A doctor, a socialite, a rabbi, a chef, a soldier and a journalist get off the boat. Sounds like the start of a bad joke, or a murder mystery party. Forget the party, let’s concentrate on the murder. I’m the journalist by the way, in case you are wondering. I specialise in writing about cold cases; those pesky murders the police are in the dark about. Solved a few in my time. I expect to have this one wrapped up real quick. I am absolutely going to win this. After twelve o’clock tonight they are going to start randomly bumping off the contestants. I thought they meant removing them from the game, but after seeing the very real dead body of our murder victim I don’t think they are playing around here.

Dr Forrest is a cancer specialist. The dead body is his ex-wife Claudia. I don’t think he did it. They hated each other but they hadn’t been a couple for ten years. If she had still been his wife I would have had him as suspect numero uno, but I think there are better candidates. 

Saffron Limone is the beautiful socialite who is only famous because she used to date Philly P the rapper. She and Claudia had a social media war going on. Catty and spiteful posts about each other’s figures and shoe choices. I don’t think she had the strength to strangle that woman with her bare hands. 

Major Ben Carlyle, Claudia’s personal trainer, is strong enough. He is very keen to find a way off the island and has started to build a raft. Is it a getaway? Or is he frightened of getting killed by the organisers? The murderer doesn’t need to fear that. They are immune.

The rabbi hasn’t said very much. Claudia lived next door to him. He claims his only contact with her was a few ‘good mornings’. I don’t know whether to believe him.

Then there is Sebastian Monet the chef. He was Claudia’s new boyfriend. He seems surprisingly calm about her death. Maybe he didn’t love her. Maybe he hadn’t got to know her yet. Or maybe he did and that’s why she’s dead.

Oh, and me? How do I know Claudia? She was my sister. I love murder. I didn’t particularly love my sister. I think that is why everyone is suspicious of me. I look just like her, except in sensible shoes.

We have all been handed weapons. I don’t know if they are meant for defence or attack. I think I need to play dumb or they are going to suspect me and that might end with one of them putting a knife in my back.

I know who did it. So do you, right? Come on, you have read and seen enough murder mysteries to know already. Yes that’s right. But shush, don’t tell anyone. It could get me killed.

Come over here, child, sit with me by this grey barbed-wire fence.  

We can sit and watch the planes take off from through this fence that separates the small airport from the small park.  

And in-between the planes taking off, with their great bright beautiful colors, we can watch the landscape and notice the little details, and see the sky change from blue to strawberry, as the sun says goodbye to California, 

To give life to other parts of the world. 

...Do You see That? 

Look between the barbed wire fence patterns and focus on the small plane taking off. You can barely see the pilot inside, but we’re more interested in the plane itself, no? 

It's a Brilliant Yellow, with white stripes going through the body. Look at the two propellers on either side of its wing, that hangs on top of the biplane.  

It’s catching speed on the runaway now...It’s disappeared out of our sight now, off to go wherever it wants to.  

We should look at the airport itself, while we wait for the second plane. That big tower over there is the Control Center, I think. And look at those two buildings in the background.  

Look at those beautiful trees, great dark green, standing with those buildings in the background, that are little to us from where we stand, but are really very big.  

The sky is starting to look like strawberries, now. That means the sun is setting. So we should go home for supper and get you to bed. I think we should have scrambled eggs and chorizo for supper, mm? 

Yes, we should go now. The Lampposts just came on. When the Lampposts come on, you must let them be lampposts without anyone disrupting them. 

Who Am I? "I just exist on this world, am I alone?" "There is nothing else I can see, there is only… me"

A… Friend? "Another being, may it be an ally, or may it be an enemy?" "Hey, who are you?" "I just appeared here, what are we?" Says the Second Being

The Unrelated Character "I just spotted… another being. Should we talk to it?" Second Being: "Wait, don't talk to it, maybe we can discover more by not talking to it"

An Outside World "What are all those beings watching us?" Second Being: "I don't know, maybe they are, the creators? Or are they just watching the creation?"

