A rather unexpected sight unfolds before you. It takes a moment to process what you are seeing, but eventually those lessons from high school Biology lurch themselves to the fore and you realize you're seeing an extreme close-up of red blood cells within a human body.



The image seems to be live, given the mobile nature of the cells. But, as one of the cells begins to turn, you see something unnatural affixed to the back of it. A tiny machine with its multiple appendages wrapped about the cell like a vice. There's something unnervingly alien about it, like an infinitesimal horror film is playing out before you. Cronenberg writ small, body horror made microscopic. However, the machine does not seem to be trying to destroy the cell, but unite with it. Its grip is not deadly, but secure.

As the shot moves back a bit, we see this same scenario playing out on other cells. Hundreds of tiny machines joining and merging with the naturally occurring biology, creating an uncomfortable marriage between foreign and domestic forces.

Your view pulls back radically now, and we see that the display was being broadcast on a rather expensive looking screen in an equally as pricey looking laboratory. Madison Dyson is there, looking on with interest. Damn, look at those little fuckers go!

The Engineer is seated, one sleeve unrolled and his forearm turned upwards. A doctor in a lab coat holds a small cylindrical device over his exposed forearm. Taking one last look at what is appearing on the screen, he pulls the device away, severing the connection and plunging the screen into darkness. The Engineer begins to roll his sleeve down. So, what's the verdict?

Oh, I think it's going quite well. The nanites are functioning precisely as they should, and seem to be making expected progress bonding with the body.

The Engineer nods a bit. Will I be at full strength for Warfare, then?

I should think so.

Madison sidles up next to his chair, bending at the waist and looking at The Engineer with a shit eating grin. So “spooky”, what was it like seeing yourself naked up there?

Arising from his seat, the champion pulls his leather jacket off the back of it and begins putting it on. Why does it not surprise me you have my nakedness on your mind? Then, with his own serrated grin tossed back at Madison. You want to sit on Corey's dick?

The doctor, looking a bit abashed, begins collecting his equipment onto a nearby tray and pushing it away with some haste. Madison reaches up and fixes a bent lapel on The Engineer's jacket, biting down on the corner of her lip before cooing at him, Well, I wouldn't exactly say no....

Suddenly, he reaches around to the small of Madison's back and pulls her in a bit. Madison gives a little “eep” of pleasured surprise. Then, drawing his lips closely up to her ear, he lets his voice drop down into a breathy whisper. But I would. Then, he releases her abruptly, almost causing her to lose her balance and topple onto the floor.

Madison cusses as she gets her bearings. Why did Shane have to make you such a fucking dick?!

Because HE'S a dick? Oh come now Maddy, would you really have me any other way? It's not like you were looking in the “milquetoast hero section” of the DRW catalogue when you placed your order.

Madison grumbles in acquiescence under her breath as the door to the lab parts open and one of the eerie hooded figures from our last outing enters silently.



The hooded man simply stands there quietly before Madison calls out to him in a pitched tone. Uhhh...yeah? You got something to say? Then, with a wince and a roll of the eyes, she continues. Oh, you're one of the tongueless ones aren't you?

The hood bobs in affirmation.

Yeah, I'll never understand that. It's just damned inefficient, ya know? Like, if you're gonna sacrifice a body part why make it one that you're gonna use all the time? Why not just hack off your balls or....?

The cultist starts to lift up his robes and Madison averts her eyes and exclaims, “Nope! Nope! Nevermind! Then, to The Engineer, Would you please go with that thing before he treats me to the sight of his nubbin'?! Fuck!

With a chuckle, The Engineer goes to the hooded man but not before sending her a final wink and playfully blown kiss.

Oh ok, that's what we're doing? I'm having Shane remove your sarcasm programming for that, bitch!

The Engineer pays her no further mind as he leaves the lab, with the cultist in tow. He intuitively knows why the white garbed figure was dispatched, and reasons it would not be prudent to keep the master waiting. They step into an elevator and the robed man hits a button for the roof. The Engineer quirks an eyebrow at the selection, but doesn't question it. They ride up in silence, naturally.

The elevator reaches it's destination and the doors part, revealing a small hallway leading to a steel door. With a parting glance to the man in the hood, he goes to the door and opens it, revealing a snow capped rooftop terrace. Another figure is standing at the edge, looking down on the cityscape sprawled out beneath. Turning in response to the new presence, he doffs his hat.



Despite himself, The Engineer could feel the weight of this being's essence crashing on his shores like an angry tide. Or perhaps, he was just programmed to feel that way. Regardless, he couldn't help but regard Aiwass with reverence. Joining him at the precipice, he too considers the scene laid out before them. I always feel like I should take a knee when I'm in your presence.

Aiwass lip curls up in a half smile. I'm not Yahweh. And if you say a prayer to me I'll consider Engineer 2.0 an abject failure.

