The Shurikane: Leftist Legacy

[Shurikane]

WARNING: This is an alternate-universe, non-PSO fic. All characters portrayed here should be taken as brand new characters. Disregard whatever involvement they had in previous fics.




TOME 1: Backdrops

In the month of December of the year 3574 after Jesus The Christ, a great cloud descended upon the Earth. The Cloud stopped communications worldwide and rendered sattelites almost useless.

Thanks to its technology, the human race has been able to construct high towers that reached above this cloud and picked up the signals that were once blocked. Yet, hundreds of problems still lay unsolved. Cities had inexplicably vanished, entire areas of the world had been redefined by some yet unknown force. It was as if the American city of Providence had been transported into another world.

Yet, there still lay cities known to the men. Seattle. Los Angeles. Toronto. Forth Worth. Mexico. Those six cities were still reachable by the radio equipment of Providence. In time, they remade the maps and concluded that this great shroud had brought along an imaginable amount of changes, from a milder climate, to lakes, forests, mountains - all where they shouldn't have been.

Moreover, the Cloud had completely shrouded parts of the world, blanketing thousands of square miles into nothingness.

For several years, America attempted to find out the cause of the great cloud... with no success. The cloud had no odour, no taste, and didn't bring up any sensations. It was just like any normal cloud, except that it was of a light brown and gray color instead of white.

And it extended into the horizon, forever. Beyond mankind's reach.

The six cities, linked together, formed the Belt of Providence. It was easy to travel between the cities in a straight line, but it was another matter entirely for everything else. The center of the American continent seemed to be nonexistant, just as was the rest of the world around the Belt.

The biggest boats never came back.

The fastest aircrafts were never heard from again.

Days, sometimes weeks later, we saw the wreckage of the vehicle slowly coming back to our shores. It was this way for trying to go outside the Belt.

The inside of the Belt was even more frightening. All that went, never came back. No wreckage, no corpses, nothing at all. The rivers were clean.

In time, the men found clues to their problems: small artifacts of alien design, foreign androids, energetic guns. Those were all signs that another form of intelligenve had descended upon the Earth. Had it brought the cloud along with it? Was it attacking us, or studying us? Were we the prey to some kind of trancendental entity? Were we in the hand of God?

Those answers, they never came.

And the Foreigners never spoke of it.

They all had forgotten.

And now, the six great cities of the Belt of Providence had grown even greater, becoming giant centers of activity, with flying cars, elevated roads, supercomputers, and even virtual reality games that took control of the player's five senses. Business flourished despite the grim colors of the Cloud.

In the year 4984 after Jesus Christ, the men were happy.

[Shurikane]

TOME 2: The Stories of Mr. Channelwood

We humans counted the number of Foreigners to seven.

There was Shurike, the quiet figure of Providence.

There was Elise, the long-legged thinker, a lover of poetry and pop art.

There was Kay, the half woman, half tank sniper with a heart of steel.

There was Whatley, the wise and always resourceful, inhabiting Mexico.

There was Kestra of Toronto, the three-eyed psychic with a strange conscience.

There was Delian, the cyber-elf mage and Kestra's brother in arms.

And finally, there was Sunny, the angel of Los Angeles, eager and naive, yet so likeable.


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Universal Records - Sage Agatt Channelwood
December 1, 4984

"I still question the exact origins and nature of what has befallen onto us. Is it a doom? Or is it a salvation? From all observations, our future seems darker than most. The Cloud is not white, but light gray and brown. It is not humid, nor does it have any smell, but it is rather more like a wisp, or the smoke caused by dry ice.

Despite all my papers, despite all the books that I have read, I am still thirsty for knowledge, certain that things will soon come to an end.

Oh, but it isn't the apocalypse, nor will it be a rebirth. It will only be the death card of the Tarot. Change. Very important changes. Changes which might be benificial, or detrimental. At any rate, I know that everything will go upside-down, and though it will not be a revolution, it will impact our lives so deeply, that we will have to re-think our manners and our standards or living.

Will it be for the better?

Or will it be for the worse?"


