Chapter Sixty-nine: "I've got no plan, but I've got some things to do."

	The group arrives at their destination, minus Alex.  No one is
real broken up about his sudden absence.  The Shadow is a high-tech,
Japanese sort, and, as expected, magic does not work.  There is a clap of
thunder, which makes Ahab look nervous, since Fiona's spell will no longer
be preventing him from changing into a woman.  Usires tests his laser, and
it works quite well.  Driscoll suggests he cease firing it, since it
attracts more attention than desired.  Rinaldo checks for the presence of
the shard, then leads everyone into an alley.  As they walk down the
alley, some notice that they've passed through a barrier, kind of like
shifting into another Shadow.  Looking back, the scene behind them is
slightly different than where they came from.  Ariana feels something like
she does when she's in the Pattern room.  She turns completely around and
finds that the feeling is strongest in the direction that Rinaldo is
heading.

	As they proceed down the alley, they hear a voice singing.  Those
who have met Ariadne recognize the voice as hers.  Ariana tries to Trump
her, but the Trump doesn't work.  She tells Rinaldo this and asks if any
of his Trumps are working.  He says they are not, so everyone figures the
barrier they passed through was a Trump barrier.  Ariadne's voice is
coming from a rather disreputable looking bar.  It begins to rain, so Ahab
hurries into the place.  He is followed by most of the others, although
Laughter remains outside to make sure they don't get ambushed from behind. 
Inside the bar, they find a scantily clad Ariadne, moving suggestively as
she sings on the stage.  Ariana draws a bit of attention when she enters,
being just about the only woman there, other than Ariadne.

	Ahab and Ariadne make eye contact, then Ariadne drops into the
stage.  Felix, Ariana and Bart's warning devices go off as everyone in the
bar draws weapons and points them at the Amberite of their choice.  Bart
drops to the floor, and thanks Ariel for the too-late-to-be-useful
warning.  He heads for the bar, but only makes it halfway there.  Most of
the Amberites are too far into the room to make a break for the door, so
they stand and fight.  Felix takes out 20 or 30 guys before he's brought
down.  Foster, who was somewhat closer to the door, wades in to help him. 
Ariana and Driscoll try to make it to the door.  Driscoll seems unaffected
by the shots that are hitting him.  Then the gas canisters are employed. 
They are a combination of tear gas and a sedative, and this takes down all
of the Amberites inside the bar except for Ariana, who manages to hold her
breath long enough to make it out the door.

	Laughter realizes that there's no way everyone is going to get out
of the bar, so she runs for the Trump barrier, hoping to get through and
Trump in reinforcements.  Unfortunately, her way is blocked by the police,
who lob a gas canister at her.  She lobs it back, much to their dismay. 
They throw several more in her direction.  Laughter holds her breath. 
Ariana continues to do this as well, and runs for a fire escape, hoping to
get above the gas.  She begins to feel a sharp, stabbing pain in her
abdomen, so she tears off a strip of cloth and breathes shallowly through
it, which helps.  Laughter feels a similar pain after a while, as she
continues to hold her breath.  The police tell them to freeze.  Laughter
does so, but Ariana continues running.  Laughter is approached by a couple
of cops, who inject something in her neck.  She starts to feel woozy, but
doesn't go down.  This disconcerts the cops, and another one tries to
inject her again, but she punches him out and takes his gas mask.  Then
she goes down.  Ariana makes it to the fire escape and briefly gets above
the gas.  The sharpshooters give up on trying to hit her and target the
fire escape instead.  Ariana manages to leap to a nearby window as the
fire escape falls, but, unfortunately, this cuts down on her mobility. 
She is shot several times in the back of the head and falls to the ground.

