HONOR CODE

By Rob Ballard

Aboard the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier…

Although Fury’d never actually used the term ‘prisoner’, Forge sure felt like one. He was locked in his quarters, with two Children of Humanity cadets posted out front as guards.

“Having children do your dirty work for you, Fury?” Forge remembered the friends he knew – kids, really – that had lost their lives in ‘Nam, and it made him angry. “This world is more screwed up than I thought.”

He’d been assured that they were there for his ‘protection’, though he suspected otherwise. He was right. Any attempt to leave the room would have been met by potentially lethal force. He might be able to overpower the two young guards and search for Lorna and Havok, but that was a long shot, and he’d have the entire S.H.I.E.L.D. army looking for him on their own turf.

“One thing’s for sure, I’m not going to get anywhere here.” With that, he began surveying the room carefully. He wasn’t exactly sure what for, yet, but something. After all, if ‘necessity’ was the mother of invention, then Forge was the father. He could almost feel his mutant gift kick into high gear, and it was a good feeling. “First, a little privacy,” he said aloud, and although they normally wouldn’t allow it, he forced the controls in his room to lock the door from the inside. He didn’t need anyone barging in while he was trying to sleep, after all.

Then he began working with the high-definition, plasma display on the wall. Aside from being a means of intra-ship communication, it could also display television programs and movies, and had access to unrestricted sections of the Helicarrier database. “This should do just fine,” he said.

Thirty minutes later…

“Cadet Shroeder, please report to the briefing room. Cadet Shroeder, please report to the briefing room.”

Sixteen year-old Casey Shroeder looked at his duty partner. “Any clue what that’s all about?”

“Nope,” she said plainly, shrugging. Seemed a little odd that he’d be called away while on guard duty. Nevertheless, one didn’t argue with one’s superiors – if you were ordered to report, you’d damn well better do so on the double.

“Take over, Conner. If he tries to escape, you know what to do.” She nodded knowingly. Their orders had been quite simple. He set the safety on his weapon and marched off, doubletime.

This left seventeen year-old Alicia Conner in charge. Conner didn’t expect any trouble, her briefing had simply said that this was an incoming level four operative whose loyalty to the General had not yet been fully established. But it never hurt to be prepared. She checked her weapon once again. Fully charged. Set to full stun. She grinned. She hadn’t heard a peep out of him, and that was too bad. Eight months in the CoH corps, and here she was, pulling guard duty like some dumb MP. Surely there was more to the fight against the mutant plague than this.

And then it happened. The door opened, and her prisoner appeared. She swiftly brought her weapon to bear on the middle of his chest. Forge put his hands up obligingly. “Can I help you?” she said dryly, an eyebrow raised. It wasn’t a question, and she was itching to have a reason to pull the trigger on something other than a inanimate target.

“My sink is leaking,” he told her weakly. She peered in, and could see that water was gushing from the open cabinet under the sink, running onto the floor.

“Mmm-hmmm. And this should concern me how?” Conner couldn’t believe this. What’d this guy take her for, anyway? She was no fool.

“Hey, I just thought you’d like to know. Whatever.” Then for good measure, he mumbled “bitch,” just loud enough for her to hear as the door slide closed.

The cadet shook her head. “Asshole,” she mumbled. “Hope he knows how to swim,” she shook her head and chuckled to herself.

Then something hit her. If he’d flooded the room and caused some sort of damage – they’d take it outta her ass. “Shit!” Fifty demerits and six weeks in the kitchen, she did not need. She keyed the door open once again, and reached for her communicator. Forge smacked the small empty trash pail as hard as he could upside her head.

The young cadet’s features twisted into combination of pain and disbelief as she had barely an instant to wonder what the hell had gone wrong. Then she collapsed, Forge catching her before she hit the floor. Had it been a Danger Room session, he might’ve been inclined to take a moment to gloat. But this was for real, serious business, and there was hardly time for that.

He checked her pulse. Steady and strong. She’d be okay, but she’d have a hell of a headache when she woke up. He dragged her into the room, locking her in the bathroom after taking her weapon. He shut off the water valve to the sink, flipped a switch, and headed out the door.

Forge knew the clock was ticking now. It might only be a few minutes before Cadet Conner would get a routine check call on her communicator. Then they’d know there was trouble. What he needed now was a diversion.

