Part 39

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The group stumbled over their own feet and each other when an explosion rang down the hallway and throbbed the building around them. A few shrieked and began to run.

"Oh ssshhheeeit!" John halted and bent up and down slightly for the lack of being able to stomp his foot, while the lady in charge of the group chased the rest of the group down the hall, yelling, grabbing, tripping and firing warning rounds at some of the group, to get them back together. "You bastard, you sss-" John continued as Larran's smile gleamed wickedly through Chiana's face. "Should've played nice" was all John could say as he sunk down onto his knees and Larran in Chiana stumbled from John's shoulders into a hang onto his back. "You know you should have played nice."

"What's nice, eh?" Harvey looked to John seated opposite him on the back bench seat of the suicide four door black Lincoln Continental John recognized from The Matrix. Harvey straightened his fine black suit and rested his hand on the carriage strap fixed above the door. "Ey, da boss he says he wants shomthin' done, it gets done, eh?" Harvey slapped the back of his hand against John's fine suit. "Nice gots nothin' ta do wit it."

"Hey that's my dad's suit." John took off his sunglasses and looked at them in his hands. "Wrong ones" he remarked about the cheap ski visor sunglasses and casually pitched them out the window. A cat shrieked somewhere behind them, followed by horns and the sounds of a multi-car pile up.

"I wasn't the one who bought cheap shades at the tourist kiosks" Harvey leaned close to confide before sitting up again.

"Now hang on, first you got my dad's suit on, you rip off the original Matrix, there's no Carrie Anne-Moss in sight, you chew up my scenery with a bad ethnic accent, and now you insult my style? Man that cracks it, I'm getting out" John opened the door of the moving car to discover it had instantly stopped and parked along a sidewalk.

"You can't get out here John" Harvey leaned out the window and gestured around. "We're in the southside of Chicago!"

"Wha?" John looked around. "I don't see no Leroy Brown. Well it ain't dark yet" John waved him off.

"It's always dark in this neighborhood" Harvey appeared at the window, shining a flashlight around. An African-American promptly stepped up to the window and shoved the flashlight into Harvey and Harvey back in through the window with his fist before walking away.

John made a little wave of thanks to the man as a small crowd of passer-by chuckled. John folded his arms and chuckled too. "Hey" John came back to the window, pulling the flashlight out of Harvey's face and handing it back to him. "You gotta think, you know, equality these days, Mr. Crow."

"But!" Harvey objected. "It was your mind-"

"Context, buddy, context. The downfall of many a sociological faux pas."

"Are we going or not?" the passenger window rolled down to reveal Carrie Anne-Moss leaning from behind the wheel in a cab driver's cap and Matrix black leather costume.

"Yes ma'am" John was settling in the passenger seat the next instant. The car drove back into the street. John took a good look at her costume. "I have to ask" John had to ask "how did you get into that?" She looked at him coolly. "The street. Busy street. Amazing how you got in all that traffic without even looking. My dad did that too. If I ever tried that I wouldn't be around the next minute."

"As amusing as this is, in your own mind, we don't have forever, John" Harvey opened the tinted glass divider between front and rear seats and interrupted.

"Now that wasn't there. But since it is" John closed it again.

Harvey took it off and threw it out the window. "Really John. Must we be so authentic about the props?"

"Yeah you're right, Harv" John admitted. "We're running out of options here."

"Yes we are John, but-" Harvey leaned up to rest his forearms across the back of the front bench seats and leer towards his ear. "But so is he."

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"Take me where you like, it won't matter now" Larran raspily whispered into John's ear, hanging with his arms around John's shoulder and pressed to his back, tormenting him with his use of her. "She grows mad with fear of my owning her. I have but to press her until her mind, her will, is broken, and retreat to my own form to meet the Enforcers. You are a dead man, John Crichton, and what I want of this trelk is mine."

"Did you say trelk?" John stood up and turned to look down at Larran in Chiana. "You calling Pipmeister a trelk? Hm?" he poked her in the center of her chest. "Are you using that fine pasty gray ass behind her back and calling her a trelk!?"

"And what are you going to do to her if I did?" Larran smiled, enjoying his immunity. Until John whacked the smile off Larran's face, letting Larran stumble back into the wall behind and stare in mute surprise.

John could see a different expression pass under her face. The surprise must have allowed Chiana to gain a foothold. John picked her back up in time for the lady in charge of the group to herd her charges back.

