00 Hours 00 Minutes 20 Seconds

00 Hours, 00 Minutes, 20 Seconds

Sari followed the map Cherry had drawn for her. She had received a call shortly after leaving the Base, telling her that Cherry had found something. When she met him he passed her an address and map and told her someone matching Echo’s description had been spotted numerous times in this area.

She found herself in front of the collapsed ruins of a building. No, that wasn’t quite true. By some miracle of physics, only the first three floors had collapsed while the four floors above that were almost intact. A rickety staircase lay in one corner which she could use to get up to the fourth floor.

Taking the stairs she walked up. Her nose was irritated by the smell of dust and mould. However as she climbed higher she could smell more awful things. Things that come out of people and it definitely wasn’t blood.

Dozens of homeless men and women appeared to be using the ruined building as a home. The place resembled an animal cage after the animal was locked in for a month without anyone cleaning it up.

‘Foul.’

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a scarf. She wrapped it around her face and started stepping through the bodies. However a hand stopped her. She reacted on instinct, her claws extending and her arms swinging around to slice the attacker open.

But, her claws were stopped by something harder then iron.

A young man in his early twenties with homochromatic eyes was staring at her in shock. Her claws had sliced through the sleeves of the hoodie he was wearing but had been stopped by his skin. As he stepped back she saw that she was wrong. His skin had slight cuts in it so she had been stopped by something underneath, muscle perhaps.

A dull green liquid welled up from the wounds and then set, and hardened, repairing his skin.

‘I was told you were a bit of wild thing, but I wasn’t expecting that.’

His voice was steady and cultured. His blonde hair framed his narrow face and his eyes, one blue the other yellow, looked slightly dull. However his clothes were expensive, no more than that, they were clean.

‘I was told that if I waited here a cat-girl with huge knockers would come.’

She covered her chest with a furred paw and he laughed.

‘Sorry doll, but I like flat chests more. Anyway, if you could come with me, he’s waiting for you.’

‘He?’

‘The guy you came here looking for.’



I was sitting across the road in a café, sipping tea from a cup and eating the greasy potatoes that passed for chips in this place. Honestly, it was rather disgusting, but I’ve eaten worse things. I watched Sari walk into the building followed closely by my accomplice in my little game, Charlie Damm.

A minute late Charlie came out of the building followed by closely by Sari. He pointed to towards me and when Sari saw me… she looked terrified. I could see she was about to try to run for it, however Charlie grabbed one arm and Bruce, the cybernetically enhanced man, grabbed her other arm and frogmarched her over to me.

‘H-Hello, White Rabbit. Fancy meeting you here.’

I smiled at her. I notice many things. I noticed Sari talking to Bruce before suddenly leaving. I know many things. I knew that Sari would be using a network of hearsay to try to get information on this Echo man. I do many things. I spread rumours about Echo frequenting this area and waited for Sari to take the bait.

‘Konichiwa, Sari-san. I would like to talk with you about a person of general interest.’

I noticed with interest that when under pressure her fur bristles. I wonder what sort of mechanism is involved with that.

‘I was under the impression White Rabbit-’

‘Call me Shiro. It will be easier.’

‘I was under the impression, Shiro, that Nareena had managed to win the job of catching Echo.’

‘Hai. You are absolutely correct. However I only agreed to not catch him. So while Nareena-tan does her thing, I will collate as much information on the target as possible before trying to apprehend him.’

I smiled kindly at her.

‘And I couldn’t help notice that you, Sari-san, called the target Echo as though you were familiar with him, when most people call him Doctor Echo or just Doctor. So I would appreciate it if you could tell me about Echo-sensei.’

Sari’s muscles were tense.

‘I don’t want to.’

‘I’m not giving you a choice.’

There was a few seconds of silence as we stared at each other. Then Sari threw off Charlie and Bruce and leapt at me her claws raised.



Sari threw off Charlie and Bruce and extended her claws, jumping at the White Rabbit. She hoped that this surprise attack would be enough to hit him. He was one of the Big Three so he must have a very powerful Oscillation or some kind of hidden trick, though no one had actually ever seen him use it. Her claws slashed at the albino’s neck.

A silver tray appeared between her claws and his neck. With a loud clang she hit the tray and crumbled it in half. Then a powerful blow hit her in the stomach, the pain from the blow tearing through her body. Her hand was grabbed and she was thrown over this small man’s shoulder and she smashed into the table behind them, causing it to collapse and the couple using it to scream and run away.

As she tried to get back up, a fist hit her under the jaw, knocking her into the air. Then a kick in the chest sent her hurtling backwards, smashing into an insectoid like person who was squished with a splat.