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After due consideration, the sages of the cities had concluded that the Foreigners become citizens. They should not become laboratory material, nor be restrained under any circumstances unless committing an unlawful act.

The citizens were relieved. It appeared that the Foreigners were peaceful.

In time, the Foreigners learned many things about human society. They were virtually immortal, the Foreigners being inorganic entities, and seemingly immune to corrosion and hardware failures.

Those in Providence knew that there were other Foreigners in Toronto, Mexico and Los Angeles. Those in Toronto knew that there were other Foreigners in Mexico, Los Angeles and Providence. Those in Mexico and Los Angeles, knew of the others in Providence and Toronto.

But, they never moved out of their home city. They felt no reason to meet each other. They spent their days killing time, reading books, navigating the CPU-Net, or sometimes doing nothing at all.

Perhaps meditating.


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Universal Records - Foreign Android Shurike
December 1, 4984

"I sit, and wait.

My work is a hinderace to my imagination. It is like sand poured into a mechanism. Gears grind to a halt, and sometimes even go into reverse, forcing your mind not into the motions you want to give it, but rather the motions imposed by everyone around you.

As a being like myself, I have always fought against my own mind to prevent such a thing. Every night, I carefully oiled the gears of my mind, by temporarily removing all pre-made ideas about the world I live in, and locking them away for a pre-determined amount of time, only to be opened when the timer was up, or if there was a strong extrernal stimulus, whichever came first.

When I stored this data away, my ideas took on a greater scope. My mind expanded and reduced at the same time, becoming both bigger than the universe and smaller than an atom. I became lost in a sea of conflicting but joyful ideas, where I could not distinguish the real from the imaginary, and where ideas mixed and matched, such that colors had a taste and feelings and emotions were given pictures and sounds. I could even see a four-dimensional cube if I was lucky enough.

And when it all ended, I came back to the world of the Cloud with the satisfaction that I could still imagine things that had never existed before."


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The change that Mr. Channelwood had expected was true. His hunches were always right and always accurate. He knew that the next time he will wake up, things will move out of their normal positions, and the world will experience change, something it had not seen in several centuries.

The men were not used to change. They will have to experience a refresher course.

Unfortunately, Mr. Agatt Channelwood was murdered in his sleep, on December the second, at two hours and thirteen minutes after midnight. Someone had put a pillow over his face.

Shurike, Elise and Kay heard the news at five o' clock. It was most unsettling. Mr. Channelwood was a regular visitor of their haven.

Because the Foreigners had no need for food, they had no need for money. They did not feel the inconveniences caused by temperature, and thus had taken residence inside an abandoned building, which they restored quite a bit, to allow themselves to easily gain access to the CPU-Net by plugging computers near their resting spot. They had also created a small library of sorts from various leftovers of clearance sales of book stores. On old wooden shelves lay old encyclopedias, dusty police novels, cheap romance, cooking books, outdated research papers - among other things. Once in a while, one of the Foreigners - Elise or Kay to be precise - went through the library and took out any book they deemed useless.

Therefore, the kid stories and the cook books did not last long.

They also kept a collection of music. One of their computers had been specially prepared to accept song files, and sometimes, they managed to fetch a disc with tunes they liked.

They were like forgotten shadows in this city. They were greeted with the same care as when one put on old shoes. Their presence had become normal, unnoticed. Just as their arrival had been surrounded with questions and intrigues, their stay had become almost a boredom.

The roles had been reversed. The Foreigners has seen their arrival as relatively boring - though a bit strange, they admitted... But their lives were full of questions and intrigues. The more they learned about Earth, the more they learned about themselves. They began to integrate the concept of the universe, God, life, everything, from the Big Bang to the famous number forty-two.

After a quick meeting in the S-room, they concluded that they were aliens from a planet somewhere in outer space.


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Universal Records - Foreign Android Kay
December 2, 4984

"Mr. Channelwood's murder couldn't have come at a worse time.

He had been working on several theories about our origins, our nature... I wasn't convinced that we were simply extraterrestrials. We did not have an organic body... We were androids. We could open ourselves up to reveal circuitry. We could be the product of extraterrestrials... But a society that grows without a reproductive system? It must require a lot of work!

