8FOLD: Mancers # 12, "Past Lives"

[Tom Russell]

Among us walk the MANCERS - humans gifted with mystical power by dread
Venus! Some serve the elder gods, and conspire to give them dominion
over mankind! Others fight in rebellion against Venus, seeking to end
magic itself! And in this midnight war - fought by spies and assassins
with secrets and mysteries - the fate of the Earth shall be decided!

#     #
#     #
##   ##   ##   #    #  ####  ###### #####   ####
# # # #  #  #  ##   # #    # #      #    # #
#  #  # #    # # #  # #      #####  #    #  ####
#  #  # ###### #  # # #      #      #####       #
#     # #    # #   ## #    # #      #   #  #    #
#     # #    # #    #  ####  ###### #    #  ####
#     #
#     # NUMBER 12 - "PAST LIVES" [8F-199][PW-44]

-------------DRAMATIS PERSONAE-------------

     MEMBERS OF THE SECRET CIRCLE
A band of mancers opposing the gods of Venus.

MAILE AKAKA, age 20. Aeromancer.
Once the top field agent of The Company, she was abducted and
memory-wiped by the circle. She knows that this is the case and is
serving as their leader, but does not know that she defected
intentionally.

LIEKE VAN RIJN, age 27. Doppelmancer.
Split into two autonomous bodies, madly in love with each other, now
separated and desperately alone. This Lieke is with the circle.

JUNE LASH, age 47. Ailuromancer.
Gourmet chef and spymaster, commanding dozens of feline agents around the globe.

TREVOR JEFFRIES, age 23? Robot head.
Thought to be a mekhanomancer, recently revealed to be a Company robot
constructed by Cradle Tech.

DAVID COLLINS, age 31. Mnemonomancer.
Married to Beth Collins, brother of Claire Belden, wielder of the
ancient blade Thirteen. He has accidentally remembered a forbidden
name locked in his dead father's memories, resurrecting a great and
unspeakable evil. Oops.

AZABETH "BETH" COLLINS, age 37. Oneiromancer.
Wife of David Collins, only recently awaken from a long slumber.

SARAH AVERY, age 25. Evocamancer.
Reluctantly allied with the secret circle, and even more reluctant to
use her demon-summoning magic, preferring to serve as an engineer.

PILAR "PILL" GARCIA, age 34.
Non-mystical human collector of magical artifacts and lore.


     EMPLOYEES OF THE COMPANY
A shadow conglomerate in the service of dread Venus.

CLAIRE BELDEN, age 31. Metamancer.
Having framed and murdered her former boss and lover Lydia Black,
Claire is now the head of Human Resources for The Company. From
within, she pursues her own agenda, aiding the circle and The Company
in equal measure to maintain a mystical stalemate between the two
sides. Sister of David Collins, responsible for both his escape and
Maile's defection.

TRINITY "TRINI" TRAN, age 35. Haematomancer.
A fugitive, reluctantly working for The Company in return for their
protection, and allied with Claire. She carries David Collins's child,
and is now rooming with (and keeping an eye on) the mind-wiped
"Angel".

ANGEL, age 27. Doppelmancer.
The other Lieke van Rijn, amnesiac, depowered, and consumed by a
desperate emptiness. Held captive by The Company.

------------------------------------------


When Beth emerges from her room, holding onto David's arm, Lieke and
June light up. It's the first time Maile's seen either of them look
genuinely happy in a long time, and it serves as a reminder of how
isolated she is from the rest of them. She gives them a few minutes
before clearing her throat.
   "Maile," says Beth, smiling awkwardly. "You must have so many questions."
   "Boy howdy," says Maile. "Can the rest of you vamoose so I can talk
to David and Beth?" She takes Sarah aside. "Keep an eye on the
mysterious stranger with all the weapons."
   "Noted," says Sarah.

