Welcome to Gaia! ::

Edmund spun once in his chair and hunched back over his monitor. He jammed a few keys on the keyboard and clicked furiously at the flashing screen. His next move could easily be his last, and would require a carefully executed series of maneuvers.

A sudden beep from his speaker caused him to veer off course, colliding with an asteroid. The explosion sent off brilliant flashes off light, and Edmund was immediately dead on impact...

"Seuclebleir!" he exclaimed, holding his head in his hands.

He spun again, frustrated. Returning to his screen, he closed out the game he had been playing and clicked on his most recent notification. His eyes flicked over the messages until he found the last he received was marked as urgent. He opened it and was greeted with a series of pictures and coordinates...

The ships had made it to the moon, and now awaited their contacts for the handoff... But that wouldn't be for a few days. In the meantime...

A wild unwavering smile emerged onto his face. It was the smile of Labyrinth, one that was reserved for special occasions such as this.

"Well well, it looks like all of the pawns are in place... I wonder if we can't cause a little chaos..." he suggested enigmatically to the empty room behind him.

His grin remained as opened a few new windows, scrolling the lists of ships on and around Earth.

"I'm sure we could find someone who could appreciate a good bounty..."

The Ekusupurōra drifted lazily through space, carefully orbiting roughly halfway between two nearby satellites in a section of a dense debris field just outside the Earth's sickly atmosphere. Virtually undetectable with its advanced computer system, and being lost in the interference the nearby satellites provided, the small craft had nothing to fear from anything nearby. Anonymous and thoroughly shielded from any curious passersby, Edmund had found the perfect base of operations for... well, just about anything anyone would need.

Inside, the vessel was subject to the same placid atmosphere. From speakers installed throughout the ship, Pachelbel's Canon in D floated through the dimly lit passages, played by a full orchestra recorded nearly a century before. On the small bridge, lit only by the ephemeral glow of the ship's primary electronics, gazing out through the front windows over the glimmering remains of an astral gate and a good part of the planet below's only natural satellite, the ship's sole occupant conducted the phantom orchestra through the impending crescendo.

"Quelle magnifique!"

"Oh Johann, how popular you've made a simple canon... The structure, the repition, the confluence of the voices... The simple logic of it all. Oh, how life imitates art!" he exclaimed.

With a flourish, Edmund outstretched both hands from his sides, palms down, silencing the music as the orchestra finished their final note as a conductor would silence his own instrumentalists.

For a moment, he stood unmoving, eyes closed. The blue ball below turned and the massive hole in the moon slowly rotated into view from behind it. Slowly, the violins began to play once more.

"And so the cycle continues, perfect, unyielding. Predictable."

That was his philosophy. Predictable. Predictability. Everything, no matter how obscure, was part of a pattern, part of the greater order. Nothing had purpose, but everything, absolutely everything, had some sort of order about it.

Order, predictability, control.

"Such a lovely canon... Called Canon, no less. An astute observation Johann. Such a beautifully simple statement, a statement of truth, and no more... Even so, your simple statement reflects a greater truth. Even as the lead voice sounds, the following voices make their way down their same, predetermined paths. The same patterns repeat from voice to voice, from life to life. So clean, so neat, so predictable. We all follow those same simple melodies. Few can escape their fates... Overlaid, these melodies become a tune, enough tunes become a life, and all of the lives intertwine, into one grand picture."


"Hum a few bars of life, learn the chorus, watch and listen as the patterns converge and pass by. It's funny, you know," he explained to the darkness, "They can't even tell when they're singing the same song. They pass each other by, only verses apart. They know of those before who walked and still walk, the paths before them."

Edmund approached the view before him, and put a hand to the glass. It seemed to fall into a great blue sea, home to the swirling white clouds that obscured it.

"They are all so blind, blind to the beautiful harmony that surrounds them, the poor lost souls of this scattered orchestra."

He recalled his grasp, and set his hands behind his back in a simple, stern stance. His voice turned dark, almost cross.

"You know, they're not the only ones bound by the past, and to their futures. Where has your path begun, and where will it end? Can your song be any newer? Is the potential for escape any greater? What will your grand finale hold for you, or for the greater picture?" his voice no longer addressed the lifeless vessel, but this time, his message was intended for the young man on the other side of the glass.

A moment passed in silence. Another, then another.

Edmund finally spoke, "Pause music."

The music stopped immediately.

Edmund sighed, then turned to walk away.

"I think next time I'll stick to Jazz," he murmured before he vanished into the hallway.

Edmund was settled in at his more commonly used computer desk looking over a compilation of files The Count had retrieved from various registries and public records. A series of pictures and a multitude of personal information was at his fingertips, and Edmund carefully poured over every word once more.

"They're more perfect than I could have imagined..." he murmured to himself, "the similarities are uncanny..."

Another smile spread across his face, but this one was much more reserved.

"You see Johann... Your verse repeats."

The thumbnail images were arranged from left to right in a line. He clicked on the first, and scrolled through them. An old image from the ISSP personnel records appeared, a man with a scar on his face.

"A former ISSP officer turned ship captain who still bears the scars of his past..."

The picture changed to a surveillance shot of a station corridor, and a lone figure...

"A hotshot bounty hunter from Mars trying to escape a sorted past..."

The next picture was from a celebrity profile from television.

"An outsider with her own agenda and an outrageous debt to repay..."

Another surveillance image, this one of a woman repairing ship...

"An eccentric techie..."

The final image was the same as the last, with a portion blown up. The portion in focus showed a wolflike dog with some sort of tool in its mouth.

"And even a very intelligent dog..."

Edmund couldn't help but laugh. The lineup, now neatly organized across his screen once more, was so familiar. Unrealistically so, even. He couldn't have asked fo better.

At the moment, he left several other files in the same cluster alone. He wouldn't need them, yet... He closed a few of them, another marked Morgan, one Dante Numero, and even one labelled Remington.

"The perfect crew to be my blunt instrument. Instrument. Ha, I like that. They're an adventure waiting to happen."

"So... They cause a little chaos, make the right people upset, maybe draw a little attention, and then BOOM! Before you know it, the whole scheme is blown wide open. A revolution, against the system. This kind of system perpetuates itself, and needs to be stopped. But for now... A simple opening move is in order..."

Edmund suddenly realized he was ranting aloud, and calmed himself. His thinking cleared somewhat, he decided some insurance was in order.

"I'd better make sure my little black pawns don't inadvertanly shake my control to return to their King... Even if I need to scrap the project..." he decided, almost whispering now as he reopened the file marked 'Dante Numero', "it can still play to my favor..."

Edmund shut of the computer, stood, and walked to the center of the room, staring at the wall.

"It seems our showdown is not far off now, Black King... Soon, it will all come to pass."

Without warning, Edmund spun, one hand outstretched in a familiar gesture, like a gun.

"Bang," he mouthed silently, mimicking the motion with his arm, then slowly crumpled to the couch beside him, staring eerily at the ceiling...

"Soon."