Johnny waved at the group. "I'm happy to see all of you are alive - 'cause I didn't think I'd be seeing any of you again."

          "They let you in here dressed like that?" Paul asked.

          "Johnny," Mac called out.

          "Computer guy."

          "What do you mean? What happened when you left Syd's?" Mac said.

          Johnny's eyes widened and he opened his arms out. "I was chased, they tried to shoot my ass, and I had to like - go sewer diving to get away from them."

          "So you weren't captured," Mark said.

          "Oh..food." Johnny headed to the food table. "Hey Oz-man." Instead of grabbing a plate, the singer begins snatching things up and shoving them into his mouth. "So..." he mumbles around the food. "Deese gys offer you a deeel?"

          "Yeah, and you?" Arden asked, putting her hand to her cheek.

          "Let's just say," he swallowed. "They were willing to erase some trouble from my record."

          The doors open again. Calen steps inside, freshly showered, his skin flushed. He was once again dressed in fatigues - only instead of the jacket top, he wore a black tee-shirt. Behind him filed in nine men in white and a petite Asian female with waist length hair. Dressed in a Versace silk pants suit, the woman moved ahead of the men and motioned for everyone to find a seat.

          Mac moved to the table where his computer lay. He pulled the ibook out and opened it. The screen lit up as he pulled his Treo 300 from his pocket and with a cable, connected the modem to the phone. It dialed into his private database, the one he'd started before Maouri was killed.

          Arden and Mark sat at a table across from Mac. Kyle and Paul took another. Oz and Zydeco took a table in the back. Calen joined them. Johnny and Kyle sat with Mac.

          The men in white, whom Mac believed were constructs of the Union, remained by the door. The Asian beauty nodded to them. "That will be all."

          The men in white left in single file..

          "I'm glad to see you all here. I am Laura Huang. I represent the Avalon Group. I first of all must say that I appreciate the fact that you are all here. I know that your escorts apologized to those of you that were subjected to any rough handling. I personally apologize. It was our intention to contact each of you individually without trouble. But apparently our adversaries got the jump on us. We must be careful where and how we give out our information.

          "I'm sure by now that you have all been given some very general and basic information about why you are here. I am prepared to answer any specific questions before we get started. "

          "Let's skip to getting started," Arden said.

          "I believe, personally, that those that do not study history are doomed to repeat it. Let me explain this...in Japan, there is a period called the Bata-kiri. A war that ended 300 years of the Shogun and ushered in the Magi era of government. It was a time of massive blood shed. There were members of both sides involved. Although their relationship in the east was different of the west. They had a much more amicable one, until this point in time.

          "The Shogun believed that their way was the best way. And then there were the Imperialists; those that wanted to bring the state to a more modern one. The problem occurred in the early days of the Magi government. Many were killed on both sides. For most people these deaths were justified and honorable. But when the Magi government came into control, it was realized that they were interested in controlling the people, not providing for them.

          "The reason I tell you this is because I see parallels in our current situation. If you equate the Technocratic Union to the Magi government, and the Imperialists to the Traditions, you see the parallels. There had been 300 years of peace, before the conflict started.

          "I believe that now, our Union has become so thoroughly corrupted that it is detrimental to anyone inside of it that believes like I do, and it is detrimental to the masses. It is no longer about aiding humanity, but about taking away those basic freedoms that are essential. There is a faction, and the Avalon Group is included in that Faction, that wishes to end the enmity between our two systems.

          "We believe it is time to cast aside these differences and unite. Against a common enemy - and you've all been aware of the rising instances of Marauders and Nephandic forces. We don't just want to get that in check. We feel that the next logical step in the evolution of awakening, or enlightenment, is a synthesis between mysticism and science. Again, looking at history, many in the Union believed it was arrogance and hot headedness on the part of the Sons of Ether and Virtual Adepts when they left the Technocratic Union."

          Miss Huang turned her focus directly to Mac. He felt her gaze, a single, cold, piercing beam of light that seemed to peer through his eyes and into his core. "But we have monitored your activities and found that your innovations and devices to be quite extraordinary. The blending of science and magick is possible, and what's more, would be very accessible and acceptable to the masses. "

          "My Tradition has Techno Shamans." Paul inclined his head. "We see the union of magic and technology every day. But that doesn't stop the Union from trying to crush and unmake us at every turn."

