Commentary by James Fullerton: Most engaging creation story. I really liked this one as it gave an insight into voyeurism-surveillance. However it only gets the 90% award as the 'returning from 12 years on a war-world' part at the end was too big a leap of faith for me.

Personally, Harvard didn't much care for people. They were messy, emotional, unpredictable creatures whom he was forced to associate with far more than he liked. Harvard preferred to spend all of his time around his beloved machines. Given the choice between relaxing with some friends at a local watering hole or working, he invariably chose the latter. His coworkers thought him more than a little odd, and would have suspected him of being a joeboy or Company shill, except for his obvious lack of interest in anything except his current task.

The Company, which routinely commended him for his efforts, and had actually sent a supervisor to recognize him for his brilliant performance once, wasn't concerned enough to suggest he should take some time off. If he wanted to work himself to death, that was fine, as long as he could maintain consistent quality until then. He would hardly be the first.

Harvard didn't give a damn. About the Company, his own health, or public opinion. He wished only to give himself to his machines, to feel their flow and surge, to bathe in their radiance, their purity. To be clean.

Harvard worked in Data Acquisition and Analysis, a fancy term for SLA Industries' "non-existent" professional surveillance arm. Outfitted with the latest in mobile and non-mobile remote a/v/s eavesdroppers, and wired directly into their slowbrain-processor controlled sensor suites, a DAA peeper would lose himself for hours and days at a time in the thousands of images and stimuli that were fed to him through any of the several billion "taps" spread throughout their sector. For certain rare assignments, the peeper would have life-support modules plugged in, and would be gone for weeks without emerging, following some particular request from the Top, a request which was never turned down, and never revealed. Sometimes they did not return at all, and their body would be unplugged, turned off, and cremated. No-one talked about these missions, or their results. It was taboo, even for the peepers, who rarely bothered to try and keep secrets from each other. They knew better.

At work Harvard could choose what to look at, or hear, or smell, and was subtly comforted by the presence of his slowbrain partner murmuring to him in some section of his awareness, so that the images, sounds, smells and even feel of the people and creatures he perceived were in some sense under his control. When he was under Harvard felt more than a little like a ghost, or even a god.

Tonight, he was at a party. In person. With his actual body. He didn't like it very much. He was badly out of practice and kept saying and doing the wrong things, causing people to stare and avoid him. He felt clumsy and stupid. He wished he was at work, or even at home. He had no choice tonight, though.

Last year he had been doing...something...he couldn't quite...anyways, he had permission to miss last year's party. The year before that the Company had felt it appropriate to declare a costume event, and everyone had to come as their favourite television personality. Multiple caricatures of popular cartoon characters, contract killers, Shiver officers, Third Eye vidheads, famous Slops, even Necanthropes and an Intruder or two made it a very surreal experience for the DAA people. It had been easy to pick out the peepers in the overcrowded 8,000 person facility that had been converted for the sector's cross-division party, though: they were clustered in a little group of fifty or so in the corner, imbibing the drugs of their choice, watching everyone else nervously until the narcotics kicked in and they could pretend to be as normal as the next person. Pharmaceutical socialization at it's finest. Finally desensitized enough, they would walk out in singles and pairs into the mob.

It was worse for Harvard, who found drugs both banal and degrading, and couldn't bring himself to touch them. He had no escape. Eventually, his fellow DAA workers had all moved off into the heaving, shouting crowd, leaving him alone. Alone with 9,435 people. 9,435 dancing, screaming, sweating, swearing people. Human, stormer, ebon, wraith and shaktar. Touching him, spewing spittle, bumping off and yelling incomprehensible words at him that were impossible to hear over the music and the stomping feet. He thought he'd handled it well. After throwing up, he'd quietly passed out on the thrumming steel floor.

This year the theme was 'Other Worlds'. The different sector offices had gotten together and worked out that the best way to produce the appropriate effect was to erect giant "theme-sites" to each of several worlds and their respective cultures. The Wraithen exhibit even had a mini-skiing course. Apparently the executive responsible for that site wasn't aware that the wraiths had never heard of skiing before being integrated, and regarded it today as an activity fit only for pampered fools. Not that the exec would have cared what they thought, mind you. Wraiths were not a corporate influence.

From above, thought Harvard, the crowd must have looked like worms, or bacteria, writhing together in the glow of the huge halogen lamps that cut through the late afternoon fog. Last year had been crowded and noisy beyond belief, with thousands of people all frenetically trying to have fun at once. This year looked to be worse, and Harvard wouldn't be getting off so easy as last year. No passing out tonight. He had to meet someone here. Someone important. He walked into the mob.

