I Maxwell

"In a world were everyone wants to be that mysterious figure lurking in the back ground moving people around like pawns or who just doesn't want his name to be tied with X there is Scott Maxwell watching and willing to put his name in the lime light for the right price"- Daniel Gill
 
* Found on a Vid disk behind the photo of a old mercenary group dated 109P.A.*
 
The man who adopted the persona of Scott Maxwell
by
That Man

The story of Scott Maxwell is muddled with confusing and often misleading information, which is one of many possible end results when lies have been told over top of lies. The real story is a convoluted tale of cover-up, intrigue and incredible irony. Which is what you should expect from some one who got his new last name from a pre-rift coffee container. The following is not "the true story" of the man who would become know as Scott Maxwell but rather a more accurate telling of his life available at this time. I have never been one to write things down nor to leave journals sitting out for my enemy's or nosy friends to pore over on a dark & stormy night. But I guess after recent events I am feeling...well I am feeling a lot of different ways right now. So I turn to the only person I can count on now.... and I look inward for strength & solace.
Our story beings in perhaps even a stranger setting for a world that has been shattered by Rips into other dimensions. It starts with a man named Eric Thompson, or more precisely, Private Eric Thompson... no he is not a soldier fighting on the front lines in a battle to save humanity from an evil menace poring out of a transdimensional portal; that is still many life times away...  No our story starts with Private Thompson just your average Joe pilot who was lucky enough to be assigned to a safe location far from the enemy lines where only 4 months ago young boys not much older then he where dying like men. Eric who all of his buddy's referred to as "Tommy good luck" after a amazing air recovery when his plane did a nose dive that would have been fatal if he had met up with the water. Tommy spent countless hours hanging out with his buddy's drinking playing cards chasing the girls, that is when they where not in flight class. The day started off like any other.  "It's a nice day for flying," grumbled Robert. "Sure is", Tommy replied The planes had done their required preflight test and every thing checked out in good working order. It was a routine two-hour mission but the planes were still fully fueled. The planes had extensive radio equipment to include ten different radio channels and homing devices that would show them the way home if something came up. "Well, this is my last flight today, tomorrow at this time I'll be civilian," just another day of flying the friendly sky's Tommy thought to himself as he lifted his TBF Avenger off the ground. The experienced crew had a route that would take them 160 miles east, 40 miles north and the 120 miles straight back to base. As they made their way over the oceans the water turned from shades of emerald green to deep blue. The sky's where clear; this would be a perfect day to drink a cold one at Rudy’s Crab Shack, Tommy mused as they made there way toward there assignment with a few bombing practice runs over Hen and Chickens Shoals. After the bomb runs they started back...minutes passed, something was wrong...Tommy could hear the chatter from his other pilots with the leader a LT.Taylor "Control tower this is an emergency. We seem to be off course. We seem to be lost. We can't make out where we are." The tower said "Head due west", but the flight did not know which way West was. "Everything looks wrong, even the ocean looks strange". "Were over the Keys." the LT. repeated for the third time. The tower was puzzled; even if the compasses were not working, the crew should have been able to fly west by following the sun (which was several hours from setting) Where are we??? The planes flew in one direction then another as balmy daylight turned to stormy seas in the darkness. Taylor asks everyone to check their compass readings, then starts to formulate a plan; the flight leader announced "We're not certain where we are. We must be 225 miles North east of base...it looks like we are..." and then silence. Tommy reports that two of the plane's fuel levels dipped below 10 pounds, all five planes were to ditch into the sea if they could not get there bearings.  The sky started turning a strange blue; the sea changed from inviting blue to deep foreboding black. To make matters worse, a crash of light and sound ripped though the plane. Tommy screamed as he saw a mountaintop appear out of nowhere in the middle of the sky. He banked a hard left, but it was too late Tommy’s luck had run out.

