Have a Fairy Merry Christmas!

Have a Fairy Merry Christmas!

Laura and Joey Alvin sat at the kitchen bench, watching their daughter giggle and dance and squeal.

The parents tried really hard not to show their concern, but it wasn’t easy when little Josie was having a particularly bad fit this time. The doctors hadn’t really known what the problem was, but they’d just called it fitting to get the Alvins out of their hair. It was nearly Christmas and the doctors had their own plans—not to be thwarted by irritating parents way too concerned for their children’s health. Laura and Joey weren’t the only pair to have been turned away with flippant diagnoses. Many other local parents had been told ‘they’re just fits…let’s leave it till the new year and see how little Micky’s going, shall we?’ or some variation. Yeah, just leave it till the new year…and who cares if your kid’s seriously ill by then.

Who cares if it’s too late by then.

Fits? Laura thought as Josie was seized by a particularly violent fit of giggling. The little girl leaped into the air and squealed, “Don’t!” though she was talking to no one and, as was usual lately, Laura began second-guessing herself, wondering if the little girl had said something other than Don’t even though that was definitely what it had sounded like. But in truth, the giggling squealing stage was the stage Laura preferred. It was the other stages that freaked her out.

“Three days till Christmas,” Joey murmured, chewing nervously on his lower lip as he followed his daughter’s crazed, jerky movements.

He didn’t even have to finish the statement. Laura knew what he was thinking: Three days till Christmas, and there’s no sign of improvement. In fact, she seems to be getting worse…

“That damn Dr. Verity pissed me off the most,” Laura muttered, tugging uncomfortably at her too-small jumper (how had she forgotten that the extra kilos she was carrying put this jumper off the list of possible wears?). “I mean, he was so condescending.”

Joey nodded, but said nothing, just rubbed at his chest with one hand as if trying to ease some discomfort there. Laura could relate to that. Her own lungs felt under pressure more and more as the hours passed.

“You are naughty!” Josie squealed, and suddenly she was on the floor, kicking and screaming and—laughing. She really was laughing. But her face was going all red and her eyes were wide and bright and crazed and she was…fitting.

That was how it looked. But there was nothing wrong with her brain, apparently. How Dr. Carter had known that without even looking at her brain, Laura still hadn’t figured out. But that was yet another thing to be done in the new year.

What if it’s too late by then?

“Emergency?” Laura murmured to Joey. “I mean, they are still open… They have to be, right?”

Joey frowned. “My parents are arriving in like, an hour.”

All the more reason to get out of here… Laura thought guiltily. “Well, I could take her, you stay here.”

The look she got from Joey then told her all she needed to know. She was not escaping this house, he would not let her. Not unless things got really bad with Josie, at least. Looking at Joey’s face, though, Laura didn’t think that point was very far off.

Josie sighed and lay still, grinning up at the ceiling. For a moment she was silent, then a tiny giggle bubbled up and out of her. “Yes,” she said. “Okay.”

And that was the last thing she said for the rest of the day, until it was bed time.

When Laura put her down to sleep, the little girl still wouldn’t focus her eyes on anything in this world. That was the only way Laura could put it. “Honey, are you feeling okay?” she asked her daughter, pushing back silky blonde locks of hair from the little girl’s forehead. “You’re having fun?”

Josie giggled, twitched, buried her head in the pillow then lifted it again. “They tickle.”

“What tickles?”

“The fairies.”

Laura paused, feeling strangely cold inside. She’d believed in fairies when she was a kid, but fairies had never taken over her entire life. Not like they apparently had with Josie.

“Are the fairies your friends, honey?” Laura asked, gripping handfuls of Josie’s bedspread and leaning closer to her daughter.

“No,” Josie said, shaking her head. She was still grinning, shuddering with the occasional giggle, but a strange look had come into her eyes. “They don’t like me. But they tickle.”

“They…don’t like you?”

Josie shook her head, then giggled loudly and burrowed back down into the pillow— “Don’t! Ahhh!”

Meanwhile, Laura was frowning. Since when do fairies not like people? I mean, Tinkerbell…

But then there were the old fairies, or maybe they were called faeries or something…the vicious ones from ancient myth. Maybe they didn’t like people. Maybe they tickled people to torment them.

You are insane, Laura told herself, even as she formulated words to say to her daughter.

“You’re talking to the fairies right now?”

“Yes. But they don’t listen.” Giggle. Squeal. Twitch. Gasp.

“What do they say to you?”

For a brief moment, Josie’s eyes seemed to focus. But then she was off in fairyland again, seeing nothing of the real world. Laura was sure she was not going to get an answer to that last question, and was preparing to kiss Josie goodnight. But then words slipped out, so softly spoken they were barely audible. They were words to chill Laura’s blood:

“They say lots of things…”

Unbidden, helpless tears sprang into Laura’s eyes and she cursed the doctors who had turned her child away, the doctors who she would not hesitate to sue if anything went wrong.

At the door to the bedroom, Laura and Joely exchanged words. “I’ll sleep in here tonight,” Laura told Joey. “I don’t want to leave her alone.”

“Shall I stay with you?”

“No, honey—you need your rest.”

His eyes accused her. “So do you. You’re not invincible you know.”

“Yes,” Laura said with a quaver in her voice. “I do know.”

They stared at one another. Joey sighed, reached out to touch her cheek. “We’ll be okay. Try not to worry.”

But what a hypocrite he was, when worry practically oozed out of his every pore. Still, Laura loved him for trying to reassure her. At least somebody was trying.

They parted ways and Laura rested in the lounge chair by the old cot Josie had used up until a year ago, before she’d got her first ‘big girl’ bed. Those had been days when Josie was still in this world, still truly engaging with others. Those days were gone now. Josie was in fairyland and Laura had no idea how to get her back.

Laura spent the night in her daughter’s room, and woke to a day of more giggling/squealing/dancing. Two days till Christmas. The day passed much as those before it had. Joey’s parents were in the house, and they reprimanded him and Laura for not getting help for Josie. They wouldn’t listen to any excuses, not even the ones where the doctors had refused to help. Laura longed for the day when Joey’s parents would run off back to their homes. She hated them, more now than she ever had at any other time.

That night, Joey stayed in Josie’s room, and though it was a terrible night’s sleep for Laura, she awoke to find her daughter still present. It was a strangely huge relief, as if she’d expected to find the girl gone.

Gone where? she wondered, but had no answer.

It was Christmas Eve day, and it passed as any other had done lately. “I think she needs a doctor,” Mrs. Geraldine Alvin told Laura for the thousandth time in the last couple of days, as if Laura had never thought of that herself before. “Why don’t you take her to a doctor?”

Laura just gritted her teeth and walked away.

Christmas Eve night, it was Laura’s turn again to stay in Josie’s room. She was tired, she truly was, but she sat in a way that she knew was terribly uncomfortable, just to prevent herself from falling asleep. When even that seemed not to be working, she retrieved a fire engine toy from the bedroom floor and stuffed it behind her back, making sure it dug into her flesh uncomfortably. That ought to be sufficient.

But when Laura woke in the middle of the night, she realised she’d slept for at least two hours. And leaning forward in her chair, she realised her daughter’s bed was empty.

Laura screamed, and Joey came running.

They waited and waited, but Josie didn’t come back. Laura became convinced that the fairies had taken her. They weren’t the only parents in town who had woken up on Christmas Day to find their children’s beds empty. Laura wasn’t the only parent to lose her mind and start mumbling about fairies. Joey wasn’t the only bereft parent who also had to take his spouse to a psychiatrist for evaluation. And the Alvin family wasn’t the only family destroyed by Christmas that year.

