Okay.  Here's the second installment (final) of the revenge/teaser fic I
posted earlier.  I can't really call it a revenge fic..  Just think it as
an.. elaborate teaser.

I used several author characters from the Revenge Wars.. without
permission.  I know.  VERY bad.. but I've forgotten and/or don't know
their email addresses (I purge my email cache daily).  I tried to
characterize them as they were portrayed in the Revenge Wars IV.  My
apology to the authors if I portrayed them.. incorrectly.

Myungsu Suh
suh1@uiuc.edu

=====

"This better be good..  Dragging me out of bed..  Report!" 

"Errmm..  Ma'm, a plot hole appeared above the Northern hemisphere." 

"WHAT?!" 

"T-The sensor sats picked up an 'anomaly' entering through it and
stabilizing into a polar orbit after it collapsed.." 

".. Command and control center barely finished and now this...  Well,
cadet.  What are you standing here for!  Alert the staff!  Sound red
alert!" 

+++ #### +++

It was floating, floating in emptiness - the void.  It did not care, for
it did not know how. 

It looked at the planet below it; strange, alien, wistful ideas generated
from its awareness.  The planet was familiar..  Very familiar to..  some
other..  It could not remember.  It was pointless.  It had no memories. 
It purged the self-generated ideas from its awareness.  The planet was
nothing compared to its task.  It did not care about the planet, for it
did not know how. 

It paused its immediate thoughts.  It could feel a multitude of
emotion-ideas from the surface and the surrounding void.  Harm.  Fear. 
Anger.  Anxiety.  Love.  Satisfaction.  Indifference.  Calm.  Rage. 
Depression.  Friendship.  Hate.  Curiosity.  Deception.  Glee.  Insani--

No.  Thousands of emotion-ideas branching off into subbranches,
multiplying into the millions, zillions, infinity.  Too much.  Too soon. 

It blocked the emotion-ideas.  It resumed its thoughts.  It hypothesized
the emotion-ideas were other entities..  like itself? 

Maybe.  Maybe, they were.  It did not even know what itself was.  But it
did not matter.  Nothing mattered, except..  Except gathering the essence
of the emotion-ideas.  It was its function.  Its duty.. To absorb the core
concepts of this peculiar world strand that patched with other countless
world strands.  Its mission.. To carry the precious cargo of ideas back to
Nexus.  There was much to learn and store into its vast, empty memories. 
Much. 

It observed emotionlessly as a wave of emotion-ideas approached from the
planet surface and the surrounding void in.. vessels.  The vessels were
approaching toward itself.  Strange things, those vessels.  The vessels
equated into a new idea in its awareness.  It realized the vessels were
new methods of interpreting the limitless imagination into reality.  It
stored the vessel concept into its bottomless memories.. and waited. 

+++ #### +++

"What's the anomaly's status?" 

"The scanners are having difficulty.. with it..  Whatever it is, it's
orb-- It stopped, sir.  It's staying stationary at point one-four-three
alpha." 

"The anomaly is within visual range, captain." 

"On screen." 

The image of the anomaly appeared on the bridge display.  Several gasps
and muted exclamations were heard from the bridge crew. 

"What the--" 

"S-Sir, the _Pathfinder_ is hailing us.  Audio only." 

".. Let's hear it." 

"< Zen can't believe what he is seeing.. *THAT* is.. >" 

The captain cleared his throat and replied.  "That can't be a human.  It
entered through an unstable plot hole in spa--." 

The anomaly suddenly vanished from the viewer. 

"Kim!  What happened?!" 

"SIR!!  I-It's gone!  The sensors are not picking it up..  even in the
long range scans..  Wait.. Captain, the _Lovely Angel_ is reporting an
intruder-- correction, the.. anomaly in its engine compartment.  The Dir--
The Lovely Angels are hailing us through audio." 

"Patch it in." 

"< Trouble consultant Yuri speaking.  Our internal visuals are showing
the.. thing *floating through* our matter/anti-matter reactors.  We're
heading toward it to investigate.  Yuri out. >" 

"The channel is closed sir.  The _Pathfinder_ has also terminated its
channel." 

".. Are they going to..  Nevermind.  It's *their* ship.  ..  If.. that
thing is human..  Maybe..  Kim!  Input the image of this 'anomaly' into
FREDnet's Earth link database.  Set up a search algorithm to find a match
in the Terran population registers." 

"It's going to take several hours sir." 

"Alright.  Do it." 

