The vast majority of members that preceded the Acid Bath were still around, and most of them remained in the greater Universe City area. Even with their various empowerments, the collective thinking amongst Children was that greater power still existed in concentrated numbers. Others had returned to their homes across the country while some lived on other continents. Often times Ven would run proximity formulas through his head, calculated to the last digit, visualizing the web connecting member to member. The strands grew ever more intricate whenever he bothered to do this.

And since their return, there was a small but steady increase in off-world membership requests. Ven was at first hesitant to allow this, but quickly saw that most other species were no more unusual to deal with than his own. The effect was already apparent throughout his network: members would often exchange messages questioning the behavior of so-and-so for having interacted with another member a certain way - only to discover that so-and-so was from across the universe and said behavior was perfectly natural in their native culture.

Hard as it might have been to picture, it sometimes made Ven laugh. (Privately, when no one was looking.) But he wasn't laughing right now; instead he was on the precipice of concern.

fscked was getting there too. They'd already discussed trying to contact Photogirl, and decided to wait for a while longer. But it was already close to eleven o'clock, which was later than they'd expected. They had estimated she'd be finished by around nine, ten at the latest. The longer she hung around the Way-Station, the greater chance of her being detected. There was no determining if the Children had already come to the attention of the Perdendosi or not - despite several serious run-ins, most notably fscked's, none had ever been detained by the planet's captors - but there was no point in changing the status-quo just yet.

Each Child had a communicator that was attuned to Ven's network. He always let them choose which kind they could have. He and fscked each had rings set with a Drangsturm gem (allowing for clearer signal broadcasting and reception), which glowed red whenever contacted. Some members also chose rings, while others had necklaces, bracelets, armbands, earrings and more that accomplished the same functions. Some just used their cell-phones. Some enterprising Children had customized communicators, like the dozen or so who had skin grafts which resembled tattoos that moved when activated.

Photogirl had two devices: a golden choker that recognized her vocal chord vibrations while speaking, and her P-shaped belt buckle which could unattach as needed. So the chances of her having forgotten a communicator were slim. The only protocol that was usually set forth was to establish contact as soon as possible once the task was complete. Beyond that, they were on their own.

They had considered homing-in on the signal from her communicators (from his apartment's workstation and from the Chamber Hall this could be done with some effort) but decided against it. She might have simply been running late, and chances were the security net at the Way-Station wouldn't have allowed their homing signal to penetrate. Worse yet, without knowledge of those systems, this might accidentally tip them off as to her whereabouts.

At ten-past-nine the lights dimmed and the back-up generators kicked in to light the apartment. Ven and fscked stepped outside and watched as the city lights went dark, with the exception of the main building at the Perdendosi Way-Station. Its blue barbs pointed a path skyward while the city residents stumbled around in the dark until power was restored. As always, there was no warning beforehand and no real explanation afterwards. And still no word from Photogirl.

Ven continued to passively watch the screens for the next hour, swathed in the light of cathode rays. Below on the first floor, fscked nursed a beer. This was largely a ceremonial action, since most of the Children now had a higher alcoholic tolerance than three years ago - which was good and bad. They could still get drunk from it, but not without some work, and this was rarely worth the cost. Most now resorted to alien liquors when they needed a buzz.

fscked ran the scenarios through her mind. If Photogirl had been captured, her first duty would be to get Ven to the Chamber Hall, in case their whereabouts were compromised. In her mind, everyone was expendable to the cause except for Ven and the Lords themselves - and as far as she could tell, the Lords didn't need her assistance.

She was wrong, of course; they did, and her role was vital. That would be clear soon enough. For now she tried to be patient.

In unison, their rings glowed and Ven put a signal through to the monitors in front of him. They all fell away to divide the image of Photogirl seated behind the wheel of her car, streetlights inflaming her hair with each passing city block. Fscked took a swig of her beer and walked up the steps to stand beside him.

"Took you a while. We thought we'd hear from you earlier," Ven said.

"Yeah, sorry. I got kind of hung up. I'm on my way now."

They both noticed her clothing was different than it had been when they dropped off the camera. fscked squinted and asked, "What's with the jumpsuit?" The cut of the fabric was unmistakable as belonging to the Perdendosi. "Did you steal that?" The nerves at the base of her scalp tingled slightly.