But the fairies had a good one, at least.

Stomping Ground

Stomping Ground

Tom started at the old high school, what was left of it.

Crumbling buildings only half of which had roofs; dead weeds choking what had once been a magnificent botanical garden; drinking fountains long-since coated with the dust of renovation and years of changing weather. Everything had a dry, dusty feel, and Rachel was glad she’d brought along a bottle of Mount Franklin.

“See that square of grass over there?” He was pointing off into a distance so distant she had to squint to try and make it out. She failed. But she nodded anyway. She didn’t want to let him down, and pretending to match his enthusiasm was the best way she could think of to keep him happy. You should never have to lie to the one you love, her mother would have said. But her mother wasn’t here, and she didn’t know what it was like. She was old and decrepit and out of touch by now. So Rachel nodded, and hoped her own eyes gleamed with an excitement to match his, or at least to come close.

“We used to sit there at lunch time—and recess. We sat in the dorks’ corner.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.”

This time Rachel’s smile wasn’t forced. She turned it on him and fell to her favourite pastime—studying him, appreciating him for the nerd he was. Tall, skinny, gawky even; his glasses weren’t that thick but he couldn’t really do much without them. He was red-haired and freckled to within an inch of his life. He wore a Temple of the Dog shirt and black jeans. A clean but worn backpack hung precariously from one shoulder, but he stood as if he’d forgotten about it entirely. He gazed off toward that distant patch of grass—Rachel could only assume it was all dead grass by now—unaware of her scrutiny, a fond smile on his face.

“Hard to believe,” Rachel agreed, still smiling at him. Then he came back to himself, looked to her, winked and took her by the hand.

Oh god, she loved it when he did that.

They walked all around the school ruins, and for a while Rachel actually lost herself in the walk down Memory Lane. Even if they weren’t her own memories, she’d always enjoyed Tom’s stories of his high school antics. Childhood too—he was a funny guy. Still, she was impatient to get on with their day, or rather, get closer to their night.

The school was just the beginning, though. They drove around town in Tom’s battered old Mazda 323, visiting old haunts and sharing the stories to go with them. Mostly, they were Tom’s stories—Rachel was from interstate and so her old stomping grounds were out of reach for the time being—but on occasion there was cause for Rachel to conjure some old memory of her own and share it. Tom shamed her with his attentiveness at those times; surely she could never reciprocate the way a good girlfriend should. But he wasn’t bothered—it was all in her head. Like so much of what plagued her every day.

“Okay,” Tom said at one point as they turned a corner onto a main street, “the house is coming up on your left.” The car slowed and Rachel craned her neck, very nearly pressing her face to the window in anticipation.

That was when she saw it.

Tiny, brown-bricked and teetering on stilts. You could see all sorts of crap underneath it, like it was the neighbourhood rubbish tip or something. Easier than gathering up all your stuff and heading to the real tip. Windows were broken, roof tiles were missing and weeds grew through the cracks in the porch. The porch.

Oh, and speaking of the porch, it totally sagged. You wouldn’t want to step up onto it, ‘cause you might fall down.

The way Tom had always talked about this place, Rachel had envisioned it as some kind of magical hideaway, a little fairy house tucked away in some mystic, lush garden. The garden wasn’t precisely lush, more overgrown and out of control. An example of nature rising up to reclaim its territory. In this case, human beings had stepped aside and let it have its unruly way.

She was still trying to comprehend what she was looking at as Tom’s car drew to a halt at the side of the road. “So, what do you think?” he asked, dragging her unceremoniously back to the present. “Pretty amazing, huh?” Um…yeah. “I mean, I grew up there. Trippy, right?”

“That’s really it?” she asked, trying to keep the disappointment from her voice.

“Yep,” he said with a nostalgic grin, “and yet, look how I turned out.”

At that, another genuine smile appeared on her face, and she squeezed his hand. “You turned out just great.”

“Wanna explore the backyard?” he asked.

Her heart sank. “Um…well… Is it safe?”

“Hmm…maybe not. We won’t go in or anything.” No shit, we won’t. “But you know, the grass should be safe.” Except for snakes and rats and stuff, right? There was a brief silence before Tom tugged on her hand and she turned to him. “But if you don’t wanna go in, it’s cool.” Looking at his face, she knew he was telling the truth.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “It’s just…”

“Don’t even say it.” He smiled and leaned over to brush his lips over her cheek, making her shiver. “I get it. And you’ve seen it now, anyway—that’s all I wanted.”

She watched him for a moment, waging an inner battle he was unaware of. Then she smiled and said, “No, let’s go—I want to see the backyard.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

The delight on his face then told Rachel she’d made the perfect decision.

They explored the backyard like intrepid adventurers, and nobody got bitten by any snakes. To Rachel’s surprise, a happy memory of her own childhood snaked its way into her thoughts as she climbed a particularly magnificent tree in one corner of the yard. In the memory, she and her best friend Josie had made a treetop fort—or that was what they’d called it—and had played Star Wars games. Rachel had been an Ewok called Kowee, while Josie had insisted on Princess Leia—Josie had definitely had the long, dark hair for it.

“Careful,” Tom called, laughing delightedly as Rachel climbed even higher. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“That’s nice of you,” she responded breathlessly, flippantly, “but I’ve got it.” Because suddenly she did have it—her confidence, something she’d been lacking for far too long. She was good at pretending, but this was the first time in a long while that she hadn’t had to. The smile that bloomed on her face at that moment was like the sun breaking through clouds.

“You’re so hot,” Tom murmured into her hair as she fell into him again at last, having forsaken the tree for his arms. “And you’re awesome.”

“So are you,” she giggled, and pressed her mouth against his. Gently. She liked to be gentle. But then suddenly things got a little less gentle. So much so that she thought her hair might be standing on end. There was a strange buzzing sound in the air—no, it was in her ears.

“Okay,” Tom gasped, pushing her to arm’s length from him, “we’re going before you get me into trouble here.”

And they picked their careful way back to the car hand-in-hand, the delight of the day shining on both their faces.

On the road again, they left Tom’s childhood climes behind. As they hit the highway once more, Tom said with a shake of his head, “Yep—that’s my neighourhood.”

This time, when he looked at her, she was smiling so much it hurt her face.

Hunting an Abomination

Hunting an Abomination

The nurses fuss over me like I’m at death’s door.

In their defence, I was at death’s door for a while there. At least that’s what I’m told. But I’m all better now, and they need to leave me alone so I can get back to work. I stare at the ceiling trying not to scream while my caretakers unwittingly block my escape route. Or maybe it’s completely wittingly. Either way, they’re in the doorway and that’s where I need to be.

I need to be out the door.

Aaron pisses me off at the best of times, but this is fast becoming the worst of times. He knows it’s urgent that I get back in the room—he knows I’ve got work to do. Lives to save, and not just my own. A killer to find. And he promised he’d be here on time. He promised he’d get me out.

In what’s becoming a bad habit, I run the tip of my tongue over my split lip. It stings, and I wince, which I turn makes me hurt more. My head still throbs, but at least it’s not so much a knifing pain anymore. My muscles ache and I feel like somebody’s used my bones for drumsticks. But there’s a fire in my heart that won’t be put out. I’m not just scared now. I’m angry. Oh, and I’m determined to stop this, once and for all.

But to do that, I need the capture chamber.

I need more information.

“Have you got everything you need?” Alice, one of the nurses on shift, asks from right beside me where she has miraculously materialised. For a moment I wonder if she’s of this plane or not. But no, she’s just sneaky and quiet.

