JEFFREY THOMAS - DEADSTOCK

Nearly all of the human-like Kalian race worshiped the demon/god Ugghiutu, but this particular schismatic group had not been content with merely paying him tribute, had instead been intent on awakening him from some sort of spell he was under. Reanimating him from his living death. Or was that merely metaphorical? Maybe this crop of life forms was just meant to represent Ugghiutu, supposedly reborn in new flesh as a colony of animals, though perhaps possessing a communal mind. At least, that was what one of the more adventurous articles suggested. Most of the major news outlets seemed to have treated the idea of an army of monsters as the ludicrous plot of an overzealous group of crackpots, dismissing any real threat-despite several rescue workers having been killed by a few of the awakened creatures before they, too, were consumed in the fire raging through Alvine as a result of the earthquake that had all but gutted the complex.

Still, some of these more audacious journalists not only took the threat more seriously, but drew connections to other cults and ominous events, here on Oasis and on other worlds as well. They cited the existence of a Tikkihotto cult, a Choom cult, even Earth-based cults with similar beliefs centered around a race of god-like "Outsiders" that awaited their rebirth and return to power. Nineteen years ago there had been a major incident right here in Punktown, when three vast, insectoid creatures had attempted entry into this plane of existence, the extradimensional entities apparently summoned by a sect of beetle-like Coleopteroids (or Bedbugs, as the race was nicknamed). The government had become involved, even killing one of the titanic-though still immature-creatures. They had been called Gatherers by the Bedbug cultists, but these journalists linked them to the Outsiders that the Ugghiutu followers spoke of.

Accompanying one of the articles was a painting taken from an ancient Kalian text that portrayed great Ugghiutu in one of the guises he could manifest. The illustration was captioned "The Black Cathedral." Apparently Ugghiutu would form his amorphous black flesh into the semblance of a temple that would appear in remote places, and lure the unwary inside as unwilling sacrifices. This temple, consisting of himself in tribute to himself, exhibited a looming dome in the center (a head? Stake wondered), minarets made of entwined tentacles, and two flat-roofed wings of several floors that framed the central rotunda.

Such folklore-like elements aside, Stake was open-minded about what he read. After all, the woman he loved was an extradimensional being herself. And look at the great power she had wielded over him. Conquering, and laying to waste, his world.

Stake went to a net bookstore called Shocklines to order two books relevant to these matters; Monstrocity, a non-fiction account of the Alvine Products controversy, supposedly written by a man who had opposed the Ugghiutu cult, and Everybody Scream!, which dealt with the night the three Gatherers had attempted to cross into this dimension to wreak havoc. But while Stake was looking up the books, a call for him came over his comp and he switched the screen to vidphone mode. When he saw the call came from Janice Poole, he let it through.

She didn't look like her usual flirtatious, smiling self. She looked surprisingly grim. "Jer," she said, "I think I saw Yuki Fukuda abducted in front of the Arbury School a little while ago."

"What?" he hissed. "You think?"

"It was her car, but a forcer was making her get inside, and then he got in after her. I thought I heard her cry out. I don't know where her regular driver went to."

"Maybe he was in on it. Got paid off. Did you tell the police?"

"No. In case it really is the police, for whatever reason."

"I doubt that. It has to be that blasting Tableau. Did you call Fukuda?"

Janice seemed to squirm inside her skin for a moment. "I called him first. He didn't want me to tell you, but I couldn't hold it in anymore."

"Shit, Janice! How long ago did you see this?"

"I'm sorry, Jer. It was about forty minutes ago. Maybe longer."

"Dung!" he shouted. Then he fought to control himself. "Okay, look, I'm going to call Fukuda myself. You'd better let me know quick if you hear anything new!"

"I will, I promise. I'm sorry. And you keep in touch with me, too, okay?"

He cut the connection, muttering curses, and punched up John Fukuda's number.

Fukuda answered promptly, and right away Stake noticed two things. That Fukuda was inside a moving vehicle, and that his face looked even more grim than Janice's had been. "Detective," he said.

"Mr. Fukuda, I just got a call from Janice Poole. She told me Yuki's been taken."

"Yes," Fukuda said in a voice that was oddly flat and composed, though perhaps only out of numbness. Out of a crushing kind of fatalism. "I received a call from the person responsible, telling me that he had her and instructing me not to contact anyone about it. And a few minutes ago he called again to tell me where to meet with him. I'm on my way there now."

"You're doing what? Don't be crazy; it's a trap."

"I'll hear what he has to say. And then he can hear what I have to say. I'll do whatever I can to satisfy him. If killing me satisfies him, so be it, as long as he lets Yuki go free."

Stake snatched up his black sports coat, shoved his arms into it, and clapped his porkpie hat on his head. He transferred Fukuda's call to his wrist comp and continued their conversation that way as he tore out of his apartment.

Realizing from the image that Stake was on the move, Fukuda said, "Where are you going?"

"I'm going where you're going, so tell me where it is."

"I can't do that."

"You have to, damn it!" He didn't want to wait for the tenement house's elevator, so his feet were a flurry down the stairs.

"If the person in question sees you with me, he may do Yuki some harm."

"He may still do her harm-you and her both! Do you think he'll let you two live to implicate him in this, after he's done questioning you?"

Fukuda glanced from the road ahead of him to the vidscreen on his console, locking eyes with Stake. After a hesitation, he spoke weakly, letting Fate continue to buoy him on its currents, wherever it might wish to carry him. "Steward Gardens. He's taking her to Steward Gardens."

"That place your brother built. In Beaumonde Square."

"Yes."

"So why there?"

"I don't know. I suppose because it's abandoned, private. I don't know how he found out about it. He must have researched me."

Stake had reached the lobby, and dragged his hoverbike out from under the steps where he was permitted to store it. He walked it to the front door and out into the failing light of dusk in Punktown. The late autumn air had a sting to it. Stake straddled the machine, and then it was whisking him along, insinuating and inserting itself into the slots and narrow passages between the hovercars and various other types of vehicles clotting the streets. Throughout this, he maintained his exchange with Fukuda, shouting to be heard over the roaring and beeping of the traffic.

"Why don't you stop somewhere and I'll meet up with you before you go on? Better yet, why don't you just back off, and let me handle this?"

"I told him I'd be there, and I'll be there. Yuriko died because of me once already. I didn't bring her back just to get her killed all over again."

"I see. So you're going to commit suicide, essentially, to atone for your sins."

"You don't know the half of my sins, Detective Stake. Though now might be as good a time as any to confess them."

"I thought you already had."

"I'm afraid I've been less than honest with you about things. Told you a distortion of the facts. You see, I'm not John Fukuda." Again he linked his gaze with Stake's through their vidscreens. "I'm James Fukuda."