Beth readies a kettle - "I haven't had a cup of tea in over ten
months" - while David awkwardly wedges himself in the crook of the
L-shaped countertop. Maile pulls up a stool and climbs up on it,
placing David's weird red sword on the island, precariously close to
the bananas.
   "So," says David, "where to start?"
   It's clear from his tone that he has an answer in mind to his own
question. That won't do; it's important that she control the flow of
this. "I'll start," says Maile. "I'll tell you what I know, and you'll
tell me what I'm missing or I got wrong."
   "Okay."
   Beth puts the kettle on the burner and stands next to her husband.
She's incredibly spry for someone that's been asleep for the better
part of a year. Maile hates magic sometimes.
   "Early last year, you went undercover at The Company. You wiped
your own memory, so even you didn't know what you were doing. Beth
here went to sleep so she could influence your subconscious the entire
time, point you in different directions, and you'd relay intel to the
circle through her. The point of the thing was just to have a mole in
The Company, it wasn't any particular objective?"
   "That's right," says David.
   "And now you've recovered your memories."
   "And then some. I kinda have access to all the memories of all my
ancestors going back to before recorded human history." He smiles
awkwardly, embarrassed at the ridiculousness of what he's just said.
   "Can you give memories back to other people?" says Maile.
   The smile fades, and something very much like guilt causes his
whole face to droop. Everything's on his sleeve with this guy; the
fact that he survived as a spy for as long as he did is astonishing.
"I wish I could, Maile."
   "Is it something you can't do, or something you won't do?"
   David hesitates, looks at Beth. Beth nods and he continues. "A
little of both, honestly. I'm really good, really precise, at taking
them away. Putting them back is clumsy, dangerous. Like trying to do
brain surgery with a shovel."
   Maile doesn't know if he's telling the truth or not. She decides to
let it pass, for now. "So, there are a bunch of questions I want to
ask you, specifics about your time undercover. But there's something
I've been obsessing over since day one, and I want to get it out of
the way first, otherwise I'm not really going to hear anything else
you have to say."
   "You want to know about your time at The Company."
   She nods. "Who was I? Did you know me? Did we interact at all?"
   "Not really," says David, almost apologetically. "I was kind of low
on the totem pole, just the guy who did the mind-wipes to facilitate
interrogations and brainwashing. You brought in some subjects a couple
of times, but I don't think we said two words to each other before you
were wiped."
   "Before you wiped me."
   "Yes. Before I wiped you. We moved in different circles. You were
kind of the star employee, the top field operative."
   "But I was there for, what, three months before I was," she tries
to find a better word than abducted, a gentler word, even if they
don't deserve that nicety. Because she doesn't want to get angry,
doesn't want to escalate this thing to the point where she can't get
any useful information. But she can't think of a kind euphemism for
what the circle has done to her, and so she just trails off.
   The kettle whistles. Beth turns off the burner and slips in the bag.
   "Three or four days after you were hired," says David, "you went
out into the field for the first time. Uh, job-shadowing, I guess, you
and a couple of really top-notch scumbags who were to show you the
ropes. They put a lot of our guys in the ground, and so they were
high-value targets for us. Guys we wanted to take out of commission.
On your end, a very simple, low-risk mission, ideal for training.
Only, we knew about it." He points to himself, then to Beth. "So
Marcus laid an ambush."
   "Marcus," says Maile. "The one I killed."
   Now it's David's turn to suppress the rage bubbling up beneath the
surface. He does a bad job of hiding it; again, everything's
transparent with this guy.
   Beth is better at hiding whatever emotion she may or may not be
feeling. In a flat and factual tone, she intercedes. "Marcus was more
than a friend, more than just our know-it-all and our leader. He was
the best of us. Over the years, The Company tried again and again to
take him out, and he made them pay for it. Eventually they stopped
trying."
   "He was kind of a bogeyman for The Company," says David.
"Unstoppable, invulnerable. Standing orders from on-high were to abort
any mission where he showed up. That day, he wiped out your whole
squad - everyone but you. He let you go. Maybe it was because you were
new and young, and hadn't gotten your hands dirty yet. Or maybe he
expected you to run back to base, to tell them what happened, so that
the legend of Marcus could grow."
   Beth smiles sadly. "Probably a little bit of both. Marcus was like that."
   "But you didn't go back to base," says David. "You tracked him
down. And you killed him. I mean, you were green. You had had your
magic for maybe a week, maybe two? People had been going after him
with years of experience and he just shrugged them off."
   Maile stares at the back of her hand. At her mancer's mark. "Was I
that good?"
   "Maybe you were that lucky," offers Beth. "Or that clever, or that
ruthless. Or the right combination of all those things."
   "In any case," continues David, "you shot right up the ranks. They
paired you with Samson, gave you two the most dangerous assignments,
and you delivered results. I don't think you ever actually finished
your training."
   "Maile," says Beth, "how much milk for your tea?"
   "Not much," says Maile. "I like it strong."
   "From our point of view," says Beth, "removing Marcus removed our
center of gravity. Made us incredibly vulnerable. Between that and
Venus awakening, it looked like the end for us, the end of the war,
literally the end of the world."
   "Respectfully," says Maile, "Marcus never should have been your
be-all end-all. That's what made you vulnerable."
   "I agree," says Beth, bringing Maile's tea over. "It left us in a
desperate situation. And what we did to you, it was wrong. It was
unconscionable. Perhaps even unforgiveable. It was also necessary."
   "I'm still here," offers Maile. "I'm also still angry."
   "I understand." Beth places her hand on Maile's cheek; it's warm,
maternal. "I am deeply ashamed I ever thought of it."
   "Uh," says David. "That's not exactly true."
   Beth and Maile turn to look at him.
   "I mean, it's true that she's ashamed, we're all ashamed. But Beth
didn't come up with the idea. It was planted in her subconscious. The
idea was Maile's."
   "My idea?"
   "You wanted out," says David. "You had a, I don't know, a crisis of