No, I’ve got nothing I need, I want to tell her. Instead I smile weakly and murmur, “Yes. Thanks.” Lisa smiles back, brightly enough for ten of us, and pats my hand. Then she returns to her friends in the doorway and resumes their chat.

Sooner or later, the hallway will clear. Sooner or later I will get my chance. It’d be easier if Aaron was here to smooth my path. But I’ll do what I have to do, with or without institutional permission.

There’s a soreness in my heart that doesn’t relate to the fact that somebody just tried to kill me. Or that my friend Lucy is dead. Or that too many others have died already. Yeah, all that sucks. But I can’t help thinking of Mack and the look on his face last time I saw him. Those words we exchanged, when I accused him and he lashed out. I felt guilty the first time, when I suspected him of Lucy’s death. But now I’m not so sure I should have.

I don’t have any good reason to suspect him, I guess. But he was hanging out with Lucy a lot before she died. And he’s been avoiding me lately—maybe he fears what I’ll see if I look in his eyes. Maybe he hates your guts for thinking he murdered his girlfriend, an annoyingly logical voice pipes up in my head. But they spent all their time together. Who else could’ve got close enough to her?

Besides, there’s nobody else I can think of. Nobody else that makes any sense as a suspect at all. I’d go crazy if I didn’t have someone to suspect. As much as it hurts my heart, I can only think Mack.

“You look perturbed,” Alice says, startling me once again.

“Oh, I’m…I’m fine. It’s just…my mentor was supposed to come by.”

“Aaron? Hmm, do you want me to page him?”

I shake my head. “No, it’s okay.” In fact, with each moment that passes I’m liking the idea of doing things without Aaron better and better. He’s always been just a pain in the butt and an embarrassment to the profession. Maybe that’s harsh of me, but it’s also true.

“You want me to call anyone else in?”

No, but I’d love for you all to go away so I can sneak out. How about it? I just shake my head and smile.

“All right. You just buzz us if you need anything.”

And then, as if my prayers have been answered, the nurses clear the doorway and the hallway beyond it. I’m alone, everything is quiet but for the distant murmur of voices, and my skin is suddenly tingling.

You should wait a few minutes, a voice sounds from the other side of my bed. I turn to find Jennifer Myles standing there, gazing toward the room door with a slight frown.

“Where have you been?” I whisper, shifting so I can see her better. “I was looking for you.”

Her eyes move from the doorway to me. In them I see a startling amount of concern. Fear, even.

I know, she says without opening her mouth. That’s why I’ve been gone. Danna, you’ve got to go in there. You’ve got to open the door. But…be careful.

“I will be. I know what I’m doing.”

You can’t control all the variables. And I can’t tell you who—

Her eyes fly to the doorway, she tilts her head, and then she says, Okay, go. NOW.

The urgency in her voice makes me want to fly out of bed, race to the doorway and run off down the hallway. But instead I drag the blankets off me—no mean feat; these nurses sure know how to tuck a girl in tight—and lumber to my feet, then shuffle laboriously to the doorway. By the time I get there I’m almost out of breath. I take a few moments to collect myself, peering left then right. The way is clear. Just go. Quickly. I like to think I’m ignoring her, but really I’m taking her word as gospel and hoping I don’t get myself in some serious trouble.

My head is really starting to throb now. No wonder the nurses told me to stay in bed. But this has to be done, and I’m the only one who knows to do it.

I’m with you, Jennifer murmurs, and though I can’t see her—don’t have the time to look around for her, either—I can feel her presence. She certainly is with me. She’s my guide and my friend and I’m going to reap justice for her.

For Lucy, too.

Sadness wells inside me, and my eyes begin to prickle. I shove the feelings down and blink to clear my vision.

I set my sights on the elevator at the end of the hallway, already anticipating pressing the button for the second floor.

Jennifer and I step into the lift together, and despite the pounding of my heart and the sick feeling in my stomach, I feel a rush of exhilaration.

We’re off to hunt a murderer.

An abomination of nature.

No Sky For Machines

No Sky For Machines

Second. Minutes. Hours.

Days, weeks, months.

A year.

Rinse and repeat.

There’s a corner of the window where I see a sliver of sky. I feel naughty, like I’m cheating, breaking the law. Ironic that I should be worried about that, considering there is no law any longer. But I do worry, I do feel naughty, and all the while I’m looking at that window, I’ve got my ears pricked for any sign that I’m soon to be in company. I’m on the lookout, lest somebody catches me looking.

I’m also on the lookout because I’m protecting my territory.

Can’t have anyone else in my corner, watching my sliver of sky.

It’s mine.

A good thing there’s no longer a need for food. I’d be oh so hungry. And there’d be fighting and squabbling and rending limb from limb. Just like old times.

Old times are so old now. They’re long gone. But sometimes I get glimmers of recollection, like a blur of movement glimpsed just over the shoulder. Only, when I turn to look, it’s gone. I end up wondering if it was ever there at all.

I’m talking about recollections from my own life, not general knowledge that every creature possesses and retains. There are certain things one can never forget, because we are not permitted to forget them. Personal histories don’t count. It’s the other things that we are programmed to remember.

The thing is, we’re breaking down. We’re malfunctioning more and more. Not that it really matters; nobody is relying on us anymore. But it can be exhausting, having a mind that works as it should only some of the time. Even if it doesn’t matter to anyone else, it matters to us.

Because we’re all we have left.

The cell is dark.

My eyes have long since adjusted, but I still think about the fabled sun. I wonder what might happen to my eyes if I ever saw it again.

In my head there are stories of creatures who looked into the sun only to lost their vision. It’s inconceivable, the idea of not being able to see. I would lose my sliver of sky if that happened.

That can’t ever happen.

I suppose that explains why I fear the sun.

I remember when a fellow of mine asked of our drill sergeant a question. He asked about the sun and the sky, and whether heaven waited up above them both. “Heaven? What the hell’s that? No, no my friend—no heaven for you. You’re a machine. Forget about sunlight, forget about rain. Forget it all, because you’ve got a job to do. No heaven for you.”

We exchanged glances, shrugs, and I thought, Makes sense.

Don’t get me wrong. The sky isn’t particularly bright. It hasn’t been bright in a long time. I’ve always found that the best way to explain it is through quoting poetry. The old rhyme explains it all nicely:

“Night falls and creatures roam

Along the streets ‘fore sun-up

But soon they will discover that

Eternal night has risen up…”

The Eternal Night is all they used to be able to talk about. It was all over the news media, wallpapers and holovision and advertising hovercraft. I wasn’t there to see it myself. Rather, I’ve heard the stories passed down through generations, and I’ve read about them in history logs. I recall one woman’s words, and here I paraphrase:

“It was like the street crazies had taken over—suddenly it was perfectly the norm to proclaim that the Apocalypse had come. We were all going to burn in hellfire and damnation. There would never be a heaven because we had forsaken it, because we were sinners to the very core and this was our penance. The world had gone mad, and we were in the middle of it. Insanity was a pandemic and we were swept away along with everyone.”

Those words, “ETERNAL NIGHT”, plastered everywhere. I can almost picture it in my shorting mind, see the dire words emblazoned all over. I can almost smell the fear and the dirt and the blood and the smoke. Chemical fumes from destroyed industrial plants. The salt of tears flowing freely. The putrid promise of a world coming to an end.

I can almost taste disaster on my tongue.

Except I taste nothing anymore. All I can do is dream.

I’m a sinner, I know. But I’ve forgotten how I sinned.