	Laughter wakes up to Ahab patting her face.  He tells her that the
others didn't make it.  She has vague memories of being captured, getting
a jack and chip implanted, losing control of her body for a time, then
making an escape attempt.  Ahab doesn't remember for sure how the others
died, except for Foster, who died protecting her from a blast.  He tells
her that they're outside of the Trump barrier, but without their items. 
He has the shard, though.  He's thinking of using it as a battery to get
them back to Amber.  He thinks their captors know quite a bit about Amber,
since they could probably get access to everyone's memories via the
implants.  Laughter feels a cool patch on her leg, and finds a Trump of
Amber stuck in her hose.  She vaguely remembers putting it there.  Ahab
looks surprised when she shows it to him, and they both find this rather
convenient.  Laughter puts the Trump back and suggests they get something
to eat.  She asks what happened to Ariana, and learns she was killed with
the others.  Apparently their captor's weapons weren't set to stun the
second time around.  Laughter thinks Ahab is acting a little strange, and
decides to test him.  She comments that Random would be upset about
Ariana's death.  Ahab doesn't find this statement odd.  Then Laugher says
it's a shame that Ariana's children had to die with her.  Ahab says he
didn't know that she was pregnant.  Of course, the real Ahab didn't know
that either, so maybe he figures she's making this up as well as the
Random thing.  Still uncertain, Laughter gives Ahab her Trump of Amber. 
He Trumps out, leaving her there alone.

	Ariana slowly regains consciousness, but keeps her eyes shut.  She
feels a buzzing at the base of her skull, and notices that something is in
her mind, monitoring her and dampening her.  She is lying naked on a
table, covered by a sheet, restrained at the wrists and ankles.  There is
a monitoring device around her waist, and various other tubes and devices
attached to her, including a catheter, and a feeding tube up her nose. 
None of these feel particularly pleasant.  There's also a heart monitor
hooked up to her, and she can hear two heartbeats, one slow and one fast. 
She manages to fool the thing that is in her mind into thinking she's
still out, and listens to the doctors.  They refer to her as test subject
#8, which means that at least seven of the other Amberites are also
around.  Apparently the doctors think she's a new life form, due to her
strength and stamina.  The current group of doctors are the last shift for
the night, so she lays low and waits for them to leave.

	Felix wakes up in an identical situation to Ariana's, restrained,
with a buzzing at the base of his skull and lots of tubes stuck in him. 
He keeps his eyes shut and is also able to fool the monitoring device into
thinking he's still out.  The doctors in the room are discussing his
biopsies, and the exploratory surgery they are going to do on him in the
morning.  He also learns that this is the last shift and decides to play
possum until they're gone.

	Usires wakes up and says "What the hell?"  The buzzing at the base
of his skull increases and he falls unconscious again.

	Bart wakes up suspended in water, which means he's female again. 
She reacts in a similar manner to Usires, and feels the buzzing at the
base of her skull increase.  She isn't knocked out, but she does feel
exceptionally mellow.  Eventually, this feeling goes away, so she opens
her eyes.  The doctors notice this and turn the device up.  Bart goes out
like a light.

	Ahab wakes up and finds himself in Martin's body.  He is
understandably startled and starts to move, at which point he is knocked
out again.

	After the last shift has left, Ariana opens her eyes and looks
around.  She's in a medium-size room with no windows, and lots of monitors
and readouts.  The presence in her mind seems to be an AI of some sort,
and it's monitoring all of her readouts.  She thinks she can break free of
her restraints, but this will cause an increase in some of the muscular
readouts, that will alert the AI, and probably sound an alarm.  She spends
some time figuring out how to trick the AI into ignoring the change in the
readouts, then frees her arms and legs.  Unfortunately, she still has all
the other devices hooked up to her, but she can now move about ten feet
away from the bed.  She takes a look around the room to get an idea of
what they've been doing to her.  Thus far, they mostly seem to have been
taking samples of major organs and getting baseline readings.  They've
also sampled her amniotic fluid, at a point that she thinks should be too
early to be safe.  She makes a note of the name of the doctor responsible
for that test.  Then she spends about four hours trying to figure out how
to free herself from the various monitoring devices, without the AI
noticing when her readouts stop all together.

