Chapter 2

Nick was alone. A dry wind blew, swirling a thin film of sand over the smooth stone. The desert’s bare hills at first appeared grey, but to a man who stared hard enough they were many-colored; it was hard to see the subtle gradations as they flowed and rose like waves into the endless distance. The hills would have been beautiful in their stark emptiness but for the pimples of stone that darkened the yellow-grey sand. The rocks lay tumbled about in piles as though they had crumbled from a mightier colossus long ago. No longer bound together, each lay unmoving and alone in the desolation. There was only one stone that wasn’t alone, because Nick was standing on it.

One booted foot propped up, Nick Patterson leaned on the side of the Jeep and sweated in his heavy blue-and-black police uniform. His broad, blunt face was twisted in a scowl that made his unshaven chin jut forward. Nick was disgusted with the machine. It was useless and old, like the man he’d bought it from. Charlie, who owned a general fix-it shop back in town, had only said “She’s got the right stuff inside,” Six thousand bucks worth, apparently. Now, the piece of shit had broken down in the middle of the desert. Though Charlie was as bad a mechanic as he was a salesman, somehow he ended up with all the old cars. They always broke down, of course. There wasn’t any point in looking under the hood. He was fucked as always.

Drumming his thick fingers on the metal casing in time to the impatient tapping of his foot against the dry stone, he thought of the nuts and bolts that made up the uncooperative mechanical beast, the pipes and plugs and gears that had worn out so quickly. The Jeep rattled and bubbled as if in distress, spewing a thin trail of smoke and steam from the hood. The dying vehicle and the hiss of the wind were the only sounds he could hear. Nobody was coming to rescue him. Not that he expected anyone.

He had long since stopped expecting help from people or machines. When Nick Patterson was transferred out of the city to this tiny desert town, he’d hoped people would be different. He’d heard that town people were nicer than city people. So much for that. His boxlike tract house with its fading paint never received a visitor. There was nobody who showed up at odd hours with a keg of beer and big smile. Instead of being part of the neighborhood, it was Nick who had to get up and go deal with such events when they got out of hand. These town people barely said hello to him. Buying the car had been like purchasing a companion.

Sighing heavily, Nick wiped his hand across his broad forehead and turned his scowl on the ground ahead of him. The clear footprints of the mysterious thief had sunk into the dry earth. The deeper prints, where the small man had stumbled over one of the rocks, were conspicuous despite the wind slowly filling them with sand. It would take a lot longer for the excitement of a bank robbery to blow over in town.

A stranger had come in on a bus that morning. There was a reason why small towns hated strangers. This stranger hadn’t wasted any time; he went right to the bank where he flashed a small firearm at Lucy, the bank teller, and ran off with a bag of cash. Her only description was “he’s built like a baseball player.” Nick wasn’t sure what a baseball player’s physique was, but he didn’t ask. There wouldn’t be too many men running through the desert with big black bags of cash.

Nick was the town cop. A crowd of familiar though less-than-friendly faces had cheered him as he roared into the wasteland in his unreliable Jeep. That had felt pretty good; it was the first hint of recognition he’d ever had. The chase had started so well.

The hissing of the sand in the wind as it went over and around the stones was menacing. The desert did not welcome human intrusion. The rocks, sentinels of the emptiness, seemed to watch him with infinite patience. Continuing the chase on foot would be foolish in this heat.

But going back was inconceivable. This was his first big chance in the tiny desert town. He had to deal with every single hooligan and stupid drunk which was almost everybody in town. There wasn’t much else for the people to do but drink. Everyone held a bitter grudge against “the cop” because he’d hauled off a drinking buddy or two in a dangerously intoxicated stupor.

Going it alone like an action hero and catching the first big criminal in half a century would definitely lend him some respect. It might even be his chance to get transferred out again. A bank robber was always exciting, and anyone dumb enough to head out into the wastes shouldn’t be too difficult to bring in. Even a battered realist like Nick could count on that.

Chewing the insides of his cheeks, he pulled out one of his two large canteens and shook it. The comforting weight inside sloshed back and forth. An idealistic person would try to call for backup right now, maybe even request a State Police helicopter? But not Nick. No budget for it and no one to ask for a favor. He understood this part of the world now. Nobody cared. No one would give a fuck about him or his tiny town’s problems unless he was some sort of hero. And the heroes in this world are the realists.

Pulling his pack over his shoulders, Nick strapped it tight. Then, giving the Jeep that had failed him one last farewell slap of frustration, he trudged off into the heat shimmers of the stony waste. The machine just burbled white steam into the wind. Whether that was a fond farewell or an insult, Nick didn’t know.

Every stumbling step among the uneven chunks of stone jarred his legs and hurt his back. Before, he’d have roared easily over them. This bank robber with a baseball player’s physique had cost Nick a Jeep.

He only looked back once. The Jeep, which had loomed over other cars in town, looked small and isolated in the stony expanse. Charlie’s “sweet machine” was nothing more than a dirty pile of metal now. Out here, it would take a lot longer for the thing to rust, so if he never came back the thing might sit for years in the empty expanse like the ghost of civilization.

Night is bitingly cold in the desert. The earth has no vegetation to keep warmth close. Sand and stone conduct heat pretty well, so they heat up and cool off very quickly. Any exposed skin is pierced by the sandy wind, and sometimes even bundling up doesn’t help. Nick’s sleeping bag was supposed to work in temperatures below -15 F, but he still felt the chill. It made him grind his teeth to keep them from chattering. He felt like he had an Ice Cream headache. Just add it to the Bank robber’s tab.

He stretched out on a sandy patch relatively free of rocks and looked up at the sky. It would be beyond foolhardy to keep up the pursuit in darkness, with high chances of breaking an ankle or even a leg. So, instead, he looked up at the stars, glittering as they slowly danced across the heavens.

Nick had seen the desert sky before, but never alone. Never had he stretched out on this particular hill, or between these particular rocks. There was something about this spot, this particular spot, which made him tremble, and not from the cold. True, it was very safe, his training told him. He was nestled in a dark fold between steep hills, where the half-full moonlight did not penetrate and where the faint shadows of the stones grew long and confusing.

Nick began to grow afraid. His fear stemmed not from the thief or the darkness or the possibility of getting lost. He simply realized he could die all alone out here, in the cold shadows. Not one of the townsfolk would cry; they’d just discuss the details of his body with relish and that he hadn’t brought back the bank’s cash. His parents, long dead, could not cry over their son’s failed ambition. Without accomplishing something impressive, his death would count for nothing. No one would really care if he remained a nobody. He was alone. Nick turned his head and sighed, blowing his breath against the wind. Sand beat against his cheek.

The cold air brushed sand past him, sometimes into his eyes. Nick blinked the tears away to stare more clearly up into infinity. A heaviness settled over his body.

When he rolled over, something unexpected happened. He was no longer in a dark depression between hills in the desert. He felt his consciousness being sucked away, finding another physical and emotional place to be. It was like falling upwards into the sky, up and up in the absolute emptiness, not even silent stones to keep him company. All was cold, empty, and without meaning.

The ice cold night-wind of the desert pressed on his cheek, the sand itched in his shirt, the too-small sleeping bag pressed around him. Nick heaved a huge breath and sat up, staring around at the darkness. Mournful black shapes littering the desert loomed at him.

He had broken into a cold sweat, and began to shiver as he looked around him. Nobody was there. There was only the loneliness and the dark of the stony desert and his light headache

Dawn in the desert is different from dawn in the city. The birds do not chirp happily, no distant alarm clocks go off, there are no early sounds of sleepy people going to work. Even the rocks seem gloomy, their shadows long and sharply defined.

Nick began rolling up his sleeping bag and packing it away as soon as sharp light pierced his sleep. He felt like shit. The dream had kept him up, his neck hurt and he couldn’t think straight. As he crammed the last of the grey sleeping bag into its stuff-bag, it struck him how far he had been led from home. He often felt that his messy, take-out-box-strewn bedroom was a wasteland, but there at least there was the television. There was the noise of neighboring cars and sleepless guard dogs. There were other presences, other things that he could relate to. There were connections to other people, weak and thin, but human connections. Here there were only the sharp and silent rocks to kick at. With the comforting grumble of his Jeep gone, the only noise was his own. And he didn’t need to hear that. Everyone else did.

The sun crept higher above the horizon as Nick turned his back on its warmth, heading farther west into the desert. He hurried on as the light and warmth grew greater, and the desert began to gleam at him. The chunks of granite held tiny pieces of quartzite that glittered and shone like jewels in the early light. They looked like tiny eyes watching him.

Nick had been picking his way carefully among the stones, but now he began to leap over them. The sweat dripped from his body and he had to continually scratch as he went. He was frustrated with his failure to catch up even when he had a car. Nick had no breath to curse, but inwardly he spent his hate on those empty donut boxes that littered the floor near his bed. If he didn’t fight it, the weight in his belly would drag him to the ground.

Panting, Nick paused and scrabbled through some dusty white boulders at the crest of a hill. His swift movement had brought him to territory where the thief’s footprints were clearer. Nick had beaten the wind in its rush to wipe away the traces. Looked like the Jeep had nearly caught up before dying. Pretty soon Nick could hope to spot clearer signs of his quarry.

Around noon, when the sun began to burn the back of Nick’s neck, he stopped to rest in the shade of a steep hill. He sat on the tumble of stones at its base, and pulled out one of his canteens. It was already two-thirds empty. He took a slow drink from it, enjoying every drop. He wondered how much water the thief had, and if he wasn’t dead already, leaving Nick to chase and search for a lifeless corpse. Dead people should be easier to catch, though.

Blinking the sweat out of his eyes, Nick noticed something small and black lying curled by a stone next to him. Moving slowly and deliberately, he scooted away from the snake’s slithery body twitching in the wind. Then he focused his tired eyes and realized it was part of a shoelace. It was torn at one end. Probably the man had caught it on one of the sharp rocks in his headlong tumble for escape.

Nick took a last swig of water, picked up the shoelace, and plodded reluctantly onward into the burning ocean of sand and stone. He should be at his most triumphant and eager now, when the hunted man might appear over the next rise at any moment. Instead, he was thinking about what the townsfolk would say if a policeman none of them liked anyway turned up dead and desiccated out in the desert. Old men like Charlie would gather with beers and lean on the hood of a car. “Yep,” they’d say, scratching their unshaven chins, “That copper bastard is gone. Good riddance. What was his name again? At least I got my Jeep back.” The amusement would wear off pretty quick, though. He hadn’t been there long enough to waste too much time on.

Dust churned from Nick’s feet and clung to his pants, striping him with brown. The stones he went over rolled a short distance, settling into new configurations with a rattle. The formless scattering of rocks passed underneath the policeman, and his eyes had to strain to keep focused on the path ahead. As he loped along, he watched the stones and sand for signs of a man who had passed before. He had a hard time focusing his gaze on the ground in front of him.

There are no patterns to stones in the desert. This always surprises human eyes. They strain to follow lines of random shapes and to see configurations, but there are none. Only the brief interaction of life on the desert’s surface can make a discernable pattern: kicked stones and regular depressions in the earth. The lifeless desert wind gradually erases the evidence.

It was well after noon when Nick saw them: the unmistakably fresh prints of a man, going up a hillside. His ears strained to hear the clatter that the man must have left going up the steep slope, and the desert’s stillness was painful by contrast. His mouth was a little dry, but he’d taken a drink barely five minutes ago. Saving the precious liquid was vital.

