NIGHT ETERNAL
Its four in the morning and none of the people can sleep. Kane makes his way to the mat trans chamber and meets with Dafore. She and he snipe at one another as they are likely to do. She does want to know one thing, what it was like to die.
Brigid is taking a bath, her mind
roiling because of how she and Kane acted together, and is worried about what is
going to happen in the next casement. Eventually she gets dressed and goes to
the redoubt library.
Grant and Domi are together. She
is, as usual, naked and they are talking about his death and how he would like
to hunt down and destroy Thrush in the next casement. As usual they don’t have sex.
Kane is outside the redoubt at dawn and is joined by Brigid.
As always they start to argue with each other as Brigid thinks he is lost in the
memories of their doppelgangers having sex. They go around the subject and begin
talking about the stones, Balam and the casements.
In some sort of bizarre reality
dream Kane finds himself standing in a battlefield littered with the Dead. He is
contacted by Fand. She tells him
that he must destroy the black altar in order to stop the daemon prince. His
mind knows the goblins are actually hybrids or muties created by the Archons.
The others watch and wait
impatiently as Kane makes the jump alone into the second casement. When it
appears his health is in danger the others argue to pull him out. Lakesh insists
on waiting. When the time finally runs out, Kane doesn’t return.
Kane finds himself under attack by
more goblins and Fand tries to get him to stay. His memories are a mixture of these particular casements and
the real Kanes.
Back in his real casement, the
others continue to discuss why he is trapped, and Lakesh brings up the fact that
they might not be in the real casement. Grant refuses to believe it.
The possibility of false casements is brought up.
Kane reaches the stone which is
atop a huge diseased tree which is covered in strange like material, and is
feeding off the corpses that are trapped in the plants.
Thrush, the Daemon prince brags about killing Kane 17 times in other
casements and he goes to kill Kane again, but Kane uses his spear to direct an
electrical attack back on Thrush, using the stone. It destroys the stone and he
falls out of the tree and gets caught in one of the parasitic plants that are
growing on the tree. When he awakens he hears Brigids voice and uses it to go
back to his own casement.
Kane tells lakesh it was a trap set
up by Thrush, but despite it all they are going to go through with the second
jump and go into the next casement.
Kane and Brigid talk briefly before
going into the next casement. Grant and bry watch it and discuss it, Bry
pointing out the obvious problem as well as the problem between Grant, Domi and
Dafore. Grant is a little angered
but both men get a small chuckle out of it.
Grant uses hypnosis to implant a
subconscious message to himself to kill Thrush when they meet in the casement.
Before the jump they are in a
meeting discussing the next casement and the fact that killing Thrush in all 3
might start a domino effect, saving and changing the other casements. Lakesh
wants to hypnotize Kane to learn more about casements.
The hypnosis succeeds but at the
same time they learn that in this casement Thrush has killed Brigid. Kane
intends to prevent this from actually happening.
In the alternate casement Kane and
Rouch are partners doing some investigating on a group of roamers. They are in
Santa Fe and head into the ruined building to check out out some information.
In this casement Kane is an agent
for the DEI, and is a Magistrate for this agency. He and Rouch discuss it as a
possible roamer trap. Over the past four years numerous agents have been killed
in Roamer traps.
It is as they expect, they get into
a brutal gunfight and kill quite a number of people. The needless killing
bothers this kane. The battle eventually goes to the roof and into the street.
Kane and Rouch are led on a car chase until they shoot out the tires of the
escapees car. Kane captures the man they are after, named Sheenan. He is shot in
the arm and the other kane from the home casement is horrified to see that he is
a cyborg. A shop is ruined by the fighting and is going up in flames.
The owner of the shop is greatly
angered and turns violent. He is a
black man and in this casement, they are worse than second class citizens as the
war occurred in the early sixties.
Sheenan is executed after showing
Kane an alien artifact. The needless and violent death triggers Kane’s taking
control of the doppelganger. He gets shot and knocked out.
When he awakens he is strapped to a gurney in an operating room and is
being worked on. He wants to leave but is in no physical condition to.
In this casement Grant is the
leader of the panthers and has a huge bounty on his head. He’s at the
Mississippi wall and is waiting. They are going to attack a convoy of wags,
trader wags which are part of the trade consortium.
Rouch comes to visit Kane.
He is certain that she tried to kill him and he tries to attack her. She
easily disarms him and he is still in no condition to fight back. She tells him
straight that if she wanted him dead he would be.
The other grant is able to assert
control as this casements Grant learns that a rival panther gang is going to
attack his gang as they take on the convoy. He plans to make the tables turn on
him. He calls for the attack and
they set upon the convoy hard and fast.
Domi stops and talks to Lakesh who
I shaving a guilt trip. She wants to know why the three of them have to go to
the casements in the off chance that what they are doing won’t do any good at
all. When she walks away from Lakesh, it hurts him badly. She isn’t happy with
his lack of answers.