There, that was Mrs. Evelyn Thrush, having taken off her ring and disposed of her family for the evening in order to realize a little extra income as a party favor. Harvard noticed she was wearing "L'Avant Femme", her favorite perfume for these monthly outings. Leaning gently on the redoubtable Mrs.Thrush's shoulder and whispering sweet somethings in her ear was Captain Nhalus "The Nail" Sidhu, one of the toughest Shiver officers in the sector, and a man as noted for his frequent sexual conquests of the opposite sex as much as for his ability to squash a rioting mob of downtowners with sudden, spectacularily ruthless violence. Somewhat less well-known was the fact that Captain Sidhu was completely, utterly gay, with a husband of some ten years who worked for Karma's Exploratory Gene-moulding division. Since the Nail was so effective at his job, it was seen to by the authorities that the media and their audience remained unenlightened as to the truth of their super-masculine police captain. The captain's opinion in this was irrelevant. He did what he was told, whether he liked it or not.

Just passing Harvard were Eugene Lamarchand and his direct superior Melissa"Blue" Lake, deep in conversation. As they were evidently on speaking terms, Harvard guessed that Ms. Lake did not know that Lamarchand had strangled her daughter to death two weeks ago. Probably he had not been apprehended yet. Her reaction would be extreme, as she had been famous for her temper even as a young operative, often seen on film in a berserk rage disemboweling some offending insurgent for the televison cameras. Her daughter's recent disappearance had left her off-balance and confused, ripe for Lamarchand's imminent take-over attempt of her job. Harvard doubted Lamarchand had put to much effort into researching his boss' distant past . A messy error on his part.

He thought about all these things in much detail as he walked, in order to escape the constant press of people on all sides, buffeting him with their bodies, their voices, their smells. It reminded him that he was actually here, not just along for the ride, detached, in control, aware. He missed the ability to slide instantly to a new perpective, to smooth or completely close out whichever senses he chose.

Eventually he reached his destination. Impossible to miss, even in the early evening drizzle, it loomed fully forty stories tall, a massive octagonal shape, all eight sides of which were lit up with huge monitors showing the events inside. It was by far the most spectacular "theme" there, the brainchild of some exec who had suggested that those who lived and worked in deep space habitats, the Oorm Ring Project, and other zero-gravity facilities should be represented as well. The structure ahead of Harvard was the result: an artificially maintained zero-gravity party tower. Out of the loop for nearly a week now, Harvard had no idea how they had created the effect, but it certainly looked impressive enough.

As he walked up to the line outside the entrance, Harvard fumbled in his jacket pocket for his SCL badge, so he would have it ready by the time he reached the front doors. The doors had been cleverly made up to be identical to the deep-space airlocks seen on television, with people at the head of the queue being quickly scanned and checked by the two huge 313 stormers decked out in full hostile-environment War World armor. More "ambience", no doubt.

Fidgeting absently to the music that was being played by the speakers set into the exterior walls of the fibresteel mass above him, Harvard was dismayed to feel a finger tapping him on the left shoulder. He pretended to ignore it, hoping the intruder would just give up, but instead felt a firm grip settle on his upper bicep. Then he heard his name.

"Harvard Damson."

The tones were low, but easily audible despite the blare of Final Levity's single "No One Cares Anymore", which Harvard recognized absently from the sweep he had performed on the group's manager two months ago. He turned around, swallowing against the sudden lump in his throat, feeling his stomach sink and his fingertips tingle as adrenalin and fear licked at him.

"Hello, Harvard," said the man behind him."It's good that you made it."

The speaker was a thin-faced white human, with unremarkable brown eyes and hair, shorter than Harvard and wearing an inexpensive unbuttoned rain slicker under which a nice grey suit jacket could be glimpsed. The only unusual thing about him were his completely bloodless lips, white horizontal slashes across his lower face. It gave him a vampiric look. Other than that, he could have been any of the people standing in the line-up. Despite the fact that he represented Harvard's best chance for survival, for a long second Harvard desperately wished that the man had been just what he looked like, instead of what he was. Something very different than any of the people around them.

"Uhhhh....yes. Yes, it is, isn't it, " stammered the DAA man. "I have the..."

"Not now," interrupted the vampiric lips, the voice still calm and friendly, unworried.

"Let's go for a walk. You just follow me, you don't look around, and you don't hurry. Good, good." With that, Harvard's new friend stepped out of the line into the crowd, his gait unhurried.

After a second's hesitation, and an involuntary glance around himself, Harvard followed him. The man led him through the park, the crowd getting thinner as they proceeded further from the main gates, until they were nearly at the edge of the park, half an hour later. The bloodless man, as Harvard had mentally dubbed him, stopped beside one of the few buildings not demolished for the party, a shut-down factory of some sort.