Sometimes I think about it, and I wonder if I did something really bad. Did I hurt someone? Did I kill someone? Did I join a dissenting cause in opposition of my government? Maybe I spoke ill of the dead. Or the living. Even I know that in the world we live in, speaking ill of the wrong person can get you killed.

I’m not supposed to remember. My mind was formatted for only a certain amount of memory. But though I know what I’m meant for and what I’m not, sometimes I have these…desires. Sometimes I have these longings that lie outside my set parameters. Sometimes I want to remember other things.

Like where I came from.

And what I did to get in here.

What was my crime?

I gaze up at the window, waiting for the dawn. Insofar as it can be called a dawn anymore. Like I said, we’re in the Eternal Night and the sky only lightens somewhat during daylight hours. That word, ‘daylight’, makes no sense anymore, but people still use it. It’s a vestige of a world long gone, and there are a lot of those around. The saying Good morning is still in use, even though there is no real morning anymore. There is still talk of living to see another day, even though none of us have seen a day in far too long to count, and may never see one again.

Oh, and none of us is technically alive any longer.

There’s no such thing as sunlight and shade. There’s moonshadow, and I like that just fine. But history tells me that the shadows created by the strategic fall of sunlight is far more dramatic; the shadows unfathomably richer. I have a hard time grasping that, and I suppose I will never manage. But it’s one of those things I think about when I shouldn’t. It’s one of those things I wish for.

There is a wall in this place that is the most dramatic shade of blue. I’m told that this shade is the same as a daytime sky. I stare at my sliver of real sky, and then I think about the blue of that wall. And all I can really do is doubt. The really young ones have a habit of exaggerating, and I’m convinced they’re exaggerating about this too. I have never read in any history book about a sky being blue. They focus not so much on facts but on historical events. I have read up heartily on all those things. And not once, anywhere that I could see, did any historian of old mention a blue sky.

I’d have to see it for myself to believe it.

I suppose that means I never will.

Time passes and I’m mostly alone. I’m getting a little rusty. In some places, mildew has formed. I feel the occasional tickle, and I wonder why that part of my machinery is still functioning. I suppose there is no reason why it shouldn’t be. Most of my senses still work, in fits and starts at least. The only one that’s gone entirely is my sense of smell. For that, I am grateful. Experience tells me that I should be grateful. I can’t quite remember why, but I’m taking my processor’s word for it.

For the most part, the sense of touch is useless. Taste isn’t much use either, but sometimes it can be…inconvenient. Certain tastes I get in my mouth remind me of the fact that I can no longer smell, and that I’m grateful for that. I am no longer able to connect the two concepts in any logical way, but I know enough to know I’m better off avoiding doing so.

Let us consider the other senses, though. Hearing is fundamental. It keeps me on my guard, ready for any new arrival. But by far the most invaluable sense is that of sight, which allows me to see my sliver of sky.

As long as I can see that, I can dream.

Second. Minutes. Hours.

Days, weeks, months.

A year.

Two years. Three.

Time passes and I lose count of everything.

I lose my senses one by one.

Finally I have only two left: seeing and hearing.

Then it happens. The day arrives that I lose my sight. That’s when I know my the old drill sergeant was right. There is no heaven, not for cold, wired machines. There is to be no heaven, no sunlight for the likes of me.

I stay there at the window, sightless and alone.

Cruelly, the last one to go is that of hearing, so that I hear the moment my end approaches. I hear the distant shouts, the shuffling of booted feet growing ever louder. I hear my cell door clanking open, voices louder now. Rough voices belonging to creatures with no regard for what’s left of me.

I hear my own rusted feet scraping across the stone floor, and I hear the disassembly as it happens. I hear the flicking of a switch, and then my hearing is fading too. Fading slowly away, as everything else has.

It's Not Over Yet

And by 'it's not over yet', I really mean that this isn't necessarily finished and that I don't know what I'm doing anymore and that ARRRRGH! hehe.

OK, shutting up now!

It's Not Over Yet

"I was never meant to be a soldier.

I should have been a housewife, a mother, something like that. I guess if everybody hadn't started dying around me, I might've gone that way.

As a little girl I wore pretty dresses with flowers on them, I played with plastic figurines of ladies—Barbies, they were called—and I daydreamed of the day I'd wear white and totter down an aisle in sparkling white heels. I was a bit of a weirdo by that point—most of the other little girls liked what I liked, or wanted what I wanted. But I stuck to my guns—god, that's a terrible pun, and I didn't even intend it to be one—and clung to my girliness.

Everything changed, of course.

It's a well-known fact that civil war changes a woman. It bends her, twists her up a little inside. My mind isn't the same as it once was. Nor is my heart, or any part of me for that matter. I've got scars on the outside, remnants of battle wounds, but the ones inside are what never leave me, even when I dream. Did I mention I turned all emo? Yeah, I resent that in a big way, but I've accepted it. I've accepted a lot of things I never thought I would, especially in the last few days. Because there's a point in every rebel soldier's life when she just can't deny any of it anymore—she realises once and for all that she lives in hell and she's going to die there too.

The really good soldiers decide that they might as well do what they can, while they're still standing.

I'm still standing, hard as that is to believe. I'm still standing, but the machines are my last chance, the only chance I have to get the message out, beyond these walls. I don't trust machines, but they're all I've got. They're all the outside world has got."

Red light ticks to green and I open my mouth to start talking.

I've planned it all out in my head, but now that I'm really here, now that the machine is on and I've got the chance to speak, my voice conks out on me. On the very first word it catches, and I choke, cough, splutter. It's one of those coughs that doubles me over—working the abs, you know?

As if I need more of a workout than I've had lately.

Somewhere in the middle of the hacking fit I start to laugh. Things get worse, like my face turning red—I can't see it but I can feel it burning…pretty soon it's got to turn purple; that's a sight I know well. Am I really going to die here, squeezed of all air and of the strength to keep my feet? Because that would be really ironic.

That's when it happens: I stop, gasping for air—filling my lungs with the desperation of a woman who knows her days are far more numbered than her hours. Anger flashes through me at the thought of how much time I've wasted already. I grip the console and steady myself, taking a few long, deep breaths to regain my equilibrium. Then I begin to hum, testing my voice.

It holds.

"I'm reporting from Sector Fourteen, it's…" I tap my watch to bring up the date and time. "February thirteenth, time is eighteen-twenty-two. I estimate I have an hour before the machines die here as well. I'm not sure who this message will reach, if anyone, but I can only hope it goes somewhere. The truth has to be known because you're not going to hear it from anyone in red or gold, I can assure you of that…"

My voice is trembling, just like my hands. I grip my knees to stop the latter, but there's nothing much I can do about my voice. This has to be done, but I'm still not happy about being the one to do it.

How did I end up here?

I talk for thirty-seven minutes before the machinery gives out. There is so much to document but it doesn't much matter if I fail to relate it all. I start with the best examples, and they are good ones indeed. The rest can be construed—I make it clear with every word I utter that we're only scratching the surface here. To really understand what has happened, a person would have to live through what I did. There are always going to be facts that are lost to history.

But I can give them something, at least.

Some idea of how our nation has been betrayed.

It happens so quietly that at first I don't really believe it. Green light flickers, and my voice falters. Green light flickers and begins to fade. My voice gives out entirely. I stare at the dull shiny orb that used to be lit, just stand there and stare. Then I brace myself against the console, bowing my head. I close my eyes and let myself be. Just for one moment.

The time has come for me to leave this place. I fought hard to get here and now I'm leaving. But I can't execute my plan from here.

They won't feel me if I strike from this far back.

I need to go and meet them.

