I know where she works. I know where she lives. I do not wish to upset her husband or two children. She has a boy aged ten and a girl aged seven. To intrude may cause harm in their recollection of childhood memories later on. It would be unnecessary. I do not know how to act though. It has been some time since I had to conduct myself in a social situation especially in peacetime, in civilian surroundings. I think I have blended in fine into this small town.

Dexter scrolls onto the next page, he notes on the changes that have occurred (minor ones) since the downfall of the United Forces tyranny, and then…

The American type diner is half full. Possible opponents: - two overweight gentlemen to the left of me as I enter, a group (five) young men with girls on one of central tables, one man to the right of serving counter, another at end of the serving area where a slim, teenage waitress is located, two thin elderly women looking at me as I cross room (one has a Magnum 38 staser crudely holstered underneath petticoat, left leg); staser carrying- even in small town. I am without weapons, no combat should be necessary.

I know it's her shift, perhaps I should wait until this place is more vacant, before it is about to close. I must meet her soon though, the rest of the men on the vessel are growing impatient, even though I granted them leave on Earth.

I sit at counter on fixed, tall stool. Someone enters diner. A young man, I see him walk across through tables in mirror behind boilers for coffee, fruit bowls, cake posters, menus.

"What'll it be?" A woman stands with a pad in front of me- not Patsy. The young man throws an affectionate glance at the teenage waitress, she smiles back at him.

"A coffee please," maybe I should have adopted an accent of some kind to blend in better within these cosmopolitan strains of England.

"Sure," there's a moment's pause in her, like there is something odd about my order .

"Cappuccino," I hate that drink but it sounds good.

"Sure."

The young man who entered after me is now stood by the teenager. He grabs a hug from her and a kiss. The 'sure' waitress brings my coffee. In the mirror, I watch the waitress coyly protest at his affections.

"Katie!" The teenager breaks from him quickly as a senior colleague gets her attention, "order for table nine." It's Patsy's voice that calls from the kitchen area. Secluded behind a metal fan that sucks in aromas mixed of burgers, fries, eggs, chicken fried, sausages, etc. I see her hand reach over and place two plates on serving area. I cannot see anymore of her from my position.

My waitress notices me noticing Patsy. Again, she looks at me like I'm some sort of bad alien. I sip my cappuccino, able to digest foodstuffs and liquids but having no need for them anymore since the Univarians.

The young lover boy whom was distracting the waitress sits by me, addressing her, "hi."

"Kev', hey…" the woman who served my coffee whispers into the young man's ear, he promptly looks over to me self-consciously, taking everything in of her quiet sounded words.

I pretend not to be bothered or notice them, turning my head to the scene outside. My left ear toward them, hearing turned up: "..you see that guy?" "Uh huh," Kev' responds dumbly. "That's the weirdo who's been hanging around town."

She leaves her whispered conversation as I turn my head back in their direction. The 'sure' woman smiles at me in a broad mouthful of too many teeth, ill manners abounding; being covert in civvie street isn't so easy.

I hear Patsy's voice once more from the kitchen. Since I am not as inconspicuous as I originally intended, I decide to confront Patsy head on. I get up from my seat.

Kev' watches me, with that hostile youth attitude. I feel his eyes burning into my back. He thinks he is indestructible and therefore his fighting skills equally superior to anyone in this room.

"Jesus Christ this burnt!" A bulky man in his fifties lets out his customer complaint for all to hear. His frame looks as though it had some form of training in early years- his body now rejects that in age. Ex-United Forces commando judging by cuff links discreetly worn.

I catch sight of her. She works with short-order cook. She comes to his table from kitchen clearly hacked off, "okay, okay!"

She takes his plate back.

I am stood near to her. Patsy looks directly into my eyes, having not paid much attention before but her mind must have alerted to check me, I am motionless. The complaining ex-U. F looks up at me annoyed that I have gained her attention away from him.

"Jesus..." her words wander off as her face goes complete white.

The cook looks from kitchen, puzzled.

She almost drops ex-U.F. commando's plate all over him.