The day December 5, 1945

The mission Flight 19

Tommy became part of the most famous aviation mystery in history. Tommy was still one of the lucky ones; he was found by the fleeing native inhabitants and lived. He even had a son in time that he told the amazing story's of his old life and old world before he came to be. He passed on his stories and passion for planes and last but not least, his luck.
Eric Thompson "Tommy good luck" to many.... Father to me.






I guess this next entry into my PC3000 should be about my mother but its not going to be, its not that she isn’t worth writing about, hell, in fact, I think she was by far more interesting then my father or childhood friends that I had moving from place to place. No. I suppose the next thing that would be worth reading about would be how I learned my trade that would carry me through the long years and many other side trades I took on over time. Some years had past, I had learned the normal things a child learns walking, talking, laughing, crying and so forth. It was one summer weekend away from entering my teens and there was, of course, like many that age, a love. The best way I can talk about myself is to talk about those around me. Heather. ahhh she was awesome ! We were fast friends ever since we moved into town. Heather had an amazing smile that lit up the room when she entered it... Although I had read the words of many an author whom had furnished that old cliché on occasion; but I always thought it rang with a falsehood that made me uninterested in reading much further then the raunchy stuff. With her, it was true; for she was kind beyond measure. I had just gotten up the inner strength to ask her out. Yeah, I know if you the reader know me in the present then you have just jerked your head a few inches back from the monitor. Back then I was very thin & very shy, if you can believe it. I was not the embodiment of confidence or anything other then perhaps a poster child for the ‘sickly boy of the month magazine’. So there I was pulling back my stringy, greasy hair into a ponytail as I made my way down the hall to where Heather was waiting for me. This was the day I would ask her to be more then just friend's more then just pals chasing down Joey Bishops one-eyed dog scraps. This was one of the days that changed my life.... *hold on I got to get some coffee* I opened the door to the little courtyard—this is where we always met in the afternoon—it was a room with an atrium.  Rich black soil with grey stones as old as time made the walk way toward the center.  There, a fountain stood, carved, I was told, by ancient hands, in a place called Tuscany. Heather was sitting there bathed in light looking down at a letter. I walked up and sat beside her and asked how her day was. She smiled and looked at me. Her beauty as always, stunned me as she informed me that she was to be sent to station four. There are many words that might fit the pain that I felt… anyway… moving on…

I guess by this time my parents and I had moved from place to place along with a man named Gil La Devon a Mage of great regard before the fall of Atlantis. You see, when my father’s plane crashed, the other two-crew members died on impact & my dad was at death’s doorstep and my mother and Devon came upon his wreckage. As a healer, she was able to save him and after a few days Devon was able to get the plane flying again. He had powered the plane with some sort of treasure that they procured while trying to flee the collapsing pocket dimension that held the continent of Atlantis. They decided to try to fly out once more, as the fabric that held their world together was being torn asunder.  But, just as before, a Ley Line storm whipped up, only this time, as I am told, they were able to escape.
Only the world they found was on the brink of total destruction... years passed, and I was born.

Okay… now where was I.  Right.  Heather had just told me that she was being sent away.  My father had passed on only a few months ago, when this young shy kid found out that his true love was to be heading off to another bunker well over a hundred miles away. It might as well have been on another planet was the first thing that came to mind. The other was, “Oh my God she is kissing me.”  We laughed & comforted each other throughout the night...it was my first time and it was by far the best night of my life. No, it was not for the reasons you might think; though that was great. But just being in the same bed, feeling the warmth of the woman who you love is more intoxicating then anything else you could ever try. It was true magic, truly of the White. During these bleak days the Great Cataclysm was in full swing. Rifts were opening weekly and the world was being torn apart on all levels. Some few were hidden in bunkers constructed long ago in case of war, built before the age of peace that fell over the Earth hundreds of years ago.  A time I had only heard about growing up.  The people who I grew up with came from that time—this "Golden Age".  I fucking hate that term...I never saw it never would. Not really..... No, I just saw the reflections of the Golden Age shattered in the eyes of my parents, friends, teachers (what few that were) and the computers that could speak and reason. Though they too seemed to be sad, going mad as the constant thunders of God-knows-what shook the walls. Heather and I laid in bed as tiny little streams of sand petered out of the cracks in the ceiling caused by the ever-present concussions from above.... but we were else where, in a field of wild flowers, laying on a blanket under an ancient oak tree....and if you the reader don't mind, I would very much like to leave her there in the innocence of youth that I shall never have again.

