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ALIX GRAVES IN MIRACLE WORLD
.R

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Thin pink line.  Wider.  Dividing the horizon from itself, ready to
suggest new possibilities in Piro's field of vision.  He resisted the
urge, declined to acknowledge the expanded percept capability, even
for his own edification.  He would not be distracted.
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Not that anything about this had been easy.  That, he would readily
concede.  Distractions, technical and otherwise, had nearly carried
him away.  Nothing in his wide experience had prepared him for the day
when his mother would finally die.
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.I
Now
.R
how would he get home?
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Of course there would come no reply from his companion of so many
years.  The woman was dead.  Unresponsive.  And now he would have to
find his own way.  It had been much the same when his father had
abandoned him to her care in the first place.  What had he been
thinking?  What was Piro supposed to do with all this pink?
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Whining about it now was not going to change anything.  Dead was dead.
Pink was pink.  At least where her kind were concerned.  It was
actually rather remarkable that she had survived as long as she did,
up there in the Earth's atmosphere.  In this economy.
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This soliloquy was going nowhere.
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Stop.
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Retrace.

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Alix retraced his steps.  He'd left the laundry and wandered into
reception.  He'd taken the stairs all the way down to the first floor.
Everyone was gone.  Half of the building was gone.  What was going on?
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He was going to have to figure it out on his own.
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Just how he liked it.
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He liked to feel he was earning his money.  While it was true most of
his clients could barely articulate what they wanted from him, he made
it a point of pride to secure their approval of his work.  This
approach also cut down on the lawsuits.
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Standing in the rubble of the Chrysler Building, Alix was no longer
sure what he was doing.  Had the client even survived?

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Tom spotted Alix, still standing there, obviously not knowing what to
do.  He walked over and said hi.
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"Alix... my main...number one... guy..."
.R
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"I don't know what you want me to do here, anymore.  The building's
gone.  What's left to surveil?"
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"I'm not sure I like your attitude."
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"..."
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"Hey, don't they say the customer is always right?"
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Alix shrugged it off.  But Tom was right.
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They'd think of something together.

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Five years later.  Not much had changed.  Some of the rubble had been
cleared away.  The Actron Team was now based primarily out of New San
Francisco.  Alix maintained his mostly silent vigil at the scene of
the crime.
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Most days were pretty slow.
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Aside from the occasional tweet he rarely heard from his employers.
He was starting to think he should look for other work.
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That's when he heard from their mom.
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"I heard you were dead."
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"I get that a lot."
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Alix slowly pieced it all together.  She'd taken a voluntary leave of
absence.  She just hadn't told anyone she was going.  Five years out
of the game.  Alix wondered if she could really pick it all up again,
just like that.  He had to admit it seemed unlikely.
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The boys might have something to say about all this.
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Well, it was none of his business.

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"You what," Tom said, instead of asking.
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"I took a leave of absence."
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"We thought you were dead."
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"I might as well have been," was all she would say.
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"I think we all need a bit of time to process this," Piro suggested.
Clearly the only level head in the room.
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"I don't care what anyone says, I need to get reimbursed for travel
expenses."
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Piro shook his head and Tom left the room.
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"Mom, he's right.  Our budged was thrown completely out of whack.
First Plinth, then you.  We didn't know what to do."
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The RAGNAROK had half a mind to take off again.  This time for good.

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Alix knew his services were costing Actron, Inc.  more than they could
possibly hope to recoup from his results.  He wondered how much longer
it could go on.  In his spare time he began to work on his resume.
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One day while perusing the job listings he came upon an operation out
of New San Francisco that required a new chief of security.  He
disliked this sort of gig, precisely because it traded a regular
paycheck for an increase in daily responsibilities.  He decided to
check it out anyway.
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It turned out the fledgling startup was yet another arm of Actron,
Inc.  Alix resigned himself to his fate as an employee of the world's
biggest purveyor of nothing.
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It was soon after this that his powers manifested themselves for the
first time.

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The RAGNAROK gradually pulled herself back from the brink.  There was
no profit in taking herself out of the game again.  Better to make
them pay for it.  Better to keep them guessing.  if they really wanted
her out of the way, well, they knew where to find her.  She would wait
for them to come and say it to her face.
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Piro and Tom had no such intentions.  They had a constant requirement
for cheap transportation, and her services cost them nothing at all.
They couldn't understand what her problem was.  She'd just come off a
five year vacation and here she was already complaining.
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For her part, the RAGNAROK agreed to resume her duties, gratis.  She
always had trouble saying no to her son.
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Tom figured it was about time things got back to normal around here.

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For Alix, a job was a job.  He harbored no illusions that what he did
at work had any real impact on the outside world (his early career as
a corporate assassin notwithstanding).  But this damned Actron, Inc.
had got their greasy tentacles into everything.  It was beginning to
seem like there was no way out.
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He discharged an energy bolt from the tip of his right index finger,
exploding, and very nearly disintegrating a nearby electric pole.  The
entire city block was immediately plunged into darkness.  So, here,
too, even his anger at the Actron Team garnered repercussions beyond
its immediate context.
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If there was a way out of this he just couldn't see it.

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The burst of energy from Alix's finger\-blast lit up the RAGNAROK's
sensor package.
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A possible new recruit for the Actron Team proper.
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She alerted the boys.
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THE END