ۥ-1@ -$$$$$$$2ސސސސސ (ސ(888888888:::'aAA_4+_$__AB Chapter One: The infinite starfield that was the sky of Hightower loomed out before Dr. Richard Daniels, head of the Biolab of the Hight ower Pre-Form Station. Various colored dust clouds were spread out across the white-speckled black void, and overlapping all of these was the massive C-Class Corporate Freighter Ykeshka. A streamlined submarine-like starship, the Ykeshka was more than 730 feet long, and supported a crew of twenty, a rather high number for a freighter of any class. Dr. Daniels clenched the ends of his white labcoat nervous ly, trying to dry his palms. The emotionless feminine voice of the Hightower computer system was announcing the Ykeshka's arriv al. As Daniels went over the plans in his mind for the umpteenth time his assistant, Dr. Elsa Perkins, walked up to the same viewport. She scribbled something down onto the paper clamped to the heavy metal clipboard she always had and the laid a hand onto Daniels' shoulder. The huge freighter slid easily up to the clamping dock and connected itself with the docking walkway of the Biologic and Geographic Research station. "Doctor?" Elsa said seriously, barely bothering to move her lips. Daniels turned slightly, a question in his eyes. Elsa nod ded, "They are ready now, Doctor." Damn, thought Daniels. He finally managed to move his legs and walk down o the docking door. Daniels scratched at his short grey beard tensely, and then finally nodded. The blonde swiss girl smirked, lightly amused at Daniels' fear, and then pressed a button near the door. It slid open, revealing several men in typical Corporate cargo uniforms. Three of them were pushing large-wheeled stretchers, each with a human-sized bulk underneath their white sheets. The rest carried heavy crates or small machinery. Once the men were past, the door closed and locked automati cally. Daniels led them all down a long hallway to a pair of wide double doors which slid aside dutifully once the doctor was near. The stretchers were wheeled in, and left in one end of the room. The crates were piled in one corner, and the machinery was set down upon random tables, all filled with similair equipment, or small vegetable or animal specimens. One of the men stopped to personally inspect one of the rat-like animals in a water-filled glass jar with various monitoring equipment attached to both the top and bottom. The thing was obviously dead, or so the crewman thought, before it opened an eye to inspect back and then show it's teeth. The crewman took a startled step back and then looked cau tiously around the room. Before he could step closer again, though, Elsa had already taken position opposite him, blocking his view. "Thank you for your help, crewman. You may leave now." The uniformed crewman straightened himself nodded ashemedly. As he headed for the door one of his co-workers came up behind him and placed an arm around his shoulder. "Smitty," the younger crewman said, "don't bother the nice Doctors, we're just not as smart as they are. They know what they're doing, don't worry about it. C'mon, I'll getcha a cup a coffee, huh?" Smitty nodded back slowly, hurt, but agreeing. "Sure, okay Raul whatever ya say." The younger Raul smiled back, looking proud. Together they strolled back to the Ykeshka. "That's odd," said Mason Alexander, who was standing in D- Sector of Hightower, at the four way intersection where corridors three and four crossed each other. Mason stood in his grey tech nician's jumpsuit with his hands behind his back. His uniform was laden with various company patches and pre-former identification badges. He was the assistant director of the technical stations and facilities on Hightower's second and smaller portion, Section Minor. Hightower station was composed of two seperate and fully independent "buildings", called sections. The larger of the two, a half sphere-like structure was called the Main Section; and the second, a similair structure of about half the size, was Section Minor. Each had it's own generator systems, computer networks, and life-support systems so that they could survive independant ly, although they were still heavily codependent on an efficiency scale. The two sections were connected at three points, each point a hallway, and each hallway situated two levels above the other. Hightower Station was a twelve level facility in the Main Sec tion, while being only half that in Section Minor. The inter- section hallways were on levels three, six and nine. The hallways weren't really anything much beyond a metal catwalk surrounded by thick steel and glass. Mason Alexander was essentially the second in charge of all of the technical facilities on Section Minor. He monitored the Biolab and Geolab equipment, the various menial functions such as elevators, doors, refridgerators, lighting and stability inside the family quarters of Section Minor and the labs. His superior, Tyrone Cambell, was incharge of Section Minor on a grander scale. He maintained the entire structure's stability and power and made sure everything ran smoothly. He was in