The further I walk, the more my thoughts tangle in my head. My veins rush with energy and vengeance fuels my motion. Still, I can't help thinking.

For me, thinking has never been a comfort.

I pass countless graffitied walls, and on one I see long-dried drips of paint that form the words, taller than my head but similarly messy:

HELL

My thoughts take a turn in that direction, and I start to contemplate the meaning of hell as I know it. I used to be religious. I used to fear hell.

I'm not so scared now, though, because I know you can find hell on earth.

You only have to know where to look.

Hell is realising that the people you trusted, the ones you wanted nothing more than to please, are the same ones who got you into this mess to begin with. Hell is learning that, contrary to popular opinion, you and your comrades just don't matter. You're utterly expendable, and quite frankly, the sooner you go down the better.

The more of you that die, the less resistance there will be in the end—resistance to the Revolution.

And god, I hate that word—Revolution. It's got all these connotations, like it's something amazing. Something wonderful.

It's not wonderful. It's not amazing.

It's hell.

"They turned on us at the worst possible moment. I guess that was the idea, right? Cut us off at the knees. Go for the jugular. Sever the spine.

So many clichés, so little time to make them all come true. But they did a good job.

I lay in a pile of bodies. Some of them twitched for hours, others were still in an instant. They grew cold around me but I stayed warm. They made a great windshield.

My comrades and my enemies all around me, friend and foe alike dead as last week's rancid meat. But there was an upside to lying there pinned by the weight of human flesh—it gave me time to think, really think. It gave me time to formulate a plan."

Case o' the Crazies

Case o' the Crazies

Waiting room.
          There are people coughing and I figure that even though I'm here for some sleeping pills, maybe a set of handcuffs if the doc thinks they're necessary, I'm going to leave with a lot more than that—like at least one cold, maybe more.
          Gotta love coughing strangers in a confined space, no windows, no aeration.
          But I figure as long as I don't catch crazy, I'll be fine.
          Yeah, there's one of those sitting beside me—I always attract his type; I think I'm a magnet for them—babbling on about hiding places and being smelled. I have no trouble imagining people smelling him from a mile away—as far as him and baths go, let's just say it's been a while between meet-ups.
          His words wash over me, an incomprehensible melding of slurred words and 'sh' sounds. I don't want to look, but I make myself look, and confirm what I suspected—he's got a few teeth missing. Strike that, he's got a few teeth left in his mouth. The rest have gone walkabout. Part of me wonders if he misses them. Then I realise I'm in a waiting room, surrounding by coughing sneezing hunched-over people…and with a bona fide crazy for company.
          He's the only one who doesn't have a cold. Or if he has one, he's hiding it well.
          He's got plenty else to be thinking about, though. Like the holes in the walls and the way you flatten yourself against brick and stop breathing—for minutes at a time, even; he claims he was the best out of anyone at keeping his lungs full. He's got stories to tell, ohhhh does he ever. And lucky me is here to listen.
          Doc's running late again. As usual. She's coming up on a record this time—forty-seven minutes so far. Longest I ever waited was an hour and two minutes, but I'm hoping I won't be outdoing myself this time. Fifteen more minutes of sitting here with Bozo the Dirty Clown doesn't really float my boat, I've gotta say.
          For the most part, his words wash over me. But then he says something that gets my attention.
          "…Sleep-walkin', they call it. But I didn't feel sleepy, I'm tellin' you. All I know is, I woke up halfway to Merton City, no idea what I was doin'. Train station. Got this distinct feelin' I'd been…with company, I guess. Saw shoe prints in wet stuff—prolly good ole H20, I don't know. But I could see 'em clearly down there on the ground. Right beside me. Not my shoe size, 'fore you ask. Different size, by a long shot. Looked around, but no sign of anyone. I just got a sense of…having been with at least one other person. Not sure they're a friend, know what I mean? And I remembered a really white light. And I don't mean no 'Call to the Heavens' type deal. Nuh uh. More like 'M'gonna shine this in your eye and see how you like it.' Or, like, they're tryin' to see how I react to it. Like…experiments. Know what I mean?"
          He's looking at me, mouth twisted in a sort of grimace, eyebrows furry with dust and grime, skin wrinkled but not with age—more with hardship. One of his eyes is fixed on me—the other's kind of scrunched shut, as if it's remembering the white light. Why don't both his eyes remember? And don't try and tell me maybe he's got no second eye at all—I can see it moving around under his lid. It's there. So what I wanna know is, what's up with the scrunching.
          More to the point, I want to know why the hell a chill just rippled through me as I listened to more and more of his words. And why it's not going away.
          "You should be careful," the crazy says. "I wasn't careful. Now look at me. Wouldn't want the same thing to happen to you."
          What, I wind up on the streets with dusty eyebrows? I want to ask him. But I stay quiet as he rises to his feet.
          "You might think you're safe, lady, but you ain't safe. Not anywhere. Not anyhow. Just telling you to be careful. Watch yourself. Watch your back. 'Cause nobody else is gonna."
          "What's that even mean?" I ask, turning to face the crazy.
          He's not there.
          And suddenly, coughing waiting people are staring at me. They're looking wary, like I'm the damn crazy in this place.
          I swallow a sick feeling and clear my throat. I reach out through my body with my mind, seeking discomfort. Nothing, except maybe the dullest ache in the back of my head—something I just put down to sleep deprivation. Walking in one's sleep will do that to a person, at least that's what I had figured. But maybe it's an ache that's a sign of more than just lost sleep. Maybe it's a symbol of something lost.
          Like sanity, for instance.
          I stare down at my hands trying not to grimace.

Doctor Osbourne checks out my eyes. She shines a light into them. Goosebumps break out over my skin as I remember the crazy and his strange tale. Hell, I heard a lot of strange tales while I sat beside him, but I didn't pay attention to most of them. The only one I remember is the one about sleepwalking, about train stations at night and company you don't remember. About white shining lights, not the kind that welcomes you to heaven.
          Heaven, I think bitterly. She shall never be mine, for I am damned. Some old poem, but it fits. Not that I'm damned. I just feel that way sometimes. It's like a subconscious thing. Something I can't put my finger on, but it's a feeling and it's there.
          Sticking to me like dandelion dust.
          "Everything seems fine," Osbourne tells me, clicking her miniature flashlight off and tucking it into a voluminous white pocket. "Have you been having the headaches?"
          Something tells me to lie. So I do. "No, I just woke up last night… In my hallway. I mean, it's not that scary. I just thought…"
          The doctor nods. "You've seen the ads on TV?" I don't answer, just incline my head. "I wouldn't worry. Those cases are…extreme. And those victims have been exposed to…well, let's just say it's not something we need to worry about here. Not yet."
          Don't we? I say in my head. What about the crazy I talked to? What about what happened to him? Only, I'm not sure he ever existed, except in my own troubled head. I refrain from asking the question. From incriminating myself further.
          All this goes on record, I realise. Every visit I make here. Every inquiry where I identify myself. It's all on record for anyone in the right position of power to see.
          I haven't been careful. I haven't been watching my back.
          I'd better start. Because if I don't, who's gonna?

"There are places you can hide," the hobo tells me, "if you just know where to look. The trick, though, is to disguise your smell."
          I stare at him, wondering how many hobos I'm going to have to talk to before I understand what they're telling me.
          "Why do you think I'm dressed like this?" he adds.
          And finally I get it.

