Nothing uncomfortable about it really. Like anything else, it just took some getting used to. And he did this all the time.

After a minute or so he flicked a relay switch which opened the outer chamber door, and he stepped forth onto the railing just above the main control room. There was no one else there, so he could relax. He preferred it this way to be honest; there were very few people he could trust to handle the whole of the building's operating systems. To be fair, the systems were immense.

Below were terminals that plugged directly and indirectly to the chamber he'd just exited. The entire facility was hard-wired to the chamber, and powered by its perpetual energies. Many of these terminals also allowed information to be received from and fed back into the chamber in almost any form: verbally, in binary code, aurally, physically, and not the least of which, musically. Scattered about the complex were instruments that were plugged into the OS through miles of interior relays and circuits. It wasn't unusual at all for these instruments to suddenly spring to life and start playing the most intricate, throbbing melodies when the mood struck. Most visitors would probably be startled at the sight of a synthesizer striking chords of its own accord or a guitar wailing in the middle of the night bereft of someone to stroke the strings, but Ven knew enough to just hit the right buttons and start recording. Again, he was used to it.

The windows above the main floor revealed the same bleak landscape outside as always. Ven descended the stairs to his main hive of video screens and took a seat. Circled in front of and around him were monitors of varying sizes, all dedicated to displaying various Children of Acid and their activities. From here, Ven could call up almost any Child and determine their location, recent activities, receive messages, and basically determine what demanded his attention right then. At the moment, everything seemed relatively quiet, but he knew all that was soon to change.

A hundred-plus Children's images danced across the monitors in front of him, refreshing over and over at steady intervals. Most were busy contacting other members and completely oblivious to the Administrator. Their screen names were displayed along with their visages, but Ven only allowed that to pop-up out of habit. He could rattle off every member's name alphabetically, backward and forward if need be. He was all too aware of every one of them and their activities, and honestly very little they did surprised him. As powerful as they were now, their title really spoke of their relationship to one another. They were children, and like all children they needed someone to supervise them and keep them out of trouble. Whenever there was a fight between members, they looked to Ven to resolve it. Or if they needed help out of a particular fix that only a Child of Acid could be involved in, it was Ven who made a way for it to happen.

Did he ever grow tired of his role? Certainly. It was something of an art keeping everyone informed and plugged in, and basically maintaining the balance of power amongst his kin. But even he had to admit, the position had its perks. It was time for him to contact a couple of those perks now.

Ven swiveled his chair to one of the keyboards and punched up the information for member 4871. Instantly her blonde, buxom image flickered across the screen. She was the reason he'd traveled to the chamber today, as it turned out. There was need for visual information from the Perdendosi installation at the East end of town, and she was the ideal candidate to fetch it. She'd run several recon missions in the past, but there was an urgency to this one that even Ven couldn't dismiss. Earlier, she'd been sent an alert message that she may be needed again soon, and he now followed that up with one detailing a time and place to rendezvous.

Once more Ven scanned the screens and, content that the world would hold together for the next couple of hours, decided he could go home. He sent member 53 the signal that he was ready to be picked-up, and now just waited for her to signal back and tell him when to be outside.

This was a different world from what he'd been born into. His role in it was so much more expansive than he'd have ever imagined possible, he often wondered how he arrived where he now was. He wondered how everything had arrived where it now was. At once he was grateful for the three missing years of his life, and yet he wished he had them back to fill in the blanks of what happened to the world.

It had been three years and eight months since the Lords of Acid and their followers had been shunted off the planet in a blast of light and music never before experienced by any living soul. But for all the Children, this had happened in the blink of an eye -- one moment there was flesh-and-blood revelry, the next there were grey skies and alien-imposed curfews across the planet.

With the perfect mental recollection that was one of his gifts, Ven clearly remembered the night they all vanished. It came suddenly: first there was a brightness that swept over everyone, at first thought to be part of the show itself. But this light had an enveloping nature that was instantly recognized as being otherworldly. Not painful, but more shocking, like a baby being pushed from the womb into the brightness of a doctor's hands in a delivery room.

Then there was a split-second panic that never even had time to sink in, it was so brief. And then the chosen ones, the Lords and their Children, were gone. For them, there was more light and warmth that seemed to go on indefinitely and a vague awareness of the others who had been spirited away with them. The experience was so potent that even now, months after their reemergence, the Children still carried the memory with them. Now and again it would bubble up from their subconscious, like a dim childhood memory. When in the presence of others who had shared the "Acid Bath" as they now called it, there was an almost organic sense of camaraderie. They could feel when they were amongst their own kind, down to their bones. As dismal as their surroundings were now, and as much as things had changed, they all still burned with Acid.