charge of all ten of Section Minor's technicians, including Mason, and answered only to the technical advisors of the Main Section. Mason only began to resent his position more now, as he watched something happen that he wasn't even told of. Not doubt Tyrone was. Some giant company freighter had just docked, opened their doors and started dumping still more, no doubt unperfected, equipment, which Doctors Daniels and Perkins had just led into Biolab One. Stranger still, some of the cargo seemed to be human shaped bodies under white sheets and being pushed on stretchers. As the last of the equipment was taken past Mason and his companion, and the path cleared for him to continue his walk back to Section Minor, he turned to his white-coated companion. Mason looked at him with a wondering, suspicious glare. Doctor Benjamin Ryant, Mason's white-coated companion, looked back with a hurt, but also questioning, look. "What?" he asked in his typical voice, a very loose, medium sounding tone. Mason looked skeptical. "They must have told you something," he said unbelieving. Mason's black eyebrows wrinkled in a suspi cious tension. Mason had a square, stern face, which had perme nantly been carved into an unnerving, hateful expression. He didn't hate Benjamin, though, he was the closest thing to being a friend Mason had. Benjamin shook his head reassuringly. "Nope, not this time. I'm just as lost as you are," Benjamin leaned forward to look down the corridor after the small caravan,"Doctor Daniels doesn't have problems with keeping secrets from me. Why should he? I only run the Geolab at Station Minor, I'm not even allowed High Secu rity Access. But, the fact that they aren't telling us," Benjamin leaned back and faced Mason with his usual reasoning aura,"means that something different is going on." Mason grumbled something under his breath and remarked about how even a housefly could be considered different on Hightower before turning and continuing down the curving hallway on his way to a technical meeting. Benjamin stood alone in the corridor, wondering. The bright white lights of Biolab One shone down upon the new equipment boxes and sheet covered stretchers. Doctor Daniels and Elsa Perkins were standing in the middle of the room, near one of the stretchers. Daniels' hands were folded in front of him, and Elsa was occassionally inspecting her clipboard. On the other side of the same stretcher was the Ykeshka's captain, Bennet, and his First Officer, Serkich. Bennet was standing over the stretcher, leaning on a small empty portion casually. As he was describing the freighter's trip to a planet in the outer reaches, his First Officer was sitting on top of a nearby table casually folding a small piece of paper into a small oragami ostrich. Just as Bennet was beginning to describe how rough of a hypersleep it was on his trip from Gateway, Elsa broke in and lowered her clipboard. "Captain Bennet, this is all very interesting, but please, could you please skip forward to the science vessel." Elsa's monotone voice angered Bennet even more than her sarcastic disap proval. Bennet looked a little hurt, but tried not to let it affect him. He was used to disappointment. He sarightened himself, folded his arms and dropped his grin. Without any pride or satisfaction, which was a rare thing indeed for Bennet, he began, but soon, of course, he was sounding excited and arrogant. "Alright. So me and my crew, okay?, we're heading towards this big ship, alright, at least...like...M- Class, right? Well, okay, so we close in, and I order a docking, right? Well, okay, so my boarding team goes on, and they can't find any of the crew on decks one through nine, right? Well, okay. But on deck nine they find, and get this, these lil' round green an' white things, right? Well my medical officer, okay, well she reports in that these things...ah, ah, how'd she say it?" he asked aloud. "Blossomed," said Serkich. "Uhm, yeah," agreed Bennet before continuing,"blossomed. Okay, so she says that something jumps outta 'em, right? Well these things jump straight through my guys' faceplates, okay, and lock onto their faces! Well we take the team back in, right? Put 'em in quarentine, and then get some more of these little pod- suckers, and bring them on board my ship! So, then we lock all a' these...uh....thingies into quarentine, right? Then we lock ourselves down into the freezer, okay? And so now, here was are!" With an immense look of adventure and pride, Bennet grabbed hold of the huge white sheet, and pulled it away, revealing the still form of one of his boarding team members. The officer lay on his back, unmoving, but still breathing. Something spidery and hand-like was lying on his face, and it did not move either, and did not appear to breathe. "What is it?" Elsa asked. Bennet opened up his toothy grin from ear to ear. "We don't know! What do you think?" Elsa looked from Bennet to Serkich, who seemed completely uninterested, and then back to Bennet. "I think it must be some kind of parasite, obviously," Elsa lied. Bennet looked satisfied. "Well, okay." Serkich