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Brimstone's mercurial reactions have only succeeded at placing Booths
in a similarly manic state of mind. The two of them glance at each
other, intimately close, but brought together out of fear and
tragedy. Both might have cracked a smile at the absurdity of their
situation, if the sound of Fleming's final screech were not so fresh
in their memories. And then there's warrant officer Leon, cozy and
warm on the USS Gaines, ten kilometers of vacuum separating him from
whatever's running loose around this ship. The android seems to be
deliberately making things more difficult, but to voice it openly
would be grounds for a reprimand. Maybe he's just doing his job.
Maybe he's an asshole. Maybe it's both.
The two soldiers have considered their options. They can sit in the
APC, cut off from the rest of the troops, until somebody shows up, or
until nobody shows up. One of them could try to run back to the crew
decks, like Booths has volunteered to do, in order to warn the others
and get them safely back to the transport. They both know sending one
man out alone, even a smartgunner, is against everything they were
trained for. Assuming that whatever got Fleming carried off Duarte
and Sabo as well, moving around in a group of any size is still a
risk.
What they need are answers. There might be answers in the officer's-
eyes-only communique, just a few deft keystrokes away, if only one of
them knew Fleming's code. Vitelli might be able to break the code
with his electronics gear, but it would be grounds for a court
martial, even if it unlocked every secret they would need to get out
of this mess alive. Leon could override the security lock with a
touch of a switch, if only his behavioral inhibitors weren't so
goddamn effective.
Every second they spend in the APC increases the chances that the
others will be caught unaware. If the rest of the company begins to
worry about Brimstone and Booths, they might come back looking for
them, and run into the great unknown, ending up like Duarte, Sabo,
and Fleming. Neither of them seems to have enough imagination to
conjure up a proper scenario for what might have happened to them, or
what may have crept through the darkness to snatch them away.
Behind Brimstone, on a command station monitor showing the APC's
forward view, Booths sees nothing but black. He's not sure why that
should strike him as important. Then it occurs to him that the
cycling red lights that had been flashing intermittantly in the cargo
area must have stopped. Maybe the reserve power has finally quit, or
maybe the power has been cut. He pushes Brimstone aside to check
other camera views, and each shows him the same, dead picture. No
power.
PFC BOOTHS posted by Asmodean 12.25.99
"Something seems to have turned off the emergency lights," he says
simply. Several ideas flash into his mind. He turns back to
Brimstone. His dark eyes gleam in the semi-twilight of the APC,
gleaming with something even a psychologist would be hard-pressed to
define.
"A couple of rounds from the Bitch ought to bring them back. Or, we
could use Leon and the Gaines to patch into the comm gear on the
bridge somehow. Could we get Vitelli to broadcast shipwide?" He gives
a lopsided grin. "Or I could hightail it out there with the shoddy
and find 'em."
CPL BRIMSTONE posted by Aaron 12.28.99
"I don't want to be alone in here any more than you want to be alone
out there," says Brimstone rationally. "There's two many unknowns
right here. We've got to get to the rest of the team." She sees the
sense in taking less, rather than more equipment with her. She drops
all her ammo, everything down to her incinerator and extra tanks. She
does, however, hang onto her helmet, which she buckles tightly under
her chin.
"I'll cover you, Booths," she says with a smile. She kicks the sentry
gun boxes away from the door to make room for a quick rush out into
that cold, dark space. She waits for her team mate to get into
position and prepares to pull the door open. "On three... One...
Two..."
PFC BOOTHS posted by Asmodean 12.28.99
Is today a good day to die? That immediately begs the question: Is
today a good day for someone else to die?
The thought drifts moodily around Booths' mind. He smiles
rakishly. "Always knew you had it in you, Stone." He doesn't both to
recover the scrim. He simply shrugs his shoulder and lets loose the
strap.
The Mossberg obligingly slides down his arm and into his waiting
hands. A quick twist, and it comes right side up. The possibility of
action, the smell of cordite, the whizz of bullets cutting the air...
these have a gone a long way to calm Booths. At least he'll he doing
something, he muses.
He doesn't wrap the sling about his arms, as some are wont to do. He
prefers to have free action. He locks the stock under his shoulder,
keeping the barrel down, setting his feet.