+++ #### +++

It was satisfied, if it could understand satisfaction.  The vessel was
fascinating, for it provided a wealth of concepts.  The vessel was matter
rearranged according to predefined ideas to form a transport for the
emtion-ideas.. 

Yes.  Fascinating.  Even the three emotion-ideas stalking itself. 

It turned toward the concealed three emotion-ideas.  It could sense
negative ideas, foreign ideas -- hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
conflicting ideas. 

It blocked the ideas from the three emotion-ideas.  It was not ready to..
process the contradictory concepts from the three entities.  Yes. 
Entities.  They were entities but not like itself.  They had matter. 

It observed the three entities.  It sensed compressed and uncompressed
matter waves emanating from them.  They were producing the matter waves..
for communication?  Or were the waves some miscellaneous functions of the
three entities?  The matter waves had a pattern..  a complex pattern.  It
tried to process the pattern in its awareness. 

	"--uri!  Don't!  The containment field generators are behind him!" 

	"They won't explode from *this* so don't wo--" 

It stopped its attempts to decode the patterns.  It did not understand
them.  It concluded the entities were employing the matter wave patterns
as a crude medium of communication.  The entities seemed not to use
idea-thought projection for communication.  A regretable limitation. 
However.. It could decode the matter wave patterns later.  It waited for
the three concealed entities to act.  Its directive was to observe, not to
act.

One of the entities appeared and made a gesture with its matter.  A thick
beam of matter shot from the entity's matter.  The beam passed through
itself.  It analyzed the matter beam - the component atoms, photons,
quarks and energies.  It concluded the matter beam's sole purpose -
destruction. 

It stopped its analysis of the matter beam.  It focused to the entity.  It
subtly probed the entity and blocked the underlying chaotic idea-images. 
It focused on the main idea- images occupying the entity's
mind-imagination. 

Death.  Kill.  Anger.  Joy.  Relief.  Restraint.  Hurt.  Remorse. 
Surprise.  Fear. 

Too much.  Still too much idea-images to process coherently. 

It focused on the *dominant* idea-image within the entity. 

Fear.  Fear.  Fear.  Fear.  Fear. 

It extracted its harmless probes and waited for the three entities to act. 
It did not care if the entity feared, for it did not know how.  The matter
beam did not harm itself.  Itself was impossible to harm.  Itself was only
a thought strand whose sole purpose was to gather more concepts.  It only
had to wait to gather more concepts from these entities. 

It patiently waited for more alien concepts as the entity discharged more
and more matter with destructive purpose. 

+++ #### +++

It floated above the ground, gathering all the raw concepts, ideas
surrounding itself, excluding the vessel behind itself.  The entities
populating the planet had discharged many matter and.. interesting
energies with harmful intent toward itself.. after itself exited the three
entities' vessel.  It dutifully recorded the composition and effect of
these matter and engergies with harmful intent into its memories.  It did
not care for the harmful intent of these entities, for it did not now how. 

The three entities had conveniently guided their vessel to the planet
surface after much matter wave communication between themselves and.. the
other entities through photon carrier waves that translated into matter
wave communication.  It still had trouble decoding the matter wave
patterns. 

The three entities had promptly exited the vessel after the vessel landed
on the surface.  The landing of the vessel aided in its ultimate function. 
More ideas to absorb on planet surface. 

The entities from planet surface stopped their matter and energy
discharges with harmful intent after several zetta atom oscillations,
possibly realizing itself was impervious to harm. 

To itself's..  slight disappointment? 

It purged the self-generated idea from its awareness.  The self-generated
ideas hindered its ultimate function.  Gather concepts. 

The entities were observing itself through their own probes.  It did not
care for the probes, for it did not know how.  It attempted to process all
the concepts forming the entities.  It carefully probed them. 

Too much.  Too soon..  But..  Most interesting.. 

It broke off its probing.  Too much idea-images.  Too soon..  However.. 
The entities' raw concepts were.. fascinating.  Their concepts were very
peculiar.. very concentrated.. very.. confusing.  It decided to probe the
entities individually for unique concepts and store into its memories..
after gathering the background concepts of the planet. 

It paused its thoughts. 

Several of the entities seemed damaged from itself's initial probing. 
Their matter bodies were on the ground, twitching irratically.  Some of
them made strange, unknown gestures with their matter bodies. 

It pondered.  Itself's probes were not meant to harm these physical
entities.  It retreated into its core awareness and formulated a possible
explanation.  If these entities were able to project image-thoughts.. 
they might be mind-imagination damaged from the probes. 