Yes, here is just one of the great gaps that I might fill in one day...there is a lot to tell the love of adventure was in father's blood and he past it on to me after all. If I get another biographer. My last one did not end up so well. But he did help get my name out there, a deed that I thank him for where ever his soul is now.

My young life had already suffered many ups and downs, something that would in part reverberate, throughout my whole life. The books I grew up reading were adventure stories, bigger than life, but with characters you could understand and admire. As the old world fell apart and the few who remembered the “before time” grew old, they needed someone to continue their work in "reclaiming” that world, that life that they lived in and ruined... To that effect the hopes of the fathers are once more placed on their descendents. They placed such hopes and dreams on us, on me.... By the time the grandchildren of the people who lived in the “Golden age” had passed away, I had reached the apparent age of 22 years; I had been promoted to Head of Operations.  We had only contact with one other bunker at that point, and it was spotty at best.

It was the great hope of our forefathers that we would enter a “sleep mode” in order to preserve something of the world while chaos above reigned and burned itself out. Many took that option which was far better then the bleak hope of seeing the surface. As luck would have it—well, as my luck would have it, which is by far greater and more malicious then the average luck—along with a few others, I had to travel down a escape tunnel to a underground railway.
The railway was one of the few things to last the opening of the great rifts, but it too was just about to fail and pass into legend. After traveling for some time (which was a untold distance) from the first bunker, we entered a back-up chamber. There, only railway tubes that were left unused and still in working order were located. It was no easy feat to get there, which was why in the end it had taken three lives and thirty-seven hours to reach that chamber. There were other worries, such as not being connected to the computer systems that where meant to awaken us after the worst had passed.  So we rigged up our own timer.   As we entered into the “Great Rest,” as we were told to call it (I thought of it as sleeping death), we took a detour on Old Man Time’s road.

Bored yet? If so I understand...but my life is kind of cool to look at so long as its just a commercial break from the feature film that is the saga of Rifts Earth.

Well, as you can guess neither my friends nor I stayed put, nor am I writing this from a stasis tube.

We got out after the power from the atomic slug failed after a cable broke during an earthquake. Eventually, we even made contact with our fellow Republicans. Yeah, that’s what our movement came to be known as. While I was in down time, the movement took on new form and function as one of the key bases, the one where my first love had gone, became the gathering point for a large group of human survivors. It was there that the seeds of what once was began to germinate once more. However, some, or so we were told, were about to destroy this last vestige of democracy.  A gathering of powerful magic-users had formed an army and was threatening to take over the American continent.  You would come to know it as the Federation of Magic; though it was under the control of a different Lord Dunscon at the time. Hindsight being a fucking bitch, it would have perhaps played out better if we had not taken him out. No one, not even us, could have know that the son was the real threat, not the father. It was that Star Wars, Qui-Gon Jinn mistake all over again… never mind. Anyway, so we fucked ourselves once more. After the slaying of Dunscon, it threw the Federation into a panic for enough time for the base to grow into…  Chi-Town!  Our hope now was to contact the super computer, and have it awaken our brothers and sisters.  Well, it fucking chose not to do it!!!! Our own equipment fucked us.  I guess that’s what you get for giving the job of building the piece of shit to the lowest bidder.  It turned on the contacting team and massacred them all. I, Scott Maxwell, knowing A.R.C.H.I.E. 3 had smashed our brothers and sisters, killing its human builders.
We fled in all directions, many returned disheartened back to their undercover lives... so very many just gave up then and there, assuming their false identities as their real ones.... But if… IF…any did survive, then I need to meet up with them and the only way they’re going to know I’m still around is if I get my name out there.



