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C2IP Update.3

Marshal stepped into Mick's apartment. He had used a Neo-Linguistic Programming technique from a library book to convince the superintendent to give him access. Mick had only disappeared a few days ago but somehow there was already a thick layer of dust coating every surface, almost like ash. 

The kitchenette was a mess of take-out packaging. The living room was a ruin of videogame cases and controllers (many smashed in rage), cigarette butts, CD cases, sketches and hand-written poetry.

In the small bedroom (just a sleeping bag on the floor) Marshal found the map Mick had been working on, pages pasted to the wall with lines and circles connecting them, a shot straight out of a conspiracy movie. It was the outline for Mick's next novel. 

Marshal had read Illiciterati and Evanjaculist and had been eagerly awaiting Mick's newest book. Except he had been having all these strange dreams and when he performed his ritual meditations to Odin and Merlin the gods had been telling him that something more was happening, that Mick was involved in something deeper. Then Marshal had started having these really potent daydreams at work, imagining uncovering a covert war between something called The System and a group calling themselves Counter, and it was all connected to Mick's writing. The dreams and visions and daydreams became more and more intense until he was compelled to come here...

One page was titled 'Chronoplex'. The name 'Suki', 'version GrownUp?', 'version Grandma?'. 'Project Realtime?'. 'Can we access the Missing Season?'. 'Can we learn what happened during the Millennium Incident?'.

Another page labelled 'Paraplex'. 'So what happened to the Initiated Dragons?'.

The next: 'Ultraplex'. 'Are these reports that the Counter-System was broadcasting? Or are they made up? Propaganda or just fiction?'.

'Hyperplex'. 'The Plureality Dragons Upgraded'. 'The Diner Dragons?', crossed out. 'Darius?', circled and crossed out.

'Omniplex'. 'Art, journals, music, RPGs?'. 'Project Horizon?'.

'Synchroplex'. A list of dates.


'Manaplex'. Mostly illegible. 'New job?' circled. 'Project Ellipses?'.

And in marker, scrawled over many of the pages: 'BETRAYAL'.

Marshal had no idea what any of it meant but could feel that it somehow explained everything.

He also noticed a copy of a magazine on the floor. Profile Celebrations. The cover story was about a man named Vlad Akimoto. Marshal scanned the article:

International fitness business empire mogul. Founder of "The Timeless Warrior" training regime, based on ancient lost arts of body purification through testing one's physical limits, combined with the introduction into your healthy diet of designer herbal infused beverages. Proposed by some in the fashion industry that Akimoto was the father of the "hipster" movement. Rumoured a) to be majority owner in the up and coming "Citadel" independent music label, b) to have founded the online "Barbarian" clothing line which specializes in custom design t-shirts, c) to own a number of fashionable craft beer eateries in Tokyo, St Petersburg and Munich.

Why was Mick researching this guy?

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