He could sense the relief in the A.I.’s voice.  In her time with him, Mobius’ mannerisms had rubbed off plenty on Anita, she picked up on subtleties like inflection, emotion, and nuanced nonverbal communication—she even mimicked many of it.  Or did she actually express it; Max wasn’t sure.  One thing he was sure of was that he was happy to hear a familiar voice.

“Oh, good, you’re cognizant.” She said, “Are you alright?”

“I-I’m fine.” He said

“Good, you need to get up and we need to move on. You’re in danger.”

“I need to know what’s going on,” Max started, “I’m not sure what I’m dealing with.”

“Operative 2237, the last thing that happened in my database was…”  The unmistakable and unwelcoming screech of static filled the receiver, drowning out Anita’s explanation.

“Hello? Annie?” He said as he concentrated on her garbled speech through the white noise. 

“Annie, I can’t hear you.”

The faint crimson illumination provided by a protruding emergency light wavered as the light flickered on and off.  Mobius glanced up at the light as it flitted.  [i]Shit, [/i] he thought with a frown, [i]this section must be losing power. [/i]  He cut the feed to the communication receiver—he had lost the signal.  Back to square one, Mobius would have to take some time to gather his thoughts.  There was only one Red Technocracy ship that had ever touched down on F67X, and that was in a battle the local media had dubbed an “Extraterrestrial Intervention.”  It was shortly after first contact.  He wasn’t sure where he was now, but he was fairly certain that old Roswell had a replica of the cruiser somewhere in its vaults.  Here he was wandering a fully to-size wrecked ship.

“Well,” he said to himself, “plan B. Find an escape pod.”

“Unwise.”

The voice contradicted him just as the emergency light faded, but the radioactivity from the reactor provided him with enough ambient light to see a shadowy figure moving about the room.  Mobius recognized the eastern-tinged voice as Gennosuke, who he had met earlier.  The operative was up at the ready the second he heard the voice, his powerful fists brought to bear.

“The Kouga are the darkness, which melds with the night. Were I your enemy you would be lost and gone.”

Gennosuke’s pseudo-threat didn’t ease Max at all.  In fact the operative could feel his shoulders tighten. 

“There is no escaping this place, Mzadech, but there is a method of…suspending it. However, you must obey.”

[i]Obey, [/i] scoffed Mobius, [i] I’ve been doing that shit all my life. [/i]

“You are not in the realm of mortal men.” Gennosuke continued, “To survive, you must learn the rules.”

“I don’t want to survive. I want to conquer.”

Max could tell his words took Gennosuke aback.  In fact, the words surprised him even as he spoke them.  Conquer? What did he want with this place? Was he resigned to his fate to become the same thing that Forge had?  He rationalized his thought process and determined that he wasn't going down without a fight.  [i]He [/i] and only [i]he [/i] would be in control.  Mobius would not be puppeteered around—not in his own body.  He would be in control; he would fight the red sunset.

All the sudden he could feel Gennosuke’s amusement, as if the ninja were smirking at him—though he couldn't see it.

“Hm. Alright, but first you must learn.”

Max stared at the silhouette, attempting to figure out what Gennosuke meant by “learn.”  His ponderings were interrupted by the emergency light behind him, flickering back on, bathing the narrow doorway in front of him in red, and illuminating the catwalk in front of him.  Where the silhouette of Gennosuke once was now there was nothing.

“You must heighten your senses.” Kouga’s voice behind him demanded.

Whirling around, Max looked to find himself face-to-face with the ninja, who had somehow materialized behind him.  Instinctively, Max threw a punch, but his fist met only the hard steel of the technocrat’s hull.  Unfazed by the pain, he immediately whirled around just as Kouga spoke again.

“You must sharpen your skills.”

The operative rushed out the doorway in a blur, and leaped off his foot with all the practice of a skilled martial artist, kicking where Gennosuke stood, but met nothing but the catwalk railing, which he felt give somewhat.

“Violence is an anathema.”

This time the voice came from the reactor, itself.  Max whipped his head around and squinted his eyes to make out Gennosuke’s figure crouched upon the reactor, his face grimly lit by the lambent green glow of the radioactivity.

“Your mind is your greatest asset here.”  Gennosuke said, as he raised himself from his kneeling position.  He vanished.

“Focus-“

Max punched into the wall directly next to Gennosuke, who stood in the threshold of the Communication room’s doorway.  He could have crumbled Kouga’s face in, but he didn't.

“Then cut the fortune cookie shit and teach me something, Master Miyagi.”