It stood before him.

Lit by six crude torches the altar stood. He was facing the altar, and it's stones seemed to glow before him. Before him he found the shining altar of Opaquesino, and it shined before him. It's countenance seemed to radiate that which is visible; all that was visible before him. It was so visible that he had seen it in his dreams before he had come to this place, and now he was before the altar, and the altar was before him. Before him Opaquesino's altar stood before him. That's quite too much of that, and I'm moving on now.

He pulled the cowl from his hooded face, revealing in the glow of the flickering flames the identity of this most graceful interloper. Why do characters so often sneak unseen into a secured location, then remove their guise? It's a matter of "cinematics" if you ask me. Thom Yorke, frontman for Radiohead and master of black ops insertions, crept to the back of the altar and placed a small object, wrapped ever so tightly in pale cloth, between two of the stones of the altar. Because this particular altar was so darned opaque, the object was hidden very effectively, and Thom was very pleased with himself.

A bald cultist with patchy, greyish skin walked casually into the room with his hood down. He moved to a small armoire and quietly opened the front panel. With a loud "snik" and also a "FIZZ!" he popped the can open and with a tilt of his hand, he pressed it to his lips.

"Ah! The high life." He said very satisfactorily and punctuated the thought with a ripe belch.

Thom stood as motionless as a stone angel in a graveyard. His eyes were transfixed on the man who interrupted an otherwise jolly good stealth operation. The cultist smacked his lips and nodded to himself, slightly swaying his head. He turned to look at the altar, and was surprised that there was a slight Briton dressed in all tight black staring at him.

"Hey..." He started with a remarkably casual air.

"Oh bugger!" Thom spat, and swept across the chamber and into the passageway with as much presence as a soft wind.

The cultist of Opaquesino leaned over and peered into the gloom of the tunnel, and didn't see anything more. He took another swig from his watery beer and sauntered back to his quarters.

~~~

"What if they kill him?" Jayson mused to Nick and Aaron. "What will we do? I mean, we'll need a new frontman, and...besides..." He looked to the others, "David is our friend."

"I don't think they'll really hurt him. I mean, not beyond something David deserves anyway." Nick said rather calmly. "I don't know why. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's just like before."

"What do you mean?" Aaron looked puzzled.

"When they came to take one of us away, I just felt perfectly natural about the whole thing." Nick seemed to want to explain his feelings, but everyone understood that perhaps they were a mystery as much to him as to anybody else. "It was like someone was shooting waves into my brain, letting me know a part of a larger plan. Like I just glanced at the blueprint, so I knew we were in the correct wing of the building."

"I felt that too." Aaron agreed. He seemed to have taken a stance of stark sincerity; anyone would have believed it for it rang of the truth. "David didn't seem to catch it at all. He's like got negative psychic points or something."

Jayson scowled. "I don't like it. I was pretty pissed, too."

They were interrupted by grumbling coming from the corridor. The guards seemed upset.

"He wasn't this hard to carry before!" they heard Charles say. "How is it that he's harder to manage now that he's all unconscious than when he was resisting and flailing before!?"

The watchman seemed to agree. "I'll be damned, but you're right! It's as if he's become an anchor. A heavy anchor made of american man meat!"

"I hate meat!" said Charles. The watchman only screwed up his face and carried on dragging their quarry down the hall. He was starting to realize what he had always suspected. Charles was a complete idiot incapable of saying anything worth saying.

They came to the cell door, and Nick, Jayson, and Aaron crept back against the walls trying as best as they could to blend in with all the Vegemite. The guards turned the key and swung the door open, and the three remaining Arches were shocked at what they saw. The guards seemed to be shrugging their arms pointlessly, dragging and managing an invisible burden. They tipped their arms and dumped an unseen load into the cell.

"Back you go, yank!" Charles said before closing the door and locking it fast. The guards returned the way they came with a whistle, and a newfound skip in their step.

Jayson slowly made his way to the center of the dingy cell and prodded carefully with his foot. Something lumpy was occupying the majority of the floorspace.

"What is this? The legendary potato sack of invisibility?" Jayson looked disgusted, as if the place had found a way to smell worse.

Nick crept forward and felt around with his hands. "I think this is David. He feels terrible. He's all clammy." He then wiped his hands begrudgingly on his pants.

Aaron went to stoop down. "Let's get him on one of the yeast benches. It'll be slightly more comfortable than the floor." The three of them lifted their invisible friend with some effort and laid him on one of the benches.

David was the only one who slept through the night.

~~~

In the morning, David woke with a audible yawn and the groans usually associated with stretching after a long nap.

"Hey guys," he began to the others who had bags under their eyes, "you would not believe the show I saw last night!"

There wasn't enough positivity left in the other three to manage a grumble, so they only stared angrily at the bench on which they assumed their friend was sitting.

"Are you guys okay?" David didn't seem to realize the gravity of the situation.

Before the others could say anything deservingly rude, there was another sound of flatulence and the low brick in the wall shifted again. It slid with a loud sucking "plop!" and landed on the floor, and once more the wall grew a sightly Bono protrusion.

"Ey! Mates! Good morning!" They all stared angrily at Bono, who had just become the most visible target of their spite. "Blimey, where's the fourth one? They din't bring 'im back?"

"No." Nick said angrily, "He's invisible."

"I've what?" David gasped?

"David..." Jayson said as nicely as he could manage, "It's my opinion as a hard-drinking physicist that you've been rocked invisible."

"No, really, I've what?" David repeated, clearly in disbelief.

"That's not really fair." Bono opined. "They took me away one night, and this lanky fellow jumped about with a guitar and made such a fuss, and then they untied me and brought me back. Worst show I've ever seen."

Bono then seemed to be smashed backward, his arm folding at an odd angle as it pressed his head back into the hole. Then with some trepidation the Vegemite brick floated back into position and completed the wall once again.

"I hate that guy." David said. "So I'm invisible. Escaping should be easy now."

They all suddenly realized that David was quite right.

~~~

The van was being rocked by the wind.

"I don't see why we have to travel by van. We're a hit! Where's my jet, damn you!" screeched Bobby Sage, frontman for Lion Culture

"I've told you! We're driving to the airport to get in your jet." soothed Geter Prant, band manager for Lion Culture.

"Why can't we just fly to the airport again?" asked James Ponce dreamily. The guitar wizard often associated with Lion Culture was often also associated with being dazed and confused. "That's what I don't understand!"

"He raises a good point, Gete," Jimmy Jon Bones chimed in, "he does raise a good point." The drummer for Lion Culture was sober as a brick, he was just naturally daft.

Geter Prant, a veteran of the music industry wondered to himself how three complete morons could find themselves with an album filled with thirteen number one singles. Each knocking the previous one down the list. One thing was certain, if their music didn't kill him he was definitely going to end his own life.