conscience. You wanted to defect but you knew that we wouldn't trust
you. So you arranged for all of this."
   "How do you know that?"
   "Claire told me," says David. "Claire Belden, she was helping you.
She's the one that implanted the idea in Beth's mind. She's also my
sister, apparently?"
   "Apparently?"
   "I mean, she is, yes, but I didn't know about it until after she
ran me through with that sword."
   "Gonna ignore that bit for right now, makes it easier for me to
focus. Why would she help me? She's not one of ours?"
   "No," says David. "She serves some kind of ancient magical goddess
thing called the blue lady. She doesn't want Venus and The Company to
win the midnight war, since that would end the world, and she doesn't
want us to win, since that would end magic. The blue lady wants the
two sides to keep fighting for all eternity."
   Maile grits her teeth, pushing down a sudden flash of anger and
frustration. "That is the dumbest, most horrible thing I've ever
heard."
   David shrugs. "I can't say you're wrong. The blue lady wants a
stalemate, two sides that are evenly matched. So with Marcus gone,
Claire was happy to help you switch sides."
   "And this is all from Claire?" says Beth. Implicit is a question
about the information's reliability.
   "Oh, I don't trust her," says David. "But I don't think she was
lying about this."
   "I don't think she was either," says Maile. "At least, I'd like to
think that." She frowns. "The thing that keeps me up at night isn't
what I did, not exactly, but the idea that I was okay with it, and if
not for what happened, for what you did to me, I would still be okay
with it, I would still be that person. But if I wasn't okay with it,
if I wanted out, if I chose this? Yeah, I like that. I like that a
lot."
   No one is more surprised than Maile when her voice cracks in this
last sentence. "Sorry," she mumbles. She regains her composure, wiping
at her eyes with her fists. "This doesn't let any of you off the
hook," she warns. "Because none of you knew that I wanted it, and you
still did it."
   Beth nods.
   David stands in the same corner he did before, distant and awkward.
Maile's read is that Beth is a lot better with this person stuff than
David is, a lot more comfortable with people. That's not so strange,
though; her mother and father were the same way.
   "Moving on," says Maile. "Did you meet with Leek?"
   "What, with the extraction? Yeah. She gave me the disc, which let
me transfer everything back to my original body. Claire kinda murdered
me before I could do the transfer myself subconsciously, but a week
later she used the disc and gave me her whole plot dump and the magic
sword."
   "Leek never came back. The Company is holding her hostage."
   "That's bizarre," says David. "I gave her a total wipe."
   "What do you mean?"
   "Like, everything," says David. "No memories at all. Usually they,
uh, dispose of people who aren't useful to them."
   "She's been talking to us," says Maile. "The two Leeks are passing
notes through tattoos that disappear, it's a whole weird thing. She
says that her magic's been 'stolen'. We don't know what that means, or
how that's possible. Do you?"
   "If they had some way to do that, they never told me."
   "Trinity Tran," Maile says suddenly. "Do you know who that is?"
   "Yes," squeaks David. He turns to his wife, all teeth and guilt.
"So, uh. When I was undercover." He hesitates.
   "I know," says Beth, irritated. "I was in your subconscious,
remember?" She turns to Maile. "While he was undercover, he had a
romance with Miss Tran."
   "In my defense, I didn't know I was married."
   "That's not a defense," says Beth. She finishes her tea. "And
you're not off the hook."
   "I didn't mean to do it," says David. "She's not even my type."
   "You know," says Maile, "I don't need to know that. Any of that.
But I do need to know, like, who she is, what side is she on. Because
supposedly she's being held captive with the missing Leek."
   "I mean, she worked for The Company, but not willingly," says
David. "They gave her protection from the police and, you know, if she
stopped working for them, they'd turn her over. I think somebody -
maybe Claire? - had her spying on me by the end. It might be that
since I was compromised they painted her with the same brush."
   "We know about her running from the police, about something
happening at the hospital," says Maile. "But we don't know exactly
what she did that resulted in all those people dying."
   "She did not talk about it," says David. "Did not want to talk
about it, and, you know, I tried to respect that. She got her magic
and it went haywire, but I don't know anything beyond that."
   "What type of magic was it?"
   "Haematomancer," says David. "Blood magic. Healing, mostly."
   "That scans," says Maile. "Our Leek is having mysterious injuries
that magically heal themselves a couple hours later - apparently
literally magically. If Tran is with the other Leek, that's how she's
getting healed."
   Beth looks troubled. "If the two Liekes have become connected like
that, what happens when one of them gets killed?"
   "Probably they both die," says Maile. "And probably they never come
back. That's why we're not letting her in the field. And why I want to
be very careful about the other Leek. If she has no memory, then
someone at The Company is using her to talk to us, is dictating what's
being said. But the minute we let them know that we know, I don't know
if they have a reason to keep her alive."
   "So we have to be careful," says Beth.
   "Problem is they've started to give us intel," says Maile. "The
other day we got an address of a Cradle Tech facility. I think it's in
relation to the Trevor situation. Uh, Trevor's a robot and a double
agent only he doesn't know he's a double agent, I think."
   "Oh," says Beth. "I don't actually know who Trevor is."
   "He joined over the summer," says Maile. "While you were asleep and
while David was undercover, but before I came into the picture."
   "So what about this facility?"
   "June has her four-legged agents scoping it out now," says Maile.
"If we don't act on it, they're going to know that we know. If we do
act on it - well, if the ghostwriter on the other side is acting in
the interests of The Company, then we're walking into a trap, right?"
   "Alternatively," says Beth, "if they're working against those
interests, it could be legitimate intel."
   "Or," says David, "it could be legitimate intel to get us to trust
them, then set us up for a big fall."
   Maile sighs. "Anything else I should know about?"
   "Uh, yeah," says David. "I may have accidentally resurrected an
apocalyptic creature of unspeakable evil who was imprisoned in my dead
father's memories."
   Maile blinks. "What?"

