Darkness...?
Suddenly there is an influx of light through a great horizontal door.
We are inside a CD player...a hand places a CD into the tray.
The tray slides closed and music starts to play.
We pan back from the CD player to see a plain and ordinary room...
...soon we are outside looking down upon this ordinary house.
We move away through the trees...the landscape...soon across the city.
Rising now we pull back through the sky looking down upon the earth...
...and slowly it shrinks into the familiar blue globe we know so well.
Our vision turns...increasing speed...Jupiter...Saturn...Uranus...Neptune.
Towards Lucida we fly...a hundred times or more?
Stars...more stars...a trillion stars all passing in a stream of time.
And time is on the brink of collapse here...reality shifts to a blur.
Our vision changes - an opaque barrier. Is this the end of the Universe?
Soon we are free of this membrane and it is clear...
...clear that all this distance we have travelled is contained...
...in a single glass jar sitting among thousands in a darkened LUCIDA CORP laboratory.
'RUN 415'.

What's left of the ship burns unretarded in a crumpled mess.
What's left of Hopper is in a very much similar state.
He's fallen into a crater near the wreckage of the ship.
But his mind's okay...for the moment at least.
He's quite conscious as his soul seeps away through his face...
...away from his crumpled body looking far out into space.
And soon man, I tell ya, he's flying Towards Lucida.
And what he sees, well...it's a galaxy.
A fucking galaxy hanging out there in space...
...and it's shaped like a question mark.
A giant fucking question mark.
Hopper wonders if it's a good sign?
Things begin to slow on his approach.
Soon Hopper is floating...spinning silently in space...
...and he can see faces in those wispy clouds of the galaxy.
Fucking weird faces.
He can also see an owl...a skull...a steam train?
Hopper doesn't know many things...but he does know that these are not good signs.
Yep, he's dying all right.
But Hopper is not so sure he wants to enter that giantly scary Question Mark.

Instantly he's back in the crater staring up at the clouds beyond Kantrell's beautiful face.
"Clouds..." he whispers.
Kantrell comforts Hopper as rain begins to fall.
Hopper points poignantly (rem 2001) towards the burning LUCIDA CORP logo.
"There's an owl..." says Hopper, now staring up at the sky. "Three Towers..."

Everything in this vision happens in threes...
Hopper is flying through a trilogy of skies.
In the distance...the three Towers of Absolution.
They are situated like three lucidian crosses.
Strange red lights high upon them flash in threes.
He saw them in a fever when he was three.
He knew if he died he would have to pass through the Three Towers.
The Tower of Sins will cleanse Hopper of his sinful memories - and there are certainly more than three.
The Tower of Lies will cleanse Hopper to unite the three entities of his Inner Core.
The Tower of Guilt will cleanse Hopper to prepare him to face the Trilogy and his Ultimate Resurrection.
Is it a galaxy where these three Adelaidian Towers reside...or is it just in his mind?
The owl? The skull? The train? Three Towers Towards Lucida.
"I don't wanna die..."

In the crater, Kantrell closes Hopper's eyes.
She kisses him and takes his hand - her first true love is gone.
Through her tears...the flames...the rain...
...she sees the LUCIDA CORP logo melt away on a burning wing.
Bot sees Hopper and it reminds him of his time of dying in the rain.
Hopper saved him back on CHAOS and he wishes he could do the same.
"A new heart won't save him...will it Miss?"
Kantrell nods in silence...there is no hope. Hopper is gone.
"Sleep now in the rain."

Dark scary ambience...
The lift rises...lights flash quickly...soon the door opens.
Slow heavy footsteps...an elegant hand...identity scan?
Behold the electric silhouette of...
R N KAREN.
She is dressed in curvy black body armour which barely conceals her full array
of weapons. Lean. Mean. Keen. Kantrell is gone - reborn...replaced by this
renegade that looks like she could take on the world.
RNK personifies the power of feminity...her quest is to seek out the truth.
If you were to meet her...you would certainly detect her cold embrace of rebellion.
Yes, she really is something - you would not forget R N Karen.