The crude access terminal he’d been provided hadn’t given him much. No way he was going to get the security clearance he needed to find Polaris and Havok – not without a considerable amount of time. It had, however, been kind enough to provide him a map. After studying it for a few minutes, Forge was reasonably certain he knew where hit teammates were.

Two doors down from his room – at least according to the map he’d been shown – was the armory. Well, not the armory, Forge corrected himself. Fury was so paranoid, he’d put an armory on every single deck of the Helicarrier. Apparently he didn’t want his troops to be too far away from something that could easily kill the enemy, whoever that might be. “Extreme paranoia. How quaint,” Forge thought dryly.

He knew that this was when he was going to be vulnerable. Forge had little choice but to sprint his way to the armory door, praying that he didn’t run into anyone along the way. He had a weapon, but he didn’t want to have to use it, at least not yet. The longer he could go without attracting attention, the better.

Forge keyed a number sequence into the armory. No joy. He tried again. Still no luck, the red light continued to glow, daring him to try again. He knew that it wouldn’t take too many attempts to get into the armory before an alarm was sounded. He took the butt of the rifle, and gave the keypad a swift blow, knocking the faceplate off and leaving the exposed keys.

From there, it was a simple task for Forge to reconfigure the wiring to initiate a feedback loop. Sparks flew from the keypad and the feedback loop shorted out the door. It unlocked with a loud ‘clunk’ but still didn’t give. “Damn,” Forge said, looking over his shoulder, then began tugging at the smooth metal surface of the door. Slowly, he could feel it budge. Once the edge of the door appeared in the doorway, he gave it a firm shove, giving himself enough room to slip through the opening.

The room was dimly lit, and he preferred to keep it that way. After giving the door a tug so that it would be nearly closed without a passing officer taking notice, he began to scan the devices in the armory. “Would you take a look at this,” he said to himself. “It’s a rebel army’s dream in here. Everything you’d need for guerrilla warfare, and more.” He figured there was easily enough weaponry to stage a coup on a small nation if one had the fighting force.

Wasting no time, he grabbed three high powered plasma rifles off the hooks, and yanked two of the power cells out. Then he reconnected the power cells in series to one rifle, and nudged the setting to maximum power. He configured the firing device to give him a thirty second delay – kicked the rifle as far back into the armory as he could, and ran like hell for the elevator.

The first explosion reverberated like a dull thud throughout the ship, as if someone had been stupid enough to gently bump into something. The second and third explosion knocked the ship into a three degree list to starboard that never corrected itself. Military personnel from all over the ship rushed to find out what the hell was going on, yelling and shouting into their communicators above the blaring klaxons.

General Fury stood up from his leather desk chair and began barking orders. “Report, soldier! What the hell is going on down there?” he asked his chief officer of the watch.

“Not sure, yet, sir,” he responded crisply. “Some kind of blast on level five. We’ve got teams sent to investigate now.”

“Listen, mister. You find out what the fuck is going on down there, and get my ship straightened out, on the double!”

With Forge’s military training, once the chaos had broken out, it had been relatively easy to stun one of the soldiers at the back of one of the formations running by. The guy’d been just about his size and build, so he drug him into the elevator and took his uniform. It was positively revolting, and the sooner he could get out of it, the better.

Forge guessed he had fifteen, maybe twenty minutes to get Havok and Polaris off the ship. After that, the troops would figure out what was going on and start coming after them. With all the star players up on level five, he encountered very little resistance getting to the lab – where he guessed they’d be. After all, he couldn’t imagine Fury having much else of a scientific interest.

He keyed his way into the lab’s entrance, finding Polaris and Havok slumped over, restraints holding them to a couple of high backed chairs. Forge ran over to the machine that was apparently keeping them sedated. He studied it for ten seconds, then disabled it with a few keystrokes. A few seconds later, and his teammates began to come to. They both looked like they’d seen better days.

“Ugh,” the Mistress of Magnetism groaned. “I need a shower, a bottle of Tylenol, and a bed.”

“I’d settle for my hands wrapped around Fury’s neck,” Havok added, rubbing his head.

“Are you two all right?”

“Never been better. Man, are you a sight for sore eyes,” Havok said. “Get us out of here, will ya?”