It took years more before I ran into my fellows, the team that would become my family. We started on our adventures together, so many grand events that I could not even begin to write them down… but if you ever want to know about those times, all you need to do is find Astrid’s journals; but I doubt you would believe the fantastical tales held within.  But fame still eluded me. Its kind of hard with my "luck" and having my best friend be a constructed- paranoid –introvert; not that we hold that against him. I guess If I had “grown up” the way he did, I would be to. I have to admit now, that even I, one of the leaders of the movement, after long last, had given up hope. But then, out of the blue, while fighting to save the lives of my friends and many others from a civilization that I had indirectly helped to build came a note in a bottle, so to speak. This note was wrapped in a shiny, metallic body with glowing “to-helpful-to-be-a-good-thing” eyes.

The message in the bottle was able to do more then just rekindle the hope that I could help forge a better world; it affected me deeper then I could know at the time. Looking back it was the moment when a part of me that I thought had died reawakened. Case informed me that the robot said he was from Archie, this was while Case was battling in the mud trenches a few years back now. The next thing I heard from Case over the radio was about a robot with spider legs, which was programmed to help us in the name of Archie—that crazed computer who had crushed the world I had known. My fears where also playing out before my eyes in thinking that the computer knew who I really was/am and that it was just taking care of, an albeit lucky, but ineffective loose end. It was to my happiness that that was not the case. In fact, it was the first of many long distance messages from the remaining Republicans. They told me of their survival and their continued manipulations of North America. I told them of my adventures; each was amazed at what the other had told over more than a few face-to-face meetings & months more of messages. The movement however did not dominate my thoughts nor actions like it had in the past. I was very busy just trying to get my piece of the world together. If I could not help my friends who had gotten me this far, I definitely could not help the movement retake North America.






When major events haven’t stopped me and they normally do, I have been sending large amounts of credits to help fund the rebuilding of the Republicans. Well over 50 million by now if my numbers are correct and they normally are. Of course they are in deeper need of money then I at the moment. I have over the years grown used to fortunes gained and lost in a matter of moments. Now dear reader you have learned one of my dirtiest little secrets. Why Scott Maxwell was so greedy for money, over the years before I knew that the Republicans where still active I had been sending money to bank rolled my retirement or in case I needed to rebuild my operations. After all between Case, Astrid, and crew we go through armor and equipment like ass paper.

** What is next is a scene that is not in the above narrative**

The heat was beating down on them for at least four hours now. They had finished their last canteen well over an hour ago. Maxwell took off his shirt and trapped it around his head before heading up the rickety wooden ladder. When he got to the top, he pushed aside the animal skin flap and climbed inside. By God it’s even hotter in here, he thought to himself. No relief from the heat even in the shade. I thought they build these things to keep the cool in. He swung his legs around and sat down. The room was very small and almost completely dark. In the center was a small pit of red coals across from which sat a shaman with Maxwell’s adopted sons on either side. “Are you sure you want to do this,” asked Sam.
Maxwell looked at him and smiled. “Yes, very much so, Kyle." "This is great it means a lot to us." I know Maxwell said as he clapped him on his shoulder Kyle winst a little from the sunburn. Maxwell we are ready.... the shaman instructed them that they are not to leave here for 3 days there will be no water no food you will have a vision quest you will blend and become one you will share your soul & blood in the end you will be family by blood one of the same tribe. He placed roots and herbs on the red coals smoke started to envelope the room and with that the shaman left...and their journey began. After the quest and facing there demons together they where as one tribe one family one blood. I wasn't anything special as a father. But I loved them and they knew it.

The end? No, just another coffee break.

