It still amazes me, after all this time, that a piece of glass slightly taller than I and twice my arm span could withstand several blows from a metal chair. Perhaps it's best that the glass seems unbreakable as this apartment is an unbelievable height above the ground. During the stormiest weather a slight sway can be felt. I still recall my first encounter with the movement; scared me enough to think I would die.

This place is very comfortable, for a prison. My every want and whim is taken care of except exit from this aerial chamber. Most prominent is the grand piano standing monumentally center stage. Surrounding it, along the walls for the most part, are a table and chairs, an enormous bed, study area with computer and an exercise corner. Two doors lead to bathroom and kitchen, the latter continually stocked with fresh produce of the likes I could not name.

The computer functions as a news station, complete library with fiction and reference, entertainment with moving pictures and music. Oh what music, wondrous and amazing, which can be sent through speakers in the ceiling. 20 years of travel has worn a faint trail in the carpeting; a path from bed to computer to this enormous window and back. A caged lion's pace marks.

Over the years I have slowly begun to be like a captive animal; becoming more a creature of habit and routine. My general interest in anything has dwindled to zero. I have not seen my own mirrored reflection for more than 10 years for I know it is as it was and always will be. Only the darkest of stormy nights see the curtains drawn for it is then that a reflection is too clear to bear. The entire city is constantly lit by uncountable lights and is truly a wonder to behold.

Music. The passion of my life, or so I was led to believe. Fruitless hours, days and months spent attempting to recapture some dormant ability. It is true that my ear has a peculiar clarity, a tuned potential for tone and pitch and my own personal sense of harmony can not be matched. Unfortunately, for those who keep me, ability for composition does not exist within my being.

Initially I was enthralled, entranced and exhilarated with the wondrous sounds given me to grade. The almost sensual experiences from those early years began to wane, eventually giving way to monotony. A routine segment of daily routine comparable to eating. Perhaps it appeared my skill was diminishing as the quantity of submitted music reduced until, perhaps 5 years ago, it stopped. My usefulness exhausted.

Paranoia darkened my mind for what must have seemed like an eternity, but today is a moment's pause in my past. Fear of death was prominent in my thoughts, spooking me at the least noise or unusual happenstance. When clarity returned and my senses regained their composure, I realized no one intended to treat me as a discardable machine. Since that moment of realization I have desired, wished upon myself, everything which I feared. This empty existence bodes ill for my sanity should I be as immortal as my unchanging features would suggest.

There is little information I can extract from my captors. Or, more accurately, should I be calling them creators? For that is what I am, a replicated superficial impersonator of a past life which ended short of its time. What they had hoped to resurrect from antiquity did not accompany the cloned body of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Draco Merest

The smell was irritating; a musty sweat on fur. Pausing to smear Hylist Elms onto his upper lip, he wondered if they purposefully strove for the effect. Surely the vile little creatures could reason that their scent would foil the ambush. His nonchalant amble through the creviced pass belied his thoughts. His heightened sense of sight and sound mapped a clear mental image of the terrain. Above and left between boulders, arrows or other missiled implements should be waiting; nothing. Below right, within knee high alcoves, snares or spears would serve well. Again nothing. But there, ahead, upturned earth disclosed rudimentary lairs. Primitive attempts at deception insulted his very being. For he was Elan Vim.

Concern rippled his brow as he stood unmolested mere paces from the first patch of miscolored dirt. Surely vermin could not have prepared pit traps with such careless attention to detail. A step and stab with his staff in one swift movement revealed the truth, a decoy. Wheeling and throwing off his cloak to reveal an assortment of gleaming silver weapons, Elan threw a splay of razored discs as deviously concealed trapdoors lifted behind him. Each assailant slumped before chancing their lives in combat with this superior foe.

He recited the 'Dictates of Defence', instinctively recalling his training, "From below as is on high." His staff clicked to unhinge a sharpened edge as he brought it to bear above his head in a practiced move, slicing though the thick netting falling from above.

Quoting, "Covered be thee from avian threat." he knelt and spun the retrieved cloak about him. Jagged shale rained harmlessly upon his shield as ranks of spearmen lunged past those with slings, wheeling forth from beyond a bend in the crevice.

"Thorned branches pierce not when turned." he whispered.

Spinning into his cloak some clustered shale flew outwards to find foreheads and knees tripping a few of the rampaging throng. His staff spun with him, dropping three more before locking itself under his arm in preparation for power over speed and translating its momentum to his leap. An outstretched foot defeated more as he gracefully cleared the first rank to land amid his suddenly confused opponents. The staff carved a clear circle about him before resting casually over his shoulder.

"Let beasts with horn rut in pairs." the verse continued.

As stone tipped spears were thrown, his movements came as a dance, avoiding one then another in anticipated order. Surprised at their sudden weaponless state, many ran as they saw a comrade impaled by their own hand. The rapidly thinning group of attackers weakened their resolve and fled.