"You dumb fuckin' bitch!" He stands up, the offending meal now falling over floor as expletives rain likewise from him.

Patsy is in too much shock to take any of it in as he yells more. The rest of the café has become caught up in the scene. The retired commando pushes me, "and wha' s with you?" I notice now that he is three parts pissed, typical drunk bastard.

This person has become a block to me communicating with Patsy. I throw a thought in my mind to counter him. Cool down in some way- do not wish to draw any more attention to myself. The large gentleman takes a push at me again but I move my right leg around behind me, so that my body is side on and his offending push slides past my torso as before.

He's puzzled at why his strength is wasted on thin air.

"Be calm," his ravings seem to be checked, more through surprise than any constraining words I have just uttered.

Patsy stands open-mouthed still.

"Hello Pat's," I say.

"Alan...?" She manages at last.

The ex-U. F gentleman looks to the woman who has just angered him. He looks to me. Then back to Patsy. Then to me once more. His anger has quelled down. The waitress who served me comes up to Patsy, "Are you okay?"

"Hey! What about-" the 'sure' woman interrupts the complaint customer, telling him to sit down and she'll personally sort his meal out.

Patsy's colleague leads her somewhere out the back. I feel all the diner's attention focused on me but it doesn't matter, I care not, feeling nothing for the curiosity I have aroused, it is peacetime after all.

Key' comes up to me, his waitress girlfriend watching on, frightened. He is saying something to me- abusive language. Evidently trying to provoke a response of some sort. Rather unsubtle to launch into such language early on, a reasoned jibe or two then bad language. Interesting, almost a shred of true anger within him.

The 'sure' woman returns.

"Kev' sit back down and shut up!"

He sulkily returns to his seat.

"Come with me," she beckons me to follow her.
*
Patsy sits in a nicotine yellowed staff room. Crusty coffee cups and lockers betray that sense of workplace trying to be relaxed, but failing. She stares at me in shock filling her eyes in a mix of confusion, relief, fear, sadness. The 'sure' woman waits a moment, worried for her colleague.

"She will be perfectly fine, we are old friends," I say.

She looks at Patsy for confirmation.

"It's alright Margi'. I just haven't..." her words fall to emptiness, blowing her nose on a tissue, having just wiped her eyes.

Margi remains steadfast.

Normally, sometime ago, I would have responded by smiling at this point. I cannot. I repeat my words like they are in a script, "she will be perfectly fine, we are old friends."

Eventually the waitress leaves, after some procrastinating, "I'll be just out here, just outside the door. Call if you need me okay. Just here, okay."

The staff room door closes. Awkwardness forms into a stunted silence between us. I had calculated what I was going to say but now I'm here, I cannot. Not knowing where to begin. She looks up at me as I stiffly stand in the centre of the room.

"Will you sit down at least!" False laughter tries to enter up into her words, the strain of this situation is evidently to unbearable for mock humour; from that end of Patsy' s sentence I realize I should have never come here at all, I should have never returned to Earth, after all we were all meant to have perished on Holodern IV. I sit down.

Observing her uneasiness: fidgety hand movements, eye contact not meeting mine, repeated adjustment of her skirt- a bad situation.

"You can't be Alan...you just can't be. Who are you?" My ex-girlfriend glances fluttering at the door, in a daze, perhaps, to allow herself to be in the same room as some one she hasn't seen for sixteen years muddles her.

"Let me explain.." I try to say, as Patsy at the same time says: "look I'm sorry but.."

"You first.." I signal her to continue, offering room for her to speak.

"No. Sorry. Go ahead," Patsy smiles, in shock still; her body going with it, running through conversation like I turn up on her doorstep everyday.

"Okay," I force a smile across my stone face, it's a sensation that makes me feel nothing but foolish.

The woman opens her month slightly and turns it into a sarcastic sneer, "are you alright?"

I cease endeavoring to smile.

"You must be in some confusion. I am Alan Walker and I appreciate that the United Forces accounted for us, for me, as killed in action…it should have been missing in action. Please allow me to-"

"You can't be Alan Walker! I know..knew him. You..huh...well you had me going for a bit there. Let me start again..alright.." Patsy's words bang into each other in quick succession.

