Elsewhere,

"Hi Curtis, ready to go for basketball?"
"Hey Jonah, hey Kasumi. You bet I am, I'm all set and raring to go."
Curtis gets up Jonah's blue Cadillac. Jonah then puts pedal to the metal and a surge of adrenaline pumping acceleration his all 3 passengers in his Cadillac. It was a modified prototype model that his company was testing, packed with a turbo boosted 600 horsepower engine capable of 0-100 in undder 4.2 seconds. Running purely on electricity, it could burn up to 6 hours of road time at max speeds. Stop by any point with a 3 pin consumer plug and you could charge it up to full in a matter of hours. Straightening his body as the car enters constant velocity on the highway Jonah gets slapped by both Curtis and Kasumi.

"Hey what was that for?"Jonah grunted in protest,"Reckless driving," came the short, curt and synchronous reply. Laughing it off, Jonah turned up the stereos and continued the drive. Within minutes, they arrive at the ball park. turning around a few bends to arrive at the parking lot they spot a red dodge viper vsx-270's with a charger hooked on its base.

"Look who's here!! He's always so early, I wonder why he wants the new prototype engineput into his car. He's always earlier than we are even without it."
"Stop complaining Jon, you have to avoid all those people in the office that's why."Answers Kasumi. They get down to the court and see Raymond warming up.

Hearing familiar voices I stood up and saw Jonah, Curtis and Kasumi up in the stands. Beckoning them to come down and join me i pointed to my bag at a corner of the court. I did a couple more stretches and headed to the side of the court to pick a basketball. Just as i was reaching for a ball, I heard a "thunk" followed by a scream.

chapter 2

"all who is light shall turn to dark,
all who is bright shall turn to rust,
all who smell nice shall change to musk,
like the day dawning into dusk,
as the earth dries to crust,
as all things in this world must,
go through this before they shall pass." - medicontherun

Hearing the words of ancients, a haggard lady stands up from her makeshift bed. Her once dulled grey eyes lighting up with a certain fiery spirit, as if she has just obtained utmost power.

From under the bar I take out my family's oldest heirloom, a traditional smurai sword. Intricately carved by a master craftsman is the hilt made of wood and metal mesh, the carvings bear the emblem of out family's crest. The blade made of the strongest metal of the time - titanium - is made to withstand the torture of time and slice through almost any material on earth. It is fully carved with interloping characters of unknown value or origin. A sword of a master, made by a master and passed down for generations, that should be a fitting title for it. Making a mental note i sit down to polish it. The blade is warm to the touch and used to have a blueish hue to it whenever i stroke it. However today the blue glow seem to glow fainter than usual, thinking its because of the aging of metal I didn't question further. I slowly slid the sword back into its sheath, and went on to prepare a packaged lunch to take to the court.

"Laa~.. la.." Singing as i did the recipe, i remembered the first time i tried to fry an egg. The result was disastrous i remember burning my mom's only frying pan, but she didnt get angry, instead she smiled and said "dont worry dear, you'll be great cook some day we all start this way."

"Ahhh...mom....where are u now.....?"

Stretching myself, i started looking around my studio suite penthouse. Consisting of 3 rooms, namely the kitchen, bedroom and lounge, the bathroom was in the bedroom so it did not constitute as a room. It was decorated with an early 21st century designer-cum-urban japanese look in mind. With all the doors open u could see everything from the bedroom. Just outside my bedroom is the lounge, with a platform and a Japanese short table with cushions for seats. A plasma flat screen display unit with laser speakers and a woofer completes my state-of-the-art home theater system. The live audio sound effects beat the traditional 5.1 sets of the early 2000's. I went on to take my early morning bath, heading into my all-blue bathroom i feel energized by the fresh mountain air blowing in through my window. This gust of air comes from the natural reserve at the back of this giant metropolis, that barely survives under government protection. I turned on the shower and closed the door. Streaming jets of water shot out from all sides, I pressed the soap dispenser and bubbles of foam shrouded the whole enclosure. Rinsing it all off i pressed the done button, anti-gravity kicked in and the lower part of the enclosure opened downwards, a strong vacuum then sucked off all soap and water. Once that was over i got out put on fresh clothes and headed to the kitchen. My kitchen was also built to suit the retro 2000's style. Aligned on the side near the wall is an oven cum heating element-stove, a sink with a dishwasher underneath and a refrigerator one the right, on the opposite end of it is a bar with studio chairs.

Ahhh, the annual share holder's meeting. The usual bore about how displeased they are about company traits and so on. What makes it worse is this old schemish shareholder. I am certainly not surprised if he has more of his weird questions to ask me this time around.these old men were in the same league as my father. They founded this corporation togetherwith him, sir Richard. F. Ramundaj. According to him, this company was built on a certain set of protocols which binds the overall stability of it. According to him, each of these 13 people represented each of the laws in this protocol. However he seemed to have been the sole leader in this protocol thing, for no one else dared question his authority. Even so, something he told me just before he died still lingers at the back of my head. He said that after his departure I would take the corporation and to be wary of the dark. I never found out what it meant.