Dexter has been reading everything with great interest. No. 27 helped her greatly by showing her an easier route to the vault. She finds the solitude and silence in the castle beyond errie- calming in a way. She rubs her eyes, yawning. The woman wishes to read on but finds her thoughts in the familiar washes of fatigue.

"This is enough to drive a person mad," her words sound odd to her in the dark, quiet of the vault.

"Indeed," a voice she doesn't recognize speaks behind her.

A small built Chinese man enters the room smiling. He has a curious flowing manner in every step.

"Please do not be alarmed. I am Lee. I served with the man you are trying to obtain a history on."
*
Woods grow before their eyes. Great trunks, branches sprout like animated frames squashing time, the distance of time being reduced to a moment; making it pass so quickly, details lost- final result arriving with an inconceivable clarity.

Lee holds Dexter's arm entwined about hers, elbows forming the crook of acquaintance, old-fashioned. She was shaken at first, but relaxed now because this man puts her at ease; unlike the other who ponderously fills her with woe, despair. This particular man uses his immortality with grace, with life affirming fullness, with light repose (although he has gone through the same as Cutter).

Birds tweet and flutter. "Look!" He suddenly points up a tree. There in the highness of wood, a squirrel dashes to a neighboring tree through thick green leaves.

"Did you create all of this?" She asks.

"Yes...well....with a little help from this planet. If one uses one's mind…anything can be created on this planet, far from the Allied government."

He speaks of old human history. She would like to correct him but sees little point in spoiling the moment. Instead she breathes in the scent of dank woodland, bark knotty, wild garlic passing, oxygen rife.

"Do you know they still propagate the nature myth for all with virtual set ups. That's what makes it worse...offering the sight of what people used to have..then taking it away again...all of us knowing that it was those at the top , now just for the select few."

Lee stops. He looks at her, showing genuine interest; his eyes fully focused upon hers. He smiles, having drunk every word of the reporter.

"He's worn you out hasn't he Ms. Dexter?"

"What do you mean?"

"I know what he's like. I bet he went on for ages talking about skirmishes and the hopelessness of it all, not letting you have a word in edgeways. I am correct...am I not?" Lee throws a twig into the height of green canopy above.
*

Lee's news is not good. Walker knew it would happen. Who didn't out of all of them. 'Where could it come from? Ball couldn't have initiated this campaign all by himself? He must have outside help.' He rubs his eyes. His thoughts burst booming as all the possibilities are run through. The data, indicating Ball's activities and the set of Special Bureau files, it doesn't add up.

Walker thinks how futile it is to try and get someone to kill him. 'Why should they kill each other? Why does the astute head of Earth police wish to kill me? Nobody needs the most powerful ship in the universe anymore. That is the only thing I can offer to him or anyone. For a while we were all under threat of assassination, a massive price on our heads. Yet that is in the past. It is all gone. The cycle of time has passed through war. Humans have dropped dramatically in population numbers, through Virus C, repeated intergalactic wars, they almost reached extinction. History is balanced now by external elements enforcing a more clement code of behavior. Along with other races and the pure fact that man/womankind have woken up to sense.'

Cutter watches the reporter and his ex-comrade-in-arms.
*
"You mean an ex-member of the vessel's crew is going to kill him?" Dexter laughs cynically, looking backward to the direction of the castle.

"That's correct."

A stream moves in pleasantness under the unpleasantness of Lee's news.

"Why?"

"That's exactly what he'll be asking himself right now I expect," he replies with an air of sadness.

"And Commissioner Rupert Treaves runs the whole sha-bang?"

"David Ball, Corporal."

"Yeah..what ever," she hates being corrected.

"You look confused Ms. Dexter," Lee seems completely calm, even though he'll be drawn into this and hunted himself.

"Well what about the Commissioner? This breaking into the media could..." he laughs when she says this but not rude, encouraging Dexter to speak further and dig the hole deeper, "what?"

"I'm sorry Ms. Dexter," he seems completely against her, however genial, "you must be terribly disappointed, your little quest to find the astute living legend doesn't really live up to your expectations."

"I don't find that very amusing. I've spent all my life or...well..a considerable part of it at least, chasing after that person. Glad you find it entertaining," Mary's feelings seem to have been hurt but Lee expertly diffuses this into calm once more by hugging her close.

To comfort her more he whispers, "please do not take offence but I think you have done more than well to get to this planet. To even get him to speak."