Harvard looked around, wondering what made this spot so special. Perhaps it had been prepared ahead of time. He'd given them plenty of warning, and some proof as well.

"Now is a good time, Harvard," said the bloodless man, "they are unable to track us at this point. We do not have long, however. You have the cylinder on you?"

Harvard blinked. No small-talk, then.

"Yes, yes. I have it in my pocket. I switched it with a dummy I made, so they don't even know I took it." Harvard took out the dull black GliDe cylinder, and put it in the man's outstretched hand.

"And the key?", asked the agent, turning the cylinder over in his hand as he checked for signs of damage or tampering. Harvard knew there were none. The GliDe was unmarked, it's contents untouched and unedited. Pure. Harvard hoped they had obtained the equipment they would need to read it, as he had outlined in his last message to them.

"A mnemonic trigger. Here is the slow-brain code pattern to activate it." Harvard recited a twelve syllable phrase to the bloodless man. "Now, repeat it back to me," he said, his fear of the other fellow evaporating briefly as he fell into the routine. Harvard had the other man repeat the phrase to him several times until he felt confident it had imprinted.

"Remember, it has to be you, or someone you have taught that to carefully, for it to work. Vary it too much, the data will wipe, " warned the peeper. "No recording of the pattern, not even with the best audio out there, will get it correct. Or rather, it will get it too correct. It has to be just so."

" I understand, Harvard." the bloodless man smiled, looking Harvard up and down. Harvard felt his limbs start to tremble again.

"You know, we were rather impressed you managed to extract the Glide at all. That wasn't supposed to be possible. We can't even understand how you managed it, not to mention replacing it with a, a "dummy", as you called it." As he spoke, the bloodless man's eyes remained fixed on Harvard's, piercing him.

Harvard was reminded of a close-up shot of a snake's head he'd seen as a child, it's eyes in the picture locked to his, watching him through the screen. He shuddered now, a dreadful, trapped feeling creeping up his spine. He might have made a very bad choice after all. It was much too late to turn back, though. Much, much too late.

"It, it was nothing. A little thought, and anyone could get it. Really, " he protested feebly.

"Oh, we disagree, Harvard, " said his contact, smiling pleasantly at him. "In fact, no one else has ever done such a thing. You are a very talented individual. Too talented, some might say."

Harvard took an involuntary step back, glancing around him. He opened his mouth to begin his rehearsed farewell speech, the feeling of doom overpowering now, drying his words in his throat, freezing him in place. The snake had him, it had him.

"In fact, " continued the bloodless man, apparently oblivious to Harvard's terror-filled gaze, "your quality of work makes you so unusual, we are reluctant to take the standard measures." Still smiling, he slowly crushed the immensely strong plastic cylinder in his hand, until it resembled melted licorice. He didn't even breathe deeply during the process.

"But, but..." Harvard stammered, trying to get out the words tumbling through his mind, trying to make sense of what just happened before it killed him.

"Yes?"

"What you did, it doesn't, it doesn't..." sputtered Harvard.

"Make sense, you mean?" inquired the other man, placing the thoroughly destroyed data block in his rain-coat pocket.

"But, but I checked! Damn it, I checked! For weeks! I followed all of you, I traced your routes, tagged your transmissions! You couldn't have known. You couldn't have!" Harvard shouted this last, his paralyzed vocal cords unfreezing at the total unfairness of life..

"Oh, Harvard, " sighed his tormentor in mock sympathy - or maybe it was real, Harvard couldn't hear very well, "the war you think you see is not the real war at all. It's no more than a training ground. A very elaborate, very harsh training ground."

"What are you saying?" said Harvard, taking another step backwards, stalling for time now, wishing he could believe it would make a difference. He had that horrible feeling people who jump to their deaths must feel just after they go over the edge .Oh, wait, it was all a mistake, I want to take it back, please oh please. I'll be good now.

"It's time to go now, Harvard," The man, if that's what he was, glanced up, looking for something in the air. Harvard ran for it. He turned and sprinted for his life, racing for the corner of the building wall they were next to, one hundred or so feet away. Behind him, the Finder shook his head. "I thought you would know better, Harvard, I really did." He ran after the fleeing DAA man. Ex-DAA man, now.

As he neared the corner, Harvard heard a strange sound behind him, as if a sheet were flapping in the wind. Then he felt a shove, not really that hard, in the centre of his back. It was enough to drive him face-first at top speed into the damp granite corner of the building, spinning him away and onto the ground. He felt his face go numb, and tasted blood in his mouth. Blood and rain. His legs didn't seem to be working, and he couldn't move his jaw. He tried to roll over onto his back.