He almost cracks a smile at Brimstone's nervous countdown, but waits
dutifully until the space after the third digit. "Semper fi," he
whispers, bringing up the shotgun, preparing to shoot anything on the
other side.
When the door opens, the two soldiers see only pitch black.
Brimstone's tracker clicks its electronic heartbeat. Everything's
clear for about 40 meters. Booths doesn't rush out to get
slaughtered. Rather, he quickly walks the barrel of his shotgun along
his POV* and moves out in a hurry, heading for the nearest cover,
which is the APC itself. He keeps his back to it as long as he can,
moving toward the partially-opened cargo door leading back in the
general direction of the crew decks.
When they reach the cargo door, Brimstone covers her point man with
her own rifle, making sure he's safe and under before heading in
herself. The ice-cold storage chamber would be less eerie for its
familiarity, but having heard Fleming's final outburst... better just
to keep moving and make sure the tracker is...
Brimstone immediately thinks she's getting a trick signal, ghost
impressions from the structure. Sometimes when you move quickly, you
can create temporary motion impressions off of just about everything.
Brimstone smacks the tracker and pans it behind them, into the
darkness of the unexplored section of this cargo bay. Booths can hear
the tracker's whistle, and stands back-to-back with Brimstone while
she tries to get a clear reading.
CPL BRIMSTONE posted by Aaron 12.29.99
"Booths, I think we're in trouble." She shows the tracker screen to
him, and adjusts the settings to be sure she's got the damn thing on
the right filter. The blobs of motion reports at the edge of the
tracker's range draw in closer. "Fifteen meters and closing," she
whispers. "Looks like a goddamn swarm."
Booths, taking a quick glance, doesn't like what he sees. It's
the biggest signal he's ever seen. Looks like twenty guys moving in
ragged formation, and heading their way, no doubt about it. Weird
movement patterns, and big signals. Fifteen meters doesn't sound like
a lot, but whatever's out there is definitely beyond the range of
their shoulder lamps.
Brimstone backpedals, and tries to be sure she's got a clear exit
toward the crew decks. Her incinerator hangs within easy reach, the
igniter burning with its hot blue flame. "Whatever happens, stay with
me, Booths," she says, more of a request than an order. She continues
to move backward toward the crew section, splitting her attention
between the tracker, the positions she imagines the signals to occupy
in the darkness, and the maze of crates and boxes between her and the
crew deck. She doesn't worry about Booths too much: he knows how to
take care of himself.
The soldiers manage to back up about 5 meters, but the signals
are moving faster. "Ten meters," Brimstone announces, almost
unbelieving. They should be seeing something by now, but they aren't.
There's still about 40 meters between themselves and the crew decks.
This cargo bay, they decide silently, has too many places to hide.
PFC BOOTHS posted by Asmodean 12.30.99
Acting on a strange impulse, his gut churning and writhing, Booths
looks up at the high ceiling.
It's moving. Booths is the first to glimpse the dark, heavy forms
moving effortlessly along the scaffolding on the ceiling, hanging
upside. Whatever they are, they're big and black and glossy.
Something skeletal and insectile about their design, multi-limbed
monstrosities three meters long, with long segmented tails.
Completely alien. He absorbs the nightmare image only long enough to
watch at least two of the things leap down from the ceiling, landing
only meters away... directly ahead of he and Brimstone.
CPL BRIMSTONE posted by Aaron 12.30.99
"Booths, get 'em!" she shouts, on pure instinct, pure panic. Leaving
the pair of bugs in front of her to her partner, she tilts back on
her hips and directs the incinerator toward the ceiling. Pulling the
napthalm trigger, she sprays at an angle toward the roof, splashing
hot fire down the walls. Hoping to illuminate, hoping to exterminate.
GM: Brimstone aims a sheet of fire toward the roof, splaying down the
wall. She lucks out and catches two of the things in the spray, but
watches in horror as they continue to crawl across the ceiling,
moving overhead and past them, dripping fire, and something that
splashes onto her helmet and begins to sizzle.
Booths is in a state of mind in which panic translates very well into
doing the right thing. But everything's moving! And nothing's showing
up on infrared! One of the aliens dead ahead moves in toward him,
hideously close, it's arms around him.
Pulling the trigger! Booths doesn't know what he did right, but the
thing has been blown back five meters. A surreal "hiss" cuts through
the ringing in his ears, and his nostrils are filled with an acrid,
chemical burning smell.
