground is devouring it piece by piece; the sky is absorbing the sun. Like a shattered lightbulb, it goes out. Summer, gone like a flash. “Jed?” I ask, and in the dimming light he’s just smiling at me, that winning smile, as his eyeballs melt out of his head. “Bin good… good talkin’ ta… ta ya” he drawls, his voice faltering as his lips fall into his lap. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern start barking as the ground opens up to swallow them down. Blackness stretches out around me, that familiar darkness that holds my soul in its grasp. It might embrace me; it might smother me. “What’s going on!?” I yell into the darkness. “Seph!?” I wait. No response. My skin burns cold where the sun once warmed it. I feel the memories clawing back at me from before time existed. Before this time existed. Memories of a hack gone wrong, a job turned sour as something- something on the outside- knocked me for six. Memories of Antis like swans in an esplanade. “Seph!?!” I’m in the Void. I’m still in the Void. Cyberspace limbo. Somewhere in a cheap motel room, my body lies dormant as I float around in here having imagined conversations with a construct of my friend. Giving away valuable knowledge. And if I’m still in the Void, that means… >//enable.visual[] Replace the blackness, soaring arcs of light, pale blue blades that open the eyes and reinstate the senses. Around me are a thousand knives of neon, penetrating the brain, piercing the visual signals, the smell of sulfur piercing the nasal signals, a high shrill clanging piercing the audio signals. All senses being assaulted at once, making it hard to move, hard to think, hard to script. A prison of noise and light. >//dis----- It’s a vault. When the Antis can’t break down an invading software, they vault it. Safe keeping. Till they calculate how to flush it. I can’t be here. Need to get out of here. So I need that Disable Function. If I can just… ignore the banshees and sirens having a tea party on my head, shrill knives in my mind, carving at the cerebellum. >//disa--- Function interrupt. Focus Stevie. Focus on the script, what would Seph say? Stupid jumble speak probably, nobody even talks like that, what would Jed say? Probably tell me it’s my own damn fault, what would Jackrabbit say? What would Jackrabbit do? All fun and games in here, wouldn’t feel pain in the mind because he wouldn’t use it. The mind. He’s numb to it, nothing can hurt if nothing is serious. I try to laugh at the pain. Ha haaaa haaaa. Tiny scalpels carving pictures on my eyelids. Eyes screwed tight. Ha Haaaaa haaaa. Tiny needle tap-dancers in my thoughts, carving memories up for luncheon. What would Jackrabbit do? Ha Haaaaa haaaa. What is this? What am I? A Stevierabbit? Haaa haaa! Heee hee! Focus on my voice, Mr. Mills. Nothing voice, another time, a nobody. Nothing serious. Ha Haaaa haaaa You are on a beach. I am on a beach. A fun happy beach with… with sea and sand and ice-cream? Jackrabbit loved ice cream. Stevie Mills, you are on a beach with me, alone. ‘Rabbit? No, Mills. Look closer. The waves cascade around me, washing away the drumming in my head, cold seaweed on my neck and shoulders, soothing the pain. The sea salt forces away the burning sulfur. The banshees are children, laughing and playing at sandcastles. I open my eyes and look up into his. The piercing blues stare down at me from behind a dark mask that stops at his jawline. A dark black and white cloak billows down from his neck to his feet, impossible concentric circles of white hovering around him like faery. A shadow in a world of summer, a specter on the sand. I have seen this unusual figure once before, a psychic in a tower of lead in a location known only to him. Back then he had opened my mind like a book, tore out the neat pages and replaced them with his Cthulhuian scripture. He called himself The Hive-Mind.   * * *   It had been two years since Vanilla had last come home. Then, she had stood on the white wooden porch as she did now, staring uncertainly at the place she had grown up in. Then, as she did now, she was uncertain if she was making the right decision. But as she had stood on this same porch two years ago, staring at the door handle, she had heard voices within. Laughter. Cassie, her big sister, reunited with their parents after months of being the hostage of the Swedish madman Tero Haber. Through the glass panel on the outer door, she had felt their relief, their happiness radiating from within. And she had felt unworthy, undeserving; it was a happiness she could not know after everything she had done. After she had betrayed Stevie, betrayed Jackrabbit. And so Vanilla had turned and walked away. But now, it was different. The white wooden porch was the same, the glass panels on the door unchanged. But Vanilla had changed. Through a chance encounter with a man called Jenson, Vanilla had come to realize the truths about what had happened to her. For months, she had received phone calls and text messages from an unknown number, threatening the life of her sister Cassie. She had heard Cassie’s screams down the receiver, she had seen the horrific photos of her sister tied, taped, and vulnerable. She had been forced to