The concept of products would explain the differences between the three of us. I believe that we have been made by extraterestrials, and arrived here by accident.

I had mentioned it at the meeting, but Elise and Shurike had rejected my opinion. I didn't attempt to push it any further and then proceeded to agree with the first other idea that came up.

The conversation ended rather quickly.

We were always uneasy when we talked about where we came from.

I also believe there is something we're all subconsciously trying to hide.

Not something horrific, but still... Something that we don't necessarily like."


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There were eight rooms in the home of the Foreigners.

There were the studies of Elise, Shurike, and Kay. That was three.

Each of those studies were connected to a larger room, respectively named E-room, S-room and K-room. They were the personal space of the occupant, who allowed herself to decorate that spot to her fancy. Elise fetched a number of quilts, carpets and old couches to give her E-room the appearance of a comfortable salon. Kay preferred the crisp, clean, modern designs and did several odd jobs to pay for fashion furniture of usually black, white and navy blue colors. Shurike decorated her room with nothing except a metal throne and a handful of yellow lightbulbs with an orange shade draped over them. There also was rubble scattered about. She had never bothered to sweep it away.

They usually held their meetings in Shurike's S-room. She was like a statue, her frame heavy, looking as if made of crudely polished stone. Her knifelike hair fell to just past shoulder length. Her eyes were bright green orbs, matching the hair, their centers bearing a blue shade if ever so noticeable. Her face was of a chalk white, just like her upper arms and collarbone area. Her forearms were made of an unknown material, with the texture and appearance of coarse rock. They were dark gray in color and also made up her large hands, with long fingers tipped by medium pink points, much like the claws seen on disciples of the Goth Style. Most of her torso was colored with a simple pattern of bright green. Her legs were covered by that same green and white pattern once again, her feet forming a natural raised heel, their sections clearly visible - it was as if she had built-in shoes.

She was the only one to have such a body texture; such a rough, heavy sensation. The others knew she could move, but it was an event if she ever did. Her hands almost never left the arms of her seat. Furthermore, Elise and Kay knew her study had been barely touched. This led them to believe Shurike in fact never moved out of her seat.


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The Sage Agat Channelwood had been a proeminent member of the Sages of Providence in the last years, due to his heightened interest in the phenomenon of the Cloud. Well-versed in science, he had attempted to conduct research on the structure of the Cloud and determine its composition, but eventually came to the hypothesis that this cloud was not matter.

To prove his hypothesis, he ordered that the city of Providence find the largest truck available, have it travel to an area with a dense amount of this shroud, and then seal all openings. Using a suit and a bottle of compressed air, Mr. Channelwood then installed sensors within the truck's container. Sixty sensors to be exact. All gave the same result: the air held no trace of foreign matter at all. Relative humidity was normal, and so was pressure. To Mr. Channelwood's equipment, there was no cloud.

Hence, he submitted a report to the Sages, specifying that this cloud was not physical, but ethereal in nature, and possibly illusionary. Using the report's data, scientists from the other cities repeated the experiment, and announced the same results.

Then, someone from Toronto - a Sage named Warren Duce - proposed that the Foreigners analyze the Cloud.


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Universal Records - Sage Warren Duce
December 2, 4984

"To the attention of the Sages of Providence, on behalf of the Sages of Toronto and I, Sage Warren Duce.

We would like to express our deepest sympaties regarding to the death of Mr. Agatt Channelwood, Sage of Providence for thirty-nine years. His contribution to the scientific world was invaluable, and it is with great pain that we see him go.

The City of Toronto has suggested that Mr. Channelwood's death be commemorated, via the naming of his latest experiment on the Cloud: Experiment #P-49-4984-119, which we consider a milestone in our pursuit of knowledge about the Cloud."


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Universal Records - Sage Charles Norri
December 2, 4984

"To the attention of the Sages of Toronto, on behalf of the Sages of Providence and myself, Sage Charles Norri.

