Chapter 10:
(09/22/01)
The cabal arrived at the Progenitor compound and used Gabriel’s access codes to get through the front door. Once inside, Kenley activated her invisibility sticker and used Entropy magic to correctly guess another set of access codes and narrowly evade the HIT Marks guarding the main level. Michael entered the Digital Web, found a map of the compound that suggested Elaine and Tim would be on the lowest level, and began disabling the security system. When he came across a huge Net-Spider guarding the on/off switch, he enlisted Jennifer’s help and distracted the spider while she flipped the switch.
In the elevator, Kenley used Entropy to just barely decode another access sequence before activating knock-out gases and other nasty things. The cabal took the elevator to the lowest floor and started looking for Elaine and Tim. But their luck took a turn for the worse when Jennifer tripped in the hall and landed directly on a HIT Mark, which disabled her invisibility and shot her point-blank through the chest. Gabriel and Kenley managed to heal Jennifer, but all the alarms went off and we took off running as a strange menagerie of constructs began trying to track down the cabal, all of which they destroyed or evaded.
The cabal found a staircase that led down to a level that was not on Michael’s map. It turned out to be a huge garden which Gabriel said seemed very familiar to him. While wandering through the garden, they came across a gazebo which Gabriel clamed was the place he and Elaine had gotten married. Then, out of nowhere, a child appeared. The boy introduced himself as Tim and began arguing with Gabriel about his “betrayal” of the Technocracy. Perhaps most interestingly, their conversation revealed that Elaine had died a number of years earlier (Tim was angry because Gabriel hadn’t even attended her funeral).
Soon, the argument turned violent. Screaming, “I’ll show you what I sacrificed to get to where I am now,” Tim brought the gazebo down around him as he morphed into a bizarre robotic thing. Gabriel could barely fight back as Tim grew pointed tentacles and began stabbing Gabriel repeatedly. The rest of the cabal rushed to Gabriel’s aid, but magic and weapons were mostly ineffective against Tim.
Desperate, Jennifer made a suicidal charge at Tim, trying to distract his attention from Gabriel. Almost casually, he tossed her to the side. But before Tim pushed her away, she noticed that Gabriel was attempting some sort of magical effect. Tim looked at Jennifer and observed, “This one really likes you.” Then he turned his attention back to Gabriel and hissed, “After I’m done with you, I’m going to kill every last one of your little friends, as slowly and painfully as I can.”
“That’s what you think,” said Gabriel. With that, he released an enormous burst of electrical energy that shot blue lightning into Tim—but coursed through his own body as well. Tim collapsed, dead. His body charred almost beyond recognition, Gabriel looked at Jennifer, smiled, said “It’s been fun”…and died.
Ripple tried to slow down time to save Gabriel, but it was already too late. All she could do was ask Marcus to send the body back to the chantry, which he did. Jennifer went berserk, started kicking Tim’s lifeless corpse, and generally showed no signs of being mentally stable anytime soon. Kenley knocked her unconscious for her own safety. Then a computerized voice announced that the self-destruct system of the base had been activated and that “Amy has been released.” With only five minutes before the entire place went up in flames, everyone started running.
On their way out, the cabal was intercepted by a strange, robotic, cat-like creature—Amy. After getting past it and into the elevator, it got on top and started cutting the cables. Fortunately, Marcus caught the elevator with Forces, and Kenley got a few good shots off while we struggled to reach the top. Things were looking bad until Amy tried one too many flashy effects and exploded from Paradox. Just in time, the cabal escaped the compound as the self-destruct flattened the entire compound.
Outside, everyone was picked up by a large, bizarre group of Marauders. One of them, named Julie Ann, was a huge Russian man who dressed like a woman. Another, “Mr. Nicholas,” behaved like Santa Claus and agreed to fly everyone back to the chantry in his sleigh. On the way back, Kenley tried to take a sample of Mr. Nicholas’ DNA, and Julianne flirted nonstop with Wan and ultimately gave him an amulet that would allow him to contact her if he ever wanted.