"You can't be Alan Walker. He died along with the others," annoyance rises up in her voice, "yes, o.k, you might look like him with a few scars across your face but that's about it..in fact-"

"I knew this would happen but-" I butt into her words which she immediately cuts into.

"You are not him! My God, are you his son?" Her flare of defensive anger, a trait that must be highly developed in her character by now, comes at me..yet I am distanced from it.

There's a silence. Her friend is still outside the door, listening in, I sense her nosey presence.

"Do you remember that walk in the country?"

Patsy laughs at my question, "I've had enough of this," she proceeds to leave, dismissing me.

"It was on the outskirts of Bristol, past Frenchay where your parents used to live. It had been kept as a Green Zone. It was a hot summer for once and we picked apples or at least you did."

She stops by door, left hand flat upon it.

"So what?" She turns on me, "everyone goes for walks in the country. Good guess though. What did you do raid my ID files like some hack..huh? Found out about me?"

She faces me, angry now, "what kind of a person are you? What do you want? Is it money? 'Cause my husband and I aren't-"

"You picked apples and I messed about in an underpass, enjoying the sound of my voice in the reverberating space. You became quite mad in your usual way. And before that.." Patsy tries to leave but I gently hold her arms and she complains with: "get off you...", yet I urge the words from my memory of me then, so long ago with the passion of the human I was then. "Before that we had been walking in the fields, there was no one about, you were about to start college and we had time on our hands, it was a Thursday, do you remember? Do you remember? In a field above that small wood, cows in the same field, we became passionate. You performed fellatio on me and I played with you. My prefix for asking for oral sex was always: 'would you like to kiss me there?'. Do you remember?"

Her struggling has stopped.

"And the first time we started to get it together you were incredibly shy? I massaged your shoulders and you had a feeling something was going on but had no idea what was really happening and I kissed your head and you said: 'what are you doing?'. However, I continued.

"And the fact that we didn't fully make love for a year because you had an horrific experience in childhood when doctors tried to examine you and they forced their instruments into you. Yet we managed eventually and it seemed a great leap for you because you asked me: 'what's the matter?' And I said: 'I'm coming'. It was then that you realized that you had made love and lost your virginity at that late age; your legs used to shake afterwards…remember?"

Patsy giggles, nervously. I have whispered everything to exclude Margi. I loosen my loose grip to nothing, not having held her with force but feeling for the first time in years the warmth of a woman. I could be taken over with desire, I find no respite here for the emptiness I feel within; mere nothing, not even in that soft female form. My reminisces sound stupid, yet they are true.

"Yes .You may have learnt that from..." she frantically wishes to not believe me but I continue.

"Who could know such things Pat's?" I use the nick name, it could easily be put down to any hap-hazard guess but the whole details are the truth, something which only two people could know about.

She is silent, looking at me hard, examining my face for answers. She then slaps my face, hard.

I feel nothing, as each response rises like a faint light somewhere as a glimmer in my head for a moment and then dwindles to blackness. My words seem too stupid to me, illogical, beyond anything normal of what I know. Her slap is unhurtful, just overwhelmingly disappointing.

She has started to cry again. Patsy wipes her nose dry, "go. Whoever you are! Whatever you are!"

"I...hope you will forgive me intruding into your life. I should have given you more warning...I apologize.." I say, not sounding as though I mean it.

"Damn right you should apologize! Who do you think you are?!"

Patsy turns from me as though we are on stage and this is some play, it is drawing to a close.

I speak to the back of her head as she sniffs, "I didn't mean for it to happen this way Patsy. I know you must have your life now with…"

"I knew a young man once," Patsy begins, head still turned from me, "you...are him but..huh..I know…I should have known you would have survived…somehow. We shared a year or two together, and yes I remember them filled with emotions.. ..intense. He decided to join up. Alan Walker didn't give a shit. I knew Alan had a cruel, hard streak in him but I didn't expect it to grow and grow. I once said to him: 'you've become hard. He replied: 'I'm not hard..it's just my surroundings that have made me that way.' Alan used to talk some crap! That was from a film I expect..am I right? He died long ago for me, long before Holodern IV…"

Margi enters the staff room as if on cue, consoling her mate and regarding me like something that has crawled out from underneath a rock.