listen to the demands of a sociopathic terrorist, and forced to betray details of her friends’ whereabouts for the safety and comfort of her sister. She had been a victim. Vanilla turned the door handle with grim determination, satisfied at the click that meant it was unlocked. The glass door swung open, admitting her entrance, and she found the inner door already open. Welcoming. She had endured what few others could, and made choices few others could make. She had protected her family at any cost, and she had done all of that alone. She had not cracked, had not broken, she had done the necessary in overwhelming circumstances. Vanilla the Betrayer was a fallacy. She was Vanilla the Brave. She stepped over the threshold with a single deep breath, feeling the carpet crunch under her worn boots. Despite Jenson’s insistence, she had not changed her clothing, leaving her dirty torn hoody and jeans as they were. She had left pride behind her long before. Two years ago when the house of cards had come tumbling down on her, Vanilla had fled to the streets because it was the only place she deserved. She had eaten little, enough to survive without the charity of others, and she had allowed herself no comfort or reprieve. She had considered this her punishment for her weakness, for her willingness to betray her friends. She had believed she deserved to suffer for the pain she had inflicted on the Jackrabbit. But Jenson had showed her a different side of the man she had hurt. The man she had betrayed had become a monster, and she had been too blind to see it. Jackrabbit had not forgiven her, had not aided her, because he was too intent on the destruction of others. The Jackrabbit she thought she knew was gone, or had never existed at all. The new Jackrabbit hurt people for pleasure, and she would no longer allow herself to be just another of his victims. The hallway was as she remembered it, the same pale blue plaster-work that her uncle had helped to put in, the same wooden bannister that she had slid down as a young girl. She allowed her ragged rucksack to drop to the carpet by the doorstep. The house was quiet, she could hear the ticking of Mom’s old-fashioned clock on the wall, the humming of the refrigerator from the kitchen at the end of the hall. But nothing more. Vanilla considered calling out to her mother, to her father, to Cassie. To anyone. ‘I’m home!’ she would yell, ‘I’m home for good.’ But she said nothing. Perhaps nobody was home. Instinctively, she found herself checking the shoe stack, but quickly she realized that she no longer knew what shoes any of her family wore. Taking another deep breath, she steeled her nerves and continued down the hall into the kitchen. The kitchen was less familiar; Dad had finally put down the new tiling he’d always spoken of. Much of the kitchenware had been replaced to match the new aesthetic, but Vanilla took comfort in recognizing the faded painting on the fridge, a signature scrawled in the corner: ‘Maddy, 4’. She glanced across to the breakfast table, but the chairs there were tucked in, empty. She moved into the living area, where she was relieved to recognize the décor, the old leather couch unchanged, but for some extra wear on the edges. The television set sat vacant, which felt unusual, there would usually be some form of sporting event on there. Wasn’t the Olympics happening right now? She remembered reading something about that in a discarded newspaper. “Well well…” said a voice, and Vanilla startled visibly. She hadn’t noticed anyone in the room, hadn’t seen him sat there in the corner. She recognized at once the tattoos down his arms, his unkempt goatee, his dirty blonde hair. And those chains. Those damned silver chains draped down his front and around his neck. “Look what the kitty cat dragged in…” he said, his lips curling into a wide grin, revealing distractingly perfect teeth. “I didn’t expect-” she started, correcting herself with horror, “what are you doing here!?” The Jackrabbit stood from his crouch, drawing himself to his full height, dark blue coat billowing around him. At over six feet tall, he towered over Vanilla, but she tried to keep eye contact. She felt the fear impenetrable in her mind, but there was something else. Relief. “How long has it been, Vanilly?” he said, using the old nickname. “’Rabbit…” she began, but there weren’t words. For over a year she had practiced what she might say to him, how this might go; but now she had nothing. “And don’t you look…” he regarded her, icy blue eyes. “Don’t you look well?” She couldn’t help but smile, inspecting her own torn clothing and waif-like hair, her near-skeletal physique, skin loose on bones. “I saw you,” she said lamely, diverting his attention. “I saw you on the television. The wr-wrestling. You’re doing… you’re doing great, ‘Rabbit...” The wins were there, at least, even if she couldn’t justify the actions. “I am doing what needs to be done,” he replied in answer to her silent thought, his words suddenly cold. She realized her folly at once, bringing NLW into the conversation so soon. “I didn’t mean to… I’m sorry.” And she realized she meant it. Despite everything Jenson had told her, despite everything she had