The Engineer chuckles a bit.

You are in good health. Aiwass doesn't even come close to phrasing it like a question.

Yes.

Aiwass doesn't respond right away. The Engineer considers him, noting the gentle snow flakes falling on his shoulder and how they seemed to blacken on contact. Do you see them? Aiwass chucks his chin in the direction of the people scurrying about 20 floors below. Rushing about, buying gifts and fretting about family squabbles. It's funny how in the chronological blink of an eye the birth of their Christ has gone from a sacrament to an excuse for rampant consumerism. They can't help but sully everything they touch, can they?

No, no I suppose they can't. Though, I've always wondered, have you ever seen anything admirable in them? The way the master looks at him then instantly makes The Engineer wonder if he's devalued himself somehow.

That's an interesting question. What do you mean?

All enemies have their strengths, even as they seem fated to fail. The image of Corey Smith's defiant final expression passes through his mind's eye. I was just...wondering.

Aiwass looks back out on the scene below once again before replying. Did you think I was going to chastise you just then?

Frankly, yes.

Another smile like a razor blade's tear. No. Asking that shows you have wisdom. And I would be a fool not to admire some of them. I've been beaten twice by them after all. Once by Dexter Bright, your forebear. And once by Lux. I've been humbled and shamed. He licks his lips. But they're both dead now, and no one of their strength and bearing is left to stop me.

Corey's face again appears to The Engineer. His spine stiffens and he forces it back into the depths.

You have your first title defense coming up, no?

I do.

Any concerns?

The Engineer shifts his weight a bit, pulling his face down into a nonchalant expression. Not particularly. Feder, Hart, and Mastermind are of little consequence. Themis is interesting though.

You called her beautiful. There's a sudden savage gleam in Aiwass' eyes. Would you like to have her? His tone is casual brutality, as though he's speaking of picking a grocery item off the shelf.

You mean would I like to break her? He shakes his head. No.

“No”?

If you have to destroy a piece of art in the process of acquiring it, you're working at cross purposes. I would rather she come to me of her own accord.

Aiwass grins again, looking pleased. That's precisely what I'm looking for. Shane did well.

What do you mean?

You're not my hammer. You're my Engineer. And what does an Engineer do? Hmmm? He plans. He creates. He breathes life into nothingness, draws machination from stillness. To a hammer, every problem is but a nail, something to be considered uniformly and bent to its will. But to an engineer, a problem is a fountain of opportunity. Solutions require comprehensive understanding and finesse. You see the value in not simply breaking a man, because that, over time, engenders resentment and malice. No, the solution to the human condition is more complicated that that. It's nothing so blunt. It requires something more clever and insidious, something innocuous seeming but ultimately noxious.

It requires a virus.

Aiwass' face peels back into a knowing expression of agreement. Yes. It comes out like a hiss. Your continued reign with that championship is important to our cause. It affords you a certain level of notoriety and recognition, keeps you in the spotlight which makes it simpler for us to transmit our message.

I understand.

The beast just nods slightly, drawing momentarily quiet again before changing topics. It's frustrating. I know what I'm capable of, but I'm not there yet.

Aiwass' words spoke to the whole of their purpose. As a God of slaughter, his eminence was dependent on chaos, death, and ruin. And despite what the media would have you believe, the Earth was still in a period of relative peace. Plunging it back into the Dark Ages,breaking the social compact of civilized society and remaking the whole of humanity into unrepentant savages once more was key to Aiwass' ascendency. I can only imagine. The Engineer decides to permit himself some bravado. But you have me now. You'll get there.

The other does not reply, he simply looks ahead. Then, extending an arm, his gloved hand meets the falling snow. The Engineer watches as Aiwass' face grows taut, as though he's focusing intently. Then, the snow passing closest to his outstretched fingers grows black and ashy. At first, the dark snow is but a trickle, but quickly the discoloration spreads, jumping from snowflake to snowflake like a contagion, radiating outward over the cityscape until everything in their view is being bathed in soot. The Engineer can't help but marvel at the spectacle.

From below, they hear the characteristic squeal and crash of a car accident, and the champion imagines a sea of confused faces staring dumbly towards the heavens, their faces smeared with this sooty castoff. Aiwass retracts his hand and turns away from the edge of the building. The Engineer spins about to watch him go, but finds that he has already vanished, with not so much as a footprint left behind. A black flake lands on his nose and he reaches up to take it, flattening it between his fingers and considering it, before going back inside.



LATER....

The Engineer is sitting cross legged inside a barren gray chamber. He's cross legged, eyes closed and in a state of contemplation. But your eye is drawn to the walls of the chamber, and you slowly start to realize with a touch of disquiet that the walls are not still. They seem to subtly undulate as though alive.