“No problem. When I get the restraints off, I believe your powers will return.” Forge returned to the console.

“What’s with the S.H.I.E.L.D. getup?” Alex asked.

“Hey. You know what they say. The clothes don’t make the man.” Forge continued to concentrate on the console.

Polaris chuckled, then grimaced. “It only hurts when I laugh. My worst hangovers aren’t this bad. I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“Not now, you’re not. We don’t have time,” Forge ordered. “Okay, give it a shot now.”

Polaris and Havok both yanked their arms from their restraints. “Free! Now it’s time to give Fury a taste of his own medicine.”

“No!” Forge told Havok. “Now, we get the hell outta here! How’s your power?”

Havok could feel the energy of the cosmos burning inside him. “Good to go,” he said.

“Polaris?”

She flexed her fingers, and flared her hand out. The traditional greenish-yellow glow of her power signature was replaced by a random color pattern that fizzled. She shook her head “No good. That’s what happened before, too.”

“Hmmm,” Forge said thoughtfully.

“Maybe you all should go on without me.”

“No way!” Havok yelled. “We’re not leaving without you!”

“Alex, relax. It’s okay, don’t worry. I can hold my own until you get us a way out of here.”

“No. What I mean is, it’s probably going to take the three of us to take out Fury.”

“Alex, would you forget about Fury for a minute?”

“We don’t have time for this,” Forge mumbled, looking toward the door.

“Lorna, we have to get Fury! Do you know what he’s planning to do to us?”

“Uh, I’ve got a pretty good idea,” she said, gesturing around to the room.

“No, I don’t mean us, here. I mean ‘us’. Mutants.”

Lorna shook her head in disbelief. Was he still on this kick? “Alex, who cares? The sooner we get out of here, the sooner we can leave this freaky-verse behind.” She gave a mock shiver and wrinkled her nose.

“Lorna, I told you, this is my world. Here. Got it?”

“We do not have time for this,” Forge said warningly. Another explosion rocked the ship.

“Look, I’m not going to debate this right now. I’m going to get General Fury. Are you with me?”

Forge and Lorna looked at each other. Forge gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

Alex sighed. “Fine. I’m going. I suggest you get out of here before Fury’s goons return.”

Lorna’s eyes were wide in disbelief as she watched him go. She was about to follow when Forge grabbed her arm. “No, Lorna.”

She tugged her arm away from him. “Forge, we can’t just let him go!”

“Let him go, Lorna.”

“Screw that! We’ve got a duty to rescue our teammate!” She gave him one last look, then turned to run. Forge knew she was about to lose it. He’d seen that look before – and, inevitably, it got soldiers killed.

“Wait! You have a duty to your team, Polaris. X-Factor, remember that? If Alex doesn’t want to be a part of that anymore, who are we to tell him otherwise? But you, Polaris, are a team leadernow, and your team needs you. Now, I suggest you start accepting that responsibility! I know you never wanted to be an X-Man in the first place, but now you are – and it’s time to start acting like one.”

Lorna looked at him sadly. Her eyes were red and damp. “I…” She paused, and shook her head. “I understand,” she said. She sniffled, then took a deep breath. She closed her eyes, seeming to steel herself. Thoughts of Guido, Jamie, Fixx, Shard and Geiger filled her mind, and she realized that Forge was right. “Okay,” she nodded. “I’m okay. For now,” she said, trying to force some confidence into her voice.

“All right. I think I have an idea on how to get your powers working again. Then we’re getting the hell out of this nightmare,” he said. “We don’t have much longer until the guards get back. Come on.”

A few minutes later, back in Forge’s ‘quarters’

“Wait a minute. Do that again.” Forge unfastened a small device from a pocket on his left thigh that looked a lot like a stylus.

Polaris looked at him curiously as he aimed the device at her. “Do what again?”

“Attempt to use your powers. Give a tug on that closet handle over there.”

“Okay. You think that device is going to work?”

“I’m not sure. Try it.” Polaris attempted to open the closet using only her magnetic powers. The traditional greenish-yellow glow of her power signature was again replaced by a random color pattern that fizzled. The closet door did not budge a millimeter.

“Nope. Sorry Forge. Back to the drawing board, I guess,” she sighed.