	Laughter goes outside looking for a change of clothes, but it's
night time, so nothing is open.  She mugs some guy instead, and takes his
weapons and clothing.  She then tries to mug a woman who has a similar
build to her, in hopes of taking her ID, but the woman notices that she's
being followed, spins, and draws a weapon.  Laughter tries to convince the
woman that she meant no harm, and asks for some money.  The woman leaves,
without taking her eyes off of Laughter.

	Felix tries to free himself in the middle of the night, but
notices the readouts spike, and stops.  Ariana notices this through her
connection with the AI and blocks the alarm from being sent.  She tries to
communicate with Felix through the AI, and succeeds.  He's just a bit
freaked out to hear her speaking in his head.  She tells him what she's
learned so far, and warns him not to free anything other than his arms and
legs right now.  She checks for the others, and finds Driscoll, Bart,
Ahab, Shard, Usires and Foster.  Foster is heavily sedated and being held
in a separate wing, under the control of another AI, so she can't control
his alarms or contact him.  The doctors are doing lots of tests of his
shapeshifting and regeneration abilities, which includes exposing him to
various diseases.  Driscoll is awake, so she contacts him next.  He
comments that he was wondering when he'd hear from her, given that she has
the largest mind around.  She explains that she's trying to figure out how
to get the AI to ignore them when they disconnect their devices.  Driscoll
downloads a bunch of information on how to program from his brain to hers. 
It takes her a little while to get the hang of processing so much
information.  While she's going over it, she turns off the monitor alarms
on everyone else's restraints, and contacts them as they wake up.  Bart
was just raising herself up out of the water, and falls back into the tank
when she hears Ariana's voice.  The others are similarly startled,
although their reactions aren't quite as humorous.

	Ariana finishes assimilating Driscoll's information, overrides the
alarms and locks, and tells everyone to go ahead and detach their devices. 
Bart has already unlocked her tank on her own.  Martin's body likes her. 
Ariana looks up a bunch of information on where they are and what was done
to them.  The name of the place is Kalevala, and they've been in the
hospital for two weeks.  The hospital is a government one, located in the
capital city.  So far, the tests on the others have been similar to what
was done to Ariana.  Apparently, that was going to change soon, as the
doctors were arguing over which subject they should vivisect first.  It
was down to Felix or Usires.  There is no evidence that Laughter or
Rinaldo were ever at the hospital, or anywhere else for that matter.  No
record of Ariadne, either.  Ariana does come across records of Shadows of
Driscoll, Shard and Ahab.  Driscoll's Shadow is wanted for murder and
various computer crimes, Shard's is a famous porno actor, and Ahab's is a
high-ranking military general.  Ariana sends word out that there's a
duplicate of the general running around, hoping to make life difficult for
whoever has Ahab's body.  Then she makes false identities for the group,
and downloads a bunch of medical knowledge, so she can convincingly act
like a doctor from this tech level.

	Ariana also downloads a bunch of information from Foster's memory
scan, which includes all sorts of ways to kill people.  Other highlights
include: Murine isn't really his mother, although his mother is a lady of
House Vetch.  Felix is his father, though, and his mother was the one that
Felix knew as Murine when he was in Shadow.  Foster still talks to her
occasionally.  He isn't the one who poisoned Murine.  He really does love
Laughter.  His cooperation with Sand wasn't voluntary.  Apparently, she
Trumped him and mentally dominated him, placing him under her command. 
She had to concentrate on him in order to control him, though.  She was
doing so off and on up until the point when Foster retook the Logrus to
free himself of her.

