...Reena just laughed as she watched the priests scurry about the street like headless chickens. Sooner of later they would figure out the speaker's location, but by then it would be too late anyway. The Aural infection would have taken hold. The people would have had enough time to have their long dormant senses awakened. The music would have touched hidden dusty responses inside them. Repression can only keep something down for so long before the pressure either implodes or explodes. The regime had tried to paper over the cracks of reality with their warped twisted faith and now the end was near. The momentum was broken and unsustainable for their version of society. Now the pressure cooker was here and Reena and her army of radio girls were determined to use every weapon at their disposal to overthrow the tyranny that had overshadowed her world for too long.

The third trilogy of the Chuck/Charles Peake saga has the satisfying resolution that all good stories need to attain closure and put a cap on the saga or series.

Whilst leaving room for apocryphal or short stories, the central thrust of Peake's adventures and his journey from scared kid to player of universal importance is completed in these last three books.

As part of my First city connected characters, Peake comes into contact with some of my other characters like Col.Jack Peake and John Kane, The radio revolutionary girls and the denizens of the first city. It would also be fun to have some of the worlds in the first city trilogy and the last city trilogy tie in with other stories seeing Bob and Chuck as the bringers of the apocalypse on their mission from the first city.

( redux....fragments)


Kane 125 years old stood in the shallow currents, some fifty yards from the waterfalls looking calmly at the magnificent glass sculpture of The Radio girls that rose out from the far bank.

Reena's beautiful smile captured forever for all to see. Radio Revolutions.

The faded screams and hysterical shouts of that night himself and Reena finally toppled the corrupt regime that had kept her people down for so long in a twisted perversion of Islamic teachings. Reena frozen in mid-air, her long hair lashing around behind her as she turned to shout something at John.

.... Kane 57yrs old staring in wonderment at the ancient buildings that greeted him as he stumbled out of the alley he had run into to escape his horseback pursuers down a winding Persian back street.....

.....Kane and Reena hands held....laying on the upper grass to the west of the falls. They don't have to talk. They both know what's going to happen. Whatever comes later comes later but this is now, this is here and both of them are oblivious to anything else except each other. Reena doenst think of the girls who would give their lives to help in her fight- she doesnt dwell on her cadre who will launch a major initiative against the central command in two months time, be captured by pariah specials and taken to the central mosque and tortured for days on end before being reprogrammed to fit in with their Islamic ideal society.

John Kane ignores the twinges in his back, puts out of his mind the last six months spent in an amnesiac state after the events of Kalar Nas.


...John Kane placing a wreath at the foot of Reena's glass memorial statue. Love forever.

Himself and Reena were the standard bearers, the couple against which others measured themselves. Here he was kneeling before her memorial in the place they had spent some of their most memorable times together.

She was his life. She was the center that he gravitated towards and here he was having a trapped glass replica of her to talk to and leave gifts for.

She had told him one night that seemed so unbelievably long ago now, that he would be the tragedy that would make her act out of revenge. He almost went to laugh at the irony. Reena and the first city. Two constants in his life. Two benchmarks to measure everything else by.


Chuck ran straight into the woman who was walking past the entrance to the old church. He ran full-tilt into her, followed rapidly by Bob's fast moving green shimmering body as the pair burst through the worn wooden doors.

"The guards!" Chuck shouted at Bob.

"The guards, are they still with us?"

Bob shook his head, though still keeping his blade ready to strike at any pursuers. Someone clearing their throat caused the two of them to turn and stare.

The most incredible looking woman either of them had ever seen stood there. She was strikingly tall with a toned yet curvaceous figure. Her skin was tanned with crystal clear almond shaped brown eyes. Her sun streaked blonde on brown hair was tied up with tiny gold circlets, matching her long crystalline earrings. She was looking amusedly at the pair who had come crashing through the church door.

Chuck looked at her and couldn't say anything. Bob nudged him.

"Uhhh" Chuck replied.

Reena laughed. She stuck out her hand, decorated in light brown spiral henna patterns.

"Hi,I'm Reena" she told the dumbstruck pair.

"Bob",Bob offered helpfully to her and pointing to Chuck,"Chuck".