In three years' time, The Children had missed an invasion and World War Three, which culminated in a planet-wide revolt that had failed; they had been blown free of a city that was decimated and reconstructed to intergalactic standards and now seemed to serve as the hub of Perdendosi activity on Earth. They were now the only human interjection of color on the planet - and yet they still didn't fully understand what was going on.

That's what Ven's assigned task was: to help fill in these blanks and find out what was going on. Fortunately, all he had to do was acquire the information - what to do with that information wasn't his decision. No, that call was up to more powerful hands than his, which suited him fine; there was more than enough right now to keep him occupied.

On the monitor permanently reserved for member 53, her screen-name blinked. She was contacting him back. Ven highlighted her relay and opened the channel.

"Yo'," he said casually.

"You all done?" she asked. She was seated in her car, and the city was whizzing past her in the background. She glanced back and forth from her own monitor to the road in front of her. "I'm comin' to get'cha."

"Yeah, I'm ready. I have to stop back at my place first. Then we'll need to go out again later." Ven looked at the monitor adjacent to the one that had her image; it showed her position in the city and estimated time of arrival. "About ten minutes 'til you're here?"

"Sounds about right," she said. On her viewscreen she could see that Ven's eyes were still glowing slightly green from behind his sunglasses, and he looked a little tired. "What did they tell you?" she asked.

"They can feel fluctuations in the city's power supply. They're large, as though someone were revving up a really big engine. So we need more detailed layouts of the main compound."

Member 53 nodded in understanding. "Let me guess, we've got to drop off another camera tonight, right?"

"Yeah. It should have arrived today from IPS, so I have to get back home and check it out before we go. Plus I've got some other shipments I need to get ready."

"No sleep for the wicked. Okay, I'll be there in a few and you can give me all the details."

"Cool. 'Bye."

Ven shut off his commlink, but left the monitors on, as he usually did. This was another habit of his, because the only ones around to look at them were already jacked-in to the entire system. Oftentimes he felt as though he too were jacked-in to the system, he put in so much time in cyberspace.

As his friend pointed out though, Ven was indeed still all-too human and required sleep and food. He still pulled his pants up one leg at a time, and still had to shit, just like everyone else.

But image and actuality being two separate things, numerous Children didn't think of Ven as human anymore. He realized many now held him in the same regard as the Lords themselves, even though he did nothing to encourage this. They vied for his attention and jockeyed for his favor in the most trivial of matters. Sometimes it was funny; more often it was annoying. He usually had extremely important tasks to complete, and yet found himself mired in the day-to-day complexities of the Children.

Ven wasn't just the man, he was that guy. And everyone wanted a piece of that guy.

Adjusting his backwards-worn baseball cap, Ven rubbed his eyes once more and stood to leave. He checked the local systems and made sure the network between the chamber and his house were running correctly before putting everything into automatic mode.

He knew if only the rest could see what he was privy to seeing, then they would all understand. And maybe one day that would be allowed to happen. But for now he sealed the doors to the compound and walked down the path to the road where his closest friend and confidant would be by to pick him up within less than five minutes.

Ven stared down the road at Universe City, in the direction 53's car would come barreling from. The skyline was so cold and alien, there was little left but the interspersed odd-and-end to testify to what it had looked like three years ago. From this far out of town, you could just barely see the spires of the Perdendosi installation, but they were there. They sat on the landscape like pitchforks clutched by unseen devils, and Ven had the dubious task of sending another Child to see what in Hell was going on.

Everything as far as the eye could see was bleached of color. Ven got the impression this was what things felt like in war-torn Europe during the first World Wars. (An almost quaint term now in this interstellar day and age.) The sky was just now starting to turn dark, signaling night's fast approach. He glanced upwards, knowing that somewhere far above, circling the Earth were Perdendosi starships, watching the inhabitants of the planet much as he watched the Children. Only they were filled with far less benign intent, of this he was sure. All of the Children knew it was inevitable that they would be drawn into direct opposition with their overseers. Just as it was with the Axis and the Allies, two forces so strong and in direct contradiction to one another couldn't avoid conflict.

He jammed his hands into the pockets of his overcoat and waited out the minutes 'til he saw his ride approaching. Soon he would be back at his own base of operations, administering to the needs of more ridiculously powerful beings filled with light and music.

But first, he'd have to take a shit