          Mac narrowed his eyes at the Dream Speaker. They have techno shamans? They see the value in the blending of magic and technology? Well, he couldn't have proved it by me. Not with the attitude he seems to have toward the Adepts.

          Miss Huang gave him a slow smile. "I and my colleges do regret some of the techniques my...brethren...choose to use."

          "Then I'm assuming you're suggesting doing something about it?"

          "Yes."

          "Then what is your suggestion?"

          Mac put his hands on the couch back in front of him. "Please. Let her finish."

          Paul gave him a scathing look but did not stop. "I do not need to hear your history lesson nor do I need to hear you babble about what we've already heard before. It may already be in our minds. What I do need to hear is what your solutions are and if we can be involved."

          Mark leaned in close to Arden, but Mac could overhear him. "That's the snooty card he's throwing down. A little DS 'get to the point'."

          But Miss Huang was unphazed by Paul's obvious impatience. "We know that this entity calling itself the Sphinx has contacted both Mage and Technocrat alike - targeting those with the Union that would destroy them. Those that are sympathetic within the Union have received these missives. One missive grabbed our attention so much, it forced us to act. "

          "What was it?" Mac asked.

          "I received an email with a file that said Oak Island. Beneath that entry, saw the words 'Remember the Bata-kiri, what do you always say?' Followed by the sphinx, and a tag line about dogma."

          Mark spoke. "Enigma will take you where dogma cannot."

          "We believe that the Sphinx is giving certain people directives that will put an end to the ruthless persecution and killing. We are inclined to follow these directives. But they have been erratic." She looked at all of them. "I believe all of you have received one, maybe two." She looked at Johnny. "But you have received quite a bit more. And your involvement with these people as a group, forced us to call you. You were all gathered for a reason. There is an individual, not a Technocrat - whom we believe is attempting to bring down everything.

          "When I researched Oak Island, I found a strange story," she looked at the Technocrat. "Calen, I believe you have information on this. There are over a 100 myths and stories surrounding this island where it was believed a pirate had buried a great treasure.

          "Yet when they excavated the site, they found the most intricate and complex structure - it is impenetrable. Whatever is buried beneath that island, someone did not want it released. We contacted various liaisons within the Traditions about Oak Island - maybe they had something to do with this.

          "They did not. So then we turned our inquiries within our own union, and met with resistance from NWO. But amazingly this sphinx entity alerted us to an older source of information. Or rather, hinted to us about its whereabouts. I believe we can actually pinpoint this source, which had been identified as a Library. We can discover what is beneath Oak Island, and why this person with very violent and destructive tendencies is seeking to open it. He is at present undertaking the largest excavation ever attempted of Oak Island and he is being successful where others have failed.

          "It is, and this may come as a surprise to you Mr. Ortega, it is the belief of our...forecasters...that whatever is beneath this island is of the utmost danger. That perhaps whatever it is is a very ancient evil that was put away for a reason. To prevent any sleeper or mundane person to open or free."

          "Then why would we want to disturb it?"

          "That is the catch. We don't know if this is true."

          "Something that is buried so tightly, surrounded by such a complex locking mechanism, should perhaps remain there." Paul clasped his hands on the table before him.

          "That is not necessarily true. There are several mythic threads - like Pandora's box. It tells of a box filled with hope for all human kind and they were waiting on people to get together to release it." Arden looked at Paul.

          Mac smiled to himself. She has a point.

          "The forecasts are..." Miss Huang smiled. "I hate to sound like a weather report here, but they are hazy. They are changeable. One forecast says evil, and then another will tell a different tale. Some even say there is something there that the Traditions had that was stolen from them. We are certain that if we find this library, that things will be made clear. However due to the Storm, and due to the fact that our brethren burned their bridges, we currently do not have any within our ranks that are capable of finding this Library.

          "We also do not know of any within the Traditions that are capable of finding it. But, with the convergence that we now have together in this room, especially given the uncanny luck that some of us seem to posses, I believe that you can find the Library. That you can retrieve that information. Then we can unearth it first, or prevent him from unearthing it at all.

          "His name is Dorian Sterling."

          Arden abruptly spit and made a sign in the air.

          Mac called up the name in his library. The moniker flagged.

Verbena. Unliked in New Orleans. He is a Master, and his reception among his own Tradition is ambivalent. It is said that Mr. Sterling used his power before the storm to manipulate his students by binding their spirits to him. Some agreed and some didn't. Anywhere surrounding this guy there is always two stories.

