Critical Shift

The hunter awoke, and instantly knew that somthing was wrong, that something had changed.

She was alone. Gone were the technicians, the foolish souls who called themselves her 'keepers', all the buzzing insects that normally surrounded her.

She decided that she liked it.

Her surroundings were strange. This was not the world she remembered. She assumed that the Buro and the CDCA were no more, that, as far as this world was concerned, they had never been.

She gazed out of the window, looking down upon the crowds of humans going through the motions of their pointless lives. They seemed to be unafraid. That would change soon enough.

Song awoke. He was alive, but he ached all over. He couldn't see anything.

"Hello?"

A woman's voice responded, from somewhere nearby. "Good. You're awake. How do you feel?"

"Been a lot worse, but I can't see."

"The generator's out. The Thunder King's feeling kind of cranky - seems somebody nearly wiped out one of his patrols near here. He got in a lucky shot. Somebody'll fix it once the macho posturing's over."

"No, you don't understand. I should still be able to see."

"Oh, the little sensor package you've got instead of an eye? I turned that off when I was fixing you up. I like my privacy. As best I can tell, it's fine, and so's the rest of your hardware, but I can't be sure - I didn't have much time, and it's a lot more sophisticated than the stuff you find on your average monkey."

By Julian Lighton

The central chamber of the Nexus Tower is always dark, lit only by the pale glow of the continually-changing object that floats in the chamber's heart. The form it takes most often is that of a cube, but its geometry changes incessantly. At one moment, it can be a thing of unbelievable fractal complexity, only to collapse into a smooth Euclidean solid the next.

Around it swirls a storm of spinning coins, their faces glinting in the darkness.