We thank you for your kind words. We have also accepted your suggestion. The experiment you have mentioned shall henceforth be called 'Experiment of Channelwood'."


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The Foreigners reported nothing unusual.

Because the scientists quickly realized it was a worthless effort, they cancelled the experiment early and left the Foreigners to stay around and smell the few flowers that lay in the area. Elise had taken a rose back home. It was dead now, but she still kept it in the same vase. Kay had made a brief but slashing comment about the futility of keeping a dead rose in a vase, but this didn't change the other Foreigner's mind.

Kay had taken notice that Elise liked to hold on to artifacts that represented nature. Flowers, insects, even some stuffed animals. As for Kay, she preferred to examine technology - computers and sound systems to be precise. She had proposed that Shurike connect herself to the CPU-Net with one of her inventions. It was the first time Shurike came face to face with such a large amount of information.

She quickly figured out that she would have to be selective in her search for information, or else she would not be able to remember it all.

Eventually, Kay gave Shurike a computer. She has been navigating the CPU-Net ever since.


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Universal Records - Foreign Android Shurike
December 3, 4984

"The CPU-Net is by far the most impressive invention I have ever used. It only holds the contents of seven cities, but it already seems like an infinity.

I was told that before the Cloud, there existed not seven but thousands of cities.

It would have been great to see what those other cities had to say as well.

But Mr. Channelwood had told me: you do not want to know."


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As the Foreigners learned of knowledge, they also learned of questions. To solve this matter, they sometimes asked the assistance of the Sages for the more difficult questions, that neither books, nor experiments, nor the CPU-Net could solve.

Those answers were known as "theories", and explaining them to the matter-of-fact brains of the Foreigners was a strange and complicated process. The Foreigners had not heard of "universaly accepted possibilities" before, and it took them a great amount of time to understand that the Theory of Relativity operated much like any law of physics but was not entirely true. Of course, this here is only a condensed description. The full lecture of the Sages took days upon days.

Then, one day, Elise met Mr. Channelwood.

They had only heard of him by reputation. He was seldom present at meetings, if at the Hall of Sages at all. In truth, much of his time was spent in his laboratory, or at home.

Mr. Channelwood had the welcoming demeanor of a grandfather, and the wisdom to accompany it. He and the Foreigners of Providence quickly formed a bond. Like a grandfather to his children, he would tell a story. Sometimes it was fictious. Sometimes it was real. The Foreigners learned about the history of the world all over again, but this time under a new light, a history enhanced by the voice of Mr. Channelwood, who held suspense with whispers and described great battles with a deep tremolo in his voice. Thanks to this old man, the foreigners had learned that one could completely turn a story around simply by changing the tone of his voice.

The learning sessions then spread out into art and humor. The Foreigners learned the potential of jokes, and the beauty of colors well put together.


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Universal Records - Foreign Android Elise
December 3, 4984

"The murder of Mr. Channelwood has opened my eyes.

What a great man he was! What a great man he had been! To think that us, Foreigners, having absorbed information for more than a thousand year, only to find out that it was useless without the charm of the human culture and language!

To commemorate his death, I went into my study, and I sang a song. That was what I thought represented him the best: a song. A work of art, of literature, of music! So many majors grouped into a single entity, so full of resources that the humans have been playing and signing for millions of years without ever running their inspiration dry.

Had it not been for Mr. Channelwood, we would have never awakened, we would have never taken conscience of the limitless possibilities of knowledge, beyond the need for archives..."


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Universal Records - Foreign Android Shurike
December 3, 4984

"My only memento of Mr. Channelwood is a fireplace he had installed in my S-Room. It was seldom used, but to me, it was a lasting representation of him. He was the man who had taught us how to free our minds.

An important aspect of our learning process was that we had data, but no reason to use it other than in our own interest. There was no second dimension or degree to our knowledge.

When I learned of those other dimensions and degrees, I understood a little bit more of the human race.

But, is it a wise strategy to learn about another race in order to understand our own?

I was not wholly convinced. That was why I had a backup plan.

It had been in motion, unknown to all, since the very beginning..."