Grant’s people take out the
traders and before the rival gang can attack they cut meat off the dead traders.
He lets one man go with a simple warning, and a threat to send more traders as
they could use more meat.
Brigid Baptist is walking and she
knows that she is being followed. It terrifies her. She catches a glymps of the
stalker but doesn’t recognize him from anywhere. She goes to a mapping unit and gets in past the guard.
Grant faces the leader of the rival
gang and tries unsuccessfully to convince him that the convoy of food is
actually poisoned. He is forced to challenge him to a fight. They battle, and
Grant wins. The prize is the gang which he assimilates into his own gang.
Rouch seduces Kane and rides him
like a stallion. He wants to resist
as she repulses him because of the Rouch in his own casement, but the other Kane
urges him on to sate his lust of the woman.
Brigid finishes up at the mapping
unit and makes her way home, where her stalker attacks her.
The forces led by Grant come under
attack by the western collation Deathbirds.
They attack the trader wags, hitting the cargo and releasing a gas, which
is a virus. Grant’s forces a copter down and they go after it. The survivor
doesn’t talk.
When Kane finally wakes up he finds
Rouch gone. He checks his file and gets the important information on his
doppelganger to fill in the gaps in his memories. He is startled when thrush
comes in and gives him clothing and tells him o take some tranquilizers for his
headache. He informs him that they are heading to the trade consortiums.
Brigid manages to beat her attacker
but doesn’t kill him. She tries to find out what is going on. All the man does
is reveal who sent him and that next time they meet she won’t get off so
easily. In the Bathroom she is trying to figure out what her Doppelganger is
hiding. She sees Genesis written on the mirror. She has an appointment to keep
and goes to shower. The steam reveals a hidden panel on the mirror. Opening it
she finds a 3D image of her and Kane on their wedding day. This causes her
Doppelganger to take control again.
Thrush goes into the consortium
area and forces once man named Broderick into coming with him, threatening the
warehouses of goods and the wags with destruction if he doesn’t come along. He
knows that Broderick is part of the underground.
Back at the base camp, Grant slept
badly and is showering. He knows that there is something wrong with him and it
bothers him greatly that his people have been infected as well. His girlfriend,
a woman named Reba joins him and they make love in the shower.
Kane and Thrush are together still,
Trader Broderick is now dead and Thrush confirmed what he already knew about the
underground railroad. He and Kane discuss the western and eastern collations and
what organization would cause. Without warning Thrush traps Kane with straps on
his chair in order to interrogate him.
Brigid takes time off from her
research and goes to a cafeteria to eat. A man approaches her and tells her that
Lakesh wants to see her. She goes
with him.
Thrush’s interrogation includes
asking him if he knows Grant, the feelings he has towards his ex wife, and what
happened with Sheehan, and finally ends up showing him Lakesh’s picture.
Brigid heads deep into the tartarus
pits in order to find Lakesh. They
meet up together and he wants to know if she found the information they need.
Finally satisfied, Thrush lets Kane
go and informs him about Lakesh, and how he is responsible for the Roamers, the
Underground Railroad and the ties with the gangs in the Eastern Collation. And
also the fact that Lakesh could be under their feet in the city of Santa Fe.
Using a series of tunnels Grant and
some of his people head into Santa Fe right into the Tartarus pits where he
meets up with Lakesh
Kane heads for Brigids dorm after Thrush releases him. He runs into the man who was stalking her and he is in her apartment. He announces that he is part of the DEI. Kane confirms it with his identity chip. The other man attacks and Kane kills him.
Back
in the real casement Bry tells Lakesh that he has managed to get into the
stones. They discuss the ramifications and that they could access any of the
casements using it once he figures out how to use it.
When
Brigid arrives she finds Kane waiting for her. They both allow their passions to
take control and make love to one another.
Brigid gains control of her doppelganger but Kane doesn’t. When she
asks him his identity, he thinks that she has lost it. He leaves and rouch goes
after Brigid. She drops a bomb in the apartment. Outside Kane sees the explosion
and is certain he lost Brigid. This allows him to take control of her
doppelganger.
Kane
meets with Grant and they go to see Lakesh. The man tells them about what Thrush
is doing, using the embassy's to get his hybrids into power across the globe.
They lead an attack on the embassy with Grant’s people and fight their
way to thrush, killing a large number of the hybrids. As thrush tries to get
away, Kane drops onto the limo and is taken for a ride.
Grant
takes a Deathbird and goes after Kane. He helps him get off the limo before it
blows up form the Grenades that Kane drops into it. But the damage is done. The
public knows about the Archons and the hybrids. This casement’s Kane learns
that Brigid survived but Rouch didn’t. She died in the explosion instead.
They
all return to their own casement. Outside
Brigid meets Kane. They again discuss the relationship of their doppelgangers
and just watch the night. Kane lets her know that he is going to visit skydog
and live up to the arrangement that he made with the Indian.
Abrams and a pair of sandcats are close by and figure that they will be at the redoubt by mid-day, the next day.