"Let's just say I had an opportunity come up that you'll have to see to believe. I'll explain it when I get there."

"Are you sure you're not being followed?" asked fscked sternly. All of her senses had snapped to attention.

"Positive. When I get there, it'll all be clear, trust me. You picked the right night to send me out there Ven; I think I have a big part of the answer as to what's causing all of these power black-outs."

His eyebrows raised a tad. That was more than he'd hoped for, but he also wasn't surprised. These things made sense sometimes. "How long 'til you're here?"

"Fifteen minutes, tops. I tried to get in touch before, but I couldn't get out a signal from near their compound."

"We figured as much," said Ven "Okay we'll see you when you get here."

She nodded and signed off. The monitors rolled back to the Children and Ven and fscked looked at each other. She shrugged her shoulders, stretched and took another swallow of her beer before trodding barefoot back downstairs. Ven stood and followed her, curious what pictorial drama Photogirl was now delivering to his doorstep.

His notecomm still glowed on his lap while he now slept. He'd nodded off while checking the latest distribution roll-out schedules from the planet's other way-stations. If all went well, they could be receiving and processing as many as 1000 units a months by the end of the year, working up to a goal of 2,000 monthly in a year's time. There were the other factors to be taken into account, like reintegration time for the recipients and waste disposal for the expended shells. Recipients would be routed back to the other way-stations after processing, so they had to allow lag-time for that.

There would also certainly be an increased demand for more foot-soldiers once they started working to capacity. The number of human insurgents since the fall of the planet's defenses was minimal, but a few lingered, even in the perimeters of Universe City. Only a handful of incidents were recorded where Terrans had direct altercations with his people. There were investigations silently underway to investigate these, but nothing had been uncovered so far.

The responsibility of aligning all these factions of information currently fell to Sinclair, who hadn't slept in close to seven Earth days. This was slightly over normal. It had been extremely busy lately, and there were constant demands on his attention. He still retained his rank amongst the Perdendosi high-command and guard, but it had been decades since he participated in their day-to-day operations. When he'd left to take over more bureaucratic duties, his vacated position had been filled by two others: Overguards Brittlesmith and Farewayth.

It was the former who now sent a hailing signal to the Prefect's private chambers. The lights fluttered three times and when Sinclair still hadn't responded, the station's computer - in a decidedly more masculine tone than the one aboard the starship - awakened him with the words, "Incoming private message."

Sinclair sat up and rubbed his eyes, wondering why he was being disturbed so soon after the demonstration. There were no plans to see anyone until the following day. "Open on main window," he said, and in response the bay window to his quarters was washed with a tri-dimensional image of the occupants of a research lab. Front and center was Brittlesmith, whose his head ran almost three-quarters from the ceiling to the floor in the foreground.

"Prefect," said Brittlesmith, with just the perfect amount of decorum.

"Overguard," responded Sinclair in turn. "So why may I ask...?" he began and trailed off.

Brittlesmith finished the thought. "I apologize for disturbing you so soon, but our Level One technicians were running a post-operation check on our systems following the demonstrations, and they came up with something that we think merits your attention."

Sinclair trilled his friend's first name and continued, "This couldn't wait until later? Can't you just send me the information here in my quarters?"

"You'll want to be here in person for this Sinclair. Some of this information will interest you specifically. I've already let Farewayth know, and she should already be here when you arrive."

"That important?"

Brittlesmith's face didn't crack; "That important."

"Give me fifteen minutes," said Sinclair, which the Overguard acknowledged and both parties closed the channel. From his friend's tone, he was unable to discern if this were good news or bad that awaited him, but he could feel the pessimist in him resurging. You got your hopes up too soon, they said to him. Nothing is that simple.

He raked a hand through his silver mane, looked around for his half-cape and made sure to grab his notecomm before leaving for the tech-post. He hoped whatever he was going to be shown was interesting enough to warrant this interruption.

"These were the photos I'd taken after just entering the compound," she said. "I jumped the fence and hid behind some supplies. Near as I could tell, the shuttle belonged to somebody pretty important, maybe a visiting head of state or something. I don't know. They seemed pretty happy to see him."

fscked was at once impressed and slightly concerned with what she saw. "So you actually got into the main perimeter undetected? That's pretty dangerous."