The mood back at the chantry was subdued, to say the least. Kenley, Ripple, and Saxon woke Jennifer up and tried to console her. She told them to go away, and was in fact rather angry that they had rescued her if it meant she had to live on without Gabriel. “If he’s not here, I shouldn’t be here either,” she insisted. Ripple became somewhat offended by Jennifer’s ungratefulness and left. Kenley and Saxon tried to tell her that Gabriel would have wanted her to go on living, but she paid them no attention. Deciding her grief was too profound for them to do anything, they left her alone.
The next day, the cabal buried Gabriel under a tree in Saxon’s garden. Marcus presided over the service and astonished everyone by delivering an eloquent funeral mass. Everyone shed plenty of tears that day, but no one was more distraught than Jennifer. After the service, Marcus took her aside and said, “I’ve never known Gabriel not to have a backup plan. This time should be no exception.” She took his idea to heart, barely daring to hope there might be a way to bring Gabriel back, but was still too upset to try to find out what Marcus had meant.
No one accomplished anything on the day of mourning—and the next day, breakfast just wasn’t the same. However, encouraged by Marcus’ words, Jennifer went to Gabriel’s room and looked on his computer for clues. She found a strange file called G.EXE and opened it. Partway through the process of installing the program, the computer seemed to take over, and the file began to download itself into the Digital Web. Suddenly, a miniature, animated version of Gabriel (similar to the Microsoft office assistant) popped up on the desktop and said:
“Welcome to the artificial intelligence program GABRIEL.EXE. How may I help you? (a pause as Gabriel seems to notice Jennifer’s shocked expression) What are you staring at, bitch?”
Gabriel had definitely had a backup plan. A brief conversation established that he had downloaded his entire consciousness into the Digital Web (except for his memories of Elaine and Tim and his own death), effectively reincarnating himself as a free-floating AI capable of manifesting itself with Forces or sitting on the desktop in “mini-Gabriel” mode. Jennifer couldn’t hide her delight and relief even as she shouted, “Don’t you ever do that again, you bastard! I thought you were dead!”
“I was, for awhile,” replied Gabriel.
“No…I mean…I thought I’d lost you.”
“Well, I’m back, and better than ever.” He gave her a lascivious smirk. “You know, you could come in here, and find out just how much better.” Immediately, Jennifer jacked into the Digital Web, and she and Gabriel FINALLY got to have some Freaky Circus Sex of their very own.
Three days later…Jennifer emerged from the Digital Web and went down to breakfast, having single-handedly reduced the cabal’s sexual tension levels by several thousand percent. The rest of the cabal had been rather worried by her protracted disappearance, but had assumed she was “just working through her grief.” At the table, Ripple recognized her goofy “I had sex” grin and demanded to know who she’d been boinking. “Gabriel,” she said, which caused Marcus to bolt for the backyard to make sure she hadn’t been defiling Gabriel’s grave. “I’m kinky, but not that kinky!” she called after him, and took everyone upstairs to show them the new and improved Gabriel. He explained his new condition while smoking an entire pack of cigarettes simultaneously and showing occasional brief clips of the three-day-long sex video he’d made. Ever so briefly, things returned almost to normal. Gabriel even started making breakfast again.
About a week later, Marcus decided he was ready to pursue his goals and asked all the members of the cabal to come with him to confront Ahreen in the Nephandi labyrinth under the Olive Garden. Everyone except Bria, Joe, and Michael agreed to do it. Ripple tried again to get in contact with Timber to ask his help, this time using Correspondence to scry on him in China. At that moment, he was involved in a massive orgy (using co-location to “double his pleasure”). Annoyed, Ripple went up to one of the Timbers, smacked him upside the head, and announced, “I’m going into a Nephandi labyrinth now. You obviously don’t want to help me, so have a nice day,” and left.
Later that night, shortly before the restaurant closed, Marcus and the others went to the restaurant, found the secret passage in the basement, and entered the labyrinth together. Although everyone started out together, the interior was dark and, well, labyrinthine, and it didn’t take long for the group to get separated. Walking through the labyrinth alone, Kenley sensed what she thought was an evil presence ahead of her and began charging up for a blast of lightning. It was really Isabella, who sensed a similar presence and called out to it, but her words were twisted into a threat and Kenley let the lightning go. Isabella fell to the ground, completely incapacitated. Realizing what she had done, Kenley began to freak out and started trying to heal her. Shortly thereafter, Saxon found them and helped to heal Isabella the rest of the way. However, no one could heal the mistrust that was continuing to grow between them.