After everyone gathers in the common room, Pill Garcia is press-ganged
into being guest lecturer. "So, way back, like ten thousand years ago,
there was this primordial entity of pure malice and corruption. This
guy is the necromancer. Not his real name, but we'll get to that. So,
a bunch of people back then got together and decided, no thank you.
Even the gods of Venus - most of 'em, anyway, but we'll get to that
too - wanted him gone. So everybody got together and sealed him away.
   "Problem was that his real name was so mystical and eldritch and
what-not that even saying his name, or thinking it, or even just
knowing what it was, would bring him back. So our heroes scrub all
traces of it from the face of the earth, except that it survives
somewhere on some forbidden scrap of something.
   "And this is where David's bio-dad Adam Belden enters the picture.
He learns the forbidden name, resurrecting the necromancer.
Immediately he runs to the blue lady for help. Blue lady locks the
name away in his mind where he can't remember it. This traps the
actual literal necromancer within Adam Belden's memories. When Adam
dies, the necromancer will be trapped forever. Adam kicks the bucket
and everything is saved forever, hurray. This is where David comes
into the picture."
   David stands up nervously. With his hands limp at his sides, he
avoids all eye contact while speaking in a low voice. "So, turns out I
have access to all the memories of my ancestors and that includes my
dad and that includes the memory that was locked away and I kinda
sorta maybe definitely freed the necromancer."
   "Oh, Jesus, David," says Lieke. "Are you kidding me?"
   "Sorry," he says meekly. "Before my dad died, I think he told my
sister that the blue lady was wrong. That the name wouldn't die with
him."
   "You think he told your sister that?" says Maile.
   "So, a fun thing is that the memory of the necromancer has infected
all my other memories, so I'm not sure how much I can trust them? By
which I mean it's not fun at all."
   "Yeah, no, I got that. I take it that wiping your memories wouldn't
work then, since he's all up in there."
   David shakes his head.
   "Do you think your dad meant that you would be the one to bring him back?"
   "I think he wanted me to bring him back to stop someone else from
bringing him back? If that makes sense?"
   "It doesn't," says Maile.
   "It does," says Pill. "Research is kinda spotty here, because, you
know, they scrubbed everything, but one of the gods of Venus knows the
name."
   "But you said they wanted to seal him off way back when."
   "I said most of them did. One didn't. That guy had secretly aligned
itself with the necromancer and almost immediately after everyone had
sealed the necromancer away, this guy starts working to bring him
back. This is where the Queen of Cups enters the picture - she's a
high mystical human mucky-muck from Lemuria times. She knows a way to
seal off our rogue elder god, and asks each of the other elder gods to
lend her some of their power. They agree to do it, and then she
double-crosses them - she seals Venus away completely."
   "The Lullaby," says Maile.
   "Got it in one," says Pill. "This one elder god knowing the
necromancer's true name wasn't really a problem while the Lullaby was
intact. Now that it's broken, and the great old ones are starting to
wake up, well, that's a different situation. The more people know the
necromancer's name, the more powerful he is. If that one sleeping
elder god whispers it in The Company's ear, with their infrastructure,
it could go viral."
   "I mean, is this guy worse than Venus?"
   "No," says Pill, "but only in the sense that getting shot in the
gut isn't worse than getting caught in a thresher. Dead is dead, and
end of the world is end of the world however it happens."
   "So, even if we shove this guy back into his box, one day when this
elder god wakes up it will just bring him back."
   "Unless we kill the necromancer," says David. "Like, literally kill him."
   "I would think someone tried that already," says Maile.
   "But they didn't have this," says David, picking up the red sword.
"It killed one of the elder gods. Figure it should be able to take
care of the necromancer. Maybe?"
   "So, how do we find him, how do we do that?"
   "Research," says Pill. "If I recall correctly, word on the street
is that you guys have some Lemurian texts tucked away in your library,
yeah?"
   "Yeah, but no one can read them," says June. "Not even a bibliomancer."
   "Ah," says Pill, wagging a finger, "but they don't have," she
reaches into her coat, "hang on, that's not it, just give me a minute,
no, no, there we go, they don't have the Eye of Kandam." She pulls out
something that resembles both a glass eye and a diamond at the same
time. "I'm not promising any results, but it's worth a try."