	Ariana finds and displays to the others where their items are
being stored, as well as where they can find clothes, etc.  Much planning
is done, the result of which is that Ariana will remain jacked in and make
sure that the way is clear, while everyone else gets some clothing.  Then
Driscoll, Bart and Usires will get some portable jacks and the IDs that
Ariana created, while Ahab, Felix and Shard grab everyone's items.  Once
this is accomplished, they will meet in the room where Ariana was held. 
This is accomplished without a hitch, and everyone's things are
redistributed appropriately, except for Felix's pin, which is missing. 
Martin's body likes Ariana, too.  Bart's clothing is the only clothing
found among the items, and when she puts it on, it fits her perfectly,
even though she was male when she was wearing it before.  Ariana and
Driscoll link together and begin working on freeing Foster.

	As the sun comes up, Laughter notices someone that looks like Ahab
disappear around the corner.  She follows, and finds him leaning up
against a wall.  He still has the shard, only it's bigger now.  He appears
to have fused it with the other two.  Laughter asks why he brought Lyss
along.  He says he didn't know she was there at the time.  Laughter
realizes that this probably isn't Ahab.  He commands her not to attack
him, using his power over those with Pattern.  Laughter is not pleased. 
He mentions that he's taken care of her mother, but hasn't gotten around
to her father.  He has plans to put the rightful king on the throne.  She
tries to figure out who he's referring to, and guesses her way through the
elders, but he won't give any more details.  She asks if he's Brand, or
one of Brand's children, but he says she's more closely related to Brand
than he is.  He is impressed at the power Ahab possesses, and comments
that he understands why Oberon was so dead set against inbreeding. 
Laughter warns him that Dara will be after him.  He doesn't think so,
since Dara gave him the first piece of the shard, and he doesn't have to
worry about her anymore.  She abruptly changes the subject and asks him
for baby name suggestions.

	"Ahab" takes Laughter out to breakfast.  She asks him about the
gaps in her memory, but he says he just made all of that up.  He also
tells her that he melted down Sequence, and admits that he's the one who
took over Martin's body.  He won't tell her who he is, of course.  He says
that he'd been watching Ahab, and decided that he wasn't using his
abilities well enough, so he took over.  Laughter isn't convinced that the
others are dead.  He asks what information from Foster would be worth to
her.  She asks what he wants, figuring he can just command her to do it
anyway.  He considers using her to Trump the others, then using the
connection to command them.  She figures she can't stop him, unless she
kills herself.  He commands her not to do that.  He was planning to use
her to get to Fiona, but when she handed him the Trump of Amber, which he
had placed there in the first place, he figured it was time to let her
know she'd been had.  He comments that he took care of Fiona anyway, and
notes that she is remarkably trusting of Ahab.  But, it's time to bring
Laughter back to the scientists.

	Driscoll and Ariana make some progress in their efforts to free
Foster, but they reach a point beyond which they cannot proceed without
the proper access code.  While they are trying to determine who might have
this code, they hear footsteps coming towards the room, although the next
shift isn't due to arrive for a while yet.  Ariana suggests they take this
person alive, in case she knows the code.  Everyone hides from sight. 
Ahab conceals himself near the door and nabs the early riser as she comes
in.  Ariana probes her mind, and learns that she doesn't know the code,
but she knows who does.  Ariana programs the woman to want to help them. 
Martin's body likes her, as well.  The target is scheduled to come in with
the first shift.  They decide the safest way to take him is to control him
when he jacks in to check his e-mail.  Unfortunately, this will be about
the same point that the doctors for everyone else arrive and notice that
they're gone.  Ahab suggests drugging the food, to make them lethargic and
delay the discovery a bit.  Ariana determines that coffee seems to be
requested heavily and drugs that.  She schedules an empty conference room,
and they relocate there to wait for the guy to jack in.  The backup plan
is to send their new friend out with some excuse to bring the guy to the
conference room.