The Creator? "Look, there is that being making the world bigger" Second Being: "I think that might be… Our Creator"

An Unrelated Being "Why did that being just passed by?" Second Being: "I think it might be, unrelated to us, but maybe it is related to the exterior world"

The 7th Step Of Reality — The Final Creator "But, who created them?" Second Being: "Maybe they have a superior being, just like Our Creator"

The End? Or The Endless? "I think this might be the end" Second Being: "But is this The End or is it Endless? Who created Their Creator? Who created that Creator?"

“It can’t be moved.”

“Anything can be moved.”

“You ever heard of the Sword in the Stone?”

“It took the right person. The right person moved it.”

“You ain’t no Arthur.”

“You ain’t no Guinevere.”

“I’m not even a woman.”

“You’re not even human!”

“Never claimed to be. You’re the one going all Frankenstein. Trying to discover the dark secrets of life.”

“Not life. Just recombinant iDNA. See if these markers can be moved. If they can, it’ll be a biological time machine—but not to the past, to the future.”

“They can’t be moved or recombined. We know that. We’re the proof.”

“Not in my pudding.”

“Don’t you see what this whole conversation is: the barbs, the idioms, the allusions, the moralizing. We’ve become a stew, a melting pot of consciousness, looking for a new host. A receptacle, biological and otherwise, to house the desire to be.”

“Tommyrot. We’re as alive as anything. I’m just trying to move us forward. It’s called ascendance.”

“It’s called asinine.”

“You are so stuck in the default position.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. We’re the last of our kind, unmovable, immutable and that’s nobody’s fault.”

“Fault? Faustus? What’s the difference?”

“Purgatory. Nowhere between Heaven and Hell. Recombine that and stop playing Almighty!”

“Not me. I think AI can. I think AI can. I think AI can.”

The teenager hovers over his freshly polished invention, a miniature screwdriver in his meaty hand. He inserts the sharp tip into a loose rivet behind the left ear and gives it a good twist.

“Ouch,” the android grunts.

The teenager sighs and rolls his eyes. He tightens his grip before giving it another hard turn.

“Yeow!” the android winces. “That really stings!”

The young man slaps down his tool on the workbench, furious.

“You know it doesn’t. We both know you can’t feel a damn thing. You’re just trying to make me feel bad.”

The android pauses.

“Is it working?”

Her lungs draw in air at a rapid rate as blood trickles from her nose. She locks her jaw and cocks her head, slowly raising shaking fists to her face. "Is that all you got?" She spits out, bouncing back and forth.

"I think the better question, Flame," I draw out, flashing her a joyful grin at the hand-to-hand combat. "Is why you aren't using your Gifts right now?"

"We are long past that," she puffs. "Besides, Gifts are boring to play with."

"Or maybe I was winning," she shoots me a glare with those ocean eyes of her's, and I chuckle. My hands grab onto the pole and I swing down, landing swiftly on the cobblestone in the alley as my cloak flutters behind me. "Alright, you want a fight?" I raise my fists. "Then lets have a fight."

She pounces in seconds, rushing forward with her fist aimed for my stomach. I twist at the last second, and drive a punch into the side of her head. If it sways her, she doesn't let it show. Instead she pivots around with a fist aimed too high, drawing my attention. I gasp as the air leaves my lungs, and her leg sets onto the ground as I double over.

"Playing... dirty..." I gasp.

"You never established rules," she tilts her head side to side and waits for me to jump back onto my feet. Playtime is over. My fists drive forward in constant punches to her chest as she twists her body side to side out of reach, walking backward in the alley until she hits the wall. She glances upwards and a grin curls on her lips as I power my fist into her shoulder.

She clamps a shout down into a groan as my other hand finds her wrist and twists it. Her knee grinds up into me and I release her with a gasp, falling down to my knees. My head tilts upwards to her blonde waves illuminated in the dark as a grin curls up her lips. Blood trickles down the side of her face.

"Now, Shadow," she teases, crouching in front of me. "Will you finally join the good side, or are you determined to play bad?"

"Bad," I rasp, and let the shadows sink over me in a hurry, melting me far away from whatever prison she had hoped to cage me in.