The prints were easy to follow because in forcing his way up the thief’s shoes had broken through the grey-yellow crust of the sand to the earth beneath. Nick unhooked the buckle on the holster of his gun, trying to quiet the twinge of guilty pleasure in his stomach. This was a just-in-case measure.

Nick struggled upward against his own weight. Stones rattled down the slope behind him, and his nose filled with dust kicked up from his feet. It smelled dry and strangely clean, unlike the sweat that coated his skin. The clatter and crashing he created hurt his ears, the sun beat on the back of his neck, and between these and the lack of sleep Nick began to get a terrible headache. He was miserable and angry. This chase was never going to end.

A shout came from above. A noise other than Nick’s in the vast emptiness. A large rock with a jagged edge flew out of the sky. Nick tried to jump out of the way, but the heavy object smashed into his hip, where Nick’s canteens hung. He felt the weight smash through and leave a long gash in his leg. Water and blood sloshed out over the sand.

The thought that dominated Nick’s brain was, oddly, not his own survival. It was the overpowering idea that he was not supposed to shoot this thief: he was supposed to bring him back for a trial. He wasn’t supposed to end this story in a dirty little killing. Not what a hero would do. His trembling hand pulled the warm handle out and Nick pointed the barrel upwards, blinking sweat out of his eyes. He couldn’t miss at this distance.

A tall, lean man with a round face appeared over the crest of the hill, fearful but straining to see in the bright sunlight. The thief looked so ordinary, like so many drunken 9 to 5 workers that Nick had hauled out of a bar, it startled the policeman. The thief’s long, muscular arms hurled another jagged stone with surprising skill. It tumbled, turning ponderously in midair, towards Nick’s face. He didn’t move. Glittering specks of quartz flashed before the weapon slammed against the left side of Nick’s head and continued downwards.

“Wait.” Nick said, panting and desperate, trying to understand why he could not shoot. The blood streaming down his left side was maddeningly ticklish, but Nick didn’t have the strength to lift his hand any more. “If you kill me, you’ll be alone.”

The two of them stared at one another, two living things dwarfed by the vast empty expanse of lifeless rock and wind.

As Nick stumbled dizzily and fell to his knees, he saw the other man’s expression change from triumph to uncertainty.

“It’s my turn now”, said Annie. She turned slowly away from Dan and removed her gloves. Dan’s attempts to gaze over her shoulder were quickly thwarted as she turned back to him, presenting him with a small envelope. “Remember the rules”, she continued. Dan tentatively took the card, looking into her blank expression for any clue of what would be detailed within the note that lay inside. In return, he only received a hint of a smile, developing gradually from her lips. Annie had been waiting for her turn ever since Dan created the game. He wasn’t sure he liked being on this side of anticipation. It had been fun to watch her guess and follow his clues but now his mind raced as he waited for her to walk away and the game to commence.

His memories clouded. Dan had found his own clues to be ingenious – tracing a note in the snow that had fallen onto her windshield. Annie had to run outdoors to make sure his message wasn’t erased by freshly fallen snow. He watched from his apartment across the street as she kneeled on the hood of her car, frantically scribbling. “You’re on the clock, buddy”, Annie reminded him, her once hint of a smile turning into a sarcastic grin. Dan nodded and extended his hand to take the card, knowing that once he touched it, that by his rules he would not be able to contact her for twenty-four hours. “Come on”, she prodded, “you can do it. Just take the card, keep your eyes open, and I’ll see you in a little while. Or will I?” She made no attempts to hide her laughter or pure enjoyment of the moment. Dan stood before her, wide eyed, now at the whim of his much smarter and more clever mate. In a quick moment he took the card and immediately placed it in his back pocket. Annie stood on her tip toes, inches away from Dan, and kissed him lightly on the nose and then his lips. Without a word, Annie strode away lazily towards the town’s center. Dan waited for her to turn around and hoped for one last glimpse to decipher any lingering clues he could gather.

Normally, Dan would’ve enjoyed this act – being able to unabashedly gaze at her legs and the natural sway her hips provided as she moved about his apartment. He would feign sleep just to watch her move in natural light – sauntering around his apartment on a Sunday morning in sometimes nothing more than a t-shirt. Lately, Annie had been astute at his attempts to gaze at her. When pressed for an answer, Dan simply admitted his astonishment at how beautiful she was. Annie shrugged off his reply as cheap flattery and let the moment pass. What he meant to say was just how awestruck he was with her. Dan lived in simple amazement at her beauty, grace, and sense of humor, but his inability to express this was deeply set into his self confidence. In his mind, these superfluous poetic words he wanted to express would woo Annie and put him on par with just how she made him feel. When he tried to let them out, he became tongue tied or created new words. His flustered attempt to compliment her one late night in bed came out as “prettyful” causing Annie’s laughter to make the mattress shake and her sides ache. “You amaze me”, she giggled as she stretched her arms and legs simultaneously in her own cat like way while looking into his eyes. In that one comment she had achieved what he had tried to do, without even using big or imaginary words.

Dan created the game as a last ditch effort to put them on an even playing field. At first, he felt like the notion itself had elevated his status. A single post it note placed strategically in Annie’s wallet was all it took to get her imagination running. Her voice message placed on his answering machine contained the curious tone he’d anticipated. “Daniel, what are you up to?”, she purred, “Am I really going to have to wait until I get home for a clue?” Upon opening the door she was greeted with yet another post it note, simply indicating ‘banister’. The initial goose chase brought her to the hamper, the mailbox, and finally to her lap top. She opened the email as he peeked around the corner, happily gazing at her wide eyes. Once she had finished, she closed the computer and without looking at him remarked “I’m in.” She proved to be even more astute than Daniel anticipated, picking up clues at a rapid pace. Her intensity and competitive nature led her to put any other tasks aside and focus intently on his hidden message. Dan scrambled to keep up with her, rashly inserting additional steps just to buy time.

In the last hour, Annie slowly stepped into Mason’s Bar. Her last hint, found underneath the toaster, instructed her to find the final puzzle piece here. Her final clue, inevitably turned out to be Dan. He sat alone at the bar with a drink ordered for her. “My twenty-four hours are up.”, she said with a gloating tone. “Here I am.”. He silently nodded and motioned for her to sit. “Didn’t think I’d figure it out did you?, she asked. Dan motioned his drink to hers in a toast. She raised her glass to his and with an arched eyebrow. “Vodka, Danny?”, she asked. “I haven’t had vodka since I got really sick that one time…”. She paused and held the drink close to her almost as if it were a precious doll. “Our first date,” she said, moving her glass to clink with his.

Once Annie had disappeared from sight, Dan immediately ripped into the envelope, pulling out the note and tossing the envelope mindlessly aside. He hesitated, envisioning twenty-four hours of Annie’s wildest tricks and was sure she’d send him up and down town. Dan hadn’t anticipated Annie wanting a turn in his game. He folded the card back and forth mindlessly in his hands as his nerves took hold. He removed his glasses to wipe them on his sweater, Dan’s glasses slipped and fell into the snow. Blindly he crawled towards where he estimated they had fallen. He scanned all around but the glasses had disappeared. He sat still and the snow fell all around him, slowly covering his hair, sweater, and pants. A serene feeling overcame him and he decided to simply sit and watch the snow. The only noise came from a few cars passing in the distance and he realized that his heart beat and breathing came much more slowly than usual. His glasses had only fallen a few feet to his side and he picked them up, again brushing them against his shirt, only the snow collected there only made them worse. He sat up, shaking the snow from his sweater and his short, graying hair and finally wiped the glasses dry. He inched closer to a street light to read the note.

As he read Annie’s delicate cursive, the panic returned. The calm, slow steady heartbeat and feeling of control flew away. The note simply read ‘One if by land, two if by sea.’ His memory landed then flew from any possible explanation within moments. He thought of dates, clocks, American History, special places in town and his leads all fell flat. He stood quickly and stuffed the note into his pocket, hoping it might provide some insight later on. He looked both ways down the empty street and as he started to pace, realized he had been sitting on the envelope. Dan carried it over to a trash can and as he crumpled it suddenly froze. He opened the small ball he had made of the envelope back up to see a small notation on the front of it, where a stamp usually resided. It read ‘Any lightbulbs yet?’. “Damn it!”, he shouted. His pacing took on a longer stride as he pondered her scribblings and as he stood beneath his apartment he noticed one light on. Panic set in again wondering if someone had broken in. He quickly took out his phone and pressed the number one speed dial for his home phone number. Annie’s voice immediately came onto the voicemail.

“Hello,” it started, “to anyone calling for our dear Dan, rest assured he will be back shortly and will return your message ever so promptly. However, if this is Dan. Congratulations! You truly are a smart cookie and I applaud your putting the pieces together so quickly. I also have to tell you that I’m not as clever as you, and this game will be a true struggle to keep up with your wit! I mean, who would’ve thought to assign numbers to each letter in reverse! I think you’re going to win but it’s fun to try right? I really have no idea what ‘1 if by land, 2 if by sea’ means. I made that up to be cryptic and throw you off the trail long enough to record this. Danny, I know you don’t always think I notice the little things, but I really do. I like when you make up words. I can’t help but keep about my business when I catch you gazing at me, but it’s not that I don’t care. I do. I just feel so beautiful and special when I see that look in your eyes, I really just don’t want that to stop. I don’t think of myself as attractive, not even pretty. But you do and that’s all that really matters. And the first date thingy. Getting sick on vodka and having you hold my hair back. How attractive is all of that, some beauty, is puking pretty? But here we are. Daniel Rivers, I love you. How can I not, you silly boys? In the interest of spending a little more time together tonight, I say we call it a draw. Deal? Oh wait, I can’t tell if you’re nodding or not. Or can I?”

Dan felt a soft tap on his shoulder and turned to see Annie, smiling and rosy cheeked from the cold. Annie pounced on him, making him fall in the snow. The two lay together and kissed as the snow fell around them. Dan stuffed his phone in his pocket and laughed at her ingenuity. “Still love me?”, Annie asked pulling him up to his feet. “Wondertastically”, said Dan with a smile. Annie smiled and took his hand, leading him back upstairs into his cozy apartment with the one light shining.

Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve the continuation of the species.

“Phallush simply allows you to continue to grow to the man you were meant to be, naturally. Phallush specifically activates your own body’s primitive stem cells to make you permanently larger where it matters most to a man.” Said the smirking shirtless man on the video screen. “A real man.”

The woman on the bed behind him, covered only by a thin white silk sheet then giggled. “And to a woman.”

“Shit!” shouted a man’s voice in the conference room and then the video clicked to black. “That’s no good. It’s just like every other hard-on pill advert in the last decade.”

“But Phallush isn’t an erection enhancer.” The woman in the white cotton lab coat was on the older side but not unattractive. “It actually induces the penis to grow larger at a dose dependent rate.”

“Exactly!” The middle aged man slammed his open palm down on the faux wood conference table. The impact’s report made everyone in the room, even the table, jump up slightly. “Exacto Mundo! It is different. The Ad should be different, too!”

“Urgh.” An older man with white hair that had never been attractive and wasn’t now, cleared his throat. “So, Frank? What’d you want? Some sort a before and after endorsement? Can’t show the ole member though, you know? Maybe on the Web? Maybe not?”

Frank nodded rubbing his nose vigorously with the back of his hand. One of the younger men at the table held up his right fist and moved it up and down with strokes of faux masturbation. “Before I was only a handful.” Then he added his left fist. “Now! It takes two!” All the younger men and women in the conference room laughed.