Forge studied a tiny readout on the device and then grinned. “That’s what you think!”

Suddenly, an attractive, young female cadet struggled her way out from the bathroom, groggy, rubbing her eyes, and blinking.

Lorna glanced quizzically at Forge. “Why Forge, you didn’t tell me you’d met someone! Maybe I should come back another time?”

“No, that’s okay. Cadet Conner, how nice of you to join us.” Forge leveled his pistol at her and fired. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed onto the bed.

“I hope this isn’t the way you woo all your women, Forge,” Polaris said dryly with a smirk.

“No comment.”

A few minutes later…

“Okay, now let’s try it once more,” Forge told her as he was making some intricate adjustments to the small, enlongated device with an even smaller tool that looked to Lorna like an ordinary screwdriver.

“Forge, we’ve tried this a hundred times already. I don’t think your little gizmo is going to work here, and lovergirl here isn’t getting any younger.” Conner continue to lay oblivious on the couch.

Forge ignored her jibe. “It might, or it might not. We won’t know until I’m done. Now concentrate,” Forge said patiently as he continued making minute adjustments.

She rolled her eyes. “All right, fine. Not like I have anything better to do right now.” She raised her arms and attempted to give another sharp pull on the door. Forge aimed the device at Lorna once again. Her power signature again started with that power signature that was foreign to her. Forge pressed a small button on the device which she hadn’t noticed before. A bright flash momentarily blinded her, and suddenly the door flew off its hinges and clattered to the floor noisily.

“Hey! How’d you do that?”

“I didn’t do that. You did. Your powers are tied to the magnetic powers of your own universe. I merely…recalibrated them to this universe, for want of a better term. A little practice never hurt, either.”

Forge and Lorna both were shaken by another explosion which knocked the ship another couple degrees to starboard. “I must’ve done more damage than I thought.” Forge said aloud. “Come on, Lorna, we’re outta here.”

Forge peered around the corner, into the bridge of the Helicarrier. He took a moment to take stock of the situation, noting the positions of everyone on the bridge, who appeared to be armed, and who didn’t. After about twenty seconds, he turned silently and made his way back to Polaris.

He looked at her intently, and said nothing at first.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“You’re not going to like this,” he told her quietly.

She regarded him carefully. “What do you mean?”

“It’s a hostage situation. An unstable one, at that.”

“That’s no problem for us, Forge!” She flexed her muscle to demonstrate, a green glow emanating from her fist as she did so. “Now that my powers have adjusted to this dimension, we should easily be able to take these guys.”

“I don’t think you understand. Havok is holding Fury hostage and is threatening to blow up the ship if the others don’t surrender.”

Polaris grimaced, as though she’d suddenly gotten a migraine. “That’s not bloody likely,” she growled. Then she closed her eyes and rubbed her templates, feeling the rush of emotion hit her like a truck. “Why, Alex? Why do you have to put us in this predicament? Don’t make us have to choose.”

The choice she was talking about was a long-standing X-Factor code they’d all agreed on. All of the civilized ones, at least – certainly Mystique and Sabretooth had never committed to any such thing. No matter how bad the situation, they did not deliberately kill their enemies. It was simply not an option. The team members all knew that accidents happened in battle and that was expected, but the conscious decision to use lethal force was not acceptable for a team of Homo superior that had an image to uphold, on behalf of the United States government. Strange dimensions or not, Alex was out line. As such, their rescue mission now took on a different flavor. It was now their responsibility to stop him.

Forge took gentle but firm hold of her shoulders, bringing her back to the reality of the situation. “Polaris, listen. I’ve gotta know that you can handle yourself, now. If there was ever a time to separate our personal feelings from business, it’s now. This world, this reality, isn’t our responsibility, but Alex Summers is. I know this is going to be difficult, but you know what we have to do. Can you do that?”

She thought back to their ugly confrontation during the Onslaught debacle. They were never quite sure if Alex was totally acting on his own behalf. They’d been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Here, now, there was no doubt. She didn’t want to have yet another run-in with someone she’d once loved so tenderly. She honestly wasn’t sure if she could handle it. Emotions are a powerful force, even when one is trained to be professional. “I…I don’t know…” she finally uttered softly.

To her surprise, Forge remained confident. “Okay,” he nodded. “That’s okay, I understand. I have an idea. Listen carefully,” he told her.

