Rex was so busy backing the Force Adept into a corner that he didn’t even see that the Dark Jedi had thrown his lightsaber at him - let alone notice that its trajectory traced a broad loop around him and that it was now heading directly at the back of his neck. Luckily, even the most sneakily thrown of lightsabers is no match for ears honed for balance and blend by years of choral singing. Rex heard the characteristic thrum of the blade at the last instant, turned a backward somersault over the saber and then leaped sideways, trying to get both Sith in front of him. He reflected idly on how much the two-on-one sucked you had guy on either side of you.

(more…)

The door was unmarked metal set into a brick wall. The two men sat scowling in front of it, hands thrust into thick jackets, cigarettes dripping from strongly set mouths, producing streams of fog and cancer which dilated into the hard crystalline air of the Reykjavik alley where they stood.

(more…)

After Rex left to take Ambi for a walk, Kathy caught a cab to Kaka’ako, a light industrial neighborhood in downtown Honolulu. After making sure she wasn’t being followed she entered an abandoned warehouse, stepped through the concealed door in the false wall at the back, and got into the small hidden elevator concelaed there. She pressed the ‘down’ button, badged in, and waited as the elevator carried her five stories under Oahu’s dark igneous underbelly to the secret headquarters of Section 13’s Pacific Sector Headquarters.

(more…)

Even the sunlight seemed subject to Waikiki’s strange sway. Like everything else — the ocean breeze, the luxuriant growths of palm and bird of paradise — it managed to be touched with a air of unreal superficiality which refused to be dispelled by the fact that Honolulu’s world-famous tourist district was located on a tropical island and did, in fact, constitute a Pacific island paradise. Regardless, the sun seemed a bit too bright and a tad too warm to Rex as he crossed the canal from Honolulu into Waikiki, vaguely discomforted by the way, manicured, over-paved, and obliging, it welcomed him with open arms.

(more…)

Somewhere in the back of Rex’s mind, a life winked back into consciousness. He stirred in anticipation.

Kathy’s body was warm on his. He could feel the curl of her hips on his back, the ragged evenness of her breath on his neck, her arms wrapped around his shoulder. He felt her slowly stir to consciousness, as he had already known she would.

“You always wake up before I do,” she mumbled sleepily.

(more…)