"Predictable but impressive." he commented; a begrudging acknowledgment of their effort achieving four sequential onslaughts. "Scum can learn."

Elan strode ever proudly towards the distant spires while the humans recovered their wounded and dead; misery and despair dampening their anger which would soon resurface.

Draco Merest

Joe had it hard. He felt that life had no goal. There was not much he could do to make life better for anyone so why try? To die is what we are born to do so why not sit back and just wait for it to come? But the easy way, sit back and let time go past, had turned out hard. The good things people have in their homes seemed too hard for Joe; he would never be able to make enough to buy all those fine things. These thoughts made him feel sad in an angry way. Not happy with himself and not happy with the rest of the world for the way things had turned out. More stabs of his pen added new dents to the coffee table and wall.

It was still four hours before work started at the shop. What was he going to do? He stopped at the door and looked down to see that he had no pants on. It cost him three nights in jail last time he did not care about anything and went out like this. One night for the crime and the other two because he could not pay the fine. What really bugged him was the effort to go home in the morning and get read for work knowing he would have to take himself back that evening. The prison system was joke. Day and night shifts for crimes just the same as for work. He closed his eyes and bowed his head, slumping his shoulders. Somewhere in this mess he had some pants. They were on him when he came home.

Leaving his cubicle always shocked him. So bright, white, clean and smiling. Happy people everywhere. Why did they have to be like that? Fast, busy people doing what they want to make their life happy and, as a result, help make everyone else happy. Except Joe. He could not even stop living like this. Doctors and their tools, always fixing him up when he had had enough of life. No, they would not let him go until his time was up. But what for? Had he not given enough time in night jail? Working to help the world sort mixed up boxes of screws, watch over sick baby animals or having his blood pumped into some machine seemed payment enough.

It was really enough by the time he was 10 years old when they had given up trying to force his body to take the drugs which made everyone else happy to join in. Those years spent with doctors poking and prodding him had robbed him of many things. Caring was one. And they had broken his brain a little. Or was it that their learning machines could not get into his mind because he was not in a state of 'happy'? When a person knows a lot of things but has no idea how to teach someone else, who has a broken brain?

"How are you today? May I assist you in any way?" asked a well wishing and overly smiley lady.

Joe blinked at her then decided to start walking. Standing outside his cubicle door for some minutes was causing the flow of people some trouble and he did not want anyone else asking him dull questions. There may still be a dark stain slowly moving down the passage, causing delay, but it would stop them talking to him. Since every direction held the same mind numbing everything, it did not matter where he went. Stay home bored and depressed or go for a walk and just be depressed. One state of mind at a time seemed easier.

Draco Merest

Two technicians examined a glass plate from the array of holographic memory. A small aqua colored stain marked one corner. Could this be the cause of the reported inconsistencies and access problems? Various filtered lights from their diagnostic equipment failed to register previously known fault states. They discussed the probable causes to no avail and decided to log the details for downtime personnel. Replacing the component could cause cascade failure in the whole section and patrons to the museum would be interrupted. There were several other maintenance items on their schedule. Of more importance was the strobing projector on level 15. The covers were replaced and they headed off towards the elevators.

Suko Ry Kito was the scourge of Tokyo cyberspace, better known as the Helium Attacker. She has just finished a bowl of rice pudding for breakfast. Not a common dish in Japan and quite hard to locate sometimes. She'd discovered a taste for it when holidaying in England with her parents, much to their traditionally cultured distaste. That was when her nifty little all-in-one security box had fallen into her pocket. Her ears rose slightly as she smiled at the warm memory and glanced at the little black box which permitted her online mischief with total anonymity.

The activity count was twitching between one and zero like it could not make up its mind if someone was hacking her or not. Usually, when she was running though other peoples data, the counter would peak in the high twenties. She stretched for a long time while contemplating what to do next. She could take the bowl back upstairs to the kitchen but that may interfere with her mother's soap opera watching time. Suko decided to leave it on the floor and sneak it into the rack at lunch time, which was in about 1 hour.

She slipped into a pair of virtual gloves and snapped on the goggles of the least busy computer from a collection of 6. From the outside it looked as if she were conducting an invisible orchestra but within the confines of the display surrounding her eyes there was a torrent of light and sound. Graphs, grids and other status indicators danced digital waltzes as she searched for the intruder into her system. All her firewalls and other security devices blazed around the data representing her cyber presence. It was a wonder she could access anything what with all the filters her little black box offered.

Suko was most contradictory for a 12 year old. While she considered time to be an abstract which did not apply to her, she could not resist timing herself as she flew though the myriad access points which created the internet. Glancing at the time display she saw, once again, that is was 11:11am. Damn how that annoyed her. It happened too many times. 'Right, let's see who you are,'she thought honing in on the source of the incoming probe.