looked up, now only mildly interested. "There is another one." "What?" Elsa was shocked. Daniels looked at him, worried still. Bennet spun around and looked at his First Officer, shaking his slightly and hoping that the unnerving Perkins wouldn't notice. But of course she did. "There were four members of our away party who were...vic timized," Serkich explained. He looked about the room once, and then returned to his ostrich. To Bennet Elsa seemed suspicious at first, but then a slim and brief smirk graced Elsa's lips for a brief moment. "Why were we not told?" she seemed curious. "Well...," stuttered Bennet,"my medical officer was inter ested in the specimen," he lied in return. "Very well then," Elsa said. She didn't seem to Bennet to object, so he made the mistake of letting down his gaurd. "Thank you, captain," she waved towards the door,"please, feel free." Serkich took the initiative and hopped off of the table. He handed the tiny little ostrich to his captain and proceeded to leave the room through its only door. Bennet passed one final look over the biological laboratory, gave Elsa a disgusted look, and then marched out the door. As soon as the panel had slid shut, she turned about and faced Daniels. She smiled. Daniels looked repulsed and disgusted at his assistant. "How could you just send them back? You didn't even warn them!" he shouted to her nervously. "Please, doctor, if we had allowed him to continue on his way, he would have eventually shared this newfound story of his with someone he shouldn't, and then we, and the entire company, would be endangered. We can't have that," Elsa smirked. Elsa walked over to the communications console built into one of the lab tables and tapped a few tiny keys. "But--" began Daniels. Elsa held up a silencing finger. "Cargo crew, we have several packages here that need to be taken to Cargo Hold Three." There came a response from the other end, and Elsa nodded. "Good," she said, and then deactivated the system. "Come now, Richard, you must calm yourself down. Soon they will be forever silent, and it won't even be directly out fault," Elsa smiled, exceedingly proud of herself. She turned and walked out of the room as several crewman entered to remove the equipment crates. As Daniels quickly covered up the victim, and wiped his wet palms on his labcoat he quietly damned Elsa, and ordered the stretchers taken into quarentine. He walked out into the curving corridor where the docking lane met the corridor closest to the edge of the station and took a position by the window. He stood there for some time until, finally, the Ykeshka detached itself from Hightower Station, rotated itself slightly, and began to slide off into the depths of space. Chapter Two Smitty sat alone in the small louge of the C-Class freighter Ykeshka, waiting for something to do. He closed one issue of Modern Technology and was reaching for another when the door that led to the lounge from the work sections of the ship opened up obediently for the custodial officer and Lt. Marden. The three of them exchanged some brief small talk, before Smitty decided he was leaving, he didn't want to be around Mar den, he made Smitty nervous. Marden had been the only member besides the medical chief that had returned from the company science vessel which they had found adrift in space. The vessel had ceased functioning, for some reason, and never made it back from it's scientfic research on the planet JV-426. The medical chief had brought back the boarding team, and more than twenty of those little pod-thingies, as the captain called them. So Smitty was exceedingly uncomfortable in the company of Marden, so quickly and politley made his way back through the door Marden had entered, and headed for his station in the main cargo bay. The custodial officer and Marden sat in the louge for sever al minutes, Marden telling the story about his trip on the science vessel. As they sat, and Marden drank some of the Jack Daniels he loved so much, the custodian slowly began to grow bored. But before the custodian was about to excuse himself from the room, Marden's face conformed to one of a man in excrusiating pain, and he was. Marden began to shake violently, and his bottle of Jack Daniels hit the floor with a crash. Marden convulsed himself into a lying position on the couch, and began to arch his back and scream. His eyes widened, and bulged out further than any eyes should, before he closed them, and began to bleed out of his mouth. He shouted for help, but the custodian couldn't move, he was fixated with a morbid curiosity. As Marden rolled off of the couch, and onto the floor, so that he was lying on his chest, the custodian finally managed to rush to his side. The janitor pleaded with Marden, shouting to him and asking him if he was alright. In response, a portion of Marden's lower back began to bulge, and then retract. It bulged again, and then fell. Again, and again, a spot of his chest rose and fell, some thing struggling ever so desperately to free itself, until final ly Marden's skin and jumpsuit burst, and something rose out