It focused back to the entities.  It had to repair the damage it created. 
The Nexus directive was to observe, not to act.  Damaging the entities was
action.  Action was not allowed.  It had to correct its mistake. 

It extended its probes into the damaged entities, one by one.  It
attempted to cancel the effects of its previous probing.  It succeeded.. 
Mostly. 

The other undamaged entities were retreating away from itself and the
repaired entities. It decided to wait for the entities' actions.  It
stopped its background concept gathering subroutines temporarily.  It
waited.  Waited for many countless atom oscillations.  It noticed the
repaired entities also retreated toward the other entities, away from
itself. 

It had to wait, for it did not know what to do.  It decided to gather more
concepts when the entities acted. 

It waited.  Waited for many atom oscillations.  Many many many many atom
oscillations. 

One entity approached itself after many oscillations.  The entity was
sending image-thought projections! 

{ Are you an ESPer? }

Itself pondered for many atom oscillations.  It decided to reply to the
entity's image- thought projection.  Communicating with the resident
entities of this world strand did not amount to action.  Physical action. 
Communicating with the entity might influence other entities to take
physical action, however.  It had to be careful in its replies.  It could
not act or force action - it could only observe.  It finally replied to
the entity's image-thought projection. 

! Itself. ! 

{ ... }

Itself waited for the entity's image-thought reply.  Many atom
oscillations passed. 

{ We pulled up records from Earth..  Are you the person called Myungsu
Suh? }

Itself pondered the entity's reply.  It did not understand.  Itself was
only a thought strand, its sole function the gathering of concepts of this
peculiar world strand patched with other countless world strands.  Itself
was not a matter entity as the entity implied. 

! Itself is itself.  Itself observes. ! 

{ ... }

Itself observed as the entity retreated back toward other entities.  It
waited for the entities to act.  It waited patiently. 

Many many atom oscillations. 

It waited. 

Waited patiently. 

+++ #### +++

"This is crazy.  This guy was dead when I 'checked' on him near the end of
the Revenges."

Nabiki Tendo coldly gazed at the display monitor, showing the ghostly
image of Myungsu Suh floating near the wrecked _Lovely Angel_. 

Nicola stared thoughtfully at the Veritech pilot and gently touched her
swollen midsection. 

"Nabiki..  How did he die?"  she asked. 

Nabiki took a moment to reply.  It was useless to lie to an empath.  She
told the truth. 

"He made a nice red stain on some cement by jumping from the top of a
building.  He deserved it.  I found.. disturbing stories on his PC
hardrive.  One of the stories included me..  He portrayed me spiraling
toward insanity, the bastard." 

".. I didn't notice him on the FFML or RAAC." 

"You'd have wasted your time searching for his posts.  I kept tabs on the
FFML/RAAC discussions.  He only made two posts - poorly written stuff.  I
checked on him though.  It was a policy for us Animates back then.. to
check any potential fanfic author for incriminating stories." 

".. Prime tried to communicate with him..  He said it was like.. talking
through a brick wall.  This.. 'Myungsu Suh' claimed he 'observes..' I
wonder how he became what he is now.." 

"Maybe (?) meddled with him before his suicide..  Maybe some renegade
Animate messed him up.  Maybe what we are seeing is nothing but a copy of
the original."  Nabiki paused and continued.  "I researched into his life. 
You could say I was a bit curious.. to find out what motivated him to
write those-- stories.  In simple terms, his life was not pleasant. 
Whatever he is now..  he's dangerous.  He could have been sent by the (?)
to spy on us." 

"Nabiki..  I sensed his mind." 

"... ?  Explain, Nicola." 

"When he.. 'attacked' the AD Police unit, I could glimpse into his mind..
momentarily.  All of the empaths could..  Nabiki.  He isn't human.  He's
more like a machine.  He didn't mean any harm.. He's just.. watching us." 

"Why are you telling me this all of a sudden?" 

"I-- I just have to.  I don't know..  He felt so.. alien."  Nicola gazed
downward and gently caressed her belly.  "I'm afraid he might have scared
my baby.." she whispered. 

"Hey, look.  He's gone..  Where did he disappear to now.." 

"..  I can't feel him anymore.." 

"..." 

+++ #### +++

Itself had waited for many oscillations.  It had waited enough.  The Nexus
expected results.  Itself's conversation between the entity possibly
influenced the other entities. It retreated into its core awareness and
formulated a new method of observation without influencing the entities. 

It executed its plan and started its observations. 

Many many atom oscillations.

It observed.

Observed patiently.