Bob grinned at her.

Slap.

The jewelled hand of the Pariah caught Shella by surprise. She took a dazed second to register before reaching out and grasping him by his stiff standard issue collar and pulling him towards her.

"What did you call me?" she hissed at him in a low-key voice. The man defiantly stared at her though his shivering betrayed his true feelings and stupidly repeated the famous word.

Reena banked a sharp left as the patrol flyer crossed the mosque twin flash beams of light in her pursuit.
She had caught the ass-end of Shella's encounter with the Pariah on the rooftop overlooking the left bank strip and was trying to shake off the flyer so she could get to Shella before the situation deteriorated any more.

Shella smiled a cruel smile that somehow made her cruel beauty even more appealing. Her slightly mis-shapen nose, crooked from so many breakages at the hands of her police trainers/torturers offset her intense brown eyes with her creamy skin seeming to shine under the light spilling off the roof walkway luminescence. The Pariah was typical. He was cannon fodder, force-fed ludicrous doctrine and promised a place in paradise by behaving like an utter ass on this mortal plain and carrying out his orders to maintain ' spiritual purity and correctness'.

Shella reached up and slowly raked her left hand down his cheek, leaving blood rivulets brimming in it's wake. She smiled at him.

"People like you made all the pain worthwhile, you know. The thought that I would one day be able to look you and all the other evil scum like you in the eyes and watch the pain that I get to cause you register in your tiny animal like brain made every single scream I ever gave you sick fuckers worth it."

The man collapsed before Shella could proceed any further. Reena stood opposite her, clearing the passage of her shooting glove from which she had just shot the pariah in the head with a small spiked metal ball, dripping with sedative. She walked towards Shella, shaking her head. She kneeled own over the man and frisked his sleeping form. Two powered weapons, two flimmer knives with tension shields, one bribe-money clip from daily shake-downs and a crumpled pornography picture of a woman with blonde hair.

Shella gave her companion a look. Reena shrugged. "We're not doing this just for revenge. We're doing this to free everyone."

She turned to Shella and smiled. "When this is over, those bastards will be thinking us above everyone else. When this is finished, those directionless morons will be the most free of all."

Shella frowned. "I just wanted to have some fun with him."

Reena shook her long hair out of her eyes. She hugged her friend briefly. "I know."

Shella closed her eyes and allowed the smell of the muggy air and the ripe orchards drift over her.

"Sometimes it's hard to remember we;re supposed to be better." she said quietly.

Reena nodded. "Always hard, probably the hardest part of this whole thing. But the only way we can do this. Otherwise, we're not changing anything."


( fragment ends)

Ideas notes on CP saga:

With the possible other bobs and explanations for the 'frozen time' - try to incorporate this into the structure somewhere as a fictional squared idea - a book within a book or perhaps Chuck finding an archive storage room in a chamber below the first city. Or chuck looking into a scrying panel.

Ties in with John Kane and Colonel Pike. It is a similar idea to Moorcock's multiverse but then again it is hard to get away from at least base comparisons by virtue of genre type and idea exploration of quantum possibilities.

And The Radio Revolution girls also, let's have chuck and bob visit their world but not as part of the fractured realities book; I dont' want Chuck and Peake being in an adversarial position to someone as key as John Kane.

The first city is a tie-in with so many things, ideas, properties- it is in some ways my own personal repository of story ideas and characters and a central idea processing plant within and through which ideas can be tried out and bounced off into somewhere else.

Central square, northern side of the city meridian was shadowed underneath the towering twisiting walkways leading up to Grosnevor Plaza. John Kane took his hat off and wiped his brow with an off white handkerchief which he somehow managed to refold into a downward v shape and resubmit to his shorts pocket.

"Damned if I know."

Kane's voice seemed strangely flat in the mid-day heat pocket they appeared to be standing in. His companion, a hooded, coffee with milk skinned man nodded as if listening, though his eyes were carefully watching the skies.

John stared at him archly for a few seconds before dismissing whatever he had been about to ask. "No, I don't know what Gaius had in mind, and I don't think Reena did either", he put out there as if anwering a question.