Sorry dear reader I know its been a while. There has been a lot going on as of late. Astrid & I have been dealing with events that are piling up faster than one of my broke friends can dial my number. We have been tracking down any and all information we can get our hands on about Mad Haven…even in this metropolis, where knowledge, power and city life have managed to form without the Coalition, aid is hard to come by.



We found out that this bum across the way was, in fact, the only surviving member of a team that has been to Mad Haven! I can’t express how very much this quest means to me, to finally be able to save Kyle, who has been in cryo-stasis for more then a few years now—a sleeping death that I had sent him to because of my rash actions. But thanks to the extended family that I have served with & the need to track down and follow up on Case’s injuries, we have been forced to head to Mad haven a little ahead of the initial plans.

Astrid’s father seems to be the key to many a lock. I see the hunger in Astrid’s eyes and recognize it for what it truly is…..obsession. It is a driving force that I know all to well. Despite the rough outer shell she wears, I can see that she has been hurt by the loss of family… something that I can understand. The loss of family: pain, and the general nature of this world molds people in many different ways. Astrid is a part of the team / family and has been now for some time. During which she has placed herself on the forefront of battle and has earned my respect. Her greed for power & wealth is something that is not so becoming, but is understandable for I have/ had the same character flaw and can see it reflected in her actions. It has been a hard road, but we have bonded. No words can really sum Astrid up, none…. She is beautiful but that beauty hides a deep river of pain. I think that this new extended family has become her shore line, which is an equally beautiful thing. Sorry, I know this is meant to be about me and who I am, but I think I needed to express this for myself. The small clashes that I have with her sometimes are more akin to facing the facts of life.

Sorry once more, it’s been about a week now - we are still here in Paducah. Case has just gone though another operation and is holding on, we need answers and we need them now. Astrid has been a great help with her dream insights and April and Johnny with their firepower and research respectively. We have learned that Astrid’s father and her former people of sorts are being hunted by Soul Harvesters. There is a cabal here in Paducah.  Man, we could really use Case’s help now. Astrid has been pressing me, and rightfully so, to let her mind probe Case in order to try and wake him and get some answers all other avenues seem to be blocked or are dead ends. I have a hard choice to make. On one hand, we need to know what the heck is going on and attempting to wake Case up from his coma might be our only shot.   But on the other side of the coin, Case is my best and longest living friend; he takes his privacy seriously… his mind only thing anyone can truly have command over. If we violate that, what would that mean?

It was a hard choice, but in the end, I think Astrid & I made the right call or at least I hope. We entered Case’s mind and learned many things… some of which I think both Astrid & I would have rather not known.



- Mad Haven… words cannot …. It’s best to say that it is the worst thing that has ever happened to us. Yet, we lived, though not without a scrape. We got what we came for: we learned more about Astrid’s father. And we became even closer knit in our pain. We lost ourselves… to the madness and pain even if it was for a moment.  That moment will be with me, and I think them, for the rest of our lives.



- Pain lost depression

Broken thoughts

I am jotting down some notes here because I can’t walk or drink myself into a stupor right now, which is the team’s preferred method of anaesthetizing the pain. I some how survived the fall from the plane. Clark… God, Clark… was able to fish me from the tree line and pull me into the A.P.C. I was dying; I had thought to mouth the final words that I had sworn to utter so long ago; the old saying of the movement to rebuild a broken world, but thanks to Astrid’s healing powers, they were able to keep me alive in time to reach a small town in the Magic Zone.

- Case used the Rose to save April - my hope of saving Kyle is gone. I guess that’s for the best. It was a fool’s hope, anyway. What kind of life would it be now that his brother is dead? Too many years have past now… even if he was able to be saved, he would just be … goddamn it… a liability.

I know what it is to lose a son… sons… and with the recent events weighing even heavier on me, I have to admit that my thoughts of leaving the team & rejoining the movement have grown...