Lee continues quickly, "and I am not patronizing you into being led somewhere else in this conversation. I wouldn't insult a woman of you stature with such blunt and crass methods. Plus the fact, you would probably beat me hands down every time in a debate, I am after all merely a soldier."

"You better believe it."

"I've seen enough of war Ms. Dexter. As you have probably know or even heard from his nibs. And....there are those I miss. One dead, lost. One may as well be dead, we were all once fit, almost indestructible soldiers. Now we still have the same bodies as then but.....it is not right..to exist forever."

"What do you mean?" Dexter interposes.

"Not right in the fact that we are still alive, all that we used to know has gone. Those who decide to have some community spirit and integrity have to keep moving. All of us eventually get rejected by the human race. No wonder Walker took a reclusive path."
*
Dusk approaches. Dexter has learnt more than she ever dreamed possible about these 'other' men. On his extraordinary planet, they walk back through the woods, having come to an area where the trees grow more scattered, large openings of grass. For a moment her guide seems troubled, then he mutters to himself. She takes small pleasure in seeing Lee perturbed, 'I thought these immortals were immune to the everyday stresses and strains of we normal beings.' The reporter wishes to voice her concern, instead contentment or fatigue silences her.

An old oak stands to their left as they walk past. Mary stops.

"What is it?" Lee enquires.

The reporter's fingers run over dead bark. The entire tree is split down the middle from a thunder bolt.

"These woods are exact in detail to ones I used to walk through when I was a kid. Some of the trees were actually real, genetically reproduced of course," she becomes reflective as she paws the wood rough, feeling déjà vu.

Lee is distant from her in mind and actual space. She catches up with him.

"How do you know I came from Earth?"

"Walker told me. It said on the files," a balancing gesture by the reporter, "but.."

"You have visited his illustrious vault," Lee remarks in sad acknowledgement.

"Yes. You saw me there."

"Yes.......I did. I wondered what the scanner had picked up..the computer led me to you. There's enough material in those log books to put us all to death...if ever they were unearthed again," the Chinese gentleman is getting angry- angry at the man who has a file on them all.

Mary Dexter's brain is flashing up signs that her plan is not configuring to what she thought it would be: the biggest break in journalistic history. She knows a considerable amount about them, on Walker (Cutter) especially. Lee is aware of this. 'Is there too much at stake for me? Nobody knew them (still don't) but if I publicize their story or his story...?' The implications suddenly make her feel cold.

Lee and Dexter reach the edge of the woods, exactly where they entered. Golden dusk light picks out the fine dust of Walker's desert. The light of setting suns inflames the castle in red and oranges, a massive distant turret a few miles away. Blue dark of night begins to fall and spread.
*
"Are you listening to me??" She realizes that she must compose herself, to stop acting like an out-of-control bitch, she stares into the deep colour of night outside the window, "what possible opponents could you all have? I'm not going to give you up to the Allies?! That's all finished with, all that war business."

"The Allied government collapsed a hundred and fifty years ago....Ms......Dexter," Cutter resumes chartering a course for picking up Dobrovowski.

The reporter fumes.

Ignoring her presence Walker addresses Lee, "have you anything to say?"

He shakes his head.

"I'm coming with you and getting off this..." Dexter knows that Lee is having to force his coldness, to Walker it comes naturally.

"Sorry," Lee shrugs his shoulders at her, their decision final to leave her on the planet.
*
They leave Dexter screaming in one of the looked rooms of the castle. Some distance away, ten kilometres, Lee's ship is ready and waiting to transport them off Walker's private little planet. Distantly they can hear the woman shouting obscenities, growing fainter as they walk. He chuckles to himself, Cutter looks back in the direction of his castle, "it is unjust that we should keep a woman looked up for the rest of her life. It is a waste."

Lee stops chuckling, "would you have her publish our true stories so that the whole bloody universe can know?"

"I was merely reflecting upon the morality of the situation."

"The '..morality of the situation'? Al'...since when did you get morality?"

"Morality has nothing to do with it," Walker speeds away from Lee, picking up his pace and looking back over his shoulder.

"You're in love aren't you?" Lee shouts to his back as Walker covers land quickly.

Cutter stops. He turns. Smiling at Lee for a brief second, then walks on again, granite faced, remarking, "I have no idea of what that word means."

His friend cannot say anything. 'What has happened to him? Has he gone insane upon this desolate place?'