The hooded man turned to look at him and his deeply overcast eyes lit up with a tiny flickering light underneath each iris. He smiled.

John didn't look away like he used to, by reflex. He had been to the First City enough times by now to know how to deal with the council members.

"Gaius left us a long time ago", the sound came out of his mouth but John still found it hard to register that the being had spoken.

Tyran was one of the elder councillors and probably the most powerful being John had ever met in his long and extremely well-travelled life. John Kane, who had travelled to more worlds than any other living human being and seen stranger things than any one individual should ever have had the opportunity to experience, felt himself fighting every instinct to shirk away from Tyran. Human instinct. Pre-civilised responses.

Funny that. Actually quite fitting, John G Kane III thought to himself, in the place where all civilisations began.

"But Gaius's intentions are irrelevant to us right now. Why we asked you here today is to ask a favor of you."

John did a double-take, slow blinks and an intake of breath.

"Okay. so I never in my wildest dreams thought I would have you say that to ME".

Tyran went on, as if he had not been interrupted. "We need you to help a new arrival."

Kane looked curious.

"Who is it?" he asked, despite knowing that Tyran would tell him in good time.

The hooded man smiled.

"He's another human- a young male called Charles Peake."

Kane looked at him. "Yeah, I know Peake. He was quite a bit older when I met him, though."

He paused. "Yeah, I'll help him. When does he get here?"

Tyran's voice was a lot louder all of a sudden.

"Two days from now. Right after he kills his future self, he'll arrive here with his companion, a stream of history in human form he calls Night-time bob."

Kane looked unfazed. "I see. Well, should be interesting. Anyway; Reena's gonna love this one."

( end fragment)

Some of the 14 worlds

Shrine world- graveyard planet

Very tech advanced version of Earth- far future- very cold, clinical, Nazistic.

Aquatic world

Single Inhabitant world- guy is so vast as to take up a whole planet.

Nightmare world, permenantly dark, crime, disease is rampant- people preying on each other, suicide is a luxury.

Serene Nirvana type world.

World personally designed by Giuis ( former council stalwart)as his personal genetics lab.

Posted a blatherload of ideas about the chuck peake stuff up earlier, been ruminating and gathering ideas over the weekend to get basic plot structure in place; it's fallen together quickly and smoothly, with a lot of space for ideas and a lot of back and forth to work with.

At work until 5:30 - after lunch slow down in my stomach. Missing Jen and looking forward to talking to her later on.

Being chronologically Book V in the overall saga, and Book II in the second series, THE FIRST CITY arc.

The council informs Charles that due to genetic meddling and People playing Gods, including rogue council Members Theocratades and Giuis, the fabric of reality has been pushed too far and is collapsing unless 7 worlds are removed from existence. Charles ( with the help of Night-time Bob) has been selected to choose which 7 ( of 14 most likely candidate worlds) must be wiped out of reality by the council.

FRACTURED WORLDS is thus an examination, travelogue and ultimate weighing up of which worlds will live and which will die, a heavy decision to make and one which Chuck is torn about but knows has to be done nonetheless. 14 worlds are examined and seven will be shut down on his word. This will have HUGE ramifications in later books and ultimately on how his life and thei universe will play out in the last trilogy.

Coming off of the events of the ' Isolation' trilogy, the second series of books in the Chuck Peake saga moves onto the First City, the mysterious city that Charles came across during the mirror prince book and which he immediateyl recognises as all do who come across it. Charles returns to the first city where he is summoned to a council meeting and asked to become an agent of the city in return for answers as to his past and a chance to have a future.

The city is the nexus, the place where reality began and where things are at their strongest and most potent. All other worlds spun off of the first city, but like photocopies of photocopies, they lose coherence and adherence to real power that the first city still possesses and always will.

There are regions of the first city where time is mapped onto a physical domain and can be traversed as such.

Charles discovers truths and lies in his first errands he runs for the city.

The final trilogy builds upon everything and concludes the overall arc, or story thrust of Charles Peake and assorted other characters.