‘Oh, dear. I’m very sorry for your loss.’

The White Rabbit bowed sadly to the incredibly long nosed woman who had been with the now deceased insectoid. Sari threw herself forward hoping to catch him unawares while he was busy trying to console the newly made widow. However she was thrown over his shoulder again and crashed to the ground with enough force for her arm to pop out of its socket.

She screamed, holding her arm. Gritting her teeth, she shoved it back into its slot and stood up. She was panting badly and was covered in bruises, however the White Rabbit looked just as good as when he’d been peacefully drinking his tea. Realising she was outclassed, Sari dropped to her knees.

‘How…’

‘You were late.’

The White Rabbit said, pulling out a pocket watch from his pocket and checking the time.



Sari was quite co-operative after that and told me everything she knew about Doctor Echo. In return I had promised to help her with her little wish. Before I gave him to the Yvn family I would give her one minute alone with him.

Now how was I going to capture him…

I stopped when I noticed sobbing. Following the sound, I found a young lady, a teenage girl with multi coloured hair, her cheeks were covered in scales. I’m not cold hearted enough to just ignore someone crying.

‘Are you alright ojou-sama?’

The girl looked up at me blankly, her eyes were red from crying and there was snot hanging from her nose. I passed her my handkerchief and she rubbed her eyes before blowing her nose. When she seemed to have settled down, I asked her gently to explain what had her so distraught.

‘No one believes me.’

I noticed her tongue had a slight fork in it.

‘No one believes you about what?’

‘My friend, Harry… short for Harriet… she’s so bright and funny, but recently, she’s been so depressed and unresponsive and… I saw her taking some pills and I thought maybe… that was the cause of all of them.’

My mind works quite quickly. So I had already followed the natural progression and arrived at a most worrisome conclusion, however I felt compelled to ask.

‘The cause of all of… what?’

‘The suicides. I think my friend is going to be the next victim!’



Echo was packing his bags when the landlady wriggled in. Her top half was of an old lady, while her bottom half looked like that of an octopus, however if you looked closer you would see that her numerous legs were actually numerous snake tails. She looked around grumpily at the clothes being roughly stuffed into his travelling bag and the numerous knick knacks scattered on the floor.

‘I came to collect your rent. But it would ssssseem…’

She pinched her tongue and then tried again.

‘…seem, you’re leaving us.’

Echo, smiled and digging around in his pockets took out the small stack of bills he had been able to obtain by selling some of the things he’d collected on his travels.

‘It will be a temporary leave of absence, Ingrid. I will be back before your back can start aching again.’

Ingrid huffed.

‘I suppose you want me to clean this pigsty while you’re gone.’

‘No! You must leave everything exactly as it is!’

Echo shouted, jumping over and standing right in front of her, staring her in the eyes.

‘I find it helps me to sort out my thoughts when I use things as physical representations of other things. If you move them I will forget something important like that a cat can be taught to fly if you throw it off a building enough.’

Echo looked around him again. Giggled a little bit then told her she can clean it up after all.

‘Do you mind me asking where you’re going in such a hurry?’

‘I have a lead! I heard rumours yesterday about an old research facility that was operating before the End. Rumour has it, it is still operational and is experimenting with Oscillations among other things. I am going to try to validate those rumours.’

‘And maybe kill them,’ he added under his breath.

‘Where is this at then? Other side of London?’

‘No, it’s outside.’

Ingrid shuddered and crossed herself. It was a habit she’d learned as a girl but she hadn’t done it in years.

‘Outside…’

‘Yes. I will be going to visit Baskerville.’



Ingrid wriggled through the streets, finally coming upon the abandoned mill. She went inside, coughing from the dust in the air. At the other end of the room were two people. One was a young girl with Ingrid’s nose and eyes, her granddaughter. The other looked like a robot. Encased in cold metal, various lethal looking weapons and strange contraptions surrounded it.

Inside the metal skin was a woman. A very dangerous woman and one of the Big Three, Nareena.

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s leaving…’

Ingrid murmured.

‘Leaving!’

She cringed and started babbling as fast as she could.

‘But I know where he’s going! He said he was going outside to place called Baskerville! Now please! Let my granddaughter go!’

Nareena untied the girl and pushed her towards Ingrid. The two grabbed each other in a tight embrace and started sobbing. They didn’t see Nareena raising her hand or the thing in her hand. However they did feel the pressurised steam that burst out of it. They screamed as they died.

A minute later, Nareena left. She left the mill as empty as she had found it, except, for a pile of bones lying in the centre of the room.