He runs after Walker, worried to hell.

"Jesus Christ. Are you okay? Are you okay? Al'...Al'.." Lee grabs him turning to face him.

"What?"

"I have never seen you smile, what's wrong?"

"I don't know."

"What is this talk of morality Al'? What is the matter with you? Before it never bothered you in the field."

"Before we were at war. At war with one faction or other. This is peacetime," Cutter says the words with uncertainty, he turns his head to something out at the distant horizon, something flashes there.

In an instant he is falling, pulling Lee back with him as a whole shock of pain attacks every nerve ending within his body. His friend suffers some of the after shock but is too surprised to notice and repel fire.

A hovering vehicle speeds toward them and another flash issues from the distance where Lee left his ship. He is hit by a second burst of fire- the pain sets into him as he is immobilized. He cries out, turning all thoughts on how to combat the discomfort. Beside him Walker's muscles are in spasm. He is fighting the pain- attempting to get to his staser but completely inactive, unable to reach it.

The land cruiser, with its sniper, pulls up within what seems a brief moment- actually being about a minute or two to cover the desert. Walker stares up at a man as he steps off hovering vehicle. A long range sniper rifle, set to maximum. He pauses momentarily, taking note of the men before him. With care he unarms the two. He aims his rifle at Walker's head, point blank range, no one can survive this.
*
Mary Dexter is alarmed. She is frightened. Outside the guarded door, all commotion and hell is erupting through the once quiet halls, passageways- giving way to a loud shrieking tone which alternates. She goes to the door. The robots that once were guarding her are long gone. The door is no longer locked.

A droid heads directly toward her with a stack of weapons packed upon it. She scoots back against the wall as it sails past her at a rate of knots, disappearing down steps, its hover motors working overtime to keep up with the frenetic pace.

Dexter knows roughly where she is but cannot quite decide what to do with the opportunity. The ship that she came to this mad world is beyond salvaging after the crash. And whatever is keeping the robots going isn't going to distract them for long, or is it?
*
The tall, wiry man aims downward. He is about to squeeze the trigger when the whole weapon flies from his hands in a sudden burst of light. He cries out as he feels the first bangs of burnt pain rise from his hands and make his brain swim in heady agony.

Quickly he takes two pills from a belt concealed under his light jacket. Pain vanishes.

In stunned awe he sees it. A death awaiting. Hundreds of Walker's robots (some on craft, some running and keeping up with vehicles) are heading directly toward him. Each is aiming a staser or rifle or cannon or whatever at him. His death will be at least quick. If it wasn't for one thing in his back pocket. They fire. Energy rips over his head as he buries himself down as close behind the target as possible, knowing these guards will on no account kill their own creator.

They move closer still, firing in a huge volley of shots. The assassin didn't plan for such a rapid response, especially from robots; he had successfully cloaked himself from Cutter's warning systems. They split into two, still firing and pinning him down. Time span reduced to a few seconds and through vast experience the assassin assimilates the situation quick.

He flicks on unit from back pocket, now in his hand. The robots frequencies explode internally and fuses are burnt in the instance of a millisecond. They all drop to the ground. Noise of energy fire ceases in the eerie backdrop of quiet but for alarms issuing from castle. A far off engine starts up. 'No time,' assassin thinks.

Walker rises. Assassin turns on back foot, left leg up and snapping around at low position. With seemingly no effort the roundhouse connects with his head, through the effect of the energy bolt Cutter's body is slow, his cheekbone and jaw shatter.

Tall man looks down over Lee's body as he tries to crawl away. Walker is knocked out. The sound of vehicle is definitely sweeping out and away where assassin is situated. He ignores him.

The assassin takes out binoculars. Screen lights up and focuses into the distant speck of rider.
*
"Christ!" Dexter turns away, wishing to be ill: she cannot bear to look through view scanners as she speeds over sand blasting up surface.

She takes the guts to look through them again. Now a gun of some sort is aimed right at her. The woman realizes that he is not her savior.
*
He aims his rifle, knowing that Dexter has probably been taken in by Walker. He'd presumed that she had been killed by the mad loner. She must be eliminated. He used her information to find Walker. The journalist has still too much data that could endanger his employer.

He fires- miss.

He is annoyed. It is his first miss for twelve years. The woman can handle the air bike well.
*
"Thank God!" The energy around Dexter fizzles and cracks off.