I go to say something but do not wish to add fuel to Patsy's tears, making her cry more, instead pluming for a sharp exit.
*
The customers pay no attention to me. Two old ladies natter on. The group of young men with girls killing time have left. The complaining ex-U. F commando stuffs his face.

I leave Pat's Diner into cold night air. It's dark outside and the wind, chills people here. That is that.

Maybe I'll have a drink. I haven't drunk anything for years (alcohol wise). Across the road a bright lit and young looking place, serves up 'entertainment' to people listening to 'music'. Three lads are walking in the same direction as me. Into the entrance of the pub. Two of them enter, a gentleman on the door greets them in half-polite manner. The third stops by me, "do you smoke mate?"

I fix him straight in the face, "no I do not."

"Are you sure?" He jests.

"Absolutely," I answer.

"How come you've got a blanket across your teeth then?"

Maybe he is referring to nicotine stained teeth. Yet since my teeth are in good condition maybe this can be construed as a pissed, aimed jibe. His friends have come back to the proximity of the door, waiting for him. The doorman watches on. I have several options here, some of them violent, unnecessary; not through the waste of life but through expending energy on such an individual, a considered approach verbally could be used here.

"My teeth are in perfect condition and unfortunately I have no comprehension of what you are talking about," the doorman smiles at my words. The insulting gentleman's two friends are agitated and ready to attempt a violent act; seeing an opportunity for something of an anti-social nature to start.

The man who I have just addressed is puzzled for a moment. He then breaks into an original response, "fucking cunt!"

"Fucking cunt!" One of his mates echoes.

The silent one of the three breaks in also, "bastard!".

The doorman shakes his head, his smiling becoming broader.

To debate would be futile.

I say nothing.

"Yeah!" The man stood close to me grabs one of my arms, he lets his right arm down to his side and I hear a blade unsheathed, falling into his obvious cupped hand.

I am not annoyed, angry, or any other of the emotional responses. My adrenalin courses under my control, my muscles will react quickly enough. The doorman has stopped smiling.

"Do you wish to die?" I ask the man who now begins to move his cupped hand upward.

His two colleagues are evidently unbothered by their friend's actions, confident that he will take care of the matter at hand. The man with the knife is beginning to draw up the blade, placing it on my throat. Time to act.

"Nah but.." I cease this man's words to my question by grabbing his right arm with my left hand, fast, clasped tight, grip strong. He's somewhat startled at my response, his main source of threat controlled.

I head butt him, directly on the bridge of his nose- standard target, pulling him onto the response.

Out of the corner of my eye I see people move. Bouncer? Other two miscreants? Both? Must disable person in front of me- now attempting to pull away- his body in shock, offending weapon dropped. I bring my knee up into his groin, hearing the familiar gasp of wind come from him as he receives a second shock.

He doubles up.

The opponents approach to my right, drawing within striking range. I still hold onto the groaning gentleman. His two friends rush at me: one with a knife (a workman's knife- small triangular blade at end, used for slashing), other one unarmed at present, burly and overweight, slow in movement, powerful looking.

His mate slashes down at me. The first attacker is in my grasp and weak with shock- I can move him with ease. He catches the downward slash across his face as I use him as a shield.

The burly one stops open-mouthed. The one who has just slashed his chum is also in a state of surprise.

I let go of slashed man. Whilst the two are in shock I thrust right forefinger and middle finger into blade holding man's eyes. They squelch and burst under my fingertips. He drops his workman's knife and screams.