After some final enhancements, it's soon time to leave.
Karen is running a pre-flight on the ship...
"Why must you go there Miss?"
"I have to investigate this Corporation...find out about Hopper. Wait here in Duro."
"Very well Miss...if that is your desire?" Bot fails to hide his disappointment.
Soon Bot is watching the ship disappear into space...

"RUN 415..."
Karen, by chance, lands in Sector 415 - the rim of Lucida Corp.
Karen immediately feels uneasy in this rather strange place.
"The jar...?" thinks Karen. "The fucking jar in that vision was 415!"
And instantly Karen remembers what Bot said back on CHAOS...
"I'm sorry Miss. Override 415 - That information is classified."
The absurdity of these coincidences now show stress upon Karen's face.
"Run Karen. Run." Hoppers ghostly voice emanates from the darkness.
"Hopper? Is that you?"
"Run...415," echoes the patrol beacon. "Run...415."
Karen has no time to contemplate her sanity - she just runs.
"...RUN 415".

"Jesus..." says Karen to herself. "There's some weird shit going on around here..."
"What the fuck."
"What the hell is that?"
"Warning! Biological Malfunction."
There are some strange creatures in this place that Karen would rather not deal with.
She spies an open door and enters to catch her breath.
Karen surveys the room - it's a laboratory. Thankfully there is no one about.
Karen is at once astounded by the thousand Glass Jars.
They sit in rows of hundreds that seem to stretch away for miles.
Karen gets the feeling that she's been here before as she runs her hand lightly
over a jar - and it's quite hideous what's inside. The label reads "RUN 9960."
"Hmm..." says Karen quietly. "Seems like they store their latest first - smart bastards."
Karen takes her time and wanders around the rows. Some of the jars are quite
spectacular...others in biological torture send a chill down Karen's spine.
"Don't fink I'm gonna find 415 here..."
Karen is quite mystified by the giant ant that hangs suspended in Jar 9732. [rem B.R.]
"There must be other rooms?"

Karen is quite right - there are other rooms. Lots of other rooms.
Karen creeps through a labyrinth of corridors...a stream of doors lure her deep into the Labs.
Soon she is trying a door which she is pleased to find unlocked.
This lab is similar to the last - a thousand Glass Jars bubble mystically.
Karen checks the first row...a strange translucent egg glows in Jar 999.
"Huh ha!" whispers Karen, a little excited now. "This is it."
Karen rushes to row 401-500 - she looks at the labels and counts down the jars.
"450...440...435...430...420...417...shit!" says Karen looking as vacant as slot 415.
"It's not here!?" Karen can't believe it - she double checks. "RUN 413...414..."
"Nope...415 ain't ere." Karen looks around but the jar is nowhere to be found.
Karen rests her arms in the empty slot and stares dejectedly into Jar 416.
Karen is mesmerized - do a trillion galaxies percolate in this jar?
Karen considers the notion - the paradox of the profound vision...could a jar contain
her Universe? How could she be looking at it? And why this maternal need to protect it?
Karen needs to know more and heads Towards Lucida...Corp?

Karen, after a brief feeling of sadness, feels strangely confident as she strides
towards Lucida Corp. She feels like nothing can stop her.
But this place is weird man - the darkest place yet.
Karen stops to admire some beautiful shimmering lights that surround her.
Karen wonders if she is dying...she must fight it....she must keep walking.
"This is your last chance," says Hopper, fading like a ghost in the shadows.
"Shut up Hopper..." says Karen battling her sanity. "You're dead!"
She can feel them toying with her mind. She knows she must be close.
"This is your last dance..." repeats Hopper.
Karen keeps walking with stout resolution but this vision, it's beautiful - it stops
her in her tracks.
"Hopper...?" says Karen timidly.
"Warning!"
Unfortunately for Karen these beautiful visions have been
specifically tailored to confuse her - and soon they succeed.
"Hopper?" screams Karen. "Is that you?"
"Warning! - Intruder Alert!"
Unseen eyes watch poor Karen on a remote monitor...
and soon she's completely surrounded.