Forge surveyed the situation quickly. Alex, holding Fury in the captain’s chair, fist pointed at point blank range to the head. There were no guards, and no Children of Humanity cadets to slow him down. Alex turned angrily, ready to plasma-blast the intruder, but suddenly recognizing his ally. “Forge, I’m glad you’re here! Maybe you can help me convince these guys their mission is nothing but death.”

“I don’t know, Havok, Fury’s got these guys pretty well disciplined,” Forge said doubtfully, casually gesturing to the soldiers on the bridge who’d taken cover behind the bridge consoles. They were eagerly waiting for an opportunity to save the general. A successful rescue like that might earn them their dream assignment for life. Forge carefully noted to himself that it looked like a couple of them had already given their lives trying.

Alex couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What had happened to his friends? Now wasn’t the time for Forge’s doubts! Alex needed them committed to putting S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Children of Humanity out of business for good. “Fury’s day is done! Not another soul is going to be infected by his beliefs. You hear that?!” he shouted for the benefit of all the ears in the room. Then, looking around, he asked, “Where’s Lorna? Is she okay?”

“She’s outside, guarding the corridor. No one’s getting by her,” Forge assured him.

“You hear that, Fury?” He spat. “Now, order your army to surrender and bring this ship back to Earth, or die, it’s your choice.” His arm was charged and ready for a plasma blast that would easily vaporize the general at point blank range.

“You’re a fool, Summers. You think if you kill me, there won’t be a thousand other soldiers ready to take my place?” Havok snarled, and punched Fury as hard as he could. Blood flew from Fury’s split lip and his jaw appeared broken.

“Now maybe you’ll have less to say.” Fury answered only by spitting a tooth onto the deck. “Look at him, Forge. Doesn’t look quite so proud of himself anymore, does he? I don’t see that smirk he had when he was torturing us.”

Forge noticed one of the consoles suddenly began to shimmer, the tactical image of the terrain below being replaced by a familiar face. “Are you ready yet?” the squeaky ten-year old voice of Trevor Chase asked.

Before Alex had a chance to react, Forge yelled, “Polaris! Now!” As the emerald-haired mutant burst into the room, a pair of metal bulkheads ripped from the walls, pulling Alex back against a wall console, securing him firmly. At the same time, she threw a shield up in order to nullify the laser cannon attack from the soldiers.

As good as it felt to finally exercise her powers, she hated having to use them against Havok. But not more than Havok hated it. He looked like he was ready to go supernova. Indeed, his glowing body seemed to indicate that he might do just that. “What is this?!” he screamed to them. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!”

Polaris forced herself to ignore him, focused instead on Forge and the image of Trevor. “Let’s get a move on, guys,” she said, knowing they had very little time.

“Now, Trevor, now!” Trevor nodded and closed his eyes. The three of them could feel a slight wave of disorientation coming on, although Alex was much too angry to give it any notice. His eyes locked on a nearby console, twenty feet to his right but inside the protective bubble of Polaris’ shield, and fired everything he had into it.

Had it been a beam of lesser power, he might have overloaded the ship’s electrical system or weakened a bulkhead enough to collapse the fortified bridge structure. But this plasma blast sliced right through Polaris’ protective bubble, continued through several bulkheads, and pierced through the outer hull. The ship lurched violently, and Polaris and Forge struggled to hang on. Three soldiers were tossed bodily to the side, two of them killed from violent blows to the head where they landed. General Fury remained strapped secure to the captains chair of the bridge.

“Get us out of here, Trevor,” Polaris screamed above the wind now racing through the bridge from depressurization. It was not as violent as a hull breach in deep space, but it only added to the chaos as they listed nearly forty-five degrees to starboard.

“You have to get closer together,” he told her. Polaris struggled, pulling herself up the handrail to where Alex was still securely held by two of the bridge pylons. She hoped he wouldn’t actually try to fire on her, because with her other shield in place, there was no way she was going to be able to stop a point blank plasma blast. Blind faith, or sheer stupidity, she wasn’t sure which, but this was her team and she’d be damned if she didn’t reunite them. The repercussions could be dealt with later.