To their left, a blur of motion. To their right, another blur, caught
in Booths' lamp. A grotesque head, overlong and ridged, eyeless like
a worm and grinning with a ragged maw of transparent fangs or
something. Impossible nightmare creature. It uncoils, unfurls,
blossoms, whatever you want to call it. Many arms unfold out of the
black, writhing mass. Crooked legs extend beneath it, vertebral tail
looping weightless, standing to its full height.
Liquid fire is pooling around several crates near the cargo door. A
shadowy form moves sillouetted against the harsh yellow flames, and
there's movement everywhere they point their lights. There's too much
going on in here.
PFC BOOTHS posted by Asmodean 12.31.99
Icewater rages through Booths' veins. The barrel of his shotgun sags
and he turns his head upwards, following the blur of movement on his
left. Brimstone's not looking that way: she's worrying about the
burning aliens moving behind them on the ceiling. Booths' eyes
narrow. "Today is not a good day to die!" The barrel barely wavers.
He aims it at the strange creature: a cross between an ant and a
human, twisting to scream into the harsh beam from Booths' shoulder
lamp. His finger squeezes the shotgun's trigger, which obligingly
roars in response, as a cartridge primer ignites to propel the shot
along.
The creature tumbles backward, momentarily kept at bay. The shotgun's
recoil, as Booths knows, jerks the gun slightly up and to the right.
He moves with it, hopefully getting the muzzle in line for a second
shot at the other creature. He snaps back the slide and--
Something smacks hard against his side, cutting him open with a
sharp edge. He feels the flesh splitting, and some appendage
withdrawing, slick with blood.
He fires again, at close range, finding one of the aliens practically
breathing in his ear. The shotgun discharges into the thing's armpit,
blowing the limb from its torso, and showering them both in a fine
spray. The creature staggers and topples, and Booths feels a slight
tingling on the backs of his hands. The shotgun's barrel is smoking
unnaturally in his lamp light. Everything beyond his lamp is moving,
cutting off their path back to the APC.
CPL BRIMSTONE posted by Aaron 12.31.99
"These fucking things bleed acid!" screams Brimstone, ripping off her
helmet and dropping it. She hopes Booths takes care of her ass, and
douses the ceiling just ahead of the aliens up there, intent on
cutting off their escape route.
The incinerator sends out a spout of fire at the aliens, still
burning, still moving along toward the crew decks. With the
additional burst of heat, one of the aliens simply explodes! A great
yellow burst of acid and exoskeleton falls to the floor, still on
fire, melting straight through the solid metal deck. The other alien
loses its grip and slams hard next to its dead buddy. The second
alien thrashes around for a moment, like a beetle on its back, before
it, too, turns into an acid bomb.
Brimstone's face is locked in a bitter frown as she tries to keep her
head together. Hearing Booths' shotgun blasts behind her gives her
some confidence. She spins to face whatever is still behind.
GM: Crooked, wiry arms reach out of the shadows for Brimstone's
shoulders. She hardly has a chance to react before the thing has its
claws around the braces of her armor. She's lifted off her feet and
yanked into a windy darkness.
Booths watches her go up and up, out of his view. He's only vaguely
aware of the implications of what he's witnessing.
PFC BOOTHS posted by Asmodean 1.1.00
A scream of primal rage bursts from Booths. The pain, both from the
fine acid eating at his skin and flesh and the cut along his side,
serve only to amplify the emotion.
The chaos all around reflects his current state of mind, and suddenly
he feels as if he's ina vacuum.
"Brimstone!" he howls, like a wild thing, a berzerker. Brimstone was
gone.
He pumps the Mossberg. A cartridge enters the chamber. "Semper fi!"
he cries, as a shot rings out.
One of the aliens recoils amid a shower of sparks, falling onto
its back.
Booths not only uses the shotgun for its shells: he uses his entire
body, including the sturdy rifle to fight, as if possessed. Booths
tries to find an opening back toward the APC and his beloved
smartgun. Three of the things, at least three, glisten in his lamp-
light, less than ten meters ahead, cutting off his path to the APC.