Mobile shield (which she picked up in haste) is flashing. The blow from man's rifle is incredible. He will kill her on next shot if she doesn't do something- the shield is now next to worthless.
*
Lee moans, crawling away from assassin, not attempting to rise.

"Why did you shoot me? You could've killed me!?" Lee groans.

The assassin smiles, taking aim once more, sight clocking up metres covered per second by her bike, "it was only heavy stun Lee."
*
She throws herself clear of bike as it tumbles in flames. She doesn't scream. Everything doesn't seem real as she hits the fine sand. Even the explosion of the bike as its motors blow out doesn't seem real.
*
The assassin returns to Lee who has managed to prop himself up, just about regaining breath. Walker is coming to.

Lee gasps, "did you have to..."

The tall man says nothing. He looks through binoculars to where Dexter's bike burns away. Walker is recovering, in bad shape, attempting to get away.

"Get it done!" Lee orders.

The assassin double checks Dexter, she is in shock and won't be getting too far. The contract killer knows that Lee's vessel is ready to go. Walker should be killed by bare hands and feet. Unnecessary to waste weapon power.
Lee is on all fours, watching assassin, "do it now! I convinced him to use my ship, brought him here, gave you the cloaking device so his computer wouldn't detect you..what more do you want?"

A shot is heard. In all his years of work he has never heard a laser with that much noise. The recoil comes from the west of where they stand.

Lee's head rocks back in an explosion of red. Sand absorbs blood and the shot seems to echo. The small framed man crumples instantly as immortal life, once treasured, seeps out of him at a rate that shocks his system convulsively.

"Lee," the assassin says into the expanse of nothing, turning to see the man die.

Walker's vision is double. His head spins. The assassin is disappointed, he will have to kill him with a weapon instead of practicing any more karate skills which have so far bust the target's jaw and cheek, but it's going to take some doing. Somebody else is 'playing'. The assassin knows he'll have to finish it quick, as he attempts to gain cover behind Walker.

He picks up hand staser. He cannot waste time. It occurs to him that maybe his employer sent a back up. Probably not. 'Great! Another client to deal with,' the assassin bitterly contemplates. He points staser at Walker, on ground level, he releases safety, trying to gain visual fix on the other sniper.

Assassin's mighty arm that holds weapon whips into nothing, letting a bolt of energy fly into air as he is shot in the back.

Another shot bursts through the land empty landscape. The assassin cries out. It is cut short by a head shot that finishes him for good.

Choral music plays. Walker's music. Mass for four voices. It is pleasant for him. There is no more pain. 'I am not dead. The assassin didn't get me. Somebody else did. Who? Does it matter? What is here?' Shock sets into him.

"Welcome sleepy head."

'That woman...the Univarian? What is she doing here?' Walker's brain tries to process the new data.

The whiteness changes into the familiar shore, somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness.

Walker's thoughts betray him, 'I do not know but feel; actually feeling something stir within me..my soul.....my God.......my soul?'

"You cannot exist here."

"Why not?" She counters Walker.

She looks radiant and beautiful as ever. He is moved. But he wonders what to. Where does it all lead?

'I am..I am....who am l? Alan Walker passed away from my being many years ago, through her, she who stands before me- but why? Why did the Univarians strip me of that which made me human? Are we all part of their plan? What is this? WHAT IS THIS?'

She/it picks him up like a little boy who has fallen and hurt his ankle, being carried to love, warmth of his mother. The thought smacks too close for him.

"What do you want with me?" He asks weakly as he feels the alien's presence penetrate his being- though it is abstract for Walker, he isn't there physically, only in mind.

"What do you think I want Alan?"

"How should I know," he begins to weep like a little boy in pain, he is ashamed, the feeling of the place- the imaginary shore that anything can happen there, it takes him back.

"Why do you never talk to me straight? Why does your race insist on this shroud of mystery? No one knows about you. Only the few like me. Why do you do this?"

She changes into her normal form of light that he and the others first saw. The light is intense, too bright.

When Walker opens his eyes once more she has changed back to the human form and both are looking over the sea, up on cliff tops. A gentle breeze washes them both and he feels the coolness on his skin, like it is real; the sun's warmth touches, it is Earth but of long, long ago.

"There are more of you than you think," she says.

"How many more?" Walker asks shocked.

"It isn't a question of how many more but whom."