I go down to City Park and find myself a nice muddy puddle. Some of them have too much water, but I finally stumble upon one that is sufficient percentage clay. I peer left and right, up and down, making sure I'm alone. Then I dive into the puddle and roll around, making sure to get as much dirt in my hair as I can.
          This isn't going to be enough. It's just mud, clay, what have you. I need to smell really bad. I need to smell worse than I ever imagined I could.
          I need to complete my disguise.
          Then I need a hiding place.
          Somewhere they can't smell me anymore.

Daddy

I did actually write this on Thursday night...then I forgot to post it on Friday! But here it is, backdated (it's Sunday right now, but yes I'm backdating).

Daddy

She bloomed with life and good health. He was inclined to thank the baby for that. The creature growing inside her, a small human awaiting its turn at life. Not long now. She was forty weeks pregnant and ready to burst. But he hated the faraway look on her face, hated the way he’d talk and she’d forget to listen.
     Amazing that in just nine months, he’d grown to hate the love of his life. And all because of a dreamy expression.
     There were mysteries he could never be in on, secrets he could never learn. He didn’t want to be a woman, but he envied the secret nooks and crannies of their minds, those places he’d never been able to reach. His mother had had them, all his girlfriends had had them. And now his wife, the one he’d had to beg just to get a first date, to get the ring on her finger, to get her to stay when the grass on the other side glowed searing green. His wife was the worst of all. Because begging didn’t work this time.
     She didn’t even hear him.
     Despite his frustration, he counted down the weeks and days and hours and sometimes even the seconds. He craved the day when he would see his son—or daughter, he reminded himself; might be a girl—in the flesh. He longed to see that minute face, however prune-like it might appear at first. He longed to study those tiny hands, fingers laid out in all their perfect glory against one of his comparatively enormous fingers. He longed for the day, he hungered for it, and he stayed by her side because that day was coming.
     It was the only thing that kept him here.
     He’d seen newborn babies in sunlight—sometimes it was like you could see through their skin. They glowed red, and you saw the skin silhouetted. It was difficult to describe the wonder of such a sight. He’d always been insanely jealous of others and their babies. He was jealous of his wife for being closer to the kid than he was. He was jealous of his friend who was a single father. He wished he could be a single father too.
     Just Daddy and baby, living in harmony together. Glowing in the sunshine.
     Because really, what man needed a wife?

For the first time in weeks, a new expression flitted over his wife’s face. A slight pinching of her brow, a flicker of an eyelid, a soft intake of breath like a snake’s hiss. He tensed in his chair, leaning toward her. “Darling? What is it?” He called her darling out of force of habit alone, now. She wasn’t his darling any longer. Hadn’t been for a good while. But since all words were empty to him now, what was another meaningless utterance?
     “I think…” She’d had it for a moment there—a grip on the thing she wanted to say. But then it had slipped through her fingers, wafted out of her mind like every thought she’d had for the last nine months.
     His fingers itched to slap her. He tensed the muscles of his arm to keep it by his side. He gritted his teeth and reached out in his mind for an anchor. Something to hold him steady on the stormy seas. He was so close, so close. He couldn’t ruin things now.
     He wouldn’t let her ruin things now, when he was so close.
     “Darling? What is it?”
     She blinked. “I think the baby…”
     And then she doubled over, as far as her distended belly would allow her to, and that flicker of discomfort became a fixed mask of pain. Teeth were bared, eyes squeezed shut, and breathing sped up. A strange guttural moan began in her throat, and he saw her chest rattling with it. Then he saw the belly—it was moving, writhing, the creature inside it fighting to get out. Fighting for air and freedom.
     He knew it then—the baby didn’t want her anymore than his Daddy did. The baby wanted freedom. The baby wanted a life with just Daddy.
     It was settled, then. Daddy would take care of him.
     He would.

At the hospital, it was everything he could do to hold everything on the inside. He was bursting with feeling: excitement, fear, desperation, elation. Anticipation. He anticipated the beginning of his life, for really, life hadn’t begun before now. The baby would kick start everything. The baby would breathe new life into its lungs and into its father. The baby would change the world.
     But first, it had to escape the prison of its mother’s womb.
     He’d started to wonder, in the last few minutes, if that creature was the baby’s mother after all. How could such a sublime creature have such a thing as a mother? Surely it was more divine than that. And somehow, the thought of that baby being tainted with such a vacuous influence was too awful to bear. So he decided, in his infinite wisdom, that the baby was his and nobody else’s. Mothers didn’t matter, anymore than wives did.
     He was forgetting his own beloved mother, of course. But it had been so long since she died that it was natural he would’ve forgotten. All he knew of women was the one he’d married, the empty shell who had served as a vessel for the growth of his son. His only son. There would be no others. For there to be others would mean taking attention away from the child. That couldn’t happen, not even for a moment. The child was all, it would be everything. And together, he and the child would never want for anything more.
     The vessel was laid out on a cot. The kind that rolled down hallways, when pushed. She was laid out, and her stomach climbed into the air like a mountain. The baby pushed against its bonds with increasing fervour and strength. Growing more desperate. Daddy was hard pressed not to lunge for the cot and plunge his hands into that mountain, ripping his child free. He was hard pressed not to wrestle the vessel to the floor and scoop its treasure out. But ending up in prison wasn’t his idea of quality fathering. That would really mess things up. So he stood beside the cot, staring down at the trembling mountain and biting his tongue. Clamping down on the scream that built inside him.
     At last, the nurses arrived and the cot began to move. The vessel was wheeled along one hallway, then along another. At a pair of double doors, he had to fight the nurses to be able to follow. In those days, fathers weren’t meant to be anywhere near the birthing room. But he knew just the right wheedling words to say, and he said them, and he begged and pleaded and he even cried a little. It was easy. All he had to do was think of a life without Baby. The tears flowed freely after that.
     In the birthing room, things happened quickly. Nurses spoke encouraging words while Daddy held his tongue, unable to speak for fear of unleashing a stream of invective. He raged inwardly at the vessel for taking so long. How dare she withhold his treasure from him? How dare she laugh at the ceiling, eyes practically crossed from the stupidity flowing in her veins. How had he never noticed her stupidity before? How had he been so blind?
     At last, things started to look up. The nurses began talking of crowning, and Daddy knew that meant something about the head appearing. He gathered it hadn’t appeared yet, but was set to at any moment. He tried to lean closer, tried to see, but bodies crowded in front of him to keep him away. He growled and clenched his fists and thought about smashing faces in. Only thought about it, mind; it’d never do to end up in jail at this particular moment, when he was so. damn. close. It was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do, though. Hold himself back. Restrain himself. Wait.
     Voices rang out in the room, and the vessel’s stupid airy laughter coated everything. Daddy felt in desperate need of a shower, but that was hardly his main concern. His main concern was an exclamation from one of the nurses: “Oooohhhhh…” And then the strange croaking sound, the kind of sound he’d never heard before. It made him think, Baby! but no, it couldn’t be. Babies didn’t sound like that…did they?
     All fell silent, but for the vessel’s hateful laughter and the beeping of machines. The thundering of Daddy’s heart in his chest. The ticking of some distant clock. The faint hush of activity beyond the doors of the birthing room. Daddy’s thundering heart. What is wrong? he found himself thinking. But nothing could be wrong. Nothing at all.
     “Where’s my baby? Where is he?”
     Nobody looked at him. All eyes were on the vessel, or rather on what had just come out of her. He could not see! And though he tried to be polite about it, nobody was letting him through. So, politeness wasn’t the way. He had to try something new.
     He shoved the first nurse aside, and the second. People started getting the message, shifting so he could pass. The vessel’s mindless titter wafted through the air, grating on his nerves, making him flinch. The way forward parted, the crowd around the cot making way for him. For a moment he had eyes for something other than his baby, and what he saw sent a faint chill through him. Round saucer eyes full of fear, a nurse’s mouth hanging open in apparent disbelief. Sympathy. Sorrow. Confusion. Horror.
     What the hell is wrong? He longed to ask, but he had no time for questions. He had to see with his own eyes.
     At last, the cot was revealed. The vessel was torn open, blood everywhere. He could hardly see that she had been a person. He realised that the sound of her laughter was in his head, not happening for real. It echoed in his head, seeming to grow louder with each second that passed. Blood and gore and death greeted him. But not everything was dead.
     There, nestled in the middle of a lake of wet and sticky redness, was a creature so unlike any human baby that Daddy had to wonder just what he was looking at. The thing had a spine on the outside, it had protrusions from its back that he quickly recognised as folded bat wings, it had oddly arched eyebrows that reached nearly to the hairline. And the hair. It had a fountain of black hair, longer than its body, clumped with blood and bone and other unrecognisable matter. But the main thing he saw was the eyes. Glowing orange-yellow like the strongest flame, blazing from where they nestled in a misshapen head, the eyes fixed right on Daddy and seemed to glow even brighter. Daddy, a voice whispered straight into his mind. You’ve come, at last. Take me home, Daddy. Let us begin our life together.
     And despite the dismay all around him, Daddy wasn’t sad at all.
     The grin on his face was fixed—destined to stay there forever more.
     He scooped his child up into his arms and cradled it, gazing down with mindless adoration into that beloved face.