Third trilogy is the wrap-up

Book I: The Last city
Book II: Forgotten Worlds
Book III: A better place



Book I :' The last city' is showing Charles his death and his final fate; question is whether it is written as destiny or whether it is just an idea or one possible path. Last city book-ends the first city idea and the progression of everything living towards entropy- except for night-time Bob. In this book, Charles travels to the last city and must restore the city to its place of power amongst the universal decision makers in order for the universe to die and remake itself properly. Ties in with the idea of universal balance.

Book II: ' Forgotten Worlds' involves the world Charles and Bob saved and or/damned to destruction and the ramifications of said choices and how it affects universal development. Chuck also sees some old friends and finds a part of the first city he had never seen before. Some choices chuck made were right, some were wrong. Again, the idea of balance. A young Chuck Peake kills an alien impersonating Charles Peake and escapes through an alleyway person door device.

Book III: ' A better place' is the resolution to the main storylines and the setup for any further CP stories. This shows if the events of the last city will occur or if reality will take a different path. It also makes Charles come face to face with the truth about himself, his frozen years and everything he's done since as an agent of the first city. Bob dies in this book, that history should be restored to it's proper path, as he's known he would have to. But part of him is in Chuck's memories as he is time itself allowed to unravel and repair the past. Somewhere, another chuck Peake wakes up and his family did not disappear and he is allowed to experience life as a normal child would because of Bob's discorporation.

It all ends with Chuck in the garden of the first city, being given a new title as council member. ( is he Gaius? )

Series of three trilogies I think would cover most things except miscellanies and vagaries, which can be sorted at other times anyway.

Three clearly different yet all inter-connected and continuity based sagas.

First trilogy is the aforementioned ' Isolation' saga or the ' Frozen years'

Book I: Frozen Time
Book II: The Kingdom
Book III: The Mirror Prince.

Second Trilogy is Centred around the First City and Chuck's growing relationship with them and his ongoing journey and understanding of the world he comes from and the universe he is beginning to become such an important part of.

Book I: The First City
Book II: Fractured Worlds
Book III: Illusions of life

Notes and quotes:

Book Three: The Mirror Prince

After provoking the war that tore the Kingdom apart, Chuck and Bob return to Earth but apparently back at the point that Earth froze at. Seeing a vision of himself as a child in a pond surface, Chuck realizes that he is back at the 'frozen' years again for some reason.

Note to self: Various ideas about frozen years

1) caused by chuck himself at the first city

2) caused by Alien race to correct Earth history- Chuck himself not affected as he is a fictional addition to Earth - his presence in the first city took him out of his own reality's frame of reference. Night-time bob is the history of the world the way it should have happened in the shape of a person.

3) Earth caught in a loop, unable to go beyond the end of the frozen years. Why is it in a loop? is it due to Chuck or some aspect of the first city? Has Earth just died or did someone higher up manipulate it- perhaps lose it in a bet? Are we looking at a Lords of order/chaos Moorcockian situation- certainly avoid that F**king horribly cliched chess idea but look at an overall shadowy hard to understand higher race if going with this explanation.

Also consider that as Chuck ascends to the position of FC Councillor at the end of Book 9- he may be Gaius and thus may be responsible for this situation.

4) Second trilogy of books to be set in place by end of ISOLATION trio- ideas involving the first city and Chuck being an out of place individual.

Notes and quotes:

Book Two: The Kingdom

Chuck travels to the Kingdom with the help of Night-time Bob in his new form after the events of the unfreezing at the end of book I. The world of the Alleyway People is bizarre and a strange mix of all the worlds they have placed their people on. They have never been invaded themselves as their world is situated outside of normal space/time so they are very unprepared for a stranger on their world. They have taken slaves from other worlds and refugees they have forced back to their own ( inhospitable and barren) world. Chuck instigates the fermenting revolutionary movement in the hopes of distracting them from their plans to completely take over his own world. Whilst on their world and taking part in the battle for the kingdom, Chuck and Bob come across the heart of the Alleyway People's travel secret and tap into the first city from where one can potentially travel to anywhere in reality. The first city will play a major role in later stories of Chuck and related characters.