The burly one ventures to his left, seeing (finally) the futility of attacking. With right hand drawn back, blood rich on my fingers, I kick out my left leg as he passes. In a round movement, first the knee raising in his direction and then I twist my hips so the lower leg swings sharp and with a snap. The ball of my foot makes contact with his beer gut. His lower ribs crunch. My right leg supports my weight as I leave my knee raised, all within a second. He falls on the spot, his knees buckling underneath him. Performing the same kick ( roundhouse) I snap out lower leg again but this time my ball of foot comes into contact with the front of his mouth.

In the meantime (a few seconds) the doorman has disappeared, saying "fuck me!"

I step down slowly- no need to rush and prepare for a moment as attackers quelled. First one, who pulled the flick knife, blood pouring from wounds, face up turned to mine; his nose clean, split and thick redness over his skin, long cut across, diagonal, general area of his face. His expression is contorted more by pain. I draw closer to him. I punch down to the centre of his face. He doesn't know who or where he is anymore. My fist goes in a straight line as I make contact I twist the fist so that my thumb faces down, aiming power through two knuckles closest to thumb. My fist continues to go through as my body weight/arm strength/twisting motion hits through.

His head jolts back, too much force inflicted onto neck and facial area; extensive damage inside skull, probably the end of his life.

The pub entrance suddenly bursts with activity as doorman and colleagues rush out. My body is slightly crouched, head ideal target for one of their kicks. The original doorman does kick me. A somewhat sloppy martial arts kick, rather taken over with the emotion of the situation. I bring my torso up and with right arm I bring it down in a sweeping curve across my body. Fist clenched and catching his ankle with the side of my fist, I deflect the offending leg away.

Another large gentleman (a fraction or two of a second with the kick) swings a baseball bat down to the area of my head. He is six-foot and easily fifteen stone. I have no time to block. I lean my head away from the strike, pulling back my body. The wooden bat connects. It smashes into my left trapezium muscle with an exploding force that surprises me. It breaks in two as I deliberately let out a sharp exhalation.

Another doorman is moving in close, a hook punch is coming to the right of my head from him, they seem most insistent on taking up the cause of those I have just killed. I move in closer to him and bring up my right arm so that the elbow comes underneath his chin and toward the heavens. With my right arm raised I bring it down, scraping knuckles of fist in downward movement smashing his nose.

In a split second of bringing fist halfway down, I kick the large, baseball-bat-wielding-doorman in the kneecap; the ball of my foot again strikes but this time the lower leg snaps out in a straight line- extracting quickly.

Behind me I hear a police car screech as I observe the large man buckle underneath his own weight, knee dislodged. The bouncer I have just struck with my elbow then fist, is stunned and dizzy with bust nose and bitten tongue, broken teeth and bust jaw. I bring my right knee in a straight line into his stomach, trying to go through him. He goes backwards- winded as my technique digs directly into his solar plexus area.

A police car door opens behind me, then slams, a copper approaching.

The original doorman who I blocked is limping as he drags away his damaged mates.

The policeman is within grasping range, I hear his banter, the movement of fabric, smell of pressed uniform. He's within grabbing range, his hands on my sleeves. A limping doorman is putting left hand behind his back, coming near to me....sandwiched between the law and doorman going for weapons- little space to manoeuvre.

With my left leg I kick directly backwards like a horse, my right supporting my body weight and allowing me to drive through the Old Bill behind. I keep my eyes on the bouncer who has produced a small metallic stick, about six inches long and pointing toward me, facial area. I feel soft stomach, lower abdominals receiving the heel of my shoe as my back kick locks out and his body weight is lifted; I drive my leg to its fullest, slightly upwards- so as to launch the rear attacker far away, allowing a route for me to retreat into.

The doorman flicks out the weapon, telescopic, it increases in range considerably.

I move back, the metal escrima juts out toward me.

I tilt my head from its trajectory.

"Hold on you bastard!" A woman's voice to the left and behind- policewoman. Her colleague lands with a heavy thump against their car, wind gasped out of him.

Two more gentlemen appear at the pub's narrow door. The doorman takes another wild swing at me.

I move underneath arc of weapon and his arm like a boxer ducking a hook punch.