Before dinner (June is making chicken piccata, one of his favorites),
David and Beth finally have some time alone in their room.
   "I missed you, Beth."
   "Did you? You didn't even know I existed."
   "I missed you just the same," he says. "There was something
missing, something I didn't have words for. I was so disoriented, so
anxious and desperate."
   "That's sweet," says Beth. "But that was probably just the memory wipes."
   "No; it was the lack of you." He kisses her neck, finding the spot
that used to make her melt.
   "No," she says gently. "David, I love you, but I don't want you to
touch me right now. I don't know if I want you to touch me again."
   He nods. "I, I really didn't know."
   "I know. But that doesn't matter. You still did it. It still hurts."

Maile finds Pill in the library. Her long overcoat is draped over one
of the chairs; Pill's frame is slighter and less muscular than Maile
had supposed. Hovering above her is the Eye of Kandam. The book she's
hunched over is a big leather-bound volume, handwritten on large
sheets of vellum.
   Maile doesn't recognize the alphabet. It doesn't help that the text
appears to be moving. "So, that's Lemurian, huh?"
   "Yup."
   "It kinda hurts to look at it."
   "Yup, it's a whole forbidden text thing," says Pill. "Best you
don't look at it. Some people, it causes hemorrhaging in the brain and
spontaneous blindness."
   "Noted. Is it safe for you to look at it?"
   "It's deep magic," says Pill. "Of course it isn't safe. But my
friend the eyeball there is protecting me from most of it." She drapes
a delicate ribbon across the page and closes the book. Immediately the
Eye of Kandam drops from the air; Pill catches it in her palm. "I'm
gonna have a heck of a migraine, though. Time for a break I think."
She swivels in her chair, leans back, and lazily plunks a pair of
sunglasses over her eyes.
   Maile sits down. "So, what's your story?"
   "Like, how did I embark on the glamorous life of stealing and using
mystical artifacts?"
   "Yeah, that."
   She shrugs. "I think that kind of spoils the whole mysterious and
curiously attractive stranger vibe, don't you?"
   "Eh. That's kinda overrated."
   "Hey, you do what works for you, I'll do what works for me."
   "Hmmph." So much for the get to know you stuff. Maile gets up to leave.
   "You know, we've met before," says Pill.
   "Go on," says Maile.
   "Back when you were on The Company's payroll. I've been kind of a
nuisance for a couple years now and they wanted you and Samson Drake
to hunt me down."
   "And?"
   "And I got away," says Pill. "Not for lack of trying on your part."
   Maile hesitates, then: "What was I like?"
   Pill lowers her sunglasses, regarding Maile curiously. "You were rad."
   "I was trying to kill you."
   "I mean, yeah, and that was sub-optimal, sure. But Samson was
trying to kill me, too, and he wasn't rad. He was a jerk. Nasty,
sadistic. Always leering. Screw that guy, right?"
   "I think I did," says Maile. The thought of it still makes her queasy.
   "So, that actually lowers my opinion of you quite a bit. But.
Samson was sloppy. All that nastiness made him sloppy. He made
mistakes, wasn't in control. But he tried real hard to make you think
he was. Something gnawing at him, something to prove. Guy was kinda
pathetic. Scary, but pathetic.
   "You didn't have that. You were you. You were precise. Focused.
Elegant. Like, sure, you were trying to kill me, but I could
appreciate your professionalism, the way you carried yourself. The
mastery of your craft. Like, a noble adversary. I was into it."
   "What?"
   Pill holds her finger and her thumb about a half-inch apart.
"Teensy little crush on you." She shrugs. "What can I say, I have a
thing for bad girls."
   "I'm not so bad anymore."
   "That's a pity," says Pill.