“Double your fun!” A female voice called back. Young’s laughter broke out again. The older folks didn’t even crack a smile.

“Phallush is an FDA approved drug.” The woman in the white lab coat scowled at her hand-held computer on the conference table before her. Its deep mahogany finish, although fake, contrasted with the rubbed chrome of the hand-held, making both look unworldly. “It is no joke. It needs to be taken seriously.”

“Now, you can be as big a prick as you want.” Retorted another young male voice. Laughter continued to ebb and flow.

“Alright, alright, this is not useful.” The older man was having difficulty not laughing himself. “Dr. Jameson is right. This is a serious product that the company has put millions into developing. It needs serious consideration.”

“Enough!” The older man shouted. The room calmed to a sustained titter. “See what you started Frank? You always get them so revved up.”

Frank nodded with a smile. “I think that was a very good creative session. Now, we’re getting somewhere. Things just need to be fleshed out.” More laughter.

Dr. Jameson sighed as she stood up. She wanted to storm out of the room in dramatic anger, but she knew from previous incidents that emotions were a bad thing to have in the corporate world. Displays of those emotions were even worse. Of course, that was only if you weren’t the Boss. The Boss could be as emotional to down right irrational as he liked. Most seemed to go for this last option routinely. But if an underling expressed any negative emotions at all, they might as well have set the Boss’s cat on fire.

That was what was wonderful about hierarchical capitalism; the kiss up, kick down culture. Positioning and posture was everything, was the only thing. Susan Jameson hated it. She left academics because of the childish self-centered egotists that were her university colleagues. She had wanted to escape it but hadn’t. It was worse in the corporate world. They acted like children, mostly. There seemed to be no escape from human irrational juvenility. As a social primate, humans were always pulling at, picking at each other; status-seeking, status-making and status-breaking; picking at the pecking order. Stupid office politics! Even when there were no offices! She only wanted to be in the lab. She just wanted to do her research. Save mankind from the worst effects of disease and physical disorder. Although, Dr. Jameson often wondered why she wanted to help the little brats with her discoveries? Maybe letting humanity kill itself off would be best for the Earth. “Marketing is obviously not my strength. I’ll leave that to you experts and go back to my lab.” She stated flatly to a giggling conference room.

Dr. Jameson put her hand over her mouth. It was the obvious next step which, in fact, she had already completed. That drug was just entering the approval process. She didn’t want to mention it here. These guys would want to name it immediately. Something like, Boobs-a-Lot, the bunch of randy juveniles. “I cannot discuss on going research.”

Dr. Jameson sighed more deeply. She hated being right about simple mindedness. “I have to go.” And she walked out.

“Knocker-lot!” She heard just before the door closed. She really hated being so right. The working name for the prototype was already bad enough. Phallush prototypes had been called Grow-your-own-XY. The name for the Breast augmentation prototype pill followed suit, being called Grow-your-own-XX. She sometimes felt like she worked for the porn industry or a Beer bottler.

“It’s likely both.” She would sometimes shout out in ambiguous frustration. Those times that she found herself alone in the sub-basement research labs. The Company told her the location, without windows, was for security purposes. The marketing department had a great view of the hillside. Research wasn’t supposed to see or be seen. At least that’s the way it appeared. The Actions – Louder-than-words cliché.

Dr. Jameson also thought of her employer as ‘What have you done for me lately, Inc.’ Despite Phallush’s success in the last three years since its market launch, she was still in the sub-basement, not even a promotion to the basement facilities. Scientists and science got no respect in the corporate world. Both were too hands-on, too much dirt-under-the-finger-nails, too nuts-and-bolts, just too complex to be in the corporate mainstream of advancement and glory. Science required excessively long attention spans, while sales and market counted on them excessively being short.

Seemingly timed for demonstration purposes, Frank strolled right into her glass walled office without knocking, as if she were his personal assistant, not a world-class researcher. He was dressed as usual, business casual but expensive casual. He plopped a thick blue folder down on the metal desk in front of her. Right over the material she was reading on the successful clinical trials of Grow-your-own-XX. “A copy for you.”

“What is this?” Dr. Jameson glanced at the title page. “Phallush? Since it was released to you fellows in Marketing, I don’t have jurisdiction.”

“The corporate Boom-a-rang effect, nothing every stops being your responsibility, especially problems,” Frank sat on the corner of her desk. “And this is one of the least favorite of problems for a drug company; a law suit, a class action suit no less, against Phallush. Interestingly, by the wives of the users of Phallush, not the Users themselves. Ah, nature in all her wonderful bizarre complex best.”

“What? It hasn’t been on the market three years yet.” She flipped open the blue folder. “We saw no physical side effects with Phallush.”

Frank leaned over pointing at a line in the file while putting his face as close to her’s as he could. “Psychological effects. The worst kind of side effect.” Frank wiggled his fingers in the air. “Psychological mysticism; the ghost in every machine.” He blew her hair back out of her face and smiled. “And in court, it’s a cash machine.”

“’Severe heterosexual disruption and disorientation?’” Dr. Jameson frowned pulling back up straight. “What’s that? And ‘extreme phallo-centric narcissism?’ What is this?”

Frank flipped his hand in the air. “Hey, what do I know? I’m just in marketing. No big initials after my name. Looks like Phallush grows you such a magnificent dick that you can’t take your eyes off it.”

“You don’t seem to have that sort of problem.” Dr. Jameson flipped back and forth through the file.

“Never used Phallush.” Frank shrugged as casually as he was dressed. “Not that it’s good office talk, but I’ve always been happy with my physical attributes.”

“But . . . but the clinical trials.” Dr. Jameson looked up at Frank and then back down at the file both views made her uncomfortable. “Ninety-nine point nine percent of the patients were pleased with their results. It was an extremely high success rate for a therapeutic compound.”

Frank hopped off the desk. “This suit isn’t from the bigger dick guys, as I said, it’s from their wives. That’s the problem, the guys are too happy with their new size. They ignore their women. Size has always mattered, to someone.”

“True, we used mostly single men in the clinical trials.” Dr. Jameson picked up her hand-held. “It was mostly single men who volunteered. Single men seemed to have more of a desire for enlarging their penises. The point one percent dissatisfaction rating came from men wanting their penis to get bigger.” Dr. Jameson poked at her hand-held screen. “Didn’t think about a couple’s effect.”

Frank raised his left eyebrow. “Well, I guess you’ll have to think about it now.” Frank pointed at the file as he backed out the office door. “Marketing and Legal take care of these things, usually, but I wanted to give you a heads up, so to speak. The Lawyers will be down here asking about all the other things you forgot to consider.” Frank waved from the door. “Ta-ta.”

“Thanks a lot.” Dr. Jameson shook her head. Frank never did her any favors before. Why would he start now? Things are beginning to smell rancid in the corporate milieu. All of the dead rats in the closet were beginning to smell. “Ruth! Betty! Get in here. We have a problem.”

The court room was packed to its seating capacity. The A/C was on high but still the room was stuffy on top of being noisy. Frank bent over from the aisle to speak with Dr. Jameson, who was seated directly behind the company lawyer. He blew her hair out of the way of her ear. “Boy, Susan, you really know how to draw a crowd.” He laughed.

Frank shrugged cocking his head. He was now dressed formal and expensive. His tie and three-piece suit were obviously made of the new synthetic silk that was more durable and thus much more expensive than natural silk. The new fabric was extra light weight and bullet proof. It was much sought after by all the top designers of Executive clothing. They couldn’t make it fast enough. Thus the expense. Supply and demand; they have the supply and thus demand a higher price. “Management is fickle these days because of all the media coverage. The tabloids love a story where they can say penis and genitals as many times as they want. Your invention and this case have given them a treasure trove of private parts to mention.” Frank chuckled patting Dr. Jameson on the shoulder. “I’m up first. At least I dressed for the part. Wish me luck.”

Dr. Jameson nodded a weak acknowledgement. Frank’s charm never won her over only annoyed her, but she knew she was the exception. She looked back down at her notes. Frank walked to the witness stand with nothing in his hands or pockets, for that matter. It would ruin the line of the suit. It always puzzled her how Frank could look both authoritative and causal at the same time, even in a suit that cost as much as the janitor’s yearly wage. You just felt like buying whatever he was selling and Frank was always selling. Still, Frank annoyed the hell out of her, which she knew was just the way he wanted it.

Frank sat in the witness chair smiling warmly to everyone. He pointed to his chest with his open hand. “My opinion? My opinion of Phallush?” Frank shrugged. “No one has died from it, which is something reasonably unique in the pharmaceutical business. People still die of aspirin every year.”

The Lawyer standing next to Frank was wearing an equally expensive and bullet proof suit. “Yes, we all understand the inherent risks in taking any drug into your body.”

“Even alcohol is a drug. It’s a weak poison, actually. Scotch is one of my favorite poisons uh, drugs.” Frank’s comment produced the amused chuckles he desired.

“Yes, yes, but pharmaceuticals, medical therapeutic side-effects must always be considered.”

“But, of course.” Frank said with a faux French accent. Smiles all round. “Collateral actions are always expected.”

“The evaluation, the compromise that is, the disease must be more life threatening then the side-effects or the collateral actions, am I correct?”

“Generally.” Frank blinked as he looked directly into the vast array of camera lights.

“What disease was being treated by Phallush?” The Lawyer stopped pacing becoming motionless and quiet.

Frank leaned back in the chair, almost reclining. He scratched his cheek looking off out the non-opening double paned window. “Well, disappointment, inadequacy? In a way, it could be thought of as chemical cosmetic surgery.”

“More psychological benefits then treating a real organic dysfunction or impairment.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” Frank glanced at Dr. Jameson, smiling oddly. “Disappointing a woman can lead to physical impairment if you aren’t careful.” The desired laughter followed, but not from her, she groaned.

“What? To treat feelings of inadequacy by modifying your body irreversibly?”

“But their wives, who they have abandon, the loss of their conjugal rights, directly caused by Phallush. They are not.”

Frank remained silent for a moment. “You know, I am not talking out of turn here and my colleagues will back me up on this, but I always wondered if Dr. Jameson’s intent to make men’s members larger wasn’t some sort of reverse penis envy or revenge thing for never being adequately satisfied by a man.”

There were titters, comments of shock and a resounding “What?” from Dr. Jameson.

The Judge simply looked up at the room and said. “A little more decorum is needed.” The room quieted. The Judge then went back to reading the newspaper.

“Well, if you tell a man that a large company has gone to a great expense and great trouble to give him a way to make his penis bigger, don’t you think a majority of men might take that as a criticism on their size as being generally inadequate?”

The Lawyer leaned back in his chair. “To put it more crudely, to clarify the point only, I beg the court’s pardon in advance; you think that Dr. Jameson was basically telling the American male that his collective dick was too small. A direct attack on American masculinity!”

“I’m sure you are. Just one more question.” The Lawyer leaned forward. “Have you ever used Phallush?”

Dr. Jameson had cried a number of times despite her shouting at herself in her head not to. This was all just so ridiculous. She had overlooked some extraneous perimeters that was all. She also felt under dressed compared to the men which added to her emotional load. She always bought her clothes off the rack. Not ever bullet-proof, not even stain-proof. Being in and out of the lab regularly caused various types of wardrobe damage. The Lawyer’s suit did likely cost more than her car though. Here came the tears again to make everything seem even worse.

She wiped her eyes and looked up at the well-dressed, expensive Lawyer. “What did you say?”

“Disease, well, we, I was looking for specific activators for stem cell differentiation.”