Wussey

This is like, really not finished, and potentially like really not good. It's a little bit late too, but oh well, here it is! Oh, and it's not over 1k yet. But I figure if others get away with that, I can too. :P

And YES, I'm cheating and backdating.

Wussey

Everyone at school knew Wendell Wassey was a weirdo.

It wasn't just that his name was Wendell Wassey. Made for great nicknames, such as Wendell Wussy, Wastey and…the biggest stroke of genius yet…Wendy. But his name alone wasn't enough. There had to be more.

So people latched onto the fact that he wore glasses straight outta the '50s, held together at the nose with masking tape. They also seized on the way he always wore the same outfit to school. Trackpants in a distinct shade of grey, along with a t-shirt and tie. I know—weird, right?

Then there was his weird living arrangements.

Fact was, he didn't seem to even have any living arrangements. Rumour had it that in the school records, the field for his residential address had been left an empty dotted line. Some people said that there were two letters and a symbol in that space, where usually you'd find a street number, street name, suburb and more than likely a postcode. Not so on Wendell's file, apparently. Instead he just had two letters: an N and an A. Oh, and the symbol /, which together with the letters equalled N/A.

'Course, that was all just rumour.

Truth was, I didn't give much of a shit about bored people's idle speculation. I didn't give the smallest nugget of shit ever about what he did after school, how he even got there in the mornings—it wasn't an easily accessible campus, no roads nearby—or whatever the hell else. I had more important things to care about, you see, 'cause Mr. Peterson had just paired everybody off for the World War II assignment, and guess who I wound up with?

That's right. I got stuck with Wendell Wassey.

I gave a pretty damn huge shit about that.

*

My hopes of getting the assignment done in class so I didn't have to get together with Wendell in an extra-curricular fashion were dashed pretty early on.

Like when Wendell didn't even show up for class, for example. If anyone had a hope in hell of understanding the assignment question, it wasn't me. And I couldn't even ask other people in class—they were all too busy with their own assignments, which were different from Wendell's and mine.

Yeah. Peterson gave every pair a different question.

I mean, what a dick.

Even if I could've got away with doing the whole assignment myself—and I would have, if it were possible—I had no idea what the question even meant. "Experiment with something the pedagogy wouldn't necessarily sign off on. Report your findings. Think outside the box." What the fuck did that even mean? It was something a weirdo like Wendell would say, but of course that couldn't be the case—Wendell wasn't the teacher, to set assignments like that. Mr. Peterson must've come up with this shit. Still, the question just had shades of Wendell all over it.

It positively stank of the guy.

No wonder I couldn't understand it.

As class ended and all the students filed out, Peterson stopped me to hand over a small scrap of yellow paper. "Wendell's address—and some instructions I can't decipher. Maybe you'll have better luck…"

For a moment I frowned stupidly at the teacher, putting two and two together. Or trying, at least. Wendell had given him a note to give to me? Why the fuck would he do that? Why not just come to class like normal people did? That I'd seen, Wendell didn't skip classes. Ever. He just wasn't that type. The moment passed, however, 'cause there was something weird in the way Mr. Peterson was looking at me. Maybe it was in the way he was standing. His head slightly cocked to one side, his mouth looking unusually slack. Or maybe it was just the weird fuzziness in his eyes, like they'd begun to film over with cataracts.

Weird.

For some reason, he reminded me of Wendell too.

Everything reminded me of Wendell today. 'Cause I was bloody well cursed by the guy. Ugh. But there was nothing for it but to get on with things. The sooner I got this shitty assignment done, the sooner I could step out of Wendell's weirdo clutches.

Special Skills

Kind of a stupid story...but oh well, there you have it ;) Cheating & backdating it by about 49 minutes. hehe

Special Skills

Special Agent Alice Darren rolled her eyes for the eighteenth time today, wondering once more how she'd wound up assigned to such a pain-in-the-arse case and partnered up with such a moronic fellow agent. It was pointless to ask those questions, of course, but she couldn't help herself. Because her mind still hadn't processed everything: she still didn't quite believe she was really here, and that this was really happening to her.

The ambush had been unexpected, of course. But not nearly as unexpected as the hand-cuffs; or the gag—thankfully, she'd managed to spit that out; her captors hadn't meant to make it stick, evidently. They'd probably just wanted to slow her down, distract her so they could make their escape. Still, the cuffs and the gag weren't what really surprised her. Rather, the fact that the targets were actually going ahead with their plans today was what had puzzled her. They were supposed to be planning, not executing. Someone had got their wires crossed along the way, and Alice had been given the wrong information. That, at least, she couldn't blame on her partner. But thinking about who she could blame it on only upset her. She didn't want to think ill of her boss. Not like that.

He wouldn't betray us, she told herself. He's not dirty. He can't be dirty…

Fact remained, though, that this might be her last day on earth. She might be spending her last day on earth with Hardwick.

Somebody had to pay for that.

She'd already decided that if she died, she'd haunt the arse of whoever had put her here. Even if it was her boss.

Her cheeks burned at the thought of Special Agent Alexander Wallace—the guy she'd had a serious crush on for the last two years. Sure, he was married, and she'd never ever go there. But he was just so damn sexy. It'd just been an innocent crush. It hurt her, though, to think of him being a possible traitor.

The thought hurt her deeply.

To get her mind off it, Alice reflected on how this day was supposed to have gone. The plan had been to conduct pure reconnoissance, and report back to the boss. The plan had been for Alice to be in charge, and for the idiotic likes of Agent Jonathan Hardwick to stay at the back where he couldn't cause any trouble. Alice hadn't counted on Hardwick's immense capacity for fucking everything up, though. She hadn't counted on his special ability to do all those things he'd been told specifically not to do.

She had known already that it was never a good idea to underestimate his kind; had known, but had ignored the fact. And now she was paying the price.

"Thoughts?" Hardwick asked, peering at her from out of the darkness. She could sense his irritating gaze—it tended to make her break out in hives, and her skin was already beginning to itch. Thoughts? What the fuck does he want me to say? But instead of asking him that very useless question, Alice drew a deep breath and leaned her head back, staring at the ceiling.