"What was that?!" one of them finally asked, the whole group looking to John.

"Uuuh, an explosion?" John asked.

"It was that way" one pointed ahead.

"No, it was that way" another pointed back.

"No, I did it my way" John mumbled. "I dunno gang, but we better hurry that way" he began down a side corridor, leading them back the way he was going, but indirectly so that they wouldn't feel they were rushing toward where some thought the explosion came from.

After a run down several barely remembered corridors, John found himself leading the group from the building and into the biodome gardens. A few people whizzed from one building to another, but it looked safe enough for them to do similarly. He headed toward the central accommodations.

John stopped in his tracks, seeing Kastara running nearby, the Bannik's jacket and hands filled with all kinds of portable items of value. Kastara saw John carrying Chiana over his shoulders and stopped in his tracks.

"Hey dude" John waved him to approach.

"Who is this?" the lady in charge of the group asked John.

"Who are you?" John asked the lady in charge of the group.

"What?" she looked between John and Kastara, her puffy hair bouncing when she jerked her head.

"Clan" one of the guys helpfully answered John for her. Clan turned a stare at the guy. John smiled, thinking she looked like an angry fairy.

John gestured to the timidly approaching Bannik. "Clam, this is Kastara, Bannik, former slave of the Sinister Minister, flunky of the clueless Stakira. Kastara, Clem Kadiddlehopper, leader of the pack."

"Get me down!" Chiana, or Larran, snarled at Kastara.

"Never mind frothy here. Hey look" John gestured at Kastara, "if you wanna do some good, maybe, come with us, if not, hell, dump the damned ballast and concentrate on getting away with your skin, you'll get by somehow." Kastara fell in alongside John while John continued as best he could with a demonically possessed Chiana on his shoulders. "Atta boy. The mob get to Oshana and Larran yet? Are they in the Presidential Suite? Where's Jimmy Hoffa? What about Waldo? Do you know?"

"No....but the individually coded fields of the doorways to certain areas are probably still operative" Kastara explained, the wildness in his eyes calmed somewhat. "They're on a separate circuit from the shield, th-the shield surrounding the estate."

"Good thinking" John pointed the gang toward the central accommodation. "What about the Presidential Suite? Where Larran here locked up Chiana here."

"Cordon Wing? That's also separate yes, he....wished to keep them, her, there...."

John looked to the wing, ensconced upon the highest and centermost place within the whole complex. He could see its trio of tall black iron doors, although he'd never seen anyone use them. "What about the front doors?"

"It's impassible" Kastara said, shifting a wild look to John.

"But not impossible" John looked skeptically at Kastara. "Mess of Alice In Wonderland allusions around here isn't there? Well here we are...."

"Mostly always" Kastara agreed, his eyes shifting in thought and with an uneasy look at Chiana over John's shoulders.

"Yes...." John cast a strange look at Kastara "Let's ge-" he inadvertently dropped to his knees when a pulse blast struck the ground near him.

"Let her go!" someone shouted.

Clan had her pistol out and fired back before John could say a thing. "Positions!" she shouted. The group fell into a messy circle to guard John and Chiana. But Larran took the opportunity to work free of John's grasp.

"No!" Kastara yelled, grasping at the back of the silken green shirt that Larran in Chiana wore. "You cannot take her!"

"Do not delay me!" Larran snarled, struggling against the Bannik with all the strength he could muster from the little body. It wasn't enough to break free of Kastara's hold.

"Let her go!" some sort of Nebari service man in a slightly dirty working jumpsuit demanded, the other startled onlookers quickly agreeing.

"It's not what you think" John replied. Kastara looked at John. "Yeah" John observed "I'm thinking that line never worked for anybody. I couldn't sell it to my grandma. Hell, I wouldn't buy it. Anyway enough about me. Tell 'em Chi."

"Yo-" Larran nearly replied from Chiana, but the hostile voice was aborted, gagged in a choke as John took over from Kastara.

A Bannik lady hollered, throwing herself at Chiana and attempting to pull her from John. Chiana, or Larran, attempted to struggle away from both John and the lady, trying to pull the lady away by her scraggly long hair braids, but John managed to keep Chiana in a vague headlock.

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"Incredible" Bursamen muttered, to himself, not to the stranger with his head between his hands beside him on the planter retaining wall, or Oshana curled up sitting on the ground to his other side.