"I know," said Photogirl, still advancing through the images. "It was impulsive. I couldn't help myself."

"Who are they?" asked Ven, pointing at the two Overguards that Sinclair stopped to talk to.

"I don't know," said Photogirl. "They seemed pretty important too, and it seemed like he knew them."

"They're High Guardsmen," said fscked, matter-of-factly. "I can tell by their insignias." She pointed first to the female, then the male. "She's in charge of actual Perdendosi troops, the ones you almost never see. She's the really dangerous one. He's in charge of the foot-soldiers. They're pretty simple-minded, like dogs, but they'd kill you in a second on command." She glanced over at Photogirl. "You were maybe a hundred feet away from some of the worst, highest ranking guards on the planet."

"So that guy's got to be someone pretty damn special then," said Ven.

Photogirl continued her holographic slideshow. "As you can see, I was able to get pretty clear readings of the insides of most of the buildings on the grounds. You should be able to map out walls and passageways and stuff from these."

"Easily," said Ven. "These are great."

"Well, I noticed right away I couldn't see through the main building. The one where they took everyone inside. You can see here and here...and here...at most I was able to make out a few outer walls and tunnels. It must have something to do with the materials they used to fortify the structure. I've never had anything like that happen before."

"Like the metals at the Chamber," suggested fscked.

"To some degree. Who knows, it might have been energy running through there or properties of the metals. Whatever. But I just knew something big was happening inside there that I couldn't miss. So I managed to sneak inside."

Ven and fscked looked up at her, waiting for the next pictures to pop up. "That's when you found the clothes?" asked fscked.

"Something like that," said Photogirl. "I actually stuck the aliens in one of the crates on the outer limits of the compound. Maybe they're still there now." She advanced through a series of images that showed the brightly lit interior of the blue-arc building. Then there was a shift in placement and perspective and the photos showed the group of officials from a much higher vantage point, gathered inside an immense laboratory. "I lost them for a bit, and when I caught-up I had to sneak outside and take these pictures from a ledge outside the upper windows. I was a few stories up as you can see in some of these shots, but they were all basically at ground level."

The dignitaries, bureaucrats, officials and their scientist hosts stood amidst a cavernous room filled with acres of pods, each roughly ten feet long. The pods had a front casing of dark, smoked glass, and were wired to each other through a series of tubes, cables and pipes. If you zoomed out far enough, they looked like the inner workings of almost any common appliance. On platform after platform above them were technicians who milled around taking readings and studying readouts, all of which were piped through to the hand-held notecomms many of the people also carried.

"What are those things?" asked Ven, pointing at the notecomms. Most of them had a blue tint to their glow, although some held by the scientists and technicians were other colors.

"Some kind of information relay system, near as I could tell," said Photogirl. The next pictures showed everyone present putting on protective eyegear, Sinclair, Brittlesmith, Farewayth and Allamandar included. "At this point they dimmed the lights and I knew they were about to show whatever it was they'd brought everyone together for. I set the camera on automatic so I could cover my eyes for the following pictures. Watch."

The next two pictures were taken in low-light conditions, but still contained a high amount of detail, and you could clearly see the heat signatures of the people, and the generators and machine gears. The time stamp on the photos said that they were taken during the blackout, which made perfect sense. Then in the next ones there was light again, and the visible details made fscked and Ven lean in close to get a better look.

The energy directed up through the core of the facility lit the housings at the center of the room first, immersing the laboratory in a piercing, otherworldly glow. Even with her eyes closed, Photogirl instinctively turned away as the immediate landscape was washed out by light. Then the lances of power were routed through the pods, which sputtered with activity, and they began to glow internally. There was something inside of them all causing the noise, something convulsing at an alarming speed.

"Oh my God," said fscked. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Can you enlarge that?" directed Ven.

Photogirl complied. Several of the pods zoomed in to take up the space of the counter top, revealing beneath the colored glass the unmistakable lightning-framed silhouettes of humanoid figures spasming inside the pods.

"Are those humans or aliens?" asked fscked.

"I couldn't tell you. I didn't even see it myself until I'd left the compound and gotten back to the car." She continued with her slideshow, which ended when the gathered party started to disperse. "But everyone there seemed pleased with the results."