"You want some thoughts? Okay. Here are some thoughts. We're more than likely going to get blown up. Any second now. Smell that gasoline? Yeah…that wasn't meant to happen. Remember the plan, Hardwick? The plan you didn't stick to? Remember how you weren't supposed to yell out and alert the bad guys to your presence? Oh, and how you weren't supposed to use any of the smoke bombs? Remember that, Hardwick?"

"I've seen the way you look at me, Darren. I mean, when you think I'm not paying attention—I've seen those little looks you cast my way." Before she could choke out an indignant response, he went on. "And let me assure you—you wouldn't have any regrets if you decided to…say, act on those looks. Just ask any of my exes—they'll all tell you the same thing. In fact—"

"I can just imagine what they'd tell me," Alice interrupted. "You wouldn't want to hear it. I can imagine though, trust me—I've known your kind before." Gods help me, I surely have. "But right now, Hardwick, I've got other things on my mind than that. Like, tonight is my nephew's third birthday, and I'm really pissed you're getting me killed before I can wish him a good one. Know what I mean? Matter of fact, I was kind of looking forward to seeing his sixteenth birthday. Eighteenth, too—and hell, twenty-first! He's not going to be the same without his aunt, know what I'm saying? And Hardwick, it's your fault I'm going to die here. And I swear to the Gods above I'm going to haunt your arse when this is over and done."

He was frowning at her. "How can you haunt me if we're both dead? I mean, can ghosts haunt other ghosts? And I notice you mentioned my arse again—"

"Again?" she exclaimed. "When did I ever— Oh, forget it! Look, I'm going to do my best to get the hell out of here—and I'd really rather you didn't try to 'help' again, 'cause every time you try that you fuck things up royally. So please, just…just shut the hell up, sit still, and don't move a muscle."

"You know my buddies at the Institute used to call me MacGuyver?" he asked. "I mean, before I got into the Service. I was pretty well known for getting out of tight squeezes—in fact, if you talk to my ex-girlfriend Lindsay you'll get all the goods. I met her at the Institute, did you know? We were in the same Physics class…"

The Institute, Alice thought derisively, letting Hardwick's words wash over her. She'd heard him talk about his time in training many times before, but he'd never specified which Institute he'd studied at in particular. She'd always assumed he had lied his way into the Service, had never had any training at all. Most of the time he sure acted like he hadn't. But when she'd asked subtle questions of her boss he'd just shrugged and told her she'd be better off asking Hardwick about it sometime.

"…But yeah, that's how they got to calling me MacGuyver," he murmured. "Of course, that guy's got way more hair than me—"

"MacGuyver, huh?" Alice cut in at last, desperate to shut him the hell up. "How about you prove it?"

As soon as she'd said the words, she knew it had been a mistake. His eyes lit up and he leaned forward, a grin breaking out over his face. He really did have a smile like sunshine, but she'd always been inclined to believe it was the smile of a man with far too much air in his skull where others had brains. He reminded her of a kite flying on the breeze—surrounded by air and not much else. And yet she'd pretty well just challenged him to pull some MacGuyver stunt in the hopes of getting her out of here. No wonder a voice was yelling in her head, Are you a total idiot? Because, really, asking this guy to make himself of use was like asking an earthworm to dig a hole in your backyard for the swimming pool.

Still, what other choice did she really have? She was handcuffed and her feet were shackled. There was no escape for her, unless MacGuyver here did something serious. Or unless some other much more preferable miracle occurred, and other people came to rescue them.

But she couldn't count on that. The boss wouldn't be expecting a report till later in the day. He'd even said they could take a long lunch before returning to the office. Lunch hour hadn't even begun yet.

"Okay," Hardwick said, eyes wide and shining with the fervour of a reckless egomaniac, "here's my plan. See that little window up there?" She craned her neck to follow his pointing finger, and saw the tiniest slit of glass about two storeys up. She looked at him with an arched brow and said, "Yeah?" He grinned and nodded.

And that was it.

Didn't feel the need to say anything more. Evidently didn't care that, even if that window hadn't been two storeys up, no human being could possibly fit through such a small gap. Evidently none of that mattered to this guy. Alice fought off the urge to weep; weeping was not befitting of a Special Agent like herself. Even if she'd only been on the job in earnest for the last two weeks—before that she'd been a trainee—she was still a Special Agent in her own right. And crying in the face of death wasn't something a Special Agent did.

Or not this Special Agent, anyway.

Come to think of it, she was surprised Hardwick hadn't started snivelling yet. Then again, he'd have to actually recognise his predicament to feel like crying over it. He didn't seem to grasp anything about the seriousness of the situation. Hardly surprising, that. But with him for company, Alice felt terribly alone.

It just wasn't right, having to die in that sort of company.

"Okay, you don't get it," Hardwick murmured. "That's cool. And I guess it's only natural—I'd have to show you for you to get it. Here, take my hand." She didn't even have the energy to glower. She just stared down at her shackled hands, then up at him, hoping he'd get the message. "Oh, right," he said with a nod. "Yeah. Well, no harm done. I'll just take your hand. Okay?" She imagined rolling her eyes—just imagined it. Actually doing it was beyond her now. He reached out and gripped her wrist, still cuffed, the skin chafed where she'd at first tried to wrench herself free. Force of habit, there, she supposed. Everyone knew you couldn't just rip handcuffs apart with sheer strength. She sat there with Hardwick's hand on her wrist, wishing for a better ending than this. And then she became aware of a change in the air around her.

In Hardwick, too, actually.

The air was heating up, and she sensed an electric charge in it, making the fine hairs on her arms stand on end. The hair on her head wanted to stand, too, actually. Her scalp prickled and she shivered. The dank air grew lighter and brighter and she felt as if she were lifting into the air, floating upward like that kite she'd been thinking about earlier. Everything lightened, and she saw that distant sliver of glass flying at her, growing ever wider. She braced herself or impact, imagining her head battering against solid glass, thudding and thudding until it broke like an egg on pavement. Then something completely strange happened: she passed through the glass, almost melted through it, fused with it even. She wasn't warm now, she was hot, every cell in her body was burning and bubbling and she thought she smelled sunlight—what does sunlight smell like? she wondered, but it was more the smell of sunlight on skin, on hair, on clean clothes, that she was thinking of—and then she was standing in a glass-and-metal dome, in some round room she'd never seen before.

In her nostrils was the inexplicable scent of gasoline. She wrinkled her nose against it, trying to figure out where it had come from.

Then she realised Hardwick was still holding her by the wrist.

"See?" he said as she turned to look at him. "MacGuyver. Except he never used magic. And I don't use ropes or hooks or…you know, any of that stuff."

Her mouth fell open, and she continued to stare for a moment. Then she snapped out of it, snatching her arm back and rubbing at her wrist experimentally. There was still chafing, but the cuffs were gone. She didn't even bother wondering what had become of them.

She had other things to think about.

"How the hell did you do that?" she asked Hardwick, narrowing her eyes. Could it really be true that this was why the boss kept Hardwick around? Because he had some magical powers? It would explain why he was around, since he seemed to have no other skills in any area to speak of. Still, how unfair was it that he should have some bad-ass superpowers? He was a dunce!

"It's a trick I learned at the Institute," Hardwick said, shrugging. "Guess that goes without saying. But anyway, you gonna report to the boss for us? I've got a lunch date—can't be late. This chick is seriously a babe, I'm telling you—"

Before she could protest, Hardwick had slipped out of the glass dome and was heading for the door. She stared after him in disbelief, then shook herself and quickly followed, trying to figure out just how she was going to word her report to the boss.