[background=The Prism Incident[/font]​


[background=Part I[/font]​


[background=I sat behind my desk and wondered if what I was about to do was a smart idea. Probably not - I don’t get smart ideas these days, they range between severely demented and highly suicidal, yet I keep doing them and usually even survive the whole ordeal. Consequently I sometimes wonder if that isn’t my own curse: the fact that my success will make me take bigger and bigger risks, until it finally all blows up in my face. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case, if one day the universe appeared in front of me in the form of a smoking hot, redhead with a cigaret prowling from her lips and just as I walk up to her to give her one of my smooth lines she just punches me right in the kisser. [/font]

[background=Straight knock-out punch which would end with me losing everything I have figuratively conquered, admittedly I wouldn’t really cry over it or anything - I ain’t that kind of guy, hell I’d probably be really happy and content that I finally was able to lose all the extra weight(also figurative).[/font]

[background=As always there was cigar firmly planted between my lips, I inhaled the smoke, felt it burn the inside of my throat and fall down into my lungs where it circulated a while; blackening the soft, healthy tissue, before I finally exhaled again and felt my lungs contract just slightly[background= [background=at the lack of contact. [/font]

[background=The cigar helps me to focus, to keep things just a bit together, same with the liquor and the women. What is there to keep together you might ask yourself? I will tell you what: my mind - and I know, I know it sounds pretty, karking ironic from your standpoint, the mentalist has problems with keeping his mind together. Laugh it off, Joker, because Dorothy is coming home in a few days and will kick you right off the high-riding perch you are on right now. [/font]

[background=I haven’t been able to sleep for the past few weeks, ever since we killed off Olra’en and I got mixed up in his mind while he was dying. Despite the fact that the fether is gone I can’t seem to shake his… imprint out of my mind - I ain’t got access to his memories or anything as fancy as that. Instead I gotta run with nightmares all over the place and eh… well. I haven’t told anybody yet, but for some reason I can’t use the Force anymore. [/font]

[background=Don’t get me wrong, I can still feel it. That huge, mesmerizing presence just outside of your peripheral vision, that thundercloud pulsing with energy and yet… I can’t karking touch it. It’s frustrating, sure, but it also scares me poodoolessly. What am I without the Force, but a simpleton slash rich boy with money to burn? It reminds me of the days I was strolling through the streets of the Underworld, hugging walls and trying not to let people notice me - didn’t always work out, but hell. At least I had the Force, even if I didn’t know what it was back then. [/font]

[background=Back to the point though. [/font]

[background=There is one prevalent image throughout my dark dreams - a picture of a prison, floating through space excreting a sense of isolation and perhaps just a faint flicker of despair. It weighed down upon you and made you reconsider the meaning of life. [/font]

[background=For whatever reason this Ghost Prison kept haunting me, but I wasn’t a dreamer in the biggest sense of the word. I wasn’t prone to hunting after figments of my own imaginations most of the times at least. Still, even though I ain’t sure if this is a good idea, I gotta find out what it means. [/font]

[background=Besides, it ain’t like I stand to lose a lot - I am already breaking down under the stress. A guy can have so many days of non-sleeping, mixed with four consecutive positions and two companies before he snaps. I am starting to think I put too much on my plate, too many schemes mixing it up between one an’other… starting to think I should perhaps do somethi--[/font]

[background=A transmission woke me up from my misery.[/font]

[background=The usual blue, translucent silhouette of a hologram bathed my room in an eerie light, a stark contrast to the former darkness. Its identity was obscured, the face broken apart in many separate figments of bits and codes, that was the way business was done - identities were important things to protect and slicers… weren’t unknown to us.[/font]


[background=<<. [color=#00ff00]My Lord[/color] .>>​
[background=<<. [color=#ff0000]Report[/color] .>>​

[background=The man in the hologram bowed deeply, before carefully starting to voice the matter which had brought him here.[/font]​


[background=<<. [color=#00ff00]A meeting has been arranged, the details are being sent through an encrypted connection as we speak[/color] .>>​
[background=<<. [color=#ff0000]Do they suspect anything?[/color] .>>​

[background=<<. [color=#00ff00]Of course not, my Lord. My men are the best[/color] .>>​

[background=By then the transmission was complete and a carefully laid-out report was being projected in front of me. It detailed the location of the meeting, the time and the other usual things. [/font]

[background=We talked a little bit more, exchanged some pleasantries and some new plots were worked out - but I won’t bore you with those details just yet. A man’s gotta keep a tight lid on his secrets I have come to realize, no one knows when they will come back to bite ‘im in his ass.[/font]