Since the avatar storm, it was suggested that many Verbena rallied to him as their choice of leader. Here is where the split in the Verbena Tradition falls. Those that go and those that don't.

          Paul repeated as much for the rest of the group.

          Calen called out from the rear of the room. Mac turned in time to see him rise and walk quickly to the front where Miss Huang stood. He handed her his laptop. "This just came in."

          She read it. Mac watched her expression. Only the slightest quiver in her lower lip signaled to him that the news, whatever it is, was not good.

          Their host turned to them. "I will read this to you. Mr. Sterling is trying to rekindle the war by sabotaging barriers and controls that are set up to keep out outsiders, things that you would call creatures of the deep umbra. He made a successful breech of Area 51 recently and made off with classified documents on dangerous outsiders. Extremely dangerous." she frowned. "Shit...a containment team has just been dispatched."

          "A what?" asked Kyle.

          "The Void Engineers have sent what they call a sanitizer team, to completely obliterate Sterling and his team. They plan on taking down whatever it is they are releasing." Miss Huang handed Calen back his laptop. "Here is my take on Mr. Sterling. We don't know whether this information in his file is correct, or whether it's been fabricated to suit the need of certain entities within the Union."

          "You are such an honorable group," Paul said softly, yet his tone held sarcasm.

          Calen paused beside Paul's table. "And I'm sure your people do not have factions."

          "I'm sure we do." When Calen moved away, Paul looked back to Miss Huang. "May I ask you a personal question? Does the Union consider you to have a deviant eidolon?"

          "Yes, they do." Miss Huang nodded. "They have been suppressing said...thing with drug therapy since I was 7 years old."

          "Are you still on drug therapy?"

          "No, I have been able to reverse the Progenitor work." She smiled. "As I mentioned to you earlier that I have received several transmissions. It was one of these missives that alerted me to my eidolon. I hacked into what I had been taking and realized I was being drugged. It was suggested that there were forces in control of my life that I should get rid of."

          "What about others in the Avalon Group?" Mac asked.

          "As far as we know of the 117 members, over half of us have eidolons. Some are not aware. Some have just become aware. It speaks to me. It has not led me astray yet. It was my eidolon that told me about the 57 club.

          "Let me go on record here as saying that no one in the Avalon Group, or any of our affiliates, condones the deaths of those mages at the club. It is unacceptable. Yes there is death, there is always death, and it must be. However there is no excuse for complete pattern dispersal.

          "Life follows certain cosmic laws, that nothing, not matter, can ever be destroyed. And yet these weapons, conceived by NWO and Iteration X, have the ability to bend the laws of nature. It breaks down the structure of existence. It's like alchemically transforming steel into low-grade iron. It will collapse in on itself."

          "Which, begs to the question," Paul leaned forward. "If they can make a weapon to unmake, can they not make one to remake?"

          Miss Huang's expression changed, if only a fraction. This thought had not occurred to her. "I think for every action there is an opposite action. If they can erase, they can unerase. Maybe they still exist, but we cannot perceive them."

          Paul snapped his finger. "Like on Mac's hard drive. He might delete something, but it's never gone. He can't retrieve it, but it's still there. He just can't see it." He smiled. "So we make an unearse program." He smiled again at his cleverness.

          Mac sat back in his chair. "True, but many times, more often than not, deleted files, when retrieved, are corrupted."

          "What does that mean? They'd come back with like only one leg and half an eyebrow?" Kyle asked.

          "No," Calen said. "There is no guarantee that you would bring back the right pattern. If it mingled with another damaged pattern to create garbage, you bring back garbage."

          Mark nodded. "Meaning you could bring back something very different."

          Miss Huang looked on at them with pride, very much like a teacher whose class has just impressed the principle. "The..." she cleared her throat, and it appeared she were about to choke, "Prophecy..."

          Everyone in the room chuckled. Mac taped a few keys on his computer. I'll bet that was hard for a Technocrat to spit out.

          "-Warns that if it is released, what's inside, is impervious to technology and magic. We will be vulnerable."

          "Are sleepers the only ones that can fight against it?" Paul said.

          Miss Huang paused. "We have been told, that it is something that if tampered with, will explode."

          "It's God's self destruct button." Mark said.