"You mean....one of us is evil? One of the crew from the Longfox? One of the nursing staff survived? One of my men? Lee?"

"The only one's from the R.C Longfox are the men you know. There may have been others who strayed to the Univarians."

"Many races have strayed our way. All have not survived. Some, it's been decided, shall not survive."

"Why did you allow us to live?"

The alien ignores Cutter's question.

"Throughout space there are those like you. Each with...idiosyncrasies, the number is not important and you have only ever met one another...on a particular occasion; you do not know it but it will come clear."

"So...." Walker begins in slow deliberation, "you are saying that....I have met....another...like me...is he or she or whatever...once human..once alien?"

All the while he whizzes through the blood and guts of memory, finding no indication. "Did it happen recently? Like a few days ago?"

"You will find out in due course..." she fades before his eyes and the whole scene dissolves with her, leaving Walker to a whiteness...none the wiser.
*
"Hey kid. Hey..come on...time to get up."

Over Walker a stocky, short man is bent over. The injured man is laid in bed, his wounds dressed and already in the process of accelerated healing. Dexter is stood beside Walker's bed with a cup of coffee pursed to her lips, not really impressed by her host's recovery from a kicking (or a kick). The middle aged gentleman has applied some alien technology to Cutter, he'll be on his feet soon; plus the fact that he is part Univarian. Pain killers numb everything. Wounds healing, his eyes slowly open.

Dexter puts down her coffee. She is resentful toward him. She almost wished that he had been killed. If it hadn't been for the strange gentleman now nursing him, then they would have probably all died- one way or another.

"I suppose you'll finish me off when your mate is recovered," Dexter says with vehemence to the short man.

He turns to her for second, throwing a dirty look.

Walker opens his eyes fully. It dawns on him like being slapped in the face, "sergeant...Reed?"

"That's right pal...it's me..do you remember what happened?"

"What are you doing alive? I thought you'd died....what's going on?" Walker attempts to move.

"No stay still. You'll be fine in an hour or two. You took one hell of a wallop," the man's voice is comforting.

"But in Phase Four...you bought it....we attacked Seera...how come..?"

"I know it's hard to believe but...well...I got taken into care and you lot had gone so I decided to lay low....I knew that something was wrong with the crew...it was better-"

"Better for who?" Cutter interrupts.

"Better for us all. Lee wanted you dead. So-"

"Lee? But Lee was my friend..." the patient is confused, numbed, speaking through gritted teeth.

"No...he was more than he appeared to be...he had it in for you from the start."

He turns to Dexter, leading the woman from room. Out of earshot in corridor, away from injured man he addresses the reporter, "are you okay?"

"'Okay'? THAT'S.." he gets her to pipe down, Dexter continues in a more restrained tone, "that's fucking fresh! That bastard in there wanted to have me locked away!"

"Lady he would never do that, never."

"Oooh come of it! He let me stay here okay but not to leave."

"Listen to me," Reed has become serious, "he would never deprive you of freedom. It was probably for your own protection."

"Well how come they wished to keep me prisoner here?" Dexter believes she has the upper hand.

He disagrees, "listen...there is something big about to happen, okay. Now even I don't know what is going to happen but…that cretin I shot with an ancient sniper rifle...it doesn't take a genius to work out that he had some serious backing. Now for your own safety they..he kept you here. Evidently though you brought an assassin with you to boot. Letting Lee and that contract guy have a nice big trail here."

"Oh I see..it's my fault is it? That bastard in there is stretched out is my doing?!"

"Yes."

Dexter seethes.

Reed feels he must elucidate more, "you are a pawn in this game. Ball knew you were after him."

"Why does Ball want him dead. He doesn't ever leave this planet. What possible harm could he do to BalI, to anybody?"

Reed answers her question succinctly, "that man can beat everyone who survived from the Longfox."

"And Ball is scared of him?"

"Yes. Further more he knows that Walker in there is self-righteous enough to go after him," Reed shows concern on this matter.

"What do you base this fantastic theory on?" Dexter thinks she is talking to yet another mad crank.

He answers solemnly, "because one of us was killed in the last month, Webster the poor bastard."

"But maybe..."

"There is no coincidence young lady."

"So what is going on?" Walker speaks behind them, on his feet, with blanket wrapped around him and a face looking increasingly better than the pulp of roundhouse kicked.

"Something pretty bad old friend," he repeats, "something pretty bad."