of the newly-made hole. It rose upward, to a height of about ten inches, before it stopped, and looked around, twisting to and fro in aq grotesque parody of a child's movement. The janitor fell into a sitting position, and scurried on his behind back against the wall, hoping desperately that he was having a nightmare. But his thoughts were dispelled when the thing lept from Marden's back, and hurried itself across the floor, and under the couch, where it vanished. The custodian couldn't even move, couldn't blink. His world was now one of tiny people, ripping their way into the world he had once known as reality. It wasn't long before the elderly cleaner's heart simply refused to beat anymore.... "Lieutenant Marden, come in. Lieutenant Marden, report. Marden, dammit, where are you? Marden! Marden!" Captain Bennet's voice crackled into the lounge from the small cummunicator hooked at the belt of the desicrated Lieutenant Marden. It was only several more minutes before Bennet himself, and three more of his crewmen arrived at the lounge, to find the door smashed, and Marden on the floor in a pool of himself. The ship's custodian was lying not two feet to the right of the door, sit ting upright, and motionless. He was as white as the apolestry of the lounge couch. "What the hell?" Bennet shouted into the room, hoping that Marden would explain all of this; but when he pic tured that, he took it back. "What happened sir?" one of the men asked. The rest of the crewmen with him began to panic and mumble also. "I don't know yet, dammit! Get to the weapons locker!" "Good afternoon, sir!" Raul saluted cheerfully as he walked past Serkich on his way to cargo hold three. "Raul." Was Serkich's only response. "Hey, you got any more of them, a, oragami thingers?" he asked in exchange. In response Serkich dug into his left pocket and produced a small oragami lion. He handed it to Raul careless ly. "Hey, thanks!" the young crewman replied before he continued on his way to cargo hols three. He rounded a corner, and approached the door, which was slightly ajar. Raul only momentarily gave the matter any thought before he pushed the button and opened it entirely and entered. He was moving the little lion's legs back and forth, having himself a joyous time, until a heard a faint growling-like sound. He was quite certain that it was not the lion. Raul turned around and searched the far wall. Near the door, something roughly about six feet in height moved about in the shadows. Raul approached it somewhat, but still kept what he felt to be a safe distance. "Hello?" he asked. The thing only growled. "Smitty? Serkich? Hello? Anybody?" He heard a hissing sound. Raul searched his belt for his flashlight and found it. He lifted it up, and switched it on. Raul suddenly lost all interest in the little oragami lion. An eyeless monstrosity hulked in the corner, until the light flashed against it. It then rose up, to full height, more than a foot above Raul, and peeled back lips that were too human. Water- clear saliva dripped off of it's single-purpose teeth. It rose with a quiet chitinous sound, and growled. As Raul moved slowly for the door, the thing stepped out of the shadows. It's mechanical, insect-like movements were horrify ing to simply see, and would not doubt be deadly to feel, Raul thought. Raul gave up, and dashed for the door, slamming down the button on his way out. "All crewmen, listen carefully, this is your captain. All cargo crew, go to cargo hold one and stay there. All technical crewmen and officers, report to deck three, corridor three. Now!" Bennet's message was transmitted all over the ship, and all crewmen responded accordingly. Soon Bennet, Serkich and the technicians and officers, compiling a group of eight, were gathered at the four way inter section. Bennet raised his communications device and asked for a report from the crewmen. "Negative, sir, we do not have all crewmen. Raul, Smitty and the janitor are all missing," came the reply. "Do not worry about our custodian, he's accounted for, and we'll find these other two. Don't worry." Bennet returned his communicator to his belt, and turned to adress his crew. "We have something dangerous aboard our ship. It will kill us all, if we do not stop it, okay? So, look, we have to? Is this clear?" Bennet certainly could focus himself, when he needed to. The men responded affirmatively, and Bennet continued. "Okay, good. So, you two," he indicated two technicians,"check decks three and four. You two," he waved at the remaining two,"take decks five and six. Lieutenants," he adressed two of his crewmen,"check decks seven and eight. You two," he turned to the remaining two officers,"take deck nine. Serkich and I," he pointed a thumb at his First Officer,"will ake decks one and two. Okay?" they all nodded or spoke up,"Okay, good. Let's go." Each of the groups had one sidearm, and proceeded to their assigned decks. Two of the officers, Lieutenants Downy and Eden, took the elevator to deck nine, where they were assigned to look. Deck nine was the basement of the Ykeshka and contained cargo holds