Ven walked over and turned on the lights. "Do you have time for me to copy this? I have to get this information over to the Chamber, immediately."

Photogirl nodded. He would actually need her in order to upload the data filtered through her own unique perceptions, so the full depth of what they'd just witnessed could be transferred. They'd done this before, but never with such incredible subject matter. They might be busy for a couple more hours yet, depending on the camera's transfer rate.

He hustled upstairs to prep his systems, while fscked looked at Photogirl intently. Her tactical talents were already kicking into overdrive. "Question: those guards you knocked out before you sneaked inside -"

"I don't think they were guards," said Photogirl. "They went down way too quickly. And they seemed completely unprepared for me. Plus I doubt they'd have wasted guards on moving boxes."

"Good point," said fscked. "Okay, whatever they were - did you strip just the woman, or the man too?"

"The man too. I didn't know what I'd need to wear. I've got all the clothes out in the car."

fscked sat back and allowed herself a satisfied smile. "That's just what I wanted to hear."

"EXPLAIN IT AGAIN, exactly how you told us," said Brittlesmith to the OPS technician.

Seated at a freestanding raised diagrammatic port on Level One, the technician flicked several knobs at his console, clearing the display. Standing behind him from left to right were Brittlesmith, Sinclair and Farewayth, all watching intently. The overguards were already privy to the information they were about to see once more. The Prefect waited, impatiently.

"Tonight's test-run of the units went almost exactly as planned," said the tech. "There were no power spikes or lulls in the main battery, and transference was exactly within the anticipated levels." The console projected an upright holographic display of the Battery compound, complete with thousands of pod units. Then it pulled up and back to reveal the entire Way-Station. The console tilted to allow the quartet a topside view. "The only variances were distributed evenly across Universe City. No surrounding operating systems were dramatically affected."

"The curfews had most of the populace off the streets during the time we fired up the Battery, as planned," spoke Farewayth, proudly.

The console now showed the glimmering lights of the whole of Universe City.

"At 9:10PM we proceeded with tonight's demonstration. There were no signs that anything was amiss. But within the hour we started getting back unexplained readings from the starships, taken at the same time as the testing."

"So, the scientists miscalculated and the units aren't functioning correctly after all," said Sinclair.

"No, that's not it," said Brittlesmith. He gestured to the tech. "Continue."

"We're not sure exactly what to make of this sir." He hit a switch and small dots of green light decorated the diagram of the city. They were randomly distributed, some in clusters and others extremely sparse. "The initial analysis shows these aren't exactly energy pulses, but we have no other way to describe them. They were apparently only visible during the testing. Repeated attempts to locate the sources of these readings have turned up nothing."

Sinclair's eyes bounced from point to point, confused. "Could these represent some kind of malfunction? An imperfection in the Battery relay or the city's power grids?"

"Negative sir," said the tech. "We've already checked and all systems are running properly. This happened so fast, the coordinates of each pulse are approximate at best, and we'll probably have to wait until the next test to check again."

"How long?" asked Sinclair.

"Three or four days at the earliest," said Brittlesmith. "There's more."

"Sir, the engineers say whatever it is these pulses represent matches the local readings from the night the Placation Beam was fired," said the tech. "We thought that was a fluke. But whatever caused the beam to malfunction is still down here somewhere."

Sinclair understood this instantly but took a moment to absorb the words.

"Closer than we could have imagined," said Brittlesmith. At that the tech once again zoomed in on the Way-Station, then the arc-building, then the Battery laboratory they had all stood in earlier. Hovering above the pods, somewhere in the upper-constructs of the building, was one of the green points of light.

"Just before we contacted you, two service officers were located, bound and gagged in a supplies area," said Farewayth. "Impossible as it sounds, someone broke through our defenses tonight and escaped. By their reports, a Terran female."

Sinclair was incredulous. "We can't have this happening again, not when we're so close this time." He stared at the map of the installation then zoomed out again to view the whole city. "How many are there?" he asked in reference to the green dots.

"Over two-thousand, Prefect," said the tech. Sinclair gritted his teeth.

What no one present knew was had lines been drawn to connect these blips on their finely-tuned radar, the end result would have corresponded exactly to the local web of Children that Ven often visualized.