Titans of Ages Current

Prologue: Waking Stone

"In my eyes you must look and ponder what you see. More importantly, understand that which you hear from my pupils. However, it is most imperative that you look beyond what I am, and what we are, and peer towards that where you are going."
"Remarkable amazing... When do I get paid?" Jack's stern gaze could only be matched by the silent response of his accomplice.
A mood was set by the two men of business, similar to Jack's last job. Bystanders no longer stood between Jack and his view of the IAC corporate office building. No car was left parked on the sidewalk. Even the dogs, whose instinct is to call out to any moving matter, seemed to fearfully respect the presence of the two.
Jack looks at his nameless partner as the other man nods his head in the name of his own dismissal. As he leaves Jack could hear the utterance of his favorite words: "When you come back, tell me my name."

The lighted numbers on the black phone dim as the call is complete, give in two minutes I'll have everything I need to find the fifth Alrach. I never liked the IAC. Ever since the position of founder was handed to over to the Xio-Zher, I felt any former obligations to the bioengineering facility carried less its weight in paper.
Ironic really, if Torpor was still alive I'd be in debt to him, but he never took advantage of a favor. I owed him but he refused to collect. His kindness was so abruptly replaced by the zealous greed of the Zher.
I approach the front gates of the corporate plaza as I am greeted by screams and the calls of guards: it's the little things that make life worth living. In an almost comedic display of seriousness I traverse the chaos-stricken plaza into the main hall where the screams of terrified security and patrons were replaced by smooth jazz on the intercom and a familiar voice.
"Jack please, I've told you that you come with the intent to terrify the clients and staff you could at least note that on your appointment schedule," the young brunette Levy sported a gray suit jacket with matching paints and still black shoes. Her green eyes alwayd behind the yellow tint of her glasses, displaying them as a brown rather than green. Her lean figure points to the stairwell as she sighs "due to your last visit please use the stairs Jack"
"It's been three years! It doesn't take that long to rebuild with Xio's infinite pockets?"
A scornful look radiates from her clearly unamused face "no, but it's pathetic when a company cannot install elevators into their own building because of work related risk!" She looks away as she announces "your appointment is in five minutes, should I leave?
She flinches fiercely at the sound of my laughter " Not today, I'll aim for the top half this time." The sound of cynical joy ends upon my arrival to Durant's office. Looking back I see Levy chose to leave anyways, and at a brisk pace too. I can only chuckle as I walk into the glass room once again.

Durant utilized all of his collective courage to open the door. It was a day of reckoning like the one so many years ago. That was the year Jack escaped, and the year Durant learned just what the world came to after the events of the squall. A man a significant stature and composure, one could not tell his traumatic past, riddled with tragedy at the lost of his family at the hand of the IAC, but now he works for them.

