What was Alloy's room is now an office. The bookshelves and desk are meticulously built, if by a rather amateur carpenter, and the bed is neatly made, hospital corners and all. Nothing of Alloy's remains in the house.



The Thames is surer than an ax.

Isn't it?

Headlines: ALLOY MAGNUS ASSASINATED

I'm getting married today.

Nicole, I love you!

Ten hours since my speech. Enough time to let Seris think.

Dressed impecably in a suit and tie, perfectly polished and smooth, Alloy strides through the understreets to Seris's house. He wants to talk to the lizard man. They have a great deal to discuss.

Reaching his door, he knocks.

Since his first speech, life has been a whirlwind of press and questions, conferences with politicians and newsmen, lawyers and laymen. Alloy felt he was at the hub of a wheel, about to roll one way or the other.

And today was the day to give it the final shove in the right direction.

The crowd was three times the size it had been the last time he mounted the UN steps. They were ready for him, his supporters and his opponents. But today, today everything would go perfect.

He stood in the building's shadow and raised his hands for silence. It fell, and again he began to weave with words. They tried to anticipate his tactics, tried to counter them, but his opposition merely found their statements twisted and turned until they found themselves, all unwilling, agreeing with Alloy, and supporting him, and then laughed out of the crowd, humiliated for having dared try to argue.

His eyes roved constantly over the crowd, and it was those who looked clearly undecided that he singled out this time. Without addressing them directly, he probed towards them, using all of humanity's shames again. Nearly everyone would leave this speech feeling that they were the lowest form of scum for having ever considered this xenocide. He did not call for reparations, but he knew, if he desired, he could, and he would get it.

Guilt was his tool and his medium, and he played it masterfully. Just as the sun crested the UN building, illuminating him from above, he turned to the shadows behind him and gestured. Two men, and whether they were vampires or humans was immaterial, brought forward a third; a feline so scarred and beaten that he could not stand. He looked painfully young, a thing gawky creature, made more pitiful by what the butchers had done to him. He lacked feet and hands, and his mouth, when Alloy gently persuaded him to lift his face into the light, was gone. Smooth skin had been grafted over it.

Predictably, the crowd reacted, a murmur of outrage that was sweet to Alloy's ears. "This is Subject 34532, of the late Clarity Labs," he said clearly, his voice ringing out. "He's only very recently been woken from a coma induced by his trauma there. His DNA is cloned from that of a reporter at the Daily Bugle. Is James Richter here?" He turned back to the crowd, his eyes sweeping smoothly over the rank of men with cameras and notebooks, singling out the one he knew would be there. "Would you please come up here?"

James Richter detached himself reluctantly from the crowd, leaving his young cameraman behind, and mounted the empty steps to Alloy and his companions. He met his feline clone face to face, and the entire world could see how similar they were, despite the fur and scars. "Not so different," he said, his tone conversational, but carrying, before he resumed his speech. "34532 is one of thousands like him. We don't deserve this treatment, any more than you do. Imagine James here in the care of the butcher who did this to him." There was suddenly a scalpel in Alloy's hand, catching the light. "His hands and feet slowly vivisected to see the effects of new toxins on his nerves. His mouth grafted over when he dared speak back to his torturers. His entire body infected with a virus designed to make him heal slowly and poorly."

The crowd seemed to be holding its breath. Alloy closed his eyes for a moment, almost intoxicated by their reactions. He had always loved this. He opened them again, and with a flash, twirled the knife in his fingers before it disappeared back into his inner pocket. "34532 is undergoing treatment, but it's slow. We have one surgeon, one general practitioner, and three veterinarians on staff at the ASPCA, which is still the only group willing to give us any substantial aid. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, am I an animal? Is he?" His gesture subtly included both James and his nameless clone. They couldn't consign one to inhumanity and not the other. The crowd's reaction was an immediate, gratifying roar of "NO!" Success. Alloy drank it in, and wound them up further, his concluding words almost lost in their perfect response. So perfect. He stood in the sun on the top step and waited for them to come to him. There were always questions.

A few days have passed since Alloy's speech. He's spent them answering questions, shooting down arguments, speaking for his people. But they aren't his people. They're Seris's. And even though he's doing this for Nicole, it's tearing him apart.

All of the smiles and
Pretty lies make me so tired.
I want to go home.

So easy to speak his heart in cultured poetry. But they only want his mind, his logic and lawyer's ways.

So.

I've just had a very interesting conversation with Dr. Russell. She apparently found her way into the Nexus, and ran into Novak. Perhaps literally, as she came home with a crushed hand and four broken ribs and won't tell us who did it. Trevor is furious.

She says I'm not to tell Seris, but he will find out. Apparently, Novak is in California, with the dark Azinth. And he's 'off his rocker' to use Russell's words.

Timing, Novak, timing.