He glared up at the Enforcer, who passively watched the three of them with his neutralizer ready in his hand. There was no sign of emotion or thought on the Enforcer's face, but he kept watching Bursamen. The Enforcer obviously didn't consider Oshana or the man on Bursamen's other side as likely to try anything.

Oshana had told him they had to get to the Sister and to the Cordon Wing, but now all Bursamen could do was sit with her under Enforcer's arrest within clear sight of the Cordon Wing across the grounds. He nearly made a bitter smile when he thought of John Crichton's regular remarks. "It should be easy" Bursamen quoted John Crichton under his breath. "It's never easy."

"I can't believe it" the man on Bursamen's left said, emitting emotion and a need to speak. Bursamen didn't feel it mattered who the man was thinking he was, or even if the man noticed him much before speaking. The man had to find Bursamen's face before looking at him with his tear filled eyes.

Bursamen supposed his comments made some connection to whatever was troubling the man. He made a sharp nod to the man. "Bursamen. Nerri's pitiful frelling Resistance Militia. You?"

It took a moment for the man to think of answering. "Koresh."

"Fena? Resistance? Trespassing? Loitering?" Bursamen tried leading the man.

"They rescued me" Koresh emotionlessly replied. "They left her there...."

"Who?" Bursamen asked "Left who where?"

"Left her in the transport! In....the building."

Bursamen followed Koresh's stare to the damaged area of the buildings and figured that it was someone close to him who had died or couldn't be rescued. He closed his lips tightly and looked away.

"What is this!" Oshana lurched upright with the voice of someone else and a face of someone startled with opening their eyes. "What....Who am I?" she studied her own hands and arms with fear and wonder. Startled, she looked around, nearly trembling in fear. Then she saw Koresh. She nearly stumbled over Bursamen's legs in a lurch for Koresh, grabbing the startled man's arms and kneeling in front of him. "Koresh....what is this?" she searched his face with tearful eyes.

"What is this?" Koresh repeated.

Bursamen stared, his eyes hard. "She is Stakira, she can....move people between the realms" Bursamen tried to explain what little he grasped of it. "Life or death. It....may be the person you meant speaking through her now."

Koresh's face twisted with emotion. "Sh-sheyzzaaa" he broke into agonized sobs.

Oshana, or Sheyza, pulled Koresh close although he half tried to pull away and looked away from her. "Be free, Koresh. Please be free" she whispered. She lost her grip and slipped into a slump kneeling on the ground.

Oshana was herself again and returned to Bursamen's other side. She looked up at him with wide eyes. "They may not all be dead!" she earnestly whispered to him, clutching Bursamen's sleeve.

"Who?" Bursamen asked, his jaw tight.

"The bodies he was making! Larran. Vega, the great censored scientist he hired. The bodies may not need the fluids anymore....if we can save one of them, I can pass her into the body" Oshana was lit with wonder at her own scheme.

"What body?" Koresh demanded, kneeling in front of Oshana and grabbing her arms.

"The Minister was making Vega make a clone from the living Sister's fresh genetic material" Oshana explained exuberantly. "There's a chamber....there may be one alive there! A body, but they have nothing....he wanted me to put him or....into it, I didn't dooo it! She could live in it!" Oshana nodded excitedly at Koresh, who stared back in shock. "Help us now, help us, yes, and if we find it's alive, I will, if they are dead, I will let you speak with her before....she passes."

Koresh stared through Oshana and made a single nod yes.

Since Bursamen was the only one sitting calmly and behaving in a way that seemed sane, the Enforcer was now watching Oshana and Koresh with more suspicion and attention than Bursamen. Watching the Enforcer, Bursamen could tell that the time was right to make a move. Taking hold of a loose slab of the planter retaining wall that he was sitting on, Bursamen hurtled it at the Enforcer. Koresh took advantage of the diversion to tackle the Enforcer. Bursamen hurried over and knocked the Enforcer unconscious before he could harm Koresh.

"After Larran is gone!" Oshana almost spit, running up to Bursamen and pulling on his shirt sleeve. "There are entrances to the laboratories from the gardens. If the way is still passable, we'll find the clone."

"Handler of souls" Bursamen's upper lip snarled in contempt. "You sicken me" he stood and looked away from Oshana but was clearly speaking to her. He looked to Koresh, but the man stared back through him. "Very well we will try this after we find the Sister. And who knows what Larran is doing!" he threw Oshana in the direction of the Cordon Wing.

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