The copper unholsters her weapon in a hurry. The two gentlemen who have just arrived on the scene are not doormen but address me with an arrogance, which can only be credited to them having some control or ownership of the public house.

With my upper body in a stooped position, huddled, I rise up. Swinging my left leg out and up toward doorman's head. I hear final warning from female cop. I twist my hips (my foot horizontal, heel aimed at his chin) I bring it across in a hook-type motion. His body contorts like a macabre dance, twisting as my kick connects. His weapon flies from his hand.

I hear a bang from a staser behind me as I quickly retrieve my hook kick, dropping to my right, allowing gravity to drop me faster, on the pavement, giving myself space.

A bright blue glow explodes into pub wall and gets absorbed, strings of energy peeling off into inorganic stone.

I turn my head to face the woman trying to blast me unconscious. She is taken aback.

I get up, imitating the movement of a drunk person; hoping to con any more opponents that I cannot handle this situation; though it is unlikely now.

The two bosses are coming nearer. I check them with a glance, one is rather perturbed by the heap of bodies (some groaning) outside the establishment.

"You fucking cunt..that's enough!!!" The more confident of the two utters.

The police officer is for a split second distracted by them but soon aims her gun at me. She is six feet away. I must act. I call her bluff and move forward on my feet with light steps, ignoring the foolish men taunting me.

She fires and I shift forward, in a jumping movement but with my feet only an inch off the ground- twisting at a forty-five degree angle, her shot brushes my upper body, the heat of energy stings. I reach the end of the jump, bringing my palm up, with the base of the hand, I strike softly into the woman's right temple. Her head swings away from me as the force connects, instant knockout, her staser falls.

She drops from me. I catch her by grasping one of her arms, supporting her weight easily. Far off I can hear another police vehicle approaching. Her partner is gasping in breath, sat against his car, in pain yet determined to stop me as I see him fumbling for his staser.

The braver of the two owners punches a jab in a direct line toward my face. Bringing up my left hand, open, across my body, as though batting a fly outwards, away from my face, I block his punch.

Scooping up the policewoman's dropped weapon with my right. Turning my left hand into a classic Karate chop, I sharply strike diagonally into his throat. The bones in the side of my hand bury deep in his soft flesh as I hear and see further abusive language and flair knocked out of him, his body stumbling a little. His colleague draws back, never having any aggressive intent to start with. The man I have just struck is gasping, grasping his neck with face twisted in pain. I flick the small, dumpy weapon around in my hand. With the butt of the gun I whip it around in a long arc (simulating a hook). It connects in a short crack with his nose and splashes yet more blood onto this scene.

Approaching sirens grow louder. It is larger than another patrol car.

I run past officer who is trying to recover. Landing on floor by boot of patrol car, sure enough I see the van speeding toward me. I flick gun setting from STUN to DEMOBILIZE.

An orange flash of light issues from the weapon toward the oncoming back up. It hits and bangs out the noise of van's engine circuits.

A second police presence coming, over the rooftops. More enforcement, making the error of allowing me to hear their sirens. I click a tiny switch on one of my dog tags. My civvie clothes are a state. The first copper is getting up, aiming his weapon at me. Clicking the gun back to STUN I prepare to deal with the officer. The back-up van grinds to a sudden crunching halt onto the pavement. I fire the weapon at the policeman. He holds his stomach, as the energy takes him out.

I move away from the squad car listening and looking everywhere.

Two officers stumble out of the van, dazed. I shoot the nearest one who has spotted me. His colleague rubs his head, hasn't noticed me, possibly concussed. I render him unconscious next with two blasts.

Across the road I have drawn quite an audience. Waving the weapon in their direction, they all try to cram themselves back into the diner all at once, only Patsy remains where she is, just staring at me. A light police craft comes into view, hovering directly above me, thirty feet. "PUT DOWN THE WEAPON!" An amplified voice breaks and cracks in tonal, harsh, split words that echo in this dense built area.

A shot springs over to me. I am illuminated totally by the craft above. I have no cover here. The shot luckily misses. Suddenly a hail of stun shots rain at me like some water cannon aimed, as if to make up for the token first attempt. They come from the cover of the stationary back-up van. A group of police take up standard procedure, shields up, two officers holding back to cover missed shots.