"Harvard, Harvard. You don't have to be afraid. Not yet. I said we weren't comfortable with taking the usual routine with you. You have become something of a magnet for the opposition. Just killing you might not be that simple. These things can have undesired side-effects. As you know." The voice held the same calm, vibrant tone it had when he first heard it. Harvard tried to roll over once more, but froze when he sensed the man crouching beside his head.

"No, we aren't going to kill you. Not just yet, and especially not here. I said this war was a training ground, but there are other, even harsher uses for traitors. Of course, you know this already, don't you, Harvard?"

Harvard heard the words, and closed his eyes in despair. His mind fled from the images it conjured. The biomass vats on Artery and their endless lines of "materiel". The test to destruction penal conscripts being loaded like cattle into their transports, faces slack with fear. Drafted for slum clearance in lower downtown. Sweep and clear missions into the Cannibal Sectors, armed to the teeth with UV playing a swan song of carnage in your head.

He tensed to hurl himself to his feet, to run or die, when a sharp prick in his neck sent numbness spreading out from his face through his chest and limbs. His vision went grey and blurry. He felt the cold, wet concrete swallowing him up. He would have begged for life, or even a clean death, but never had the chance.

One Year Later. April 21st, S.D. 900

Being a serial killer wasn't anything like Harvard would have guessed. For one thing, he didn't feel crazy. Not a bit. Had no urge to sit in his feces playing with himself at all. Didn't laugh uncontrollably. Didn't even hear voices in his head. He was pretty sure he was insane - normal people didn't DO these things - but he'd expected something else. Drama, maybe. Or mental oblivion, as you let the urges run amok. Although it was true he did feel different now, very different. Just not crazy.

He looked around the room. What a mess. It was true, what they said about how much blood was inside the human body. Jugs and jugs of it. Well, to be honest, not much was inside her body anymore. Most of it was on the walls, the ceiling, the floor, Harvard's gear, her neighbour...oh, yes, the neighbour. He wasn't on Harvard's list, but he could be a problem. Especially with those damn ebons creeping around. On the other hand, why not turn a problem into a solution? He was running out of time here, though. Stepping over the eviscerated and quartered body of Alyssa Charborough, he walked to the couch and sat down beside the bound and gagged young man laying there.

Harvard smiled at him, absently running one hand through the fellow's close-cropped brown hair. The captive shuddered once, and closed his eyes. Harvard had heard them talking before he entered. What was the young man's name...oh, yes. Angus. Angus was about eighteen, and very impressed that he knew a mighty media star. Certainly had had a crush on Alyssa. It was understandable. She'd been quite beautiful. The television volume turned itself up, some channel holding an interview with one of Intruder's press people. The interviewer was gushing about the Kilneck's wardrobe and latest hair-style. Harold leaned over, his lips directly above the captive's ear.

"Eight. And not the last. Tell them anything else, no matter what they do to you, and I will see you once more. Do you understand?" He waited for Angus' frenzied nodding to finish, and then, quickly but with great care and a firm grip on the victim's head, cut out the young man's right eye, and dropped it on the bloody hardwood floor, making sure it didn't roll under the couch. He again waited patiently for his victim to stop moving so much, although it took a little longer this time, then applied Karma Skinseal to the wound. Rising, Harvard made sure to completely crush the little white and red sphere under his heel. Then, he picked up his briefcase and walked out the ruined apartment door. His shoes left ragged scarlet prints on the Orienta carpet in front of the doorway.

As Harvard went towards the highrise elevator doors, the camera tell-tales flickered green behind him, catching only his back. He might not understand all the reasons behind what he was doing, but they had told him it would be very, very enjoyable, and they hadn't lied. Consulting his mental list, he saw that he had six days to wait before the next one. His heart sank. Perhaps there was some way for them to make it sooner. Already he craved that feeling again.

He boarded the elevator, trying to think of ways to ask them without having to actually face them in person. That was forbidden, and it...hurt. They would also say that he lacked discipline, that he was weak, that he didn't deserve the glory of his new life. Asking them was not an option. He would have to control himself. Obedience and discipline are the whole of the Way. He said that to himself another three or four times until he felt better. Then he set about cleaning. Less necessary for him than most in his work, proper cleaning of oneself was a vital part of forensic hygiene. It brought back lovely memories, too.

By the time the lift-doors opened, Harvard was wearing a nice new suit, and holding a shiny-clean briefcase. Outside the secured lobby, the morning was just beginning, a light drizzle settling on the towers and tubeways of Naopolo, it's citizens hurrying to work at the better jobs in Mort. At least one thing hadn't changed between his old life and his new: Harvard still finished his work, his glorious, glorious work, as they began theirs. He stepped out, ready to greet the new day with a smile.