Forge struggled for position, too, and when they were all within a couple meters of each other, he reached for a device strapped to his leg and switched it on. As he did so, the vertigo began to increase. Forge and Polaris felt ill, the blood draining from their faces and their stomaches churning. Forge had a passing thought that if Trevor didn’t hurry, one of them might inadvertently let go of the handrail and meet the same unfortunate fate as the soldiers. “Oh, God…” he heard Polaris mutter queasily, as the Helicarrier began to break up around them.

The next thing they knew, the three of them were on their knees, vomiting. After a round of coughs and retching, they gradually felt their stomachs returning to them and noticed that they were no longer in the Mutant X universe. It was mid-afternoon again, and they slowly realized that they were on the grounds outside X-Factor’s old Fall’s Edge headquarters. A rushing waterfall sounded in the distance, and the leaves were changing in a show of vibrant autumn color. Some wispy clouds streaked across an otherwise vibrant blue sky.

No one said anything for several minutes, coughing and trying to get their bearings once again. The sensation of vertigo slowly eased.

Alex was the first to speak. “Well, I hope you’re happy,” he grunted through shallow breaths.

“You forced us to act,” Forge told him, gasping. “What else were we supposed to do?”

“Stay the hell out of it. My problems. Not yours.”

“You made it our problem when you took a hostage,” Lorna answered. “Alex, this isn’t the first time your behavior has been out of line.”

“Out of line? What do you call Malice?”

“That’s totally different, Alex! You know that. I was possessed. You weren’t.”

“That’s right. And afterward, I didn’t hold your actions against you. Lorna, you can’t even begin to understand the problems that world has. It’s different, and it requires a different response. After I was gone – for you, that was it! No more Alex! But for me…I joined a new world. A new life. I know this is tough to understand, but the Alex you once knew is…well, he’s dead, Lorna. You’ve got to accept that. I was given a second chance. I moved on. I changed. And now – now you’ve forced me back into a world that I’m never sure I really belonged to in the first place. I had a wife, Lorna. And a kid. And now – now…”

Alex put his face in his hands. Lorna looked at him, and said nothing. What had she done? This should’ve been so simple. Somehow she’d managed to rescue a friend, but destroy a family.

Epilogue

Lorna sat in the chair on the porch, watching the sun low in the sky. The rushing of the waterfall was relaxing, as though it were washing away the pain of the past couple days. “If only it were that easy,” she’d thought to herself. She’d had some pretty intense heart to heart talks with Alex, and after hours and hours of late nights up talking, they’d finally come to see the other’s point of view. They’d also realized that they were going to have to simply agree to disagree. Alex was hurt – that much wasn’t going to change right away. It wasn’t a little hurt, either. He’d lost a wife and a kid as surely as they’d lost him. But at least he understood why she’d done what she did. And in the end, he recognized that he’d probably have done the same himself. Not that this made Lorna feel much better.

Forge looked out at her. She’d been sitting there for hours, just staring off into the trees and the waterfall, ever since they’d returned. After awhile, he stepped out to join her.

“What have I done, Forge?”

“You did what you had to do, Lorna. What we had to do.”

She turned to look at him. “But…why’d we have to? Why couldn’t I have just let him go? To us, he was dead. In his time, he’d been gone for years, but to us, he’d only been gone a few months.”

Forge paused thoughtfully, as though he were trying to remember something. “Lorna, do you remember the Greek legend of Pandora’s Box?”

“Sure.”

“You remember what was left after Pandora opened the box and all the evil and demons escaped?”

Lorna thought for a moment. “Hope?”

“That’s right, Lorna. That’s what drives us, as mutants. Every day of our lives, the hope that one day, we can set things right. And if we let go of hope, we have nothing.”

“But…”

“No buts. Everyone makes mistakes. We all have regrets, Lorna. What if’s. But it’s important to remember that we’re here to do the best we can, too keep the world safe from those who oppress those who aren’t as lucky as we are.”

Just then, the phone rang. Forge picked it up, waiting first for the code, then offering his. Then he listened carefully. “I understand,” he answered. “We’ll be there as soon as we can, Val.”

Forge rushed out onto the porch, interrupting Lorna’s reverie. “We have to go,” he said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Our team needs us,” he said simply. That was all she had to say.

Meanwhile, in another universe far away, a young Greek woman held her son tightly…

END OF VOLUME ONE