I fall to my knees feeling stun energy spread throughout my body. Patsy lets out a scream "NO!"

I still grip my acquired staser. Breathing heavy, unperturbed by this situation, more upset at allowing Patsy's presence to unfocus me.

"PUT DOWN THE WEAPON AND LIE FLAT ON THE GROUND!!"

From up the street, in the far distance, my craft zips over traffic. Then over police officers who are diverting traffic.

Two officers come from behind crashed van. I feign being stunned, watching everything with a tilted head, rounded shoulders, gun in hand awaiting my vessel that will be here soon. They say something to Patsy.

They still bellow through the loud hailer for the driver of the oncoming vehicle to stop- foolish, these law enforcers take to long in trying to warn a subject. The two officers, weapons in their hands, pointed at me, look quickly to the speeding craft, fifty feet from them. They are covered by comrades behind van and air transport above but are still nervous. The silent black shape of my way out of this mess rushes onward.

I hear a tiny crack of a police radio come from the diner. They must have every angle covered. Patsy has been drawn back into cafe by officer who momentarily struggles with door. I hear one of them as he is only a few feet now say, "what is that?"

He refers to the vehicle, it hasn't been stopped, despite demobilizing blasts fired upon it.

"Can't somebody stop whoever that is for Christ's sake!" He speaks into his radio collar.

I shoot him. His whole body flashes blue and gets catapulted backwards from such a close range. I shoot the another officer- he tips sideways, as though performing an elaborate gymnastic roll. In a great peel of fire my whole body absorbs a multitude of rapid staser flack. My spine curves, almost breaking it as I stand, screaming; blueness shedding off my hands in a sick human firework show, from above, behind, in front, to the right, to the left.

Eventually they stop.

I groan. Let out a breath.

My car, which has passed through their fire, draws even more fire as it stops near me.

The first cop who I shot gets up, pointing his gun toward driver's side. His mate gets up. Both unclip cartridges from their inner jackets. They quickly dispatch energy into thin air that I had inflicted upon them. The other police officers cease firing at the mystery craft; all are unaware I have no need of such devices to dispense weapon fire. It is harder to move my body though. "NEUTRALIZE SURROUNDING AREA," I bellow.

The law start to fire again.

They cease as an intense flash, like a huge camera taking a photo bursts everywhere from my craft.

From all around, within a second of the flash, the bodies of police drop to the floor. From above, the craft that had its spotlight on me veers awkwardly a moment, like a giant, drunk, dragon fly it swings left in a low arc crashing into the road with a loud applause of crunching metal.

All the while my craft has shielded me from the massive neutralizing blast. Even through my closed eyes, the image of its energy blast registers for a moment.

Then all is quiet.

Too quiet for humans but nice for me, in a way, the situation is under my control.

I cross over to the cafe. Through the glass doorway, Patsy 'sleeps' like the rest of them. My body aches with the amount of energy that it has had to put up with. My head fuzzes as though hung over. A police officer has hold of her arm, lying beside her like they are lovers.

I step into the black craft, which opens its door (passenger side). Time to go.

………..the screen blanks. The journalist has just read the most extensive entry. Dexter quickly scans through the following months but the information becomes less and less detailed, less and less factual, coming down to the mundane as years scroll past.

"Does it go on like this?" She remarks more to herself than the robot beside her.

"The journals do become more scant as the years pass. As you will observe," No. 27 comments, fast-forwarding pages on the screen, words unreadable, gaps between entries marked by white spaces which grow larger until, "and this is the most he has ever done for the last few decades."

The screen no longer notes personal events. It shows the reminder that she saw at the start 'REST DAY'.

A well of disappointment comes up through Dexter. She thought that she could perhaps map out Walker (Cutter) through this additional data. She puts her head in her hands sighing deeply.

"My God....this...bastard has taken up years of my life and.."

"Do you wish to retire to your quarters Ms. Dexter?" 27 inquires.