"Jack, I've looked at your records and I noticed something interesting: you have none." Shifting the position of my legs I anticipate what can only be a signature Jack remark. However he just stares at me, as if to read my mind on the matter.
He breaks his silence "Durant, it's been three years. Only movies and soap operas keep people on comas for that long."
So it's gonna be this then, Jack comes to negotiate his debt only to beat on a dead horse, well a dead boy to be accurate.
"You know why we keep Etrius in comatosis right? Jack? Do you not remember the squall? That thing that wiped out half the population of earth?"
Jack finally stands up, slamming his hands on the table "look at the opportunity you ass! I'm giving you the option to give you your family back, and you are going to dismiss me like a fool!"
Tears, I can feel them damnit. The memory of losing my wife and daughter to the earth and the fire when the world split open, and the damned figments of a broken mind took shape and claimed the souls of billions. All because of that kid Etrius.
"How is letting you take that spawn writhe gonna bring my family back? He destroys and takes, never creates nor give."
A smile of triumph stretches across his vile face, as his hands over stretch the desk to my wrist.
"Duran, we don't even need him, just hand" a blade appears from his fingers, black like the darkest shadows. A swift motion of his hand causing stinging pain to center itself in my wrist, and blood behind to run down.
"What are you doing Jack, is this done sort of threat? Explain yourself you bastard!" The blood running onto my desk, draining quickly. Damn he went up my whole arm. No, not again.
I throw myself away to the corner trying to get away, but he grabs my wrist, and slides his hands once more over the wound. This time, however, the bleeding stopped. A steak of ink line liquid, just as dark as the blade covered the wound.
It burns, god it burns! My skin literally bubbles as the black fluid men's into my skin, and recolors itself into my pigment. It was like I never got cut.
"Jack what did you do? I'd this another one of your demonic negotiation tactics, it won't work you know that!"
"What I just did was cut you and mend you with ink of Alrach's
grimiore, you know the one that can rewrite reality?"
How? How could the same principle that took my life away give it back? This is a trick, it must be. Can it be possible? Of course it is. The grimoire was used once before it could be done again.
No... The IAC would surely punish my treachery.. Unless I could be coerced into my actions without a choice. Of course! Jack's reputation as a stark-madman is the perfect guise for this.
The IAC doesn't need another subject to experiment on. As long as he has the hand of Alrach, he's useless. Jack knows how to get it off he just has to!
"Jack listen, I know you thought you'd come here and torment the Xio-Zher once more, but I have an alternative"
His disappointed look does not appeal to the senses, I fear his reasons. However, fortune may have sheen he speaks "and I had the crane ready and everything"
"What the hell were you planning"
"Week it looks like nothing now"
I know just where they keep Etrius, it's the top floor furthest northwest room. If the building ever went under crisis they could transport any of the alpha subjects out via air ship rather quickly and orderly fashion. But to get there?
The stairs up were tedious. We couldn't have the elevators re-installed because of... Complications with Jack. His previous visit made us all weary of any possible antics.
I thought about every possible alliby I could use to get Jack in. I could tell them I have him prison. God no, not even Bell could detain him last time. There is no chance they would buy
it.
Twelve flights left: he threatened the building saying he would lay siege of are failed to comply with his demands. Not that either! Jack would do that anyways.
Three flights! Think Durant! You got to get out of this! Stop now! No... My family is close to my grasp. Jack will murder, lie, and raze the ground be walks on, but he never bluffs. He can't.
The lights at the monitor flash red as the console request my ID code.
45449
The number, it's very code created to harm my sanity, to break my will. It was a reminder of what the IAC did to me, and that regardless... I was their bitch
Not this time.
"45449" I uttered. A red light flashed sharing me to my entry denial "your ID was misunderstood. Restate it in a clearer format"
This can't be happening. I said it just fine I thought. I spoke normally. Again Durant your so close. Don't show fear. Is that a tear? I thought I was over this damn number.
"45-44-9 damnit" my hand hits the monitor breaking the glass with a muffled shatter. Blood drips from impact zone.
Blood. The night I was assigned my number, samples were taken from my body to determine the eligibility to be a subject alpha. Because of the squall, the IAC wanted to find humans that remained with the genetic sequence: like Etrius. My daughter had the sequence. I felt that my relation to her would mean that I had the sequence. The test soon showed that my genes were double negative in the
mutation.
That meant not only was my daughter recessive, my wife was also a carrier. I pleaded with the Xio- Zher not to take my wife in the very least. But her results showed the worst possible outcome. Double positive.
They took them! My wife! My baby girl! We survived the squall damnit, the IAC said they would rebuild faith in humanity's future! Wipe your eyes Durant, you'll get then back. If there is one thing I know.
"They can't beat you Jack... They just can't, and they know it. I know it, you know it. If God hasn't turned his back to us he'd call it just the same. Don't make the same mistakes the other six made. If you don't understand it by now, maybe you weren't meant to."
"Xio knows his name. I'm going to find out. I don't think I've made it clear yet, but my intentions are only my own. I claim all the spoils of a war of my own design. It has nothing to do with the will of..."
He must have had his epiphany. I've only heard rumors about the deal the IAC made. Aside from bioengineering, it was been murmured about sights of ghastly horrors. Unspeakable ones. Ones that the founders went to great means to both justify and enshroud.
Just like they justified my family.