learnt. Despite all the pain and suffering she had endured for this man, because of this man, she meant it truly. Seeing his face again after all this time, hearing his voice after so long. She was sorry. “You’re sorry!?” His voice was raised suddenly, the word forced out through gritted teeth, his fist slamming down against the arm of the couch. “Sorry is for naughty children stealing candy after curfew. Sorry is for when you knock an old lady over in the aisles. Sorry is for-“ “When you let somebody down.” She finished for him. He had changed so irrevocably, and she hadn’t been there for him. She had let him down when he needed her most. “You gave away our secrets,” he said, “you betrayed our trust…” “I know...” “You tried to get us killed like cockroaches and you walked away into the sunset…” “It wasn’t-“ “You left me for dead in a hospital ward, left me to rot for all you knew… For all you cared…” “I did care, ‘Rabbit, I just-” “I was your ally, I was your bestest friend, I was your favoritist-“ “You were a monster!” The words burst out of her like a hurricane, unbidden, destructive. Her fists balled tight and anger flared in her eyes. The Jackrabbit looked shocked, if only for a moment. “Don’t you think for one god-damn second I don’t know what you are doing, ‘Rabbit! I’m not one of your damn opponents that you can manipulate and bend to your will. You haven’t changed one bit, have you? You’re still carrying around those stupid chains like a trophy, you’re still doing your… your weird ‘mind shit’ to hurt people, just like you did to Spyke…” “That weak insolent slime didn’t deserve you, I crafted for him a fate befitting the low-life scum that he…” “Shut your damn mouth!” And he did. And for a second frozen in time, they locked eyes. Vanilla felt the tears in her own, she saw the stubborn anger in his. Rage. Loathing. That was all he knew now, all that he had become. And yet somewhere inside him she knew… Somewhere inside him she prayed… that the real Jackrabbit was still in there. He took two steps forward, his boots crunching heavy on the carpet, and she backed up, her ankles hitting into the couch. She stood ready, her jaw set for whatever strike might come her way. But he didn’t hit her, the Jackrabbit simply staring down at her from above, that wild smile suddenly returned to his face like this was all a game. “This isn’t you, ‘Rabbit…” she muttered, her voice catching in her throat. “This isn’t you…” “This is all me,” he replied sternly, practically spitting the words. “I have become what I had to become to survive, to strive, to succeed. You would have me the weak quivering man-child, the laughing losing joke that was the whole world’s victim, the perennial failure that Talon would defeat time and time again, over and over…” “Oh my God, this isn’t about Talon, Jackrabbit…” “THIS IS ALWAYS ABOUT TALON!” His smile was gone, and she felt the heat of his rage radiating onto her. And under that rage, she could feel his pain. The lost boy who had spent so many years fearing and reviling the man who had made him an outcast. And then she was inside his mind.   * * *   He called himself the Hive-Mind. Pretentious name for a pretentious nut-job. “Well met Mr. Mills, I apologize for the circumstances...” I startle, scrabbling away from the man, my fingers and feet getting stuck in the sand on the beach. I try to pull myself to my feet, but get wrapped up in the seaweed. I pull it from me, tossing it angrily to the ground, and point a finger accusingly at him. “No! No!” I yell, and feel my voice hover on the gentle sea breeze. “You’re not here! You can’t be here! “I’m afraid circumstances have-“ “Fuck your circumstances, Hive-Mind. I don’t give a flying fuck. You are... You are a construct, or a… someone’s avatar sent in here to screw with me.” “Not at all, this was the only way that I could-“ I tackle him. It’s not practical and not logical, and in here, in cyberspace, it makes no sense whatsoever. But I tackle him anyway, sweeping his legs out from under him and forcing my entire body weight- my avatar’s body weight- against his, pushing him down onto the illusion of sand. He is standing on top of me suddenly, a foot placed hard into my back, pushing me down into the sand. He fucking teleported, and to be honest, I should have known better than to try to fight in here. Come on, everyone’s seen The Matrix right? Well this guy’s basically Neo and Smith all rolled into one. I feel the grit grinding into my eyes, my nostrils, getting into my mouth. >//erase.avatar[] For a second, I feel nothing, and then the Erase Function kicks in and everything goes numb. I cannot feel the sand; I have no eyes. I cannot taste the grit; I have no tongue. Cannot feel the Hive-Mind’s foot on my back; I have no spinal column. And then darkness. I snap back into consciousness instantly, my avatar rebooting itself upright behind him. Neat trick. But I don’t attack him this time. Common sense has prevailed. “I want you to know…” I say, and he spins around to look at me, those weird concentric circles still hovering in space. “I want you to know that I have a Disable Function queued up with your name on it.” The Hive-Mind simply nods, the dark face mask