PFC BOOTHS posted by Asmodean 1.3.00
Booths' eyes narrow. The Mossberg, which should only leave a cloud of
vapor when shot at this range, is only putting them down for a short
count. His side is a dull ache, and his hands burn. At the moment,
it's bearable, for he recognizes that his adrenaline has kept him
clear. But if he allowed himself time to rest...
He pulls the trigger at the closest glistening carapace. The shotgun
roars. He slings the weapon over his shoudler, and grabs for grenades
hooked on his belt. One hand snatches a frag; the other closes around
a Willy Peter. He pulls hard, priming the little sucker, backpedals.
He casts the frag to the right, and the white phosphorous grenade to
the left, turns and takes a running dive for the dubious cover of a
container on his right.
Vitelli struggles with the Korea's Mind Bank for several minutes,
trying to locate any details from the ship's log or medical files. He
finds an ecrypted flight journal entry made by Hollenbeck, Sandra M.,
dated 6.25.79 0226. It's unusual for a simple journal entry to be
kept under such security, which immediately makes it interesting to
him. Cracking the password takes him all of ten seconds using the
bypass kit.
Just hours after filing this entry, she added the following. It's the
last entry in the ship's flight journal, dated 6.25.79 0545.
McKenzie leans over Vitelli's shoulder, reading the entries with a
mixture of fascination and horror. "That thing's still on the ship.
That's why the crew's dead," he says, almost in a panic. Vitelli can
sympathize. He gets on the comm and begins to summarize the info for
anybody listening in on the comm. McKenzie takes the liberty of
moving out into the hallway, checking either direction with the
smartgun vibrating in his grasp.
In the cryo bay, Patwardhan wonders what Vitelli's talking about, but
quickly gets the drift. She takes one look at the stranger in the
tube, checking the readout on his status. He's about half-way thawed,
and it's far too late to try to put him back into stasis. Once the
cells are on their way back to normal function, it's lethal to being
the freezing process again. Minimum wake time is four hours before
return to stasis. That's the rules. Anything less gives him about a
90% chance of cardiorespiratory failure. He's on his way, but that
doesn't mean he can't be kept sedated for the interim.
Berliner's staring at Patwardhan, but his gaze is miserable, rather
than lusty. The last thing he wants is to run into whatever "forcibly
ruptured" through the other colonist's stomach. McKenzie's comment
might as well have been his own.
Moore and Morrison have moved through all of the open areas of C deck
without spotting anything else out of the ordinary, and are beginning
to relax while returning to the cryo bay to rejoin Doc and Berliner
when they hear Vitelli's stunning news. They enter the freeze
chamber, scaring the devil out of the marines waiting for them there.
They're beginning to assemble a picture of what happened on the
Korea. It arrived at Acheron on schedule, bringing down supplies to
the colony as it had fourteen years in a row. This time, when they
got down there, some colonists had taken ill, infected or infested by
some kind of unknown parasite. Seems the colonists were digging
around on their home turf when they ran across some kind of
spacewreck. Something in or near that wreck got into the colonists.
Having no spacecraft of its own, the colony was fortunate that the
Korea arrived when it did. They believed that by sending two infested
colonists back with the Korea, they might be saved at the extensive
medical facitilies aboard space station Rodina, which is the supply
ship's home port. The colonists were brought up to the ship, and one
of them, Sherman, was put in a freezer for the trip. The other one,
kind of inexplicably, was up and talking, although he couldn't
remember jack. That poor guy apparently succumbed to something that
jumped out of his guts and ran off.
The Korea crew made plans to capture the thing. A few hours go by
without the crew leaving a note, and the ship's computer, Brother,
calls the whole situation screwy, decides to initiate the autonav,
and screams out a distress signal.
A couple of weeks later, the cavalry arrives. The Korea's off course,
and it's going to miss Rodina without some manual re-direction. The
ship's power is running dangerously low. The crew's nowhere to be
found. There's a hole burned through two decks and evidence of a
shotgun discharge. There's a pair of stinky boots in a closet. A crew
airlock's outer hatch is gaping open.
Whatever happened here, it hasn't left enough clues to help the
Colonial Marines decide on a proper course of action. Their first two
objectives, to reach the bridge and the cryo bay, have yielded little
useful information. The one person who might be able to shed some
light on the matter, the colonist Sherman in the cryo tube, may carry
the same disease that killed Stansfield, and presumably the Korea
crew as well.
