Previously...

It's been a while since the last installment of SHIFT hit the interwebs. Sorry. Been busy. The next chapter will go live in the next few days, but to save you the trouble of re-reading all of the 20,000+ words published up to this point, here's a quick re-cap:

Ellie Sage was a regular twenty-something with a regular dead end job and a group of pretty unglamourous friends. One evening she was followed home to her damp little flat above a take-away by a strange man in a blower hat. Sensing danger Ellie enlisted the help of the take-away's owner, Mrs Chatterjee, and her heavily muscled son Samaar to intercept her stalker while she escaped up the kitchen stairs. The man in the hat forced his way into ellie's flat after a piercing scream of terror indicated that there was another, more serious threat, but by the time the bowler hatted man reached the flat Ellie was gone. When Mrs Chatterjee and Samaar entered the flat seconds later, so was the man in the hat.

Ellie awoke in a strange white cube shaped cell. After explaining to her dark suited captors that she was in dire need a toilet and that she had no intention of cooperating with them  - whoever they were and whatever they wanted - until they'd provided some facilities. Eventually she was shown to a rather opulent bathroom. Stepping out of the shower she was startled to find the bowler hatted man, his eyes averted, offering to help her escape and promising to explain what was going on.

After a hair-raising escape which involved getting slightly blown up, Ellie came 'round again to find herself in a camper van with a sore head and the man in the bowler hat. He explained that Ellie had been kidnapped by a group called "The Auditors". He himself said his name was Viscount Tristian Ignacious Augustine of the House of Rerum, otherwise known as "Shift" and claimed to be a soldier of the "Black Guard" who protected the multiple realities of the universe from the Auditors' interfearance.

The conversation was curtailed by George Mainwairing, a Clerk working for the Auditors who regarded the Viscount as a traitor. Mainwairing was ready to shoot the Viscount in cold blood, but Trisitian used some kind of power to move himself, the camper van and Ellie to a different reality, leaving Mainwairing alone in the forest.

They eventually arrived at the Finningley Air Station, a location Ellie knew from her own reality, where they were met by the Fuga Libero - a vast matt black mile long airship - wher she was introduced to a man known to Tristian as "Bunco". 

Over an increasingly elaborate plate of tea and sandwiches Bunco explained to Ellie that she was a "Fulcrum", a fixed point in reality around which everything else revolved. Ellie was unconvinced, but Bunco was remarkably persausive. He also revealed that not only were Tristian and himself former Auditors, but that the Auditors were a different breed of human - "Homo-Temperatus" or "Organised Man". 

The Auditors' desire for order led them to manipulate the realities, trying to curate cultures, so that each reality is permanently dominated by one culture in perpetuity. The Black Guard Rebellion existed to thwart them and allow each reality to develop in its own way.

Meanwhile Tristian had gone to see the the Admiral whose flagship they had boarded. He confessed to having made a mistake which could allow the Auditors to track him. the Admiral, clearly not a fan of Tristian in the first place, had him arrested and charged with treason. (He really seems to attract that label...)

As he was being escorted to the brig, the Fuga Libero came under attack. Tristian escaped his guards and made his way back to Bunco's office to pick up Ellie. The pair escaped the airship in a sleek black plane called the "Red Kite", a plane with its own artificial intelligence. As they pummetted towards the ground they were surprised to see that although the Fuga Libero was clearly being buffetted by explosions there were no attacking aircraft.

Tristian realised that the attacking craft must be located in a different reality, shifting their weapons a fraction of a second after they were fired. Just as the Fuga Libero was preparing to shift to safety it vanished in a massive explosion. It was unclear whether the massive airship had escaped. Unable to do much else, Tristian instructed the Red Kite to return to the Finningley Air Station.

What waits for our heroes there? Did the Fuga Libero escape? How badly has Tristian's mistake harmed the Black Guard?

Be back here in a couple of days to find out!