bobbing just slightly. He hears the invitation in my words, subtle but it’s there. “I had no other way to make contact with you, Mills” he says. “And you can quit calling me that, right now.” I have told that name to nobody since Jed, but that doesn’t really matter to a psychic. “It’s Guile now.” “Mr. Guile,” he corrects himself, and I won’t deny feeling a little satisfaction. It’s the small victories with this guy. “So I locked you in here until I could make contact…” “You!?” I spit, the venom returning to my voice. I hover very close to hitting him with the Disable, “All this shit is because of you!?” “I tried…” he says, “I put you in the field with Jed to keep your mind from suffering the vault. Something pulled you out…” “Someone pulled me out!” I yell, correcting him, fists balling at my side pointlessly. “A friend. I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that in your big lonely tower!?” “It is true I live in relative isolation,” he says, completely missing the barb. “But we’ve digressed. I came to you for a reason…” “Oh, I bet you did! Last time it was to show me things that no man needs to see. I don’t want any more of your wars, Hive-Mind, I don’t want any more of man’s greatest horrors to keep me up at night. People will rape, people will torture, people will maim and kill and burn, but you know what… I don’t want to know. I was happy!” There is fire in my eyes as I stare at him, the serenity of the lapping waves, the cool sea breeze, even the laughter of children does nothing for me now. It’s fake, all of it. Fake, and insane, and nothing to do with me. “Were you?” A simple question. An easy question. But this man knows my mind, knows me better than I know myself, and so he already knows the answer. The crown prince of fucking rhetoric. When he met me the first time, I was on the OWF tour with Vanilla and the Jackrabbit by my side. Three close friends, inseparable. Jackrabbit was winning championship belts, Vanilla was seeing more travelling than she’d ever dreamed, and I was making genuine progress with establishing the Zero People’s roots worldwide. Tero Haber and the Council of Knowledge hounded our every move, but we stayed ahead of them. I should have been happy. I could have been happy. But the Hive-Mind knew the truth. He knew that I had lost my mother when I left home. He knew that I disappointed my father to chase my own dreams. He knew that I had walked away from the love of my life to pursue a goal. And he knew most of all that a traitor in our party would walk us to damnation. He told me everything that day in his little lead box. But he didn’t tell me what would happen to the Jackrabbit. “No,” I answer. “No, I wasn’t happy. That’s what you want to hear, right?” “Mr. Mil- Mr. Guile, that’s not why I am here. And I only have a limited time. Truthfully, so do you.” He walked up closer to me now, his fake boots sinking deep into the fake sand. As if he can read my mind- okay, he can read my mind- the beach melts away into the background, the construct Erased, and we are once again in the blackness of the Void. Two floating avatars. “What do you mean?” I ask, quietly. I don’t want to hear the answer. I never want to hear Hive-Mind’s answers. “Two years ago, I showed you a war. I hoped that in doing so I might prevent such a thing from coming to bear. I was wrong.” He pauses, anticipating another outburst. I don’t comply, meeting that steely gaze with my own. “I need you to share this message, share it wide. I need you to exercise every resource your Zero People have. Tero Haber is building an army, Mr. Guile. And your friend… The Jackrabbit is aiding him.” “The Council- his bosses- would never allow him to start a war… that’s not their way. They use subtlety, knives in the shadows, people disappearing in the night.” “You have seen the dots, Mr. Guile, but you have not connected the lines. These Fatebreaker Incidents that headline your newspapers and fill your broadcasts, they are just the first step. The Council will not allow these actions, but they will also not stop them.” It doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t make sense. Maybe psychics don’t know everything after all. “Why wouldn’t they?” I ask, “Starting a war would bring them out into the public domain for the first time in… in centuries, millenniums!” “The Council of Knowledge will not stop them, Mr. Guile, because the Council do not know what Haber is planning.”   * * *   Vanilla could see them in his eyes, two men battling one another for eternity, fighting forever. Two very different men, engaged in an endless war, a struggle for dominion, for pride, for power. She saw them on the high rise rooftop, fifteen storeys above her, the same rooftop where Saul McCullough and Jay Ethelon fought, so many years ago. The same rooftop where a horrible accident led Jay to fall ten storeys, to be reborn as the Jackrabbit, an avatar of madness, hysteria and vengeance. The same rooftop where Saul would be rechristened Talon, an entity of anger, grief and guilt. Were they destined to never leave this place? Would they come back here forever? The high-rise felt real to Vanilla, like she could reach out and touch it, reach out to the two men battling somewhere above her, two tiny silhouettes on the canvas of the night sky. Somehow she pulled herself closer to them as they exchanged blows, teetering nearer and nearer to the edge. She tried to call out to them, but her voice was lost on the wind. As she approached, she could make out the figures better now. The first had long, dirty blonde hair, a gold necklace on his neck and a pair of sunglasses on his face. He wore blue tartan long-shorts and a plain black T-shirt. She would recognize him anywhere, it was the Jackrabbit she knew, the Jackrabbit she remembered and cared so deeply for. Opposite him was his opponent, long hair and a long dark coat. She looked closer, and recognized the torn jeans, the dirty blonde hair, the heavy chains around his neck. The Jackrabbit. The way he looked now, how she’d seen him on television and in her parents’ home. Vanilla gasped as she witnessed their battle on the rooftop, two specters of the Jackrabbit exchanging fists, clawing at one another, throwing wild punches and kicks. “Stop!” she yelled, “just stop!” But they did not heed her. The Jackrabbit laughed. In response, the Jackrabbit laughed back. The Jackrabbit threw a fist, striking the Jackrabbit hard in the nose. Blood exploded from the Jackrabbit’s face, but he continued to laugh, ignoring the damage, and threw a wild kick at the Jackrabbit’s legs. The Jackrabbit buckled at the knee, and the Jackrabbit tackled him, both Jackrabbits now sprawling on the ground, edging closer to the side of the roof. Vanilla threw herself between them in panic, but she was brushed aside, an after-thought in their melee. The Jackrabbit with the chains lifted his counterpart up, wrapping the long snakes of steel around his throat, creating a noose. Vanilla watched from the ground as the dark Jackrabbit dragged the other to the roof edge. Vanilla staggered to her feet, forced herself forwards. “No! Please!!” she yelled, throwing herself towards them, her shoulder colliding with both Jackrabbits hard. She gave out a yelp as the Jackrabbit in the blue shorts, her Jackrabbit, was forced over the side of the roof. He did not scream, did not say a word as he went over the side, falling with the chains still wrapped around him, his blue eyes transfixed on her as the abyss came up to swallow him. The other Jackrabbit laughed maniacally, his voice echoing around into the night sky, echoing around the living room. Only a moment had passed, and the Jackrabbit found himself staring into her eyes in her parents’ home. The deep green twin seas of her irises were glassed over, as she found herself from the vision he had given. He had brought himself close to her, could feel her breath on his face. It was an unpleasant odor from all the time she had spent on the streets, but it was undeniably her. “’Rabbit…” she said, coming out of her reverie, and he could sense the loss in her voice. “It was nearly two decades ago… You have to let it go.” “You don’t understand. You can’t understand.” She was not his hero. “No, I can’t,” she admitted, and he nodded. He knew it. “But I understand you.” He felt her hand on his cheek. Not a strike, just a touch, and his instincts brought his own hand to her wrist, grabbing it, holding her there, but he did not remove her hand from his face. Her palm felt warm on his skin, her fingers tingled. “You don’t have to work with Haber, ‘Rabbit,” she said, “and you don’t have to get into that cell with Talon. Let me help you. Let’s put the past behind us, Jackrabbit, there’s a future out there for us both. And there’s no day like today. Let us walk away from this… together.” He could turn away from it all, walk away from NLW, walk away from his demons. But… “I cannot deny destiny,” he said sternly, but his voice betrayed him, came out soft. “It is my fate.” She shook her head, swirling the faded rainbow colors, and smiled up at him, pressed herself forward into his cold leather coat. “No, Jackrabbit,” she said, “You can make your own fate.” Her arms wrapped around his neck. Her lips locked onto his. He felt her warmth, felt her insistent tongue parting his lips, felt a closeness like he had never known before. In just a moment, everything else went quiet but the beating of his heart, the tremors of his nerves. And the Jackrabbit understood an intimacy like no other before. Somewhere in another world he heard the ticking of a clock, bending around them in a flawless moment of forever. Everything else was lost in the whirlwind of her touch. In his mind, he captured a perfect silver orb, freshly made, and found for it the perfect pedestal where it might remain for eternity. And as Vanilla pulled down from his lips, a playful glimmer in her emerald eyes, he allowed himself a single smile. Leaning in close, he whispered three words in her ear for only her to know. He could make his own fate. And the Jackrabbit ran both hands gently up her cheeks, through her hair, down her temples, holding her close. He shut his eyes tight, and a moment of electric passed between them as he reached deep into the depths of her beautiful mind. Now he was free. “W-where am I…?” Vanilla said, “And wh-who are you?”   * * *   [[ Click for part 2 ]]   * * * 1.