However, there's one conclusion that's easy to draw after forty
minutes aboard this ship: Brother's not the only one who's decided
this whole situation is a little fucked up.
PFC PATWARDHAN posted by Max 12.25.99
Patwardhan looks at the man in the cryo tube as if she's trying to x-
ray him with her eyes. Through the fogged glass, she tries to make
out any sign of abnormality from the reported parasitic infection.
GM: Doc's been "examining" him visually for some time now. He's such
a good-looking guy, it's a shame to think he might suffer some
terrible demise as a result of parasitic infestation. His naked torso
seems intact enough, muscular but not overly, and no unusual growths,
lesions, or bruising. He's got a marine's physique. Probably works in
construction rather than colony administration. His color is good,
the usual pallor of cryo sleep. Pulse and respiration are normal for
cryo, according to the bio-readout, but rising gradually as the
stasis drugs slowly metabolize out of his system. Nothing unusual in
the brainwave scans. He's dreaming, deep in REM sleep. Funny to think
about that, and a little disturbing. He slept through whatever
happened here. Doc read somewhere that the few minutes before waking
from cryo are full of dreams, but she's never remembered a one of
hers.
"I want to get him to the medlab here as soon as he's warm," she says
authoritatively. "A full scan and a battery of tests may tell us
something about what the hell is going on here. If there is some kind
of parasite, I want to know what we can do about it." She starts
gathering up her equipment. "Let's do a sweep of the medlab so that
there's no surprises waiting for us when our friend here thaws--"
GM: The lights burn out on B and C crew decks. A ventilation fan set
into one wall rattles as it slows and comes to a stop. Shoulder lamps
swing through the darkness of the cryo bay. Patwardhan's patient will
be fine, since his cryo support equipment is supplied by its own
power cells. She doesn't want to guess what other systems might be
failing, though.
Down in the Mind Bank, Vitelli's working on finding the medlab scans
on the parasite when the lights wink out and Brother shuts his eyes.
He joins McKenzie in the hallway after smashing his knee on the hard
angle of one of the consoles. Rifle in hand, he covers the
smartgunner's back while guessing that the power outage is probably
due to a short in the system. It might just be that the autosensors
that turned on all the additional life support functions have run out
of juice. That might only be temporary, if the cells are self-
charging. The worst case scenario is that the power reserves are all
used up. In that case, it's going to get cold in here pretty quickly,
and then it's going to get impossible to breathe.
Might be time to pack up and go, thinks McKenzie, even without all
the comtech training. The smartgunner looks tense and uncertain. They
both wait for the Mind Bank's hatch to close on its own, as have all
the doors they've passed through so far. It remains open long enough
to dash their hopes of a limited power failure.
Vitelli knows that crew sections aboard these ships are given a very
high priority for power distribution. When lights go out, that's not
such a big deal. Autosensors can all be manually overridden, so
they'll still be able to move through doors with a shove. But when
the Mind Bank goes blank, they've got a serious problem. That could
mean a complete power loss. He does some quick calculations in his
head. Any way he adds it up, the solution is the same: get some power
or get moving. He begins to imagine crawling around in the access
tunnels, tying wires together by hand. Needless to say, the idea
doesn't appeal to him.
PVT VITELLI posted by Nino 12.26.99
His heart is pounding. He wishes he had had the time to scan for
personal data implants, or some other ID locator the crew might have
been wearing. That would have simplified their search a little,
pinpointing the missing crew members rather than sweeping the whole
ship.
Vitelli curses at himself as he accidentally bumps into McKenzie in
the darkened hallway. "Jesus Christ, you scared me," he says. Both of
the men have switched to their infrared eyepieces. "What should we
do? You think we should make our way back to Booths and Brimstone at
the APC?" McKenzie senses the fear in the comtech's voice.
SGT MOORE posted by Marton 12.26.99
"Vitelli? McKenzie, sound off."
"We're here, Sarge."
"Hold your position. We're on our way up to you."
Sergeant Moore is having a shitty day. He's on personal high alert,
but outwardly trying to express a mood just slightly less keyed up
than homicidally paranoid. "Time to go. Patwardhan: freeze that sorry
son of a bitch. I don't care what happens to his internal organs,
we're not taking a chance on him. Berliner: you're on the tracker.