Late that night, just before bed, Maile finds June and Sarah in the
kitchen eating ice cream. Maile points at them with an extravagant
gesture: "I feel so betrayed."
   June plops a couple scoops into a fresh bowl. "Forgive us?"
   "Forgiven." Maile digs in. "Any news from the front?"
   "We were just talking about that," says June. "But no. My cats can
get into the perimeter, the guards are friendly enough, but they can't
get inside the building and can't really see anything from the
outside."
   "Well, we don't want to run into this blind," says Maile. "At the
same time, if we don't do something with the information, whoever is
holding Leek might get suspicious."
   Sarah lazily scrapes the bottom of her bowl. "From talking with
David, I have a clearer idea of how their computer security works, and
it's pretty top-notch stuff. Do you want me to get technical?"
   "Not really," admits Maile. "Just tell me if there's a way in."
   "No," says Sarah, "but I think there's a way out."
   "Go on."
   "Trevor's been with the circle since before you were even recruited
for The Company. But he knew stuff about you that someone who worked
at The Company would know. He had to get that information from
somewhere. Maybe it was transmitted."
   "Maybe?"
   "Okay, so not maybe, because of course I've looked into this
already," says Sarah. "It's definitely what happened. But it's not
getting transmitted into Shallow House. It's when he's out in the
world, and near a transmitter. Problem: we don't know where the
transmitters are. But."
   "But this Cradle place probably has one."
   "Bingo," says Sarah. "We get Trevor in proximity, if they start
uploading something, I can monitor it, maybe get some information we
can use."
   "That's if we can trust Trevor. And even Trevor doesn't know if we
can trust Trevor."
   June winces but tries to hide it. Maile feels sorry for her,
falling for a robot like that. She can empathize; one time her crush
turned out to be a libertarian.
   Maile lets the last spoonful of ice cream melt on her tongue.
"Let's do it. Worst that can happen is that he summons a horde of
magic robots that want to kill us."
   "Oh, just that?" says June with a faint laugh.
   "Yeah," says Maile. "More of a minor inconvenience, really. Maile:
Robot Fighter has a nice ring to it."



COPYRIGHT (C) 2020 TOM RUSSELL.