“Chemicals that will cause the body’s stem cells to become liver or kidney cells that sort of things.”

“So you simply stumbled upon Phallush in the metaphorical darkness of research?”

“You simply, opportunistically, grasped on the first effective drug you found.”

“Yes, you could say it that way. Most scientific discoveries are chance findings.”

“Yes, well . . . yes, sort of.” Dr. Jameson frowned through her tears. “It . . . it’s not that . . . ah . . . random though.”

“So you deny that you were searching for a compound that would induce penis growth.” The Lawyer turned his back on Dr. Jameson and her answer.

“No, it wasn’t . . . well, so specific.” Dr. Jameson’s eyes filled with more tears. She forced them back. “We were looking for any type of cell differentiation. We found PNSGF, the penis growth factor, what Marketing called Phallush. What more can I say?”

“Well, PNSGF’s actions were so specific and targeted; we didn’t find any side-effects.”

“Well, well, a simple, undistinguished lawyer like myself, without the fine M.D. and Ph.D. degrees as you have, knows something you don’t. Interesting.”

“What do you mean?” Dr. Jameson now understood why most people hated lawyers.

The Lawyer smiled picking up a file from the table. He handed it to Dr. Jameson. She took it with the hand holding the used tissues. “I’ll summarize the file contents for the record. The patients, well they’re not really patients are they, let’s say users of Phallush are all happy with their growth results, but they are even happier about a recent discovery. This is maybe both a physical and psychological collateral action, that being the ability of the Phallush user to induce their own orgasm without physical stimulation.”

Dr. Jameson blinked and looked down at the file then looked up again. “What? I didn’t know.”

“There seems to be much too much that you didn’t and don’t know about Phallush and its affects on the male body and mind.” The Lawyer shrugged. “You’re so educated and experienced and here, a simple minded fellow like me knows the users of Phallush can simply will themselves a climax at anytime and, of course, they do. I propose that this is the reason the Phallush victims lose interest in their spouses. They no longer need sexual congress to achieve satisfaction thus no longer seek it out.”

“Oh and another little thing to add, I love statistics don’t you? Well, sixty-five percent of the happy Phallush victims have joined religious sects and taken vows of celibacy. You could see why they would. They can think themselves into perpetual sexual ecstasy.”

“I’m asking the questions, now. I think you should have been asking them long ago.” The Lawyer sat down. “My next question is a personal one but relevant I guarantee the court.” The Lawyer looked at the judge. The Judge nodded. “Are you a lesbian?”

“Please answer the question and you’ll find out.” The Lawyer looked at the Judge. The Judge nodded again but didn’t go back to reading his newspaper.

The Lawyer stood up. “I’m certain they are. I propose to you that your disinterest and inexperience in male – female coupling imperatives caused you to, well, overlook was the word you used, the male – female interaction in your clinical trials of Phallush.”

“You don’t know.” The Lawyer slowly nodded his head. “To go one step further along this chain of ‘I didn’t know’ and ‘I didn’t realize’. If all men lost interest in sexual intercourse and no babies were conceived ever again, how long would it take for mankind to become extinct?”

“Maybe so, but please, as the scientist among us, answer the question. Should I repeat it?”

“So, it is possible that you could be responsible for the total elimination, the genocide of the human race.” The Lawyer sat down.

“No, it wasn’t like . . . No, it couldn’t happen.” Dr. Jameson looked down at the worn and stained carpet hiding the court room floor. Her shoes looked equally worn and stained from the years in the lab.

“A lot of things that have happened were thought to never have the possibilities of happening, until they did.” The Lawyer smiled knowingly. ”The Phallush victims do not regret their treatment. On the contrary, they are overjoyed by the results. Such temptation, orgasm with only a thought. It would be difficult for anyone to resist. An instant guaranteed, guilt-free climax, a very hard thing to resist. It gives a whole new definition to Mental Masturbation. Sorry Judge.”

“I guess so.” Dr. Jameson nodded handing the file to the Judge. She couldn’t hold back her tears. “But you’re making it sound like I did it intentionally. I didn’t. It was . . . was . . . unforeseen consequences.” Susan hated so much to cry in public and hated people who made her do so.

“Thank you Dr. Jameson. I think the court knows all it needs to know. No more questions. You can go.”

Frank stood in the Laboratory Building Conference room. He was dressed casual, but still expensive and bullet-proof. The Phallush research staff filled the room to capacity. “Okay, okay, the Company wanted me to tell you this before you hear it in the media. The Company has stepped forward as a good corporate citizen and settled the Phallush suit.”

“Now, now, listen. The Company has taken responsibility for the Phallush collateral actions and will make substantial settlement payments to the effected wives. The Company has also had to agree to certain terms dictated by the wives and the court itself. First, Phallush is to be pulled off the market, permanently.”

“Second,” Frank held up his hands. “The second thing, there will be negative repercussions within the research unit, this unit, specifically. Any person at the grade of Scientist I or higher will be asked to resign their position immediately at the completion of this meeting.”

“Technicians were only doing their jobs and will be reassigned to the other division which is taking over the Boobs-a-lot development.”

“Wait, wait,” Frank waved at the door. Two armed Federal Marshals stepped into the room. “Thirdly, and sorry Susan, doing this in public, but the Company and the court want to appear firm on their actions. We all want justice to be served, that goes without saying. Well, Dr. Susan Jameson and her head of staff, Dr. Ruth Fine, will be placed under arrest. . . .”

“Quiet, quiet please. I am only doing what the court requested.” Frank patted at the air as to hold back the crowd.

“Phallush has been teemed a biohazardous substance and a potential agent of genocide. Drs. Jameson and Fine are to be tried as the perpetrators of such agent on the American public and the world in general. They are to be tried by the World Court in The Hague for potential crimes against humanity.”

“Likely all good criticisms, but what‘s to be done in this age of the excesses of terrorism where hyperbole and false bravado abound? Everyone is grandstanding these days just to get noticed. Simply marketing.” Frank snapped his fingers in the air and then looked over at Dr. Jameson. She and Ruth Fine were hugging each other, not knowing anything else to do. “Boy, Susan you sure know how to cause a stir. This is on a monumental scale that I could never have achieved with all of my marketing skills. Everything you touch ends up really big. There’s a few puns in there for sure. Just get one of those celebrity Lawyers and you’ll certainly get off and get famous at the same time.” Frank clapped his hands together like a kindergarten teacher. “Okay everyone else make their way to H.R for final processing, the meeting is over.”

Frank waited until everyone else had filed out the door. He followed them but right at the door he turned and blew a kiss to Drs. Jameson and Fine, still hugging in certainty. “If you’re going to play in the game, you need to learn the rules first.” He shrugged his expensively clothed, projectile-resistant shoulders. “It’s always a serious game. Life and death.” He then simply left.

“When I was in high school I felt trapped in a schizophrenic nightmare. When I was with the jocks doing the long jump and hurdles, I was a genius. I got ‘A’s because I actually read the textbooks. When I was in the advanced science classes, I was the ‘jock’ because I actually had Varsity Letters for both track and cross-country.” He sat naked in the dark, on the side of the bed talking. He wasn’t alone. “Yeah, Oscar, I didn't know what to do, become a professional athlete or a research scientist. I was good at both so why bother. I needed a challenge, so I became an artist!” His dark adapted vision meant that he wasn’t blind to his surroundings. “I wanted to do something difficult, adequately expressing the human condition, so other people could understand it, now that’s hard!” He wiped the beads of sweat off his brow. The apartment was overheated. A common winter problem in this city. “Expression that is instructional. Expression to be experienced, not just absorbed or simply comforting. Expression that challenges as well as be a challenge. So hard to learn, much more difficult to do.” He looked down at the dark floor. “You realize that Oscar, but most to the world does not. They don’t want to see it, what reality really is. Hard to blame them, reality needs to be put into a more interesting and understandable context. Experienced experiential expression! Too many E’s!” He said a little too loudly.

The woman beside him stirred turning over in the bed. Her arm was across her eyes. “Are you talking to your dick, again?” She mumbled with obvious resentment.

“Oh!” The woman reached out in the dark, “If you would just stop this silliness and fuck me, then you could sleep. So could I!”

“That appears to be a criticism. It is universal. Critics are everywhere! This is not very encouraging. Well, Oscar, I think we need to use the facilities.” The man stood, picking up his clothes as he walked carefully into the bathroom. It was a small room but it was very dark. A human’s dark night vision was questionable, at best.

The woman sighed saying to herself, “Good thing Oscar’s attached to you. He’d likely run off in the dark to spite you too. From what I’ve heard, Oscar, can be more of a prick than you are.”

He closed the bathroom door before he turned on the light. It was a typical old New York City apartment bathroom; it was small and very hot from the un-regulatable steam heat. Furthermore, it was moist and steamy from the late night hot shower that was taken to remove the body’s sweat and give the plants a humid environment. “Helen is the only person I have met that showers with her plants. Well, I guess they are her friends. I always bath with you.”

Oscar’s friend put on his shirt as he positioned himself so Oscar could fulfil one of his biological functions. “God, it is hot in here. I'll ruin this shirt with the perspiration.” He couldn’t remember whose shirt it was, still he liked it. He was a proactive individual so, Oscar’s friend climbed up on the edge of the tub and pulled at the small window near the ceiling. Nothing . . . another yank . . . still closed; a thump with a fist, nothing; another pull. “It must be frozen shut. Mother Nature conspires against us, as always.” Oscar’s friend reached over to the back of the toilette for a large wooden dog’s hairbrush, A.K.A. fur-brush. Helen didn’t have a dog. “This dog brush has mass and weight and should knock the ice loose, don't you think?” He rapped the window lock once, then again. No movement. Then a series of quick taps all around the frame; still frozen. “Nature can be quite stubborn, can't it? One more good, hard whack.” His already wet foot slipped on the condensation at the tub's edge, the misaimed dog’s brush then hit with enough force to smash through both glass and ice. The heat rushed passed Oscar and out the opening; the temperature in the room plummeted almost as quickly as the wet foot which terminated its descent upon the edge of a bark and peat pot. The unsubstantial pot collapsed immediately, as did the exotic epiphyte that clung defencelessly to it. A soil-less plant was now bark-less too. Just like Helen’s not-dog. Oscar and his friend fell back into the small private room, slamming into the door. Getting up off the floor Oscar’s friend quickly pulled on his pants. “Time for a quickened exit! That is an escapist’s expression.”

Her puzzled, near angry, face was in the door as it is opened, “Ah, Sorry about your dog. Sorry for the mess.” Oscar’s friend pushed Helen back with his body as he came out. “We can't stay to play any more; I have a show to set up.” After getting into his boots, he grabbed a backpack and a coat, and then shot out the front door.

Helen screamed, “You crazy bastards. Shit, Shit, Shit!” It became a chorus in the background of Oscar and his attached colleague’s descent into the cold dark pit of the Hellish stairwell. Gloom swallowed them as the angel of Troy raged above.

“An expression of discontent?” Rose up from the black pit. A commentary from Hell?

They had to push twice at the building door to force it open against the combative frozen winds of Hades, a.k.a. Brooklyn. Oscar’s friend put on the coat. “Well, to paraphrase the noble and annoyed Helen, but with a touch more elegance, Merde, Merde, Merde!” The coat he had grabbed was a woman's purple down parka. It was short in the arms, tight in the shoulders and waist, but long enough to be warm. The fur trim of the hood tickled the nose. “This misappropriation of outer wear will precipitate another string of Shits from Helen. A sustained absence is even more appropriate, now. Good thing this is NYC, no one will notice the inappropriate gender of this garment.”