The Engineer opens his eyes and raises a hand, and suddenly a swarm of gray motes pull away from the wall and begin to encircle his raised arm, forming about it in a swirling double helix pattern. He watches it for a moment before addressing the viewer. This is what I am. He raises his hand a bit more, and the swarm matches his movements. Advanced nanotechnology, bonding with the body of Corey Smith. The physical advantage it gives me is almost nil. My ability to fight is Lux's doing, actually. She honed this body well. Corey's muscle memory and fitness is exceptional. I was programmed with Lux's techniques too, with a few “added bonuses” thrown in to keep my options open. But ultimately, superhuman I am not.

The true advantage this affords me is that it absolves me of human foible. I get to be fully grown but without the baggage of history, emotional attachment, or other collateral factors most people come with. I am, in every sense of the word, a blank slate. Aiwass made sure that the weaknesses that felled his previous Engineers: mental illness, human attachment, and sympathy, were simply a non-factor for me.

But, enough about yours truly. That's not quite why you're here.

The Engineer waves his hand, and the swarm of nanites scatter and reform above him in a vague representation of Mastermind.

I think this time I'm going to start with the LEAST of you and work my way up. That's Mastermind, by the by. Mastermind, who sees me finally acknowledging his existence and thinks “got 'em”! How many different shades of pathetic is THAT? Let's face facts, Mastermind getting someone to acknowledge his mere presence is about the highest bar he can possibly clear. Respect? No. Admiration? Of course not. But if it makes you feel better, if it stays the rope about your neck for just one more day, then congratulations, here is your last place participation trophy for getting someone to see that you take up space.

But understand this. Taking up space is all that you will ever do. You will never see another championship in this company. You will never be on another unconscionable win streak ever again. Your career is so deep in the shit it'll never see the bowl. And most people have the good sense to grow despondent and quit. But not you. Oh no. Like a sad old man who's already gambled away his life savings, you say diminishing returns be damned and pull that lever again and again and again, oblivious to the fact that your fortunes will NEVER turn. You crow about past championship wins, damn near ancient histories, and present this false face of being a viable threat. All the while you were just dealt ANOTHER humbling loss by Ruby.

Now, Mastermind, if you couldn't get it done on Anarchy, what makes you think you can get it done in a high pressure situation, one on one with the deadliest person in the XWF with THREE more people waiting in the wings to join the fray? Hmmm? You see, it is quite possibly the understatement of the century when you yourself characterize your chances as slim.

He leans forward a bit, taking on a predatory countenance. Let me be very, very clear who has the balance of power in this match. IT IS NOT YOU. The quickness with which you rush to claim some Pyrrhic victory because I called you worthless on national television is just the saddest thing. And your hollow attempts at claiming that baiting me into talking to you was some five-dimensional chess playing master plan shows that you have the tactical insight of a child. But I suppose you have to do something with that warehouse of blank unused t-shirts that have been moldering for the better part of a year.

I consider you beneath me because you ARE beneath me, and there is not a single soul in that locker room who would claim otherwise. Not one. Take a poll. While you blithely sing childish Christmas Carols because your neuroatypical brain has somehow convinced you that that doesn't make you look like an awkward idiot, the rest of the roster has deemed you “lowest common denominator”. That's good news for Barney Green, not so much for you.

So go ahead and cut your third and final promo, which I will not spend a moment of my time watching. And nor will anyone else, unless they are the most steadfast of masochists. Go ahead and bore us with more insights into how you're going to “get up every time you get knocked down”, like you're evoking some Godawful 90's one hit wonder, as if we needed another reason to roll our eyes and feel ashamed to call you a co-worker.

Oh, hold up! A voice calls from just off camera. Madison Dyson walks into the shot holding her cell phone. Actually, Mastermind DID cut his third promo. Somehow his backwater country must have gotten Star Wars because it's this lame ass parody of it. Wanna see?

The Engineer looks annoyed. I'm sorry, did you just ask me if I want to take a staple gun to my crotch?

Madison sneers in response. Ugghhhhhh, you could have just said “no”! She wanders back out of the shot.

Christ Mastermind, I'm so done with you.

The Engineer scowls and flicks his hand again. This time, the nanites hover above him in the form of Seth Feder.

Seth, talk about a missed opportunity. You and I could have been something special. This could have been flush with symbolic significance. After all, it was YOU who got to the finals of 2017's King of the Ring against the first Engineer. Well, sort of. You had a bit of a helping hand with that, now didn't you?

Regardless, it was your name on the marquee next to Dexter Bright's. And you did fare pretty well against him in that match, all things considered. Which is why I was actually kind of excited to see that you would be placed in my chamber. Here was my chance to beat one of Dexter Bright's greatest opponents in an even more decisive fashion, an opportunity to drill just one more nail into that imbecile's coffin. Yes, it could have been something special.