Karen is trapped and soon restrained by the Lucida Corp security.
She finds herself in prison with some other wretched souls.
Are these men condemned?
A Priest comes to see the men in jail.
Karen looks at his collar. There's a silver cross and a gold number - 145.
Karen thinks back to another sad time - a time when she was sixteen.
"The Fourth Wave...? whispers Karen to herself. "The Fourth Wave."

There is no escape from the Ring Of Shadows that surround a desperate mind.
The men are not coping well with their impending executions and this is reflected
upon Karen's face who, in this dark time, considers all that has happened.
"I don't wanna die..."
Karen thinks about Hopper and it is only now that she understands the full
implications of this statement, now with her own life in such peril.
And where is that Bot, her oldest and most trusted friend?
Frying up an omelette she expects.
Some guards come for Karen and escort her to Termination Central.

But the Bot is not frying up an omelette - he's creeping into Lucida Corp...
"Activate Ring Of Shadows."
Bot dims his transparency, concealing his physical presence which is soon only
betrayed by a pair of purple eyes.

Bot, invisibly, hacks into a computer outside Termination Central.
"Interrogation interrupted! Unexpected error..."
Karen is in a chair surrounded by machines that retract their torturous devices.
The door slides open and Bot is there - and yes, he's here to save her.
"I could not let you die Miss..."
Karen smiles...she remembers saying the very same thing to Bot on CHAOS.
So it seems like they're sorta even now?
RNK and the Bot are unbeatable as a team - a fact well proven by the trail of
unconscious bodies that soon litter the halls of their escape.
Karen preps the ship on the run, remotely...soon they arrive and after a frantic
few seconds take off into the safety of space.

Daitana is a lovely system to fly through - very pretty from space.
Karen stands transfixed...staring in awe out of the main portal.
In the darkened cockpit Bot's face is lit by a series of coloured lights.
And outside the stars...the beautiful stars of Daitana.

"You okay?"
Karen's reflection hovers out amongst the stars - she is in deep thought as
she looks out into space. She wonders if it makes any sense?

Home at last...darkness creeps across the ancient Daitanian rainforest...

"Er...Miss," says Bot. "I need to go offline for a while."
"Me too..." says Karen closing her eyes.
Bot sits down and whispers "Defrag initiated."
Strange robotic dreams filter through his memories...?

"This is your last chance."
She remembers her escape...a perfect day at the beach - she was only sixteen.
She remembers being swept from the shallows in a riptide of confusion.
She remembers the Three Towers...three towering waves of absolution.
She remembers the first monstrous wave hammering her frail body under the water.
She remembers the second wave tumbling her down to the ocean floor.
She remembers the third wave holding her breathless for an eternity.
She remembers her time under water...a terror facing death.
She will not survive another wave...now so low on breath.
"This is your last chance."
It is only the last of her inner reserves that turn her towards the sun.
Exhaustion streams from her suffocating body...and she knows in the darkest
depths of her soul...that a fourth wave will certainly end her life.
She struggles towards the light and finally reaches air...
...where the sea in calm good fortune holds no fourth wave to bear.
Yes, she remembers her drowning of death...the glimpse of the brightest star.
And now, over time, she has come to realize that the Fourth Wave is still out there
...looming...building...ever restless with dark currents that swirl within her mind.

R N Karen relaxes in a chair.
Bot is whipping up another omelette.
"Is it time to play some music Miss?"
"I remember..." says Karen consumed by thought. "Hopper once said to me that
death is just a journey to the brightest star. And I hope he's right you
know...because we are all on that journey - everyday of our lives.
We are all heading relentlessly towards...?"

"Lucida...?" suggests Bot.
"Yes..." says Karen. "That's one way of putting it...Towards Lucida."

Suddenly there is an influx of light through a great horizontal door.
The CD player? A hand places a CD into the tray.
The tray slides closed and music starts to play.

The vision appears with a blinding flash - The Jar!
'RUN 415'
And it's still there in the laboratory bubbling healthily.
But Jar 415 is not where it should be, safely in Row 400; it's in a bay -
and this bay envelopes some other jars which do not bubble so buoyantly.

And above this bay, spelling doom for the jars below, the impending sign...

"FOR DISPOSAL"

What horror is in these eyes that stare now into darkness?