“Wouldn't say that, Bro.’” Said the man huddled in the doorway. “That fucker is ugly no matter who wears it!”

“True observation as a fashion statement, but the garment is functional. Expression of functionality or functional expression?”

“So why didn’ ya just say so? Oh, man, you look like the caring sort. Could ya?” The standing man put his hand out palm up.

“Breakfast I can provide.” Oscar’s friend pulled a packet of Red and Gold gift cards decorated with central arches from his backpack. “The Golden Arches will yield you a petite dejeuner upon presentation of this virtual tender.”

“What da fuck are ya sayin’, man?” The standing man took the cards. “Oh, yeah, this’s great. Thanks, dog.” The standing man scratched his left armpit with his left hand.

Oscar’s friend looked around his feet. “Has Helen’s not-dog followed me into the street?” And then he also dropped a transit token into the man's open right hand. “A token of mobility to further aid you in your daily tasks.”

“Whatever! Ain’t goin’ nowhere but here. Hell, I can sell it.” The man stepped on to the sidewalk. “You're a strange fucker, but an okay dude.”

“Merci and ado.” Oscar’s friend bowed to the man on the sidewalk then jumped into the street to hail a taxi.

“Good luck in the coat, man.” The standing man waved at Oscar’s friend who ran after a taxi in the distance. “Maybe some cabby will take ya for one of those rich bitches that live 'round here and pick ya up?”

Oscar’s friend walked down the hallway knocking on the wall as he went. From the room behind the wall came an angry male voice. “God dammit. How'd you get in here? I changed those locks this weekend. Shit, Fuck!”

“Good morning, Charles. Oscar and I have learned any number of skills in our short lives. Lock manipulation being one.” They stopped at the door at the end of the hallway.

They opened the door to a dark room. It too, was hot and steamy. A woman on the bed near the wall stretched under the satin sheets. “You enjoy pissing off Charles don't you?”

“Sir Charles is a lawyer. Need anything more be said? An expression of contentment!”

“I’m a lawyer too and you sure piss me off, sometimes!” The woman sat up in the bed.

Oscar and his friend sat down at the wall opposite the bed. He took out a pastel chalk set and turned on a halogen desk lamp directed toward the wall. The lamp illuminated an incomplete pastoral scene partially filling the wall.

“Talking and drawing are not mutually exclusive.” He began sketching a female form on the wall. “Oscar and I are quite dexterous.”

“Oh, you guys are very handy.” The woman stood up, she was without night clothing. In the winter, it was always too hot for pyjamas. She walked over and sat down behind Oscar and his friend. “Could you please stop all of this foolishness. I am really worried about you.”

“Your concern is unnecessary, but appreciated.” He filled in the female form with white.

“You know that I love you.” She reached around and put her cold hands over Oscar. Oscar responded to her touch through the cloth. “He seems to miss me.”

“Oscar does not like being in the dark. You know that.” He shaded in the contours of the female form with dark red.

“It wasn't always like that. He used to desire my darkness.” The woman hugged them firmly. “I like loving you anytime, day or night.”

He then sketched a male form. A male so obviously desirous of the female form, but was frozen to inaction before her. “Chastity, in the religious past, was a virtue. As was unrequited love.”

“This is an age of fears. The age of digital tick-less time pieces that records each death with millisecond accuracy; too precise an ending. We say. Our silent wrist chronometers solemnly count down our multitude of fears: nuclear, chemical and biological. Silent accountants of fear. Mute C.P.A.s of death. Such horror.”

“I told you I didn’t want anyone else but you.” Tears came to her eyes. “Charles and my divorce is final and forever.”

“We will restrict no one's actions.” The male form was filled in with black. “All must be spontaneous, such is life. An expression of relief or disbelief?”

“Spontaneous but controlled?” She placed her head on Oscar’s friend’s back. “Isn't that a contradiction?”

“Contradiction is also life.” The male form was shaded with white and blue. “Life and then the contradiction death. The big death rather than the little death as the French call it.”

“Oh, what do you want me to do? You don’t make a whole lot of sense sometimes.” Tears ran down her cheeks to be absorbed by his tan corduroy shirt.

He put the chalk back into its box, took her hands and held them to his chest. “Maggie, We.”

“Oh, what? Please, my sweet. Tell me what you want.” She hugged him tighter around the chest.

He turned off the desk lamp and they all sat there, silently, in the dark. He then stood and picked her up, nude with tears. He held her to his chest suspended in space, heat and sad darkness. He wished he could suspend time too. He walked to the bed and placed her gently on its shining surface. She remained huddled in a ball of naked limbs. He removed his clothes. He and she stretched out in the bed together. She ran her hand down his chest, but at his waist he took her by the wrist.

“Your pleasure is our pleasure.” He whispered in her warm ear. “Oscar will make himself laugh. No assisted little deaths, nas pas?””

“Anything you wish dearest.” She moved her fingertips down her neck, lightly across the skin, almost no frictions, just sensation. The palm of her hand rested on the curve of her breast. Palm reached the pinnacle of her breast before the sensitive fingertips, but the motion brought the flow of blood. A little suicidal blood flow, sensation and frustration, but it made the heart beat faster, her breath was more deeply felt. “Can't I do that for you?” She questioned with expectation. An expression of expectation.

The circle she repeated, as a descending spiral over the firmness of herself. Around and around and around, to converge, fingertips perceiving the changing of textures, of color. Color in darkness? Color of warmth? The response is heightened with each passing, flesh to flesh, pass to pass, an amplification of expectation, a mountain peak of expectation. Now moving downward, a desire to collapse inward, down the center of her body. Flowing down the streams of moist muscle, past the indentation of her own birth, toward that of a future birth. Sail across to the inside of the thigh, its firmness and power, down and back then across. There is power here, as strong as the emotion that is also here. Two limbs, four limbs for reaching out and pulling in.

As a last cry of hope, she reaches her center of passion. The point of blood, of lust, of creation, of birth, of sex and sensation, of her. Strength and joy held within the muscular walls, but now the gentlest of touch awakens the rhythm, arouses internal waveform. It is all a cycle. It is all connected. “Oh, I need you dearest.” Seeped from her. Another cry without form emerged and then came the fall, the leap, the descent. And another cry brings an impact, more a contraction, a grasping from the inside of her insides. A wave of contractions, of hope and joy, of nothing and everything, being and not being. She opens, opens then falls back into herself, into her finality, into the sticky satin beneath her. “I love you.” Was within that fall.

“Simply, one of life's contradictions.” Said Oscar’s friend with a snap of the fingers. “The red and the black, the wet and the dry.”

“Why do you do this? You're forcing yourself into isolation when you don't have to. We could use a condom, if too much intimacy worries you?” Maggie pulled the sheet up over herself, but Oscar and his friend held it off.

“A latex barrier is still a barrier. Intimacy in isolation? Intimacy is nowhere to be found. Besides, Oscar has equated the condom with the space shuttle, all of that advanced technology and it still can explode upon launch!” He looked up into the darkness of the room. “The only thing in the world we can have absolute control over is ourselves. Expectation, disappointment, release. At least, we have that as a potential. Search for potential is good.”

“Dearest, I don't want anyone else but you.” She whispers. “If that’s the issues.”

“I have told you it’s been over between us for a long time. It’s just been a difficult time at the firm and we have held off splitting up the business. Things are getting better now. I am making enough to pay for this place myself, so I can ask Charles to leave.” Maggie looked intently at the shadow beside her. She could feel his tears through the gloom.

“An amiable desire, an angel among the sinners of Earth.” Oscar’s friend got out of bed.

“I'm working on it. It’ll be soon. Please, then you can move in here and you won't have to roam all over New York every night for a place to stay.” Maggie put on her silk robe as she got out of the bed.

“But you never do!” Maggie stood near him in the dark of the room. “I can never reach you there.”

“Oscar and I have much to accomplish. Experiencing experience, it all requires research and investigation into the human condition. Pain and suffering are predominant. The studio has only Oscar and myself.” Oscar’s friend took a sweater from Maggie’s closet. Because of the darkness, it is of unknown color. “Difficult to experience suffering alone.”

“If you stayed here, there would be the three of us.” Maggie took hold of their arm as they opened the bedroom door. “No need to be alone.”

“Condone alone?” They all walked down the hallway to the door. Oscar’s friend put on a pair of boots and took a man’s raincoat off the hook.

At the apartment door, Maggie stood watching them walk to the elevator. The doors slid shut and they were gone along with her smile.

Oscar’s friend sat the barbells onto the floor. He was naked. The studio was warm, not that hot. Certainly not cold. He had control at home. “Society demands that everyone have multiple personalities; societal schizophrenia?” The cavernous studio echoed these words. A telephone rang in the far corner. An old fashion ring, a bell generated sound. The answering machine lived up to its potential and took a message.

“Anyone that maintains a perpetual emotional state is labelled unbalanced. As if there is some emotional neutral we can shift to? As if humanity has the ability to achieve balance in any of its endeavour! Standing is simply a continuous series of aborted falls. Walking upright not only simulates balance but it also predicts the final fall.” The telephone again rang in the corner. Still he stood in front of the mirrored wall.

“Even the body's bilateral symmetry, the supposed instigator of the Renaissance, is inherently imperfect, an asymmetric symmetry.” He placed his right hand on base of his neck. “That asymmetry is only obvious.” He jerked his hand down his chest. “When the body is ripped open.” A line of bright red paint dripped down his front. “Mankind’s guts are a mess and the human heart? It beats in the lop-sided world of the human breast, with even its beat lacking absolute symmetry. Oh, our asymmetric heart!” Red paint squirted from the hand on his heart.

The machine answered the phone again. “Nha, too verbose!” Oscar’s friend stopped the recorder, reset it back to zero and started it again. He turned around looking into the camera lens. The automatic focus whined as he said. “The only person to have even a rudimentary understanding of humanity is the psychotic, serial killer! All forms of human expression, if they truly desire to explain the human condition, must be first-degree murderers, intentional destroyers. Obviously, destroyers of convention, but more than that, much more than that.” He turned and ran away from the camera, the automatic focus whined in pursuit. “They must attack the paradigm of humanness. Naming that Paradigm? Say the soul for the antiquated, the Id, the Ego and the Superego for the Freudian, the heart for the rest of us simple minded fools.” He slammed into the wall and fell backwards. “A good artist should thus be despised by the society, hated by his peers, and attacked by the established order. Attacked is mandatory!”

The door by the ringing telephone banged open. An angry woman entered answering the phone abruptly. It was his Art Dealer / Agent Mirth. “Yes, Jack it’s me . . . Yeah, the bastard is here . . . if I don’t kill him, he will be . . . you know that he loves this shit . . . No, I’m going to kick his naked ass right now.” The still angry Mirth slammed the receiver back onto its cradle. The telephone immediately started to ring. Mirth picked up the receiver and slammed it back down. The ringing started again as if possessed by an annoyance demon.

“That’s the reason I never answer that thing.” Oscar’s friend picked himself off the floor. “That device always wants more and more attention. It’s so selfish and self centered.” The machine answered the ringing, potential fulfilment, again.

She glared at Oscar, then his friend and then the video camera. “What the hell are you doing? This isn’t for the interview, is it?”

“They ask for an introductory statement!” Oscar’s friend stopped the recorder.