Except, you're hell bent on making it DULL. Now maybe you're assuming you're going to coast through this match off the back of your supposed familial relations, but the fact is that not even Vincent Lane is going to save you from the absolute physical destruction I have in store for you. Whether you speak to me or not is irrelevant, I'm going to insist on making this a spectacle. Because the opportunity to spit in the face of every piece of my inferior predecessor’s legacy is too great to ignore. So you can blame the dead for the maiming you're going to get tomorrow.

The nanites swirl and fold in on themselves, inverting from Seth Feder's face into Jessalyn Hart's.

My dear, where did you go? Last time we saw you, you were waxing poetic about how nothing was going to stop you from walking down that ramp and to the ring. The Engineer pretends to suffer from a shiver. Those are fighting words! “Be on notice! Jessalyn Hart is WALKING TO THAT RING NO MATTER WHAT!”

I kid, I kid! Because you also did me the solid of warning me that “no one is safe.” Which, contrary to your claim, sounds like EXACTLY the kind of generic bullshit slogan that would go on a t-shirt. So tell me Jessalyn, what exactly is “no one” safe from? You? Because you're going to have to sell me on this a little harder. The only threat you seem to pose is boring us to death with trite catchphrases and the kind of promo work that almost makes Mastermind serviceable.

There was one thing that you were right about though. That you and I are both fighting for something bigger and more important than ourselves. Your problem is that you have no idea just how right you were, and how that makes you as thoroughly fucked as you are. This match? It IS about more than just me. It's also about more than just the Universal Championship. This match is the birth pangs of a movement. And I am the face of that movement. Can you imagine how humiliating it would be for me to kick off this magnum opus by falling short in a match that is 60% pathetic also-rans? Winning is NOT OPTIONAL for me here. It's, simply put, the only possible outcome. Which puts you....The champion points downward....directly beneath the unceasing march of progress. Your role in this contest is to kiss my boot, Jessalyn. Nothing more. And let's be honest. That IS truly where you belong.

The Engineer draws in a deep cleansing breath, and he smiles wide. Throwing out his arms, he pulls even more of the nanites from the walls, where they coalesce into the shape of a human body standing next to him. The champion rises to his feet as the tiny machines affix into place, crafting the details of Atara Themis' curves. Finally, the swarm slithers up her shoulders, approximating her head, and then her face. He looks on it with a sort of distant longing, his voice a resonant purr as he speaks to the facsimile.

I have reached the oasis. He starts to walk around the swarm, sizing it up. All that came before feels like I've been lost in the desert. But then there you are, Atara. Breathing life into me in my most desperate hour.

But which Atara are we getting? The Goddess? The Queen? Or the one that forgets to buy a plane ticket to go fight my manager?

I woulda beat that bitch's ass too! Madison calls out.

Goodbye, Madison! The Engineer chuckles a bit. I'm sorry, my dear, but you know how the game is played. And you yourself acknowledged your own underdog status. You're right! Even for someone as ethereally beautiful as you, this match is an uphill battle. And your record doesn't exactly lend credence to your godly pretense. Nor does your relative silence thus far. Aphrodite wasn't exactly known for her conservative approach.

The champion shoots a pointed look at the camera. Aphrodite, now THERE was a specimen. Some might critique your ego in comparing yourself to her, but hey, I say shoot for the stars. In fact, that comparison is one of the things that most interests me about you. You clearly know the myths inside and out, so you must know the Pandora legend.

Aphrodite had a hand in creating the first woman, Pandora. Pandora received gifts from every god, but from Aphrodite came her beauty. And, as the story goes, it was Pandora who unleashed all wickedness into the world, leaving only hope trapped within the eponymous jar.

And that's where we come to the crux of it, Atara. Because I don't see you as an Aphrodite. I see you as more of a Pandora. Or at least, you have the POTENTIAL to be. Not quite a god, but a woman of esteemed bearing, a woman of great power and beauty and charm, who fills the earth and the seas flush with evils. Because, let's face it, try as you might, you don't quite reach the level of godhood, do you? Your imperfections have been the stuff of prime time TV purview for weeks. But nonetheless, I see something in you. The power to do great, terrible, things. If you have the courage for it.

I'm sure there will be doubters and cynics telling you not to accept my apple, love. Telling you that I'm toying with you, trying to get you to sacrifice the keys to paradise. But Atara....Atara....

The Engineer's expression grows earnest.

…..have you considered that you have yet to see paradise?

He holds his hand out.

This world is ending. That grand finale that has been reedited and repolished through countless different myths and legends for centuries is at hand. But I can save you. I can make you more than a pretender, playing at being a God. Atara, I can make you the real thing. All you need to do is let me in!

The nanites holding the form of Atara disperse, retreating back to their original place along the wall. He continues to hold his hand out as a wicked smile creeps across his face.

Let me in.



//terminate.function.