three and four, and the escape shuttle. As Downy and Eden made their way towards cargo hold three, where Raul was last reported seen by Serkich, Bennet's tense voice came over their communicator. He ordered them to take the remaining to pods to the escape shuttle, and lock them in the emergency cargo hold. "I'll do it," Eden said, and handed Downy the pistol. "Later." "Yea, see ya," Downy answered while he checked the clip. He then proceeded to cargo hold three while Eden went to hold four. Downy arrived to find the door badly dented, from the in side. He drew his pistol, and pushed the door button. They slid halfway open, but couldn't slide past the dent, which widened the door by at least an extra foot. The lieutenant turned sideways and slid inside the cargo hold. There were no lights on, and he couldn't find the switch, so he drew his flashlight, and switched it on. He couldn't find anything out of the ordinary, until his beam of light fell upon a small white lion. A lion made out of paper. Downy walked over to it and kneeled down, inspecting it carefully before he finally picked it up. He returned to his feet, and looked around. He turned around, and came face to face with the faceless. The lieutenant's eyes widened, and the lion fell to the floor. Downy raised his gun to fire, but couldn't get himself to pull the trigger. He began to curse at himself, until the thing moved. It straightened itself up, reaching a whole seven feet, at least, before it bared it's horrendous teeth. Downy lowered his arm, knowing his weapon to be in vain, he was simply going through the motions of trying to save himself, and he knew it. The beast opened it's mouth, dripping water-clear drool onto the floor. Downy closed his eyes, unable to witness what stood before him, and only mumbled "oh shit" before his throat was opened, and his body was lifted easily into the air. The halls of the Ykeshka stretched all about Smitty as he wandered through them. He was supposed to know these passages well, and did once, not so long ago, but he couldn't make rhyme nor reason out of the metal all around him. All he knew was that he had to run, run away. He had seen the Warrior tear it's way through the lounge door, and hurry down the corridor and into an air vent, but didn't know why it hadn't killed him. It was obvious to him that it could, and would. But he didn't care about that now, he only knew how to run now, and nothing else. He charged forward, slamming into walls left and right, forcing himself to keep going. Some time ago he had heard Captain Bennet call out his name over the communicators, and not so long ago he had heard someone call out for help, and then a second scream, and then a third. Smitty rounded a corner. But he knew that they were all dead. Soon they all would be, trapped on the suddenly tiny-seeming starship with that...thing. All knew was to run, and he hoped that he would eventually stum ble into the escape shuttle and be able to leave the Ykeshka behind him. He hoped. He rounded another corner. And slammed into a massive crea ture. Smitty screamed, screamed at the top of his lungs until they hurt, but they hurt far sooner then they should have. But that was a result of the technician Smitty had slammed into, and who was now trying to stop Smitty's screaming with brute force. Finally Smitty fell quiet. "Calm down, crewman!" One of them shouted. "Don't worry, don't worry," the other soothed,"both of the officers can be called up here at any time, don't worry." "Both?" Smitty managed to say. The technicians looked at each other nervously. "Well, yes. But don't worry." While one soothed the panicked Smitty, the other rose and clicked on his communicator. He called in his location to the only remaining ears with access to the communicator: Bennet and Serkich, who were now down on deck eight, near the engineering equipment. "Alright, you're right above us, hang on, we'll be right up, just give us one second." Bennet's signal soon crackled out of exsistence. Bennet and Serkich were both armed with semi-automatic handguns, which were personally owned by Serkich himself. They both clicked off the safeties on their weapons, and continued to ready the self destruct mechanism. They weren't going to stay on a ship with this killing machine. They had already readied the escape shuttle, after moving Eden's shredded form away from the airlock, and were now readying the ship's demise. Then all they needed to do was get down to deck nine, make their way to the escape shuttle, launch, and hop into the freezer. There was a crash above them. Smitty leapt to his feet. "Let me out of here!" he shouted and charged down the hallway as the floorpanels behind him were tossed upward, soaring. The beast climbed from it's crawlspace and reached out with narrow fingers, and arms for the nearest figure: one of the technicians. It lifted the poor soul into the air, pulled him close, and reached out with it's tongue, diving into the crewmen. The air was suddenly shattered by gunshots as the remaining technician returned fire. The human mockery reared back, screeched