"At least there I can do more... be more." "Plus I just can’t face them... I feel useless, ineffective... I think that I can do more good with the movement."  I guess you might expect me to think of Case’s action as some sort of betrayal? I don’t know if it is I can’t face that right now. I guess the thing that hurts just as much as the loss of the quest is the fact it was all for nothing. We risked it all, people died, and I set up the events that lead to where we are now. I am used to defeat… more so, than anyone may know…well, maybe not you, the reader. But looking on it now while I wait for my contact to meet me, I think that I have drawn something, been able to put some of the pieces together.





There are many noble things that can describe the human condition; but perhaps the thing that makes us most human is our flaws. The inability to face certain events—the loss of a father, the loss of a son, the loss of a daughter—being a student of the human condition as I am. What makes Case more human now was his inability to face April’s death and the circumstances that lead to that event. I have faced many things, many hard facts, which have to be buried behind this smiling exterior. But one thing that I don’t have to bury is the conclusion that Case’s worry over his not being human just because he has no genetic family is a falsehood.  He may not have started out human, more of a thing, but over the years we have traveled, he has become human, picking up the best—and yes, worst—of what it means to be human. I know I had no small part in that.

I know it is shocking even to me that I have come to this as well… but it’s not like a commander abandoning his ship… my ship has died all around me. Besides , Case’s long lost brothers and sisters have returned and Astrid has come into her own even more. The decisions and actions that I have made, that weren’t questioned, have lead to the death of my family.  I have lost my place... I know that they know it... what to do from here?

I have lost command; I don’t belong here, I think, anymore. I can’t keep up. If I was stronger or more somehow, maybe I could be useful. But as it stands, I can be taken out of action or reduced to just a command level far too fast for my liking anymore…

Now, my friends will not follow me… and why should they? I have only lead them to death.

There is nothing left to do.

You can’t lead a family… you can lead a team. But we have both... a family can be lead by the patriarch, but we are questing for that very thing.

What to do?

My father’s voice, one that I have not heard in countless years, whispered in my ear… “Stop feeling so darn sorry for yourself.  Make due.”  Yes, that’s right.

I leaned back in my chair as Case and Astrid headed out of my office. I leaned back to the computer and made the above entry.

I think it's my adventure, my journey; and I guess my attitude is: let the chips fall where they may. That has gotten me—us—this far; but that motto has also been that which has added to my defeat on more than one occasion.
Leadership demands that we make tough choices. We have. I don’t know if we can live with the choices we have made, however. Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality, something that, despite all odds, we have been able to do time and time again. Being in command should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it; I understand their needs and mine. But I don’t understand what went wrong or why things went so bad.

Mad haven / the events that played out right before and right after:

My ability has been unlocking people's potential, helping them to become better. I think that has shown true in the few moments between all of this destruction; after all, we are still alive. Family relationships come from real bonding, not from something imagined, or from some presumption about genetic inheritance.

I know that my leadership has always required the courage to make decisions that would benefit the group as a whole, and I knew that I could not maintain that leadership in an open struggle against Astrid. One minute, she is looking for guidance and leadership; the next, she is the greatest anarchist on Earth… God, I love that l.o.l.  - The end?


Notes of a different kind…

With Maxwell’s recent induction into the Black Market, he is exploring that membership to aid the Republicans, as well as his teammates, at this moment. He has been meeting as many members face-to-face as well as making an unofficial database of Black Market contacts and also the many people he has met over the years. Quite a few data packets have already been sent to and from contacts with the Republicans.

- All members know Maxwell and many more know him by his true name
Elam "Heronas" Thompson
- Maxwell has had more than his fill of failure, which is a sick reflection of the Republicans to that end. He is once more able to relate to them and they to he
(Each sharing their sob story over letters to each other.)
Maxwell still knows the location of a few N.E.M.A. compounds that he has shared with the Republicans. (but not all locations)
Maxwell is on a private mission to become a maxi juicer. He was made aware of a symbiotic that is being altered by a member of the Republicans in Kings dale.
He is going to see how that is coming along.

Unknown to Maxwell he is one of the last Atlantes princes no one knows this No one.