Meanwhile…Also wandering alone, Ripple met up with Timber. Slightly suspicious, she asked him what he was doing there. He claimed that after the orgy, he’d felt bad and decided to return to the States and help his student out (but didn’t explain how he’d found the place to begin with). Apparently satisfied by that explanation, Ripple barely put up a fight when Timber started turning on the charm. The two of them had Freaky Circus Sex right in the middle of the Nephandi labyrinth, then continued on until they emerged in a large chamber with a throne in the middle.
Meanwhile…Jennifer and Wan met up and reacted to one another with mutual suspicion, not sure if the other was real or a Nephandi illusion. They tried to have a conversation, both hearing voices in their head that raised doubts about the other’s loyalties. Unable to work out a solution, they decided to back away from one another and go their separate ways rather than risk hurting each other.
Meanwhile…Saxon tried desperately to keep another fight from breaking out between Isabella and Kenley. Suddenly, Kenley sensed movement down the corridor and fired off another lightning bolt. This time, the charred body that fell to the ground belonged to…Sadira. Saxon healed her but got in an argument with Kenley. In the middle of their argument, Isabella, Kenley, Sadira, and Saxon suddenly found themselves in the same chamber as Ripple and Timber.
Meanwhile…Wan met up yet again with “Jennifer.” This time, they agreed to travel together. As they walked, the fake Jennifer began flirting shamelessly with Wan, until she was practically begging him to sleep with her. He refused and asked her to keep walking. As they walked, she morphed into a bizarre Nephandi construct and started attacking him. After a brief battle, Wan killed the fake Jennifer, then found himself in the chamber with the others.
Meanwhile…Jennifer met up yet again with “Wan,” who refused to let her go on without him. He seemed very frightened by what was going on. While talking, the fake Wan leaned against a wall, which promptly sprouted a mouth and gnawed his arm off at the shoulder. Wan and Jennifer both freaked out, Wan because he was bleeding to death, Jennifer because she realized there was no way for her to heal him. Screaming for help, she threw him over her shoulder and started running. But she found no one else, and eventually he stopped moving. Jennifer refused to let go of his corpse and continued moving through the labyrinth, even after it became obvious that she was hopelessly lost. As she wandered, she came to the realization that she was going to die a slow, painful death, and collapsed, sobbing in horror. Suddenly, she was in the throne room, too.
The cabal barely had any time to adjust to their respective ordeals before Marcus appeared. Timber turned to him and suddenly morphed into a beautiful woman—Ahreen. Ripple was understandably horrified, especially when Ahreen announced that she was now pregnant with the uber-Nephandi’s child. Seeming pleased with herself, Ahreen said that all of the members of the cabal had been “tempted”—Ripple by pleasure, Kenley by anger, Jennifer by fear, and so forth. Only Wan, it seemed, could not be tempted. “They’re just as weak as you, Marcus,” she said.
Ahreen then explained Marcus’ past to the cabal. He had started out a member of the Celestial Chorus who lost his faith in God when he began suffering from a terminal disease. This made him easy prey for Ahreen, who introduced him to the ways of the Nephandi. She also gave him a “cure” for his disease in the form of the lichedom rite, which put him in a state of perpetual undeath where he experienced the pain of dying every second of every day (for 300 years). Eventually, Marcus realized the treachery of her ways, broke away from the Nephandi, and joined the Order of Hermes. But Ahreen had never let him go, and wanted him back in the service of her dark masters.
Ahreen gave Marcus an ultimatum. She took out a small scroll and told him it contained a rite that could make him human again. The catch would be that in order to get it, he’d have to turn Nephandi and go through the Caul. Marcus refused, saying he couldn’t betray the “family” he’d found in the cabal. That was the reason he had brought the rest of the cabal along—to give him strength by reminding him of why he’d given up Ahreen’s corruption in the first place. After taunting him a little bit more, Ahreen vanished. Marcus took everyone out of the labyrinth and back to the chantry, where they tried to come to terms with everything they had seen.