Technical team eight were summoned to attend a viewing console which had begun to exhibit inaccessible areas. Following prescribed diagnostic sequences they first reset the terminal. The small points of black remained and resisted magnification. Switching to a larger scale revealed a possible source for the disturbance; a larger dark area. The incident was logged, 'Tokyo, Japan, December 2012, Inaccessible Sector,' and marked as urgent with the programming maintenance section. The terminal was set to an idle state, flashing a request that patrons should access this period via an alternative station.

The source address of the intruder worried Suko. It changed identification signatures several times and, at one point, disappeared totally. She scanned deeper, pushing though columns of brightly lit data, past cubes of infrastructure and on towards the outermost reaches of cyberspace. Nothing usually occurred out here, on the 'Rim' of this alternate reality. Vacant real estate where wannabe hackers and surfers practiced their skills; pitting their wits against each other. She'd not been here in a very long time. Surely no practicing newbie would dare attempt to secret their way into the domain of the Helium Attacker.

She followed thread to its very end. Against the outermost reaches, actually punching though the black and green framework holding this digital world together, she could see several lines of data energy aimlessly flickering. The primary data feed she had followed pulsed once. It seemed a signal to the other as they shot forth, darting past her. Suko wheeled about and gave chase. Yes, they seemed to be headed for her domain. Not good, not good...

She opened a chat aperture sporting the emblem of a sword wielding dragon. It chimed impatiently several times before Mi Kyung answered wearily with blurred eyes and a head full of mussed up hair.

"Do you know what time it is?" Mu Kyung demanded.

"Yeah, I know, it's before lunch. I've got an emergency and can't handle it myself. Get your set on and goggle up."

She portioned off some of her locked cyber domain for Mi Kyung to manage then reset her location to zero; instantly transporting her to the middle of her data nexus before the incoming attackers arrived. Having someone to share the load gave her enough time to securely lock down everything and bring up her tray of hacking tools. She felt them arrive, blasting away at her outer defensive perimeters.

"Suko! Did you cut the wall feed to the lounge again?" her mother called down to her.

"No mum, I'm not on that line but kinda busy, I'll check it in a few minutes, ok?"

Data continuity programmers were having trouble accessing the source of interference. Containment and isolation was not solving the problem. Surrounding areas were marginally disrupted as the programmers tested the seeded algorithms which defined the location. Scans revealed a secondary point of data corruption within the South Korean segment. A thin but substantially resistant thread was joining it to the primary target. Secondary system analysts entered reports of similar blockages within other countries.

Senior management was consulted and the decision to evacuate patrons made. All visitor and non-essential personnel were advised that the museum of living history was closing early due to scheduled maintenance. All technical assistants were summoned for immediate duty.

"Suko, I can't handle this myself. I've got Chad and Dave on the case too. They said some of the incoming data looks strange, like Egyptian or something. Dave said he rode a data stream out through the net barrier. The GPS systems said the physical location was somewhere in the Antarctic. More guys are being brought in to help but this feels dangerous."

"Don't panic, just hang in there. Friends are with us. It's just like playing Dragon's Gate," Suko said with a distracted effort in her voice.

She could see on her grid that more and more data blocks from all over the world were being connected to her network. Even some geek on a Luna platform had joined. Data from the incoming probes seemed to reduce and the adjustments they made in an attempt to break her defence system became slower as her network expanded.

"Suko! What are you doing? I was talking to Aunt Kiko," her mother called again.

Suko diverted her attention for a moment to check the house systems. Sure enough, there were some spikes on the lines. 'A sneaky attempt to get me from a service line hey?' she silently questioned the intruders. She'd need to get this sorted out soon or her mum would come down and complain about the disruption to family life. Yeah, like, whatever, mum...

She called up a globe and plotted all the systems plugged into her network. It was massive and, briefly, quite intimidating. So many people had joined in her effort to ward off this attack and with this much computing power there was no way they were going to get her.

Now it was time for her favourite trick: folding an attacker in on itself. Suko plotted all the system locations on the globe which were defending against the outside invader then sent them all a little 'follow me' virus. The program shot out and down the data streams, back towards their origin. One by one all the streams reacted to the bright sparkling virus and curled in on themselves, chasing their own tail all the way back to home base.

Terminals throughout the museum began dimming into safe mode. Systems in control rooms were overheating; transferring information from one panel to another randomly. Incoherent data was flooding in from the affected era; a total corruption of the simulation was imminent. An executive directive was issued to reset the Twenty First Century exhibit.

'One minute past midnight, January first, 2000, Tokyo, Japan: The first baby of the new millennium was born to Mr and Mrs Kito. They plan to name their daughter Suko Ry following the Samurai tradition their ancestry holds. Congratulations to the lucky parents. This is Brian Jones, Channel 16 news.'

A seldom heard silence filled the entire Southern Museum of Living History for several minutes. Then, slowly building in intensity, the background hum of information processing built up as timelines were reseeded and algorithms churned out carefully manufactured streams of data. Down in basement five, a faint aqua stain glowed briefly from within a sliver of holographic glass as some ingrained data engrams resisted erasure.

Draco Merest