	"Ahab" drags Laughter along, intending to bring her to the
hospital.  She throws up on his shoes, then throws cold water on him and
tries to attack him or take the Jewel.  Unfortunately, she finds that the
command she received prevents her from doing so.  "Ahab" is disappointed
in her.  She's also nonplussed about becoming female, and orders Laughter
to tell her how to reverse the change.  Pity Laughter doesn't know how to
do so.  Laughter insults "Ahab" for a while, who likes this not at all. 
"Ahab" reveals that she's convinced Corwin to sit on the throne.  Laughter
tells her that she doesn't fear her, so she may as well kill her.  "Ahab"
drags her into the Trump-barred Shadow, but lets her go there, instead of
taking her to the hospital.  Laughter follows her back out past the
barrier, but then loses her.  Laughter goes through the barrier again, and
psychically commands a passer-by to want to help her.  Then she rips the
chip out of her head and passes out.

	Ariana senses the partial Jewel's brief arrival, and asks Ahab
psychically if there's any way to stop his power.  Not that he knows of,
unless you get him before he starts issuing a command.  Normally, he has
to bring Pattern to mind and make psychic contact, in order to command
someone, but they have no idea how the Jewel will affect this.  It
suddenly occurs to Ahab that outgoing Trump calls will still work, even
though calls to other people inside of the Shadow will not.  He reveals
this to the others, and Trumps Kimdyl.  He tells her that someone has his
body and warns her to stay way from him.  Felix Trumps Isabeux and tells
her to keep Gerard away from Ahab.  Ariana Trumps Riftvan and relays the
information about Ahab's possession.  They learn that they've been gone
from Amber for a week.  Bart Trumps Constance and hands her Ariel with a
message.

	Laughter wakes up to find the passer-by standing over her, looking
rather concerned.  He tells her that the chip she removed is illegal.  She
says she didn't ask for it, and he looks like he understands.  She now has
no memories at all from the last two weeks, but otherwise seems to be
fine.

	Ariana picks the target up on the monitors when he arrives in the
parking structure.  He's early.  He has some drugged coffee, and jacks in. 
Ariana takes over his mind and gets the code.  She checks on the lab where
Foster is located and finds one of the three guys there is jacked in.  She
takes over his mind and has him tell the other two to jack in and take a
look at some test result.  Once she has control of all of them, she
commands them to start freeing Foster, which will take about 20 minutes. 
Ahab passes the time by taking the female doctor into the back room and
having sex with her.  Ariana continues looking for any trace of Laughter
or Rinaldo, with no success.  Trumping Laughter is equally unsuccessful.

	Laughter shoplifts some Alka-Seltzer for her morning sickness. 
The clerk doesn't notice, but she is picked up by the security cameras. 
Ariana tracks the ensuing police report.  Laughter steals one of the cop's
bikes, and leads them on a merry chase.  Ariana reaches her via the vid
screen on the motorcycle and realizes that she's beyond the Trump barrier
again.  She has Laughter stop and Trumps her through to them.  Laughter
and the others swap stories.  Ahab realizes that he can draw Trump, so he
draws one of Heather and Trumps her.  He tells her what's going on. 
Laughter Trumps Mandor and gives him essentially the same story, although
it's somewhat less coherent.  Heather finishes talking to Ahab and joins
in Mandor's conversation, just as Laughter reveals that Rinaldo is
missing.  Heather tries to Trump him, but he's being blocked.  Laughter
tries to give her enough of a psychic impression to draw a Trump of the
guy inhabiting Ahab's body, but can't.

	Foster is finally freed.  Since he is still infected with a rather
contagious disease, he is encased in a bio-suit, while Gordon is brought
from the lab next to Foster's.  They are wheeled towards a meeting point
close to the conference room.  Ariana sets the nuclear reactors that power
the hospital to overload, and disables the warning alarms.  She also
programs a couple of the doctors under her control to find and kill the
one who did the tests on her baby.  Ahab thinks it would be unwise to
Trump to the main hall, since they don't know who "Ahab" might have
waiting there.  They Trump Riftvan instead, and go through to him, except
for Bart, who Trumps Constance and joins her.

	Riftvan seems to be amused by the number of people who come
through.  Felix immediately asks Riftvan to remove his jack.  Riftvan sets
about doing this.  Laughter is next in line.  Random knocks on the door
and asks why Corwin is leading an army to Amber.  Ariana asks if he's seen
Ahab lately.  He says no, but she wants psychic confirmation.  When she
explains that someone has taken control Ahab's body, he allows her to do
this.  He's clean.  They fill him in on what happened.  He figures they'll
have to get Ahab's body back in order to undo the command he gave to
Corwin.  Ariana suggests that maybe Corwin could be psychically dominated. 
Random mentions that Fiona is missing, but that's attributed to "Ahab" as
well.  It is suggested that maybe Lyss can be Trumped and lent aid,
blocking "Ahab" from using the Jewel.  Random doesn't know if this will
work, since nothing like it has been done before.

	Ahab Trumps Lyss, and tells her that his body's been stolen.  She
says she can't do much to stop the guy, since the Jewel's gotten bigger. 
He does remind her a lot of Ahab, though.  Ahab tells her about their
encounter with Ariadne.  She tells him that whoever has his body managed
to attune himself to the Jewel, by using the energy from the shards to
briefly activate the Pattern.  It's unclear how much of an attunement he
got from only part of the Jewel.  Ahab also gets the impression that the
guy has already contacted Lyss, so he's probably already given her some
commands.  Ahab breaks the contact and tells the others what he learned.

	Felix asks if Ariana's healing abilities can help Foster, but she
hasn't finished working on the variation that deals with diseases, yet,
and is reluctant to try it untested.  She thinks Foster will recover on
his own, given time.  Gordon snuggles up to the bio-suit, trying to get
inside.  Riftvan removes the jack from Usires.  Ariana opts to keep hers
for now.  She asks Driscoll how to prevent personality chips from taking
you over, but Driscoll says he was lying to Martin when he said there was
a way to do this.


Quotables:

"You come out the other side, minus the Chaos ambassador." -- GM
"Damn, we've got to use that Trump more often." -- Sean

"Laughter's not that smart, and neither am I." -- Merrie to GM

"The bar seems to be a collection of every low-life in this Shadow." -- GM
"Then Martin's body must be here somewhere." -- Bart

"You wake up to someone patting your face." -- GM
"Is it someone I know?" -- Laughter
"I don't know.  Are you going to open your eyes and find out?" -- GM

"The others didn't make it, Laughter." -- "Ahab"
"When you say they didn't make it, you mean the others are in a different
holding cell, right?" -- Laughter

"If I wanted to chop (Foster's) head off, I would have done it." -- Merrie
"You tried to flambe him with lighting." -- Sean
"That's different." -- Merrie

"Do I remember having morning sickness?" -- Laughter
"No." -- GM
"Is that because I don't remember any mornings?" -- Laughter

"I've got no plan, but I've got some things to do." -- Laughter to GM

"Why did (Laughter) have to be the one who is free?" -- Kris
"Because she's the least qualified." -- Sean

"That's the most intelligent thing you've said so far." -- "Ahab"
"I actually like this guy." -- Laughter

"If I don't tell you my plan, I won't have to kill you." -- "Ahab"
"Good point, I'll live in ignorance." -- Laughter
"When haven't you, my dear?" -- "Ahab"

"If you are tall, dark and handsome, why are you in Ahab's body?" --
Laughter to "Ahab" 

"I have great faith in Foster's ability to not be dead.  To not be what he
seems, in fact." -- Laughter to "Ahab" 

"Feed me to a dragon.  I dare you.  It's never been done before." --
Laughter to "Ahab" 

"I have no idea what I'm looking for, but I'll know if I find it." --
Laughter to GM

"Ariana?  I had hoped I would never have you between my legs." -- Laughter
to Ariana

"It's been one hell of a day.  Corwin's going to be King of Amber, and
Ahab has breasts."  -- Laughter to Ariana