          "What is the more logical conclusion, is that alone technology cannot defeat it, neither can magic - but combined we might."

          Paul crossed his arms over his chest. "Defeat or control?"

          "That is unclear, Mr. Ortega - we need to clarify this. One of the original Factions, The Ksirafai tribe, compiled copious amounts of notes, records, artifacts, information on things scientific, mystical, using it to aid them in whatever it was they found themselves in."

          Mac rubbed his forehead as he watched Paul. It wasn't that Paul alone felt a certain amount of frustration. Mac too was beginning to feel overwhelmed, and needed to know exactly what it is they were dealing with.

          "Is this the Library we seek?"

          Miss Huang looked at each of them. "Yes, the Ksirafai built an immense library, then vanished. It is said only two of their order remained to be the keepers of this library's secrets."

          Mac had been moving through his database furiously, looking up anything he could find on the Ksirafai, as well as Oak Island. He was about to log into the VA database when he received an IM on his screen.

          >Cross-reference Oak Island with Money pit. It is a tourist trap<

          The return screen name space was blank.

          What the-? He glanced around the room, his gaze catching that of Calen's. The VE nodded, and continued his own work on his machine. Mac looked back to his ibook, at the single line of type. The VE is helping me? That can't be right. Why would he aid a Virtual Adept? Their kind named us traitor.

          And even more frightening... Mac rubbed his forehead. He knew what screen name I used. Of course there were several McGyvers out there, many in response to the infamous television series. Even his VR icon was that of Angus McGyver. But he knew which was mine.

          He used VAMcgyver! That is my private screen name, known only to other VAs.

          Wait...

          Syd mentioned seeing something about me on the VE database. That was how he figured out who my father was - who I am. Could Calen have access to the same information?

          The very thought pushed at his flight response. He needed to leave now. Being here was dangerous. This woman was a member of the Technocratic Union. So were those constructs outside.

          What am I doing here?

          "...so you're saying," Paul was speaking, as usual. "That of the two, one knows the library's location, and the other has the key to enter, but one doesn't know who the other is."

          Miss Huang nodded. "Precisely. The speculation regarding the Surfeit and the two keepers - they were the information keepers much like the NWO. This brought the renaissance to an uncanny level. They were skilled in their abilities of mind their abilities of focus. They gathered an astounding amount of info. At the time they disappeared was a time that the first true rifts within the order occurred. The cabal of pure thought waged war and destroyed them. It was the beginning of a period of an intense war for the Order. We believe that the Ksirafai did not want the wrong people to get their information. They devised their system to keep that information safe until they could resurface and make the information successful."

          Arden shifted. "Do you know where we should start?"

          Miss Huang nodded. "We will begin with the two individuals we believe are the descendants of the Ksirafai Tribe. We have names - to great personal sacrifice we were able to procure them."

          Mac pushed to the side his desire to run as he opened up a text file to set in the names. .

          "The one we believe knows the library's location is Ceasar Casada. The other that has the codes is Isaac Lovenstein. Lovenstein has been difficult to track down. We believe Casada is in the French Riviera. Nicholas has been given access to some operating funds that we rearranged for this purpose. You will all be given access codes for various numbered accounts in case you are separated.

          "Now listen to me very carefully. We retrieved this information ourselves. The NWO emerged out of nowhere in the1800s before the reorganization of the Technocratic Union. The size of the information they possessed was amazing. It was believed for a along time that the NWO was the Ksirafai reemerged after many years. Recent information we received suggests that that is not the case. Perhaps the NWO itself is another source of corruption within the Union. Their tactics point to some sort of corrupted behavior. They are not to be trusted.

          "We managed with great danger and at great peril to three of our numbers, to access their files to discover that they too have been searching for these individuals at great length. They only have last names to date. We were more successful with the help of some of our more talented Seers. We think we may know the pass phrases that will convince these individuals that we are worthy of this information.

          "So in essence the mission is this: Find Lovenstein and Casada. Get the location of the library, access it and find out what it is we're dealing with, and on that information, proceed. I will be accompanying those of you that chose to take up this mission. Other members of the Avalon group will also meet us in various stages.

          "The Avalon group has welcomed 27 tradionists. Those are the ones that were willing to take a gamble on us. We approached more, but given the history it is understandable why they thought they could not trust us".

          "Indeed." Paul said.

          Kyle leaned toward Mac. "That guy just has to talk, doesn't he?"

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