Notes and quotes:

Book One: Isolation

' On the day after my seventh birthday,I woke up to find that everyone else on Earth had frozen over-night. Suddenly I was all alone' - Chuck

' We're both lost but that doesn't mean we have to be alone. We have each other to talk to and share ideas with. If we become friends in our travels together, well, that's a bonus. ' - Night-time Bob

' You don't know just how bad things will get; you have no conception of what you will be put through. I do. If you listen to me , you will have a chance of surviving. ' - The Mirror Prince

' We are survivors. We adapt to other people's worlds. That is our specialty, our way of life. Your world is perfect for us; that's why we are here and why we're not leaving. You can fight us if you like, but you're one small child and we're a whole race of people who have done this for thousands of your years. ' - General P Kwaizan of the Alleyway People

Notes:

Book One: Isolation

Time Slowing Down: The world has frozen time for some reason or another and the only human being native to this world left functioning is seven year old Chuck Peake.

Other characters: Other characters include assorted strange creatures from this plain of existence as well as visitors from mysterious other realms such as Night-Time Bob, the Alleyway People, The Mage, and various other oddballs. A key Character is the self-titled Mirror Prince who lets on to knowing much about the future and Chuck's upcoming travels. Chuck is suspicious of the mirror prince as he resembles an older version of Chuck himself but seems so changed, somewhat distant and sneering.

Alleyway People: These are humanoid characters who can somehow access 'shortcuts' in distance through alleyways and corridors. They come from a world only referred to as the ' kingdom' and whilst they don't take credit for slowing down Earth's population, they are certainly familiar with whoever is behind it and are seeking to take advantage of the process. They appear to be ' cuckoo' people who take over empty worlds or gradually incorporate their own people into another world's populace and live off of resources rather than creating their own.

Night-time Bob: Bob is connected to the Freezing that slowed down time on Earth but his memory does not go back to the actual event itself. Bob is sluggish during the day and only fully comes alive at night-time when his whole body changes to a shimmering green color and his mind becomes much more alert. Bob has great strength and other abilities he seems unaware of until they reveal themselves ( such as limb regrowth and self replication) such as the fight with the dog creatures in part two of Book I. Bob is terriffied of the Mirror Prince for some reason.

The Mage: The mage is from a world that has banished him due to him not carrying out his King's wishes in cursing a political enemy. A council of other magic users banished him to this world, coinciding with the freezing. The Mage is familiar with the alleyway people, his world having gotten rid of them some hundred years ago. He is trying to find a point on our Earth where he can overcome the banishment spell and go back to his own world. He knows more than he lets on but genuinely seems to have Chuck's best interests at heart. He foresees Chuck's travelling to another world in Book II and gives him advice to get through everything he will encounter.

Notes:

Book One: Isolation

A 7 year old boy wakes up and discovers that everybody else has vanished. Setting out to try and figure out what has happened, Chuck soon finds out that the world is a phenomenally strange place even without other people in it.

Time has slown down except for young Chuck Peake. Setting out to discover what has happened, Chuck travels over a space of ten years. On his travels, he encounters a grown-up version of himself who calls himself the mirror prince, a being made entirely of darkness called Night-time Bob, an ancient magician who has been banished from his home-world for refusing to curse an enemy of his king's and many other fascinating characters.

During the course of the book, time slowly speeds up again as Chuck grows older. The mysterious group of Mages he dubs the 'Alleyway people' who can travel to faraway places via alleyways or corridors, are fighting to keep time slowed down so they can continue to take over the frozen world and let more of their own people in.

Ten years on, Chuck doesn't know how he will adapt if time is restored and the frozen people restored to the same time-line as himself.





Book Two: The Kingdom

Time has been restored, leaving Chuck Peake as the only human being on Earth who knows of the threat of the Alleyway people and the other bizarre creatures who have appeared since the world stopped some 10 yrs ago. It is only through Chuck following the Alleyway's trail that he can put a final stop to their plans and also get some answers as to what happened to his world and why he was the only one left awake and unfrozen during the 10 years.


Book Three: Mirror Prince

After the events of book II and the battle of the kingdom, Chuck returns to Earth but he comes back to an Earth that is frozen once again, or is it?
Finding himself at the start of his travels from Book I, Chuck has to untangle a web of deceit and face personal ghosts before he will unravel the truth behind what has happened to his life and his world.