Morrison: take us back up to B deck and get us out the same way we
got in. Keep it tight and let's move."
He waits for the troops to fall in line and pushes them all toward
the room with the ladder well. On the way, he barks into the
comm, "Bravo team, we'll meet you on B deck at the ladder." He knows
Brimstone and Booths are probably out of range while on their little
errand, but he can't help wondering if the power outage has something
to do with them.
PVT MCKENZIE posted by Jody 12.27.99
"Oh, fuck, man," McKenzie groans as the lights begin to go out. He
frantically scans the corridor with his targeting reticle. "Shit,
Nino. I'm all for seein' some action, but stuck on some goddamned
ghost ship with an organ-bursting parasite when the power fails...
That's over the top.
"Hey, Sarge," Mac yells down the deck ladder, despite the comm unit
right on his head. "What do ya say? Are we fuckin' RTB or what?"
*Ready to bail(?) I think. The message is clear enough, though. :)
PFC BERLINER posted by Khan 12.27.99
"I've got this terrible feeling like the power ain't coming back on,"
says Berliner, hopelessly. "I remember one time, in third grade--"
Someone tells him to shut up. Accepting defeat this once, he stomps
out his cigarette, grabs the tracker, and starts to head down the
ladder after Morrison. He watches intently for any signals, expecting
to see Brimstone and Booths show up any time.
Only a steady, quiet beep. Nobody except marines for the nearest
20 meters or so.
It doesn't take long for everybody to climb up to B deck and join
Vitelli and McKenzie. Morrison takes the point again as they all
begin to head back to the APC. Everybody's a little grateful to be
calling this one quits. Nobody's taken more than a few steps before a
hollow sound echoes through the corridor. It's distant, but each of
them recognizes it right away: a shotgun blast.
As Morrison leads the troops down a coridoor and through a hatch
leading into the galley, another shot is heard, and another. It's not
some sawed-off ship shotgun, but a Mossberg, no doubt about it.
Snippets of Brimstone's frantic transmissions come through their
headset's sporadically. Sounds like she just said, "Needing..."
something. "Fucking" something or other. Funny how you can always
make out the cursing. She and Booths are in trouble, and Morrison's
taking a shortcut toward the cargo compartment they seem to be
transmitting from.
Each hatch they come to requires brute strength to force open. He
teams up with Berliner to push the doors apart before sprinting
across the room, past workout machines, to a hatch on the opposite
side. Again, he and Berliner push the door open and step through.
Moving toward the final hatch back into the cargo deck, they pass the
ragged acid-burn in the flooring.
SGT MOORE posted by Marton 1.1.00
The Sarge tries to keep his cool, determined to move his people in to
help Brimstone and Booths. He takes each turn carefully, making sure
to follow the procedure to protect his own. Since McKenzie's in the
patched-together squad, Moore orders him to take point, with Berliner
and Morrison as his cover. Moore, Vitelli, and Patwardhan form
another loose trio for back-up. He gets them all to move efficiently,
quickly, trying to find his missing squad mates.
"Move it! We are at situation red! Time to kick some ass!" When they
reach the final hatch, he tries to prepare them, and himself, for
what they might be facing. "If it ain't one of ours, fuckin'
blast 'em. We'll work out the details later."
Gritting his teeth, clenching his rifle, wound up like a spring,
ready to jump: Sarge lives for this. Nobody fucks with his squad. He
can't wait another second to prove it. "Open that goddamn door!" he
shouts.
PVT VITELLI posted by Nino 1.3.99
Vitelli's knucles whiten as he strengthens his grip around his pulse
rifle. He runs with the rest of the marines, staying a few meters
away from Moore, keeping just enough space between them that if the
shit hit the fan, he can maneuver around. His breathing gets harder
and his heart rate rapidly increases. Though he's ready for battle,
deep down inside he feels fear.
PFC PATWARDHAN posted by Max 1.3.99
Patwardhan punches in some commands on the controls for the cryotube
and starts grabbing her gear. A few seconds after everyone else, she
hustles after the group, the sheer bulk of the equipment she's
carrying slowing her down. Her small, wiry frame looks more immersed
in her gear than every.
As she runs, she pumps her shotgun to make sure that she has a shell
in the chamber. She catches up with the group just as they're
cracking the door open to the cargo bay.
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