Stepping through the threshold, Max left behind the acrid medicinal smell that irritated his nose, into not the bend of corridors he remembered.  Instead, strode into a small foyer, with a large metal doorway embossed in a fading, rusted sigil.  The symbol, he recognized as communist propaganda native to the Red Technocracy.  The shift in space, and milieu neither surprised nor bothered the agent at this point.  In fact, when he left the crew’s quarters, he vaguely remembered subtly wishing he could just skip to the bridge.  

Something was happening within this world, that he didn’t quite understand, but that space, time, and events shaped to conform to his wishes.  Deciding not to poke the bear too much, he approached the doorway, waving his hand in front of it in his best Jedi impression and commanded, “Open.”

The door did not move, and nothing changed.  A stark reality that mellowed his bravado with a healthy dose of diffidentness.  “Right,” he cleared his throat, “well, I’m sure there’s a panel around here, too.”

[i]What, you thought overcoming an enhanced empathic assault made you a god all the sudden?  Get real, you idiot.[/i] Forge hissed in the back of his skull.

[i]Good to know you’re not gone,[/i] Mobius countered, [i]your abrasive commentary would have been sorely missed.[/i]

[i]Get fuckin’ used to it.[/i]

Instinctively finding the security panel, Max used the task of hacking the electronics to distract him from the new voice that had manifested in his head.  He had barely gotten used to adding Gennosuke’s self-righteous patronizing, much less Forge’s caustic insults.  A small spark connotated his success, and he could hear the subtle thrumm of power surging into the doorway.  With another flick of the cable, the door shifted open, hydraulics and all.

Steam leaked from hidden pneumatics into the entryway like a roiling fog inside a forbidden bog. Max ignored it, stepping cautiously into the spartan interior.  He had seen many ships, most of the time the bridge was every bit as much as a place of function and command as it was a lesson of intimidation.  Not so for the bridge of this Red Technocracy ship.  The interior resembled the angular simplicity of chiseled stone, and all the control panels, of which some here and there flickered haphazardly with newfound power and life, were meekly tucked and compartmentalized.

Max traced his vision through the dim light, even as the door hissed shut behind him.  The bridge was as silent as a crypt, it was anticlimactic for what he initially expected.  Raising his hand, he balled and uncurled his fist as a green glow began to envelope the appendage.  He crept up to the captain’s chair, a large, uncomfortable looking thing, and viewed the singular panel on its side--a master control.  In a motion that was every bit as symbolic as it was literal, Mobius eased himself down into the throne.  The soldiers glowing right hand came to rest down upon the console.

[i]Here we go… Let there be light.[/i]  He thought to himself as he began to channel positive bioforce into the controls.

The ship’s array flickered with drowsy recognition as Max soldered broken circuits, repaired conduits, and renewed the connection between the bridge and the ship’s main power grid.  One of the few things that had gone right in the mindscape he was trapped in.  He exhaled as he could feel the tax on his body--with no serum to back up his energy expenditure, the fatigue quickly set in.  When his eyes drifted open he caught the end of the console’s advance; its apex reached at a comfortable waist-level whilst seated.  Upon it a flat, holographic display flickered to life, which raced through russian, numerals, and red technocracy code faster than he cared to pay attention to.

The display that it settled to was one he was sure was not standard issue.  There were no prompts, no menus, and no feedback aside from a large all-encompassing red button.  He couldn’t help but think that the red button resembled the looming light source he witnessed outside.  The finality he had built up, and all the struggles he faced culminated in something clean, facile, and simple.  The zenith of his challenges was to push a button.

“Well, kid, this is where you sign your soul away…”  Forge jeered from over his left shoulder.

Mobius didn’t look at him.

“This shall bring you back to your present-state.” Gennosuke informed from the other.

Another voice seemed to emanate from the red ocular--a staticky petition that repeated in semi-understandable terms.

[i]Attention! Oper----- 223- --u are in ---ger pl---- re-u-n to con----sness! ---ecting mul--ple ----ings in you- ------ity![/i]

Max hovered his hand over the button for a moment, recognizing the entreaty as ANITA’s.  His eyes widened as he put the message together and slammed his fist into the button, which plunged through it, past the console.  Welling in its own self-created gravitational pull, his fist crashed through the floor, into the ground, which delved through the mindscape and into the infinity that would jolt his mind back to consciousness.

[center]***[/center]

The drowning man gasped his first breath of air.  Choked with cinders, dust, and smoke, Max’s first breath filled him with a fit of coughing and hacking that forced him onto his forearms, and he heaved from a half plank position.  The sound and smell of a raging fire filled his ears and nostrils, but was nearly overpowered by the sounds of sirens, screams, and calamity.  He pushed himself up to a kneeling position to take in his surrounds as soon as he gulped an able breath of air. Blinking the smoke-stung tears from his eyes he twisted his neck, viewing the chaos with a numb shock.

The vortex had destroyed… everything.  A potluck of asphalt and concrete spiderwebbed with fissures, and in places it broke away collapsing into open ravines.  The buildings were leveled, but in the horizon he could see twisting, tortured structures illuminated hellscape crimson by way of faroff flames.  A thick thunderhead of smoke filled the sky, blotting out the sun.  The only light was cast by the raging flames of what used to be the citizen’s lives. There were no bodies to be seen--only ash would have remained, and even that whipped away in the cyclone.  

[i]God…[/i] he flinched, as he witnessed wide-eyed the devastation.

A moment of clarity seized him as he addressed ANITA:  [i]Annie, how many are dead?[/i]

[i]Attention! Operative 2232, you are in danger please return to consciousness--You are awake, and you are too late.[/i] ANITA responded, cutting off her warning message just as Max heard the clicking of multiple rifles around him, and saw the soft glow of an energy shield--more specifically a containment shield envelope him.

He recognized it to be standard Mobius Operative protocol, and it was not of the friendly variety.  It was a neutralization protocol for arresting high-priority high-danger targets.  He sighed as he slowly rose to his feet and looked up to the smog-choked sky, defeated and exhausted.

[i]To answer your question: Two thousand two hundred thirty one confirmed casualties according to my spatial database, Operative 2232.[/i]

He shook his head, and lowered it.  When escaping from one nightmare he felt as if he were plunged into another.

But this was one nightmare from which he would never be awake.