horribly, a high-pitched horrendous screech, and dropped it's inital prey. The thing climbed out of the crawl space, coming to full height, and shot out with it's stinger. The last technician of the C-Class company freighter doubled over, as the alien horror ran him through. It lifted it's tail, dropped the lifeless mass, and looked around once. It then moved back into the crawlspace, and began to pound it's way through. Bennet and Serkich didn't waste any time. They cocked their weapons, aimed upward, and released round after round after round into the ceiling, and the creature above it. There came a air- corrupting screech, and a crunching sound. A brief hissing was heard for a moment before the ceiling melted onto Serkich. Acid poured through the hole in the ceiling, and dropped onto the first officer's leg. The wounded man fell to the floor, his face not showing any expression, the pale flesh was broken only by the man's clenched white man's teeth. Bennet slung his gun over his right shoulder, and moved two steps down the hall, leaving Serkich behind, before the ceiling was ripped open and a thin, unflexible head crashed through, opened it's horrible mouth, and swallowed Bennet's head. The Warrior lifted the Ykeshka's captain into the air, and tried to pry him through the hole. Serkich took this oppourtunity to crawl towards the lift doors. He lifted his right hand pushed the button. He could hear the small box-like elevator coming down the shaft for an instant, and then the ceiling exploded. There was a whine, a hissing of acid on metal, and then the insect-like horror fell from the ceiling, bullet-holes lining it's arms. It hunched down on all fours, and raced forward. Serkich knew he need only wait for the lift, so he took the chance, raised his gun in his left hand, and pulled the trigger down. Lead flew the air continiously, for many long seconds, as Serkich refused to remove his finger from the trigger. And the air was soon curdled by a combination of a long, constant stream of gunfire, and the continuing whine of the dying alien. It lunged forward, dying in the air, as seventy rounds of three-inch lead pellets tore through it, spilling it's blood onto the armed assailant. Serkich realized that escape was futile just as the acid- like blood spilled onto his face and neck, quickly followed by the dead form of the human mockery. Serkich's features melted away, the acid working it's way into his head, and onto the floor behind it, as the doors to the lift opened. As the remaining crewmen of the Ykeshka worried in the belly of the massive freighter, and the foreign killer died on deck eight, and the self-destruct countdown of the starship's engines clicked away, a large red light flahsed on and off repeatedly in the bridge. The light flashed for several moments, forgotten, while the twelve crewmen in the cargo hold began to plan their own attack of the beast. Just a few feet below the motionless bodies of two company technicians, and above the engine regulator's clicking timer, a thick and heavy trail of an acid-like liquid was eating its way slowly through the metal panels, until it finally dropped from the ceiling and onto one of the many pressure valves. There was soon a slight hissing as the acid ate through the pipes, slowly heading towards thin, delicate gases that helped to power and circulate the parts of the Ykeshka's thermal-nuclear engine reactor. As the crewmen began to force their way through the power less doors, as the red communication light gave up hope and stopped blinking, as the acid worked its way into and through the metal, the tiny, three-man escape of shuttle of the company C- Class freighter Ykeshka - the Torado - was tossed out of its comfortable resting place and into the dark unknown depths of space. Its pilot had lost all control of the ship, and it simply roared into a random corner of the universe, leaving the Ykeshka behind. And as the Torado flashed away the acid pierced the heavy lead pipe, and there was brief flash, and soon the Ykeshka's engines were nothing more than one massive flash in the void, and the starfield glowed. The hull ruptured, and tossed portions of itself far away from the explosion. Fire rushed down every pas sage, insinerating the shredded remains of Eden and Downy, en gulfing the still forms of all of the officers, swallowing the lifeless masses of Marden and the custodian. Suddenly there was one ship-shattering "boom" and the Ykeshka was gone, destroyed.  9}M> O/sbi5y # f 2 v B   ^ * n :~:pr<LU!e09}G+o;KK!cKY%X"f0tSbV0 t :!~!!"J"""#5#y##$D$p$$$<%%%&K&&&'['q'''(^((())m)))9*e***+?++++&,P,},,,--`---.K.k.../Y//!c// 0M0001]1}112I2x223D3}33404t444@555 6 6d6667S777!8,8.80828486888:8<8>8@8B8D8F8H8J8L8N8P8R8T8V8X8Z8\8^8`8b8d8f8h8j8l8n8p8r8t8v8x8z8|8~88888888:9999>::: ;M;;;<Q<<<!c<=)=l===8>|>>>?\???(@l@@@$AhAAA3BvBBBBCrCCC>DDD ENEEEEE9F}FFF7G{GGHFHHHHIZI\IIII=JJJK*KnKKK7LzLLMFMMMMMNHNlNNN6OyOOO-PpPPPQQQaQQQ,RLRRRS1SwS!cwSSS/TsTTT5UyUUVEVVVWMWWWX^XXXYZYYYYZHZZZ[U[w[[[C\\\\<]]]]^a^^^-_m___9`o`q```?amaaa9b}bbc,cpcccdWddd$e;e~eefJffffgYg~ggh4hxhhh0itiii jMjjjk!ck]kkkk