“God dammit, this is network television. You can’t be fucking naked!” She shook her head violently. “All you fucker’s want to do is show the world your dicks!”

He nods his head. “That is a very perceptive observation. Anyway, it’s only public broadcasting and they like implied controversy. Better for their ratings. Obscuring the naughty bits always makes things cruder and ruder.” Oscar’s friend picked up the barbells and started doing curls.

“Well, that’s not so bad, but why do it right now? For God’s sake, we have your show opening tonight.” Mirth played back the recording. She calmly watched the manic images of him dance across the small screen. She nodded and shrugged. “You should be down there with us.”

“Unlike most of the other artists for which you work, I don’t really care about how things are arranged or shown. My paintings sell fine without shows.”

She turned toward Oscar’s friend and said. “Shut the fuck up and do this, as a favour to me. It will make my life easier.”

“I don’t really give a fuck about your purpose in life. You just like to annoy people. I like to eat, eat well, so get your ass into some clothes and let's go! You can annoy everyone there with your presence.” Mirth threw a pair of jeans in Oscar’s direction. “I know what we can call your interview.”

“Not a bad title. A bit pedestrian but to the point.” He slipped on a shirt and some boots, grabbed a coat and followed her out the door. “Maybe, ‘We prefer to piss people off.’ Yes, Oscar thinks that is much better.”

From down the long hallway Mirth called out. “Motherfuck, even his dick is a pain in the ass.”

“Well, actually, Oscar has never. . . .” Oscar’s friend stopped at the door and put on his coat.

“Jack, please for just tonight, don’t get him started on Oscar.” Mirth stood in the center of a brightly lit exhibition hall. She held an empty wine glass to her red silk covered chest. “This damned show is important to me, even if you two bastards don’t give a flying fuck.”

A tuxedoed Jack chuckled beside her. Jack put his black wool blend arms around her and held her firmly against him. She still held the wine glass to her red silk chest. “You are a much better performer when there is a touch of anxiety in you.” Jack tried to kiss her mouth.

“God, fucking, damn!” Mirth pushed herself away from the black and white Jack. “I’d kill all of you self-centered bastards, if I didn’t need the money I make off of you shits.”

“A Price for everything and a Price for everybody. The business of the world is to give the world the business.” Jack turned to the tuxedoed and gowned crowd that just entered the exhibition hall. “Go find the two dicks again and bring them in here.”

“That was exactly what I had in mind for later.” Jack said with his smile directed at the crowd, which was dispersing into the hall.

“God, they are all alike! Dicks, big dicks, little dicks! Just all dicks.” Mirth said as she exited the exhibition lights. “At least, Oscar really is a dick, the other two are just Wanna-be's. Maximum penis envy!” Mirth laughed to herself, selfish mirth, because she knew no one else cared.

Near the building entrance Oscar’s friend stood, dressed in a tuxedo talking to a young woman in a grey business suite. “Observation is prerequisite to good art. The artist must see into all aspects of human manners and emotions. How can one paint a human body correctly without having seen that body naked and bent, twisted in every position? The depiction of death on a canvass is usually a body contorted in a shape not possible for a living creature. Death is an experience far passed pain. A fate worse than death?”

“But it’s embarrassing!” Said the grey suited woman as her cheeks reddened. “It’s like visual raped.”

“A virtual mauling? Maybe? I need to observe all manifestations of the human psyche. We all do.”

“I get enough of that from my ex-husbands and Lawyers.” She laughed even with her embarrassment.

“You need to be in the exhibition hall sucking up to those psycho manifestations of art critics in there.” Mirth stood an arms length away from Oscar’s friend, still she yelled it to be sure he heard..

“A further moment is required here.” He said to Mirth and then turned to the grey suited woman. “You must agree. It is for art.”

The grey suited woman giggled, “I’ve heard that so many times before. Oh well, sure. I’ll meet you here after the show.”

Oscar’s friend nodded turning to go. The grey suited woman reached out and took him by the arm. Oscar’s friend turned back toward her quickly to relinquish himself from her grasp. “Will I get to meet your friend Oscar?” She asked.

“Not likely,” He said backing away from the young woman. “Oscar is not of a gregarious nature.”

“Oh, too bad. I have read all that you’ve written about him. I would like to get to know him.” Said the grey suited young woman to the departing friend of Oscar. “You two seem very close.”

“Close indeed.” Mirth continued to laugh. “Why do you lead these young ones on like this? I think a handshake from Oscar would be a real shock to her.”

“Oh sure it is, sure it is.” Mirth shook her head smiling. “Thanks for putting on the Tux.”

The red silk shook with Mirth’s mirth, “You’re fucking crazy, you know that? Let’s go back.” They walked an arm’s length apart back to the light.

The bulbous man stood in the center of the exhibition hall, looking like a king penguin in the Antarctic bright. “What a disgusting mockery!” He said to the small group surrounding him like incompetent body guards, all looking inward. Protecting him from himself?

“This is not disgusting, Timmy.” Said the thin, dark woman standing beside penguin Timothy. “That last show he took me to, now that was disgusting!”

“How can you say that?” The thin, dark woman made a sour face. “That show took place in a Port Authority restroom. You had to look into the toilette bowls to see the art. All latex and plastic, yuck, the only way to tell the real stuff from the art was the smell. The art had no smell, but I say it still stunk.” The surrounding group laughed, penguin Timothy did not.

“Perin’s statements are too subtle for the feebly educated.” Said critic Timothy. “Look at these paintings.” Timothy waved his arm around the exhibition hall.

“So was Rockwell’s, but this isn’t even at his level.” Said Timothy. Oscar’s friend walked up behind the penguin.

“Not being Rockwell is a complement to me.” Oscar’s friend said to Timothy's back. Timothy turned to face Oscar’s friend. Oscar' friend said, “Edgar’s work isn’t subtle. Edgar makes models of used condoms and tampons and the other discharges of humanity. Edgar’s work is rubberised shit; he admits that. That’s his point, but he certainly is not subtle. He laughed all the way through your review.”

“The artist seldom understands the importance or lack of importance of his or her work.” Said Timothy with a smile.

“Only the non-feebly educated can make such critical evaluations, is that correct?” Oscar’s friend mimicked Timothy’s nasal tone.

“I would have used a slightly different phrasing, but you are essentially correct.” Said Timothy.

Over the penguin's shoulder Oscar’s friend saw Maggie and Charles walk into the exhibition's brightness. “I wouldn’t think that Ivy covered buildings would provide you with anything but hay fever.” Said Oscar’s friend as he watched the couple move around the paintings.

“An Ivy-league education is not needed to discern that these paintings are simply depictions of sports events.” Quacked Timothy. “For example, this illustration of a basketball game. The players are grotesque representations of present members of the NBA.”

“Very good, Timothy. I didn’t realize you were so well informed of the past time of the common man.” Maggie hadn't yet seen Oscar’s friend.

“A simple matter to scan through the sports section.” Timothy shrugged his shoulders and continued, “But you go further in the caricature. They all have enormous genitalia that falls from their shorts and drags on the court. My god, one fellow is even dribbling his own penis!”

"The Dribbling Dick was the original title for that piece.” Oscar’s friend slapped Timothy hard on the back. “How perceptive of you. See Oscar, people get my art.”

“This picture is simple, adolescent pornography, nothing more.” Said Timothy with a grand twist of the hand.

“But it’s well done, technically.” Interjected the thin, dark woman with a smile and a giggle.

Timothy frowned at the thin, dark woman and said, “As for the rest of these, Nude Ice Hockey. Gangster Football. Spike baseball. What serious artist would insult society with such lack of thoughtfulness.”

“If this is adolescent pornography to you then I got my point acrossed. All team sports have sexual content.” Said Oscar’s friend in a loud voice. Maggie looked over to the center of the room. “The reach-around, the penetration of the players, the ball’s insertion into net, hoop or other vagina substitutes, the phallic bat cracking the ball, the stick slapping the puck, which rhymes with fuck and it stands for out of luck! All dicks, balls and Faux vaginas! All sexual, all male oriented. True, it is more power than passion, but that only makes sports more like rape. Physical gratification derived from power over another. The rape escape is the definition of a good date for most women.” Maggie walked toward Oscar’s friend. Charles followed her a few paces behind.

“What I hear about those locker rooms always made me think of latent homosexual tendencies.” Added the thin, dark woman.

“Shut up Jen!” Quacked Timothy. “You are being no help here.” The thin, dark woman laughed in the penguin’s face.

“Who are the most adamant gay bashers? The Monday morning quarterbacks, the sports fans are the ones caught beating up on the fags.” Oscar’s friend shouted. “They are also the guys that goose each other in the showers. These paintings are meant to be an affront to a society that condones and encourages such schizophrenic activities. Sacrificial sports fans; kill or be killed for their team.” Oscar’s friend laughed, “the ultimate irony is that these things are most popular with those very same sports fans. Now, there is multiple personality disorder for you!”

Maggie put her hand on his arm and calmly said, “Yes, please calm down. You’re getting too excited.”

Oscar’s friend didn’t pull away from Maggie’s grasp but shouted, “Who in this room is not frustrated and angry about the lack of respect people show for each other, about the powerlessness we feel to change our society, about the desperation in us all?”

There was a confused silence. “Come on admit it! Does the Devil wear underpants? You don’t have to enter Hell to give up all hope!” Oscar’s friend turned to Charles. “You certainly look to be on the horns of a dilemma?”

“Only whether to punch you in the face first or call the cops now.” Said Charles in an even tone. Jack put his hands on Charles’ shoulders from behind. Charles looked around and Jack shook his head.

“He needs to fulfil his destiny.” Oscar’s friend said from directly in front of Charles then reached up and gently removed Jack’s hands from Charles’ shoulders. His face was too close to Charles for a strong punch so Charles’ fist only glanced off a receding cheek.

“Stop it Charles!” Maggie shouted. “Please, dear, don’t be so agitated.” She said calmly to Oscar’s friend. She had both her hands on his arm attempting to pull him away.

Mirth shouted into Oscar’s friend’s ear, “If this is part of the show, it’s not working. Stop this shit, now!”

Still behind Charles, Jack clapped his hands and shouted, “Bravo!” Others in the hall took up the applause until it filled the room. The applause grew louder as Maggie pulled Oscar’s friend from the room.

Oscar and his friend laughed mockingly as Maggie pushed them out into the exit way, down its dark corridor and then she turned them around and pushed them against the cold brick wall with her body. They stopped laughing.

“The only nice thing I can think of about critics is that they will all eventually experience lonely deaths. An expression of exhilaration!” Oscar’s friend smiled at Maggie as they stood there in the dark.

“Fuck the Critics! The Show’s over!” Maggie tried to recapture his gaze. “Please, don’t be angry about Charles. He’s a drunken Jackass, but he came here to buy some of your work. He was trying to be supportive, in his way.”

“Fists of Compassion, sure, what do I care?” Oscar’s friend breathed heavily. “All is research, all is experience.”

The grey suited young woman walked up behind Maggie and said over her shoulder to Oscar’s friend, “Show’s over? Is it time for us to do art?”

Maggie looked into his eyes. His were calm, while hers filled with tears. “He moved out today.”

Charles came pushing his way down the corridor, threatening everyone, even the walls.

Oscar’s friend glanced at Charles stumbling toward them. He returned to Maggie’s gaze. “Oscar needs a real friend.”

Charles came up behind the expectant grey suited young woman. Charles pushed her roughly to the side. She screamed with surprise and fell over in a modern day overreaction.

Jack and an awakened security guard jumped Charles also from behind, knocking Charles down on the further screaming young woman. Timothy waddled out into the corridor just as Jack and the guard added to the screaming, and now, yelling pile at the feet of Maggie and Oscar’s friend. “I thought the show was over, but it just moved venue!” Timothy quaked and fluttered happily.

Maggie said, “Look what you do to people.” Her tears were obvious even in the dimness. “Just for the show.”

“The show is over!” Maggie shouted over the growing din at her feet. The noisy ball of humanity pushed and groaned to extract its components. It failed continuously.

Maggie moved her right hand down between them. “Oh, it looks like Oscar and his true friend are both smiling.” Maggie said. “It’s so good to experience.”

Mirth looked down the dim corridor to all the commotion. “Fucking bunch of unruly children.” She hung her head and shook it in disgust. “I so much hate ARTISTS. I should go back to being a stripper. It was less grief.” She turned around. “I need another drink.” She walked back into the now empty Exhibition room. “Fucking shit!”

In the overgrown pristine Oak – Maple climax forest, the stark blackness of the Monad space cruiser was conspicuous sitting there on the green and dirt. In space this blackness was almost invisible, but the black contrasted strongly with the green of al the living plants. As a Monad ship it was supposed to act as a single unit life source, providing its crew with everything required for whatever duration required in a recycled fashion, almost like any planet. A Monad ship could easily handle a perpetual tour in space; like a migration or escape. But when Martin negotiated for this specific Monad ship he knew that it was ancient. It was almost as old as his time displacement. Like any previously owned vehicle its excessive mileage reduced its purchase price.

“It was cheap at twice the price.” The Sluslunar negotiator had been translated to have said.

Martin never believed anything a used car salesman said, but didn’t need the craft for space flight. He needed it for the computer database and the subspace communications equipment, as well as a Performance Center. It didn’t have to fly. The Sluslunar would drop it anywhere Martin needed it. That was part of the deal. Martin was a tough negotiator too. Since Martin and the other time-displaced humans had nothing except their individual skills and training, the Monad ship was key in Martin’s plan in utilizing those skills to their fullest. And most of those skills were in entertainment. Seemed like most humans from any time period could sing.

“Gravity-free magic!” Martin’s theatrical voice echoed off the white walls of the modified freight hanger bay in the grounded Monad craft. A deck of playing cards hung isolated in the air for a moment and then slowly opened up into a fan spread as a totally hands-free manoeuvre. The deck then bloomed red with Diamonds and Hearts as face card pushed out from the fan like a rose bud expanding. The Queen of Hearts crept up out of that redness away from the deck bloom too slowly for Martin’s liking. “Need a little more punch on the key card. Get the momentum going quicker. It’s coming out much too slowly for this type of audience.” Martin floated along side the deck at an arm's length away from the expanding weightless cards. He was naked and equally gravity-free. Nothing up his sleeves. Uninhibited inertia continued to randomize all fifty-two cards; physical proof of Martin’s personal theory that gravity was an agent of anti-chaos. Martin just watched with a gravity-free, satisfied grin.

“Martin? . . . Sleazmrtnd? . . . Martin? . . . Sleazmrtnd?” Whispered the translucent box sitting at the corner of the make-shift stage. “Martin? . . . Sleazmrtnd?” Martin had built the stage himself with his own hands. He had even had had to construct a hammer and nails to do it. Not surprisingly, space craft never carried such things. Even in the 20^th Century, he had always been adjusting the space around him, adapting it, making it, forcing it to his will to make due. Adapt or die was a biological imperative. Martin always said. “But I’m only biological. So, give me a break!” Few people did, 40,000 years ago or now.

“Shit!” Clothes-less and weightless Martin sighed. He demanded solitude during his rehearsals. No one listened to that either. Before he answered the box, he flipped a small stone from his hand at a discoloration on the pale wall. He reached out just as the stone hit the discoloration of the gravity control mechanism. With gravity restored, the cards fall into his open hands just as his feet touched the floor. He smiled. He felt as if he had some little control when things happened with proper timing. He smiled at himself too as his naked body readjusted as gravity regained its weight inducing grip. His smile didn’t look as happy with gravity as it did without though. “At least the gravity generator controls are functioning well.”

“Martin? . . . Sleazmrtnd?” Demanded the female voice coming from the translucent box.

“Beth?” Martin said into his translucent Box as he yanked it up off from where he had stuck it at the start of his rehearsal. The translator / communicator Box had come as a package deal that he negotiated hard for when he got this ship; one for each found human. The Boxes were tough, useful, multi-purpose, but very annoying, sometimes. “Turn off your translator function! It’s damned annoying. It’s translating your communication into Sluslunar. You haven’t been talking to them directly have you? Asking them questions again? You know what that can cost us.”

“Oh? No! Sorry . . . Moy . . . There . . . Sorry, I panicked. Ah, flipped too many switches. I, ah, have a problem here. I’m a bit, ah?”

“What is it, Beth? Aren't you working a client?” Martin pushed the translucent box down on the skin of his bare shoulder. There was a slight squeak as the Box attached itself to his flesh. It didn’t hurt. How it did this attachment Martin didn’t know. It was some bioelectric manipulation, so he really didn’t want to know. It cost too much to ask the Slugs, anyway.

“Well, yeah? Ah . . . one of those Pod Thingy’s . . . ah whatever you call ‘em. That's, ah, the problem. Shit! You just, you better get over here. I don’t know what to do.”

“I tried to get a hold of Jack, too. He over there in the space ship with you?”

“His name is Jarack. Beth you know he won't answer if you call him anything but Jarack. Human male pride is even worse in the future than it was in your time.” Martin looked over the rows of log benches to the doorway that opened in the back of the small theatre. “Yeah, he's just coming in.” A tall, thin, totally hairless figure stood in the door opening. He was also naked. He had no obvious features that indicated whether he was male or female. Lack of protruding breasts implied male, but there was no visible external genitals and nipples neither confirmed nor denied the gender. There wasn’t even a belly button to be seen. The extra thumbs on each hand only demonstrated oddity and distinction from the other humans here without providing sexual indication. “Humans from my era need not such indications!” was the only comment Jarack would make on the subject. Martin gave Jarack a quick wave. “Hold on Beth. We’ll be right over.” Martin shook his head saying to himself. “Some kind of autonomous collective we have here. Ha! Seems like I’m the only one here who can make a decision.”

Martin had been the first of the time-displaced humans found by the Sluslunar. Others appeared occasionally with no pattern Martin could discern. The Sluslunar would announce a new addition to the village over the Box only after they had dropped that disoriented individual in the middle of the town pasture. The future Earth had been abandon be human kind for long enough period that the Forest Primeval had returned. Future Earth was clean and smelled very good. Since Martin was the first time-displaced human to be spatially-placed on the Future Earth everyone assumed he was in charge. He was there when everyone else arrived, so why not. Everyone in the village thought Martin was the leader except Martin. It was a very sore subject for him.

“Not only one!” Came the unusual voice of Jarack over the Box on Martin's shoulder. There was no sexual indicator in the voice either. Jarack had finally said he was male simply to stop the constant questions, so everyone believed him and stopped asking. “Just quickest!”

“Thanks, I guess? Still a pain in my ass.” Martin pulled a heavily furred pelt off the first row of benches throwing it over his shoulders. A slit in the pelt cape fit around the Box. “Good thing I learned how to tan hides when I was an undergrad at Berkeley.” He thought to himself. He then pulled on the leather leggings that had been under the pelt. He picked up a pair of thong sandals, also of his own design, from the floor. “My self constructed soles.” Martin chuckled to himself. He had to keep laughing or he would cry at this whole bizarre situation. Somehow he had fallen through a crack on time, a forty thousand year wide crack. He walked calmly toward Jarack standing in the opening in the freight bay wall.

“Heard Beth's plea.” Jarack stepped backwards out the opening as Martin approached. “Came over to go with.”

“What could she possibly have done to a mass of technologically advanced colonial microorganisms?” Martin walked directly at the pale outer wall of the ship just outside the auditorium. As Jarack turned, an opening in that wall automatically appeared. The deep green forest surrounding the Monad space ship was revealed. He and Martin walked through the opening. As they emerged the hull of the grounded space ship rapidly sealed, returning to its usual smooth seamless black. The grass was cool and moist with dew. Martin stopped, bending over. “Got to put my soles on. Catch my death.” Still, Jarack continued to walk on, shoe-less, clothes-less and maybe soulless.

“Your tolerance to the weather always surprises me!” Martin blew a stream of condensed moisture at the departing Jarack. The surrounding forest was thick, dark and ancient; comforting but mostly cold and wet.

“Human made better in my time than in past!” Jarack walked on unconcerned by weather or comment.

“Constructed is more like it!” Martin jogged to catch up, but Jarack always maintained, without obvious effort, a distance between himself and Martin; himself and any human, no matter what time period they originated in.

“The naked social Darwinist speaks!” Martin pulled the pelt closer to his body. Humans made in the 20^th Century felt the cold too well. The fur cape never kept his butt warm enough. One cold butt was one too many for Martin. “Say some more but make it about these Pod communal thingy’s.”

“Yeah, if that’s what the Sluslunar call them. To me they’re the Pod thingy’s! I can’t keep up with all the new species those greedy slugs send us. A galaxy full of oddly shaped sentient beings that just want to have fun! Who would’ve thought!” Martin and Jarack walked along a narrow dirt path between the giant oak and maple trees that contained the tree houses of their village. Rope - slat ladders ran up the sides of the largest members of the forest town. The wooden dwellings were small and inconspicuous among the high branches.

“Slusluslunet only technologically advanced colonial beings space flight capable recorded in Sluslunar database.” Jarack walked on.

“Need no saying! Pod beings' technology based on chemical compounds secreted from cellular body. Propulsion of colony enclosure pod results from ignition of colonial by-products. History in database for Pod beings reports the discovery of propulsion mechanism. Reproductive activity in colony produces volatile reagents.”

“Sex that really moves you!” Martin guffawed. “Always cracks me up. Ha! And one night they have a super-colony orgy, things get so hot they blew up! Way up! And when they awoke they were in outer space?”

“A sex drive that can overcome a planet’s gravity well!” Martin smirked. “It figures, those obscene slugs would put that story in their computer records. They just loved those dirty ditties I first sang to them when they revived me.” Martin stopped at the trunk of a massive tree with a house above. He laughed as Jarack immediately climbed the ladder going up the side of the ancient Sugar Maple. Martin always let Jarack do whatever he wanted. He would have anyway. Martin just stood at the base of the tree laughing. “I can just see an interstellar flight with the Pod beings, one exceedingly long gang bang! What a crazy universe we woke up to! Not like the Twentieth century at all.”

Jarack’s face was always expressionless. He just looked up as he climbed. “Expression was not required.” He would have said if asked about it.

At the top of the tree, a large dark skinned woman in a white fur pelt stood on the platform, she yelled down at Martin. “What da hell are ya laughin' at? Get your white ass up here.” She turned tromping back into the wooden structure. "That bastard's always foolin' 'round. I hate this place!"

“Are . . . are they here yet, Ruthy?” Said a short, thin woman in a dark cotton dress. It was faded, tattered at the edges. She stood at a log table in the center of the room. Her arms hugged her chest. The top of the table was taken up by a blunted conical construct, a Pod. The Pod had a very rough, grey exterior with an opening at the top of the cone.

“Yeah, Beth those lazy shits are here. Martin seems ta be havin' a jolly old time with hisself.” Ruthy climbed into one of the bunks against the wall. The dried grass stuffing of the mattress crackled under her in protest. “We have ta do all da dirty work 'round here, while they screw off with that piece of junk space ship those slimy pimp slugs pawned off on us! Payment? My beautiful black ass! Pimps are pimps. No matter what their species.”

“Come on . . . Come on, you guys!” Beth grabbed her face with both hands, almost immediately pulled them away with a jerk and then rapidly walked out of the room to look over the edge of the platform. Jarack stopped on the ladder some distance from her.

Jarack took a step back down the ladder. “Get back! Now” Jarack had no problem at being conspicuous and offensive.

“Back off Beth! Let him up.” Martin laughed. “This is not a side of Jarack I want to know about. What a sight?”

“Oh, yeah . . . Sorry.” Beth walked back to the log table biting her right index finger.

Jarack mounted the platform and walked to the doorway. “One moment, please.”

Martin's laughter could be heard as he climbed up the ladder. “No openings there either. Good thing. A very good thing. Expressionless at both ends.” Everyone waited in silence for Martin to complete his giggling ascension. He was still muttering to himself as he stepped on to the platform. “What a galaxy we ended up in.”

Jarack stepped back from the door as Beth rushed toward Martin. “I didn't know what to do. I was just fooling around . . . trying to figure out what they wanted me to do. Nothing was coming in over the Box. I didn't know it would kill them!” Beth grabbed Martin tightly around the waist. Martin stopped walking to keep his balance and peel Beth off his body. Martin didn’t mind being touched, but being grabbed by a semi-hysterical person was never pleasant.

“How could you have killed them? They’re a colony of millions. You hit every little one of them with a little stick?” Martin held Beth at arms length walking them both back into the room. “Remember Beth, try to stay calm for a change. We need to know everything you did to this Pod colony. Why do you think they’re dead?”

Jarack again took a standing position in the doorway. “Explain opening in Pod!”

“Hold on now, I know it's a cliché, but you too, start from the beginning, please.” Martin said as he bent down over the Pod opening. He made a sour face, quickly pulling his head back. “Brother, is that ripe. Smells like swamp gas gone bad.”

“Really vile and volatile, they were here for a good time, weren't they?” Martin shook his head. “Nobody light up a cigarette, okay?” Martin chuckled. Aliens made him laugh. He couldn’t help it. The more bizarre they were, the more he laughed. He laughed a lot.

“Would if I had one!” Ruthy said sitting up on the bed. “When are we goin' ta start growin' some tobacco in this place?”

“Ulrich has planned that for next season.” Martin looked at Ruthy putting his finger to his lips for quiet. Ruthy shrugged her shoulders, made a face and laid back on the crunching straw mattress. “So, speak to me Beth.”

“Well, this morning.” Beth rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. “Get the usual short blurb over the Box from the Slugs. ‘Client . . .1 0:00 hours . . . Pod . . . swirl!’ Martin why can't we ask them questions about the clients. I never know what's coming through that door or what I should be doing? What's the big secret anyway?”

“Beth, like I told you before, the Sluslunar are willing to answer our questions, it just cost us. Fee-based answers, the longer the answer, the more it costs. Everything has a price to those greedy slugs.” Martin lightly tapped the outside of the Pod. “That's why the Board put the restrictions on directly questioning the Sluslunar. Unfortunately for me, that’s a privilege left to me.”

“Even just one? Martin, you're head of the Board.” Beth looked at the Pod and then returned to hugging herself.

“Come on Beth, there are almost two hundred of us here, a question a piece gets expensive.” Martin looked at Jarack standing in the doorway, Jarack was staring intensely at the Pod. “Could we get off town politics and back to our immediate problem?” Martin said. “I don’t know how much this is going to cost us, but it ain’t going to be cheap if we don’t fix it ourselves.”

“Okay.” Beth flipped her long straw blond hair over her right shoulder. “So this Pod comes sailing through the door and plops down on the table. What a stink that caused.”

“Short distance propulsion system!” Jarack commented from the door. “Rapid expulsion without ignition.”

“Oh, God!” Martin wiped his face with his left hand trying not to laugh. “Could we save the commented until she finishes, please?”

“So . . . so . . . the Pod just sat there. I waited for it to say something . . . it just sat there . . . I checked my Box to see if it was on. That’s when I maybe flipped the wrong switch. I don’t know? Ruthy even said something in French . . . my Box was working. The Pod just sat there. Oh, it was glowing slightly or, at least, the stuff inside was glowing and moving around a bit.”

Martin held his nose glancing quickly into the opening of the Pod. He pulled his head back and said to Jarack. “No glow now. You see something else with your future eyes?” Jarack showed no reaction. Martin knew now that that meant “No!” for Jarack.

“Yeah, that's what got me worried.” Beth looked toward reclining Ruthy. “Ruthy can tell you, the stuff in the Pod began to glow more and more and a hole formed at the top of the Pod, right where it is now.” Beth pointed to the opening at the top of the cone. “The slugs had said swirl, so I put my hand into the opening and swirled. The goop was warm, but got warmer, even hot.”

“We all do what we can to make a buck for the village, don't we?” Martin looked toward Ruthy frowning. “Could we go on?” Ruthy grunted angrily but remained silent.

“Okay, so I swirled a little and the stuff glowed a little more. Got hotter. It also started to smell nice in here, not like farts, like lilacs. I started to feel good myself.”

“Ruthy?” Martin looked over at Ruthy. “You smell or feel anything?” Silence. “Ruthy, you can talk now. What about it?”

“It was the least the thing could do after stinking up the place.” Ruthy sat up. “Yeah, it made me feel good too.”

“Different volatile reagents.” Jarack commented from the door. “Sex products. Pheromones.”

“Lucky there were no matches around.” Martin smirked. “Well, it doesn’t smell very good now.” Martin tapped the Pod again wrinkling his nose. A bubble of vile gas dislodged from the wall and belched out that vileness at the top of the colony liquid.

“No, not yet, but I swirled the stuff more and more, faster and faster.” Beth rubbed her mouth with her hand. “The goop glowed more and more. The smell stayed nice but changed flower types and also got stronger. I really was having fun. I kept swirling and swirling. Swirling and swirling. Even Ruthy didn't want me to stop.”

“Swirl, baby, swirl! It was a stone cold trip alright.” Ruthy rolled her eyes. “Best fun I had here.”

"So, I swirled and swirled, I don't know for how long. My head swirled too, and then suddenly, there was this flash of light and intense smell and then it went dark. Later, it started to stink.” Beth looked at Jarack and then Martin. “That's when I called you. I think I killed them.”

“It must be 13:30 hours now. How long did you swirl the Pod?” Martin put his ear to the Pod.

“Just a really old old joke, I'll tell you some other time.” Martin knocked on the Pod. Another bubble belched forth. “Think the colony used up its energy reserves? Don't you, Jarack? They seem to use light as a sexual indicator, like fireflies.”

“Good supposition! Glowing and scent result from usage of organic energy molecules. Too much of good time.” Jarack nodded his head.

“Too much of a good thing, alright.” Martin held his nose looking into the opening in the Pod. “Wish I had a microscope. Maybe, I could see if the little guys were still alive?”

“Maybe if we gave them something to eat?” Beth said looking into the Pod from the side. “I get hungry after sex, myself.”

“Probably not a bad idea, but we didn't know what they eat.” Martin looked at Jarack. “Or even if they do eat! They could be photosynthetic?”

“All life forms rely on external energy sources!” Jarack added from the doorway. “Sunlight already available to colony.”

“Yeah.” Martin nodded. “Not light, but what?” Martin put his face closer to the milky grey fluid inside the Pod. “If I could only get a closer look at them.”

“Doesn't the ship have a magnifyin’ glass or somethin’?” Said Ruthy. “You guys have been pokin' 'round that thing long enough to find somethin’ like that, ain’t ya?”

“No glass at all on that ship. I’m not even sure what it is made of.” Martin looked at Jarack.

“Oh, well dat clears it up, don' it?” Ruthy fell back on to the noisy straw.

“Sluslunar manipulate gravity field to produce magnified viewer as well as propulsion.”

“You mean the antigravity device I use in my magic act can be made into a telescope?” Martin asked.

“How do you know this, Jarack. In your time period humans had not met up with the Sluslunar?” Martin shivered a little. His butt was getting just too cold.

“No,” Martin shook his head. “We’ve bought that ship and everything on it out right. We still have to pay for it, of course.”

“’Course!” Said Ruthy. “And we'll pay and pay and pay. Wage slaves I tol’ ya!”

“Very likely, unless we can think of something else to do of value except to be their paid entertainers.”

“Clowns more like it for you guys.” Ruthy whined again. “Just whores is us girls.”

Martin wiped his face with his hand again and then scratched his head. “Yeah, well . . . Killing a client will certainly cost us a fortune. O’ shit, we’ve got to figure this out. Jarack, you’re saying you could make a microscope for me from the gravity field manipulator?”

“Strong likelihood.” Jarack turned and started down the ladder. “Go now!”

“But, oh?” Martin threw his hands up in the air. “How am I going to get this Pod back to the ship?”

“Well, I didn't bring the whole Pod, just a small part of it.” Martin sat the curved greyish shell on the thigh-high discolored counter. “Outer shell was so brittle it snapped off between my fingers. Not a good sign.” The shell's curvature contained a small puddle of dull colored, smelly liquid. Jarack looked over at the make-shift container and then at Martin. Martin shrugged off his fur pelt. “I went to hoist the entire Pod, but the top of the cone broke off in my hand. Something is still happening to the colony. Something not good, definitely not good, at all! This thin of a wall couldn’t have handled the strains of flight. I think we’re running very short of time. I just dipped the piece of wall I had in my hand into the colony removing what I could. We can have a look at both things.” Jarack went back to aligning colors on the wall. “The colony is stringy stuff. Like serving spaghetti with a spoon. That's why there's so little here. Should be enough, I think, if you really can make a gravity lens microscope in here?”

“Need assistance in manipulation of control polyps.” Jarack pointed to the fist sized discolored projection on the deck near Martin's left leg. “Anti-gravity modulator,” Jarack then pointed to coloring on the wall, “at recorded setting.”

“I’m going to need both hands for that!” Martin said as he read down one of the cheat sheets he glued all over the ship’s control areas. There were too many colors and too many commands for a normal human to remember.

“Fact!” Jarack pointed at the fist-sized discolorations in front of him. “Gravity focus modulator needs more complex manipulation!”

“Of course, that's your job with your extra thumbs. Damn these pads. They’re so difficult to handle for someone with fingers. The Sluslunar slime foot must have a very complex and sensitive muscular!” Martin placed his fingers of his right hand on the pad's color-coded regions. “We need to construct some sort of key board so we ten fingered and twelve fingered human beings can really work these controls.”

“Voice control better technology than manual input!” Jarack stated as his fingers and thumbs worked over the gravity focus modulator pad.

“True, but won't that be more difficult to build?” Martin kept his right hand still while he positioned the fingers of his left hand. He needed to use palm too, somehow.

“Not requested!” Jarack nodded at the pale blue region forming on the counter between them. “Anti-gravity field must initialize. Push mauve region at base of pad!”

“With what? I'm all out of fingers and you’re definitely not my type.” Martin looked at Jarack. Jarack looked at Martin. “Yeah, now's a good time for a voice controller. Not to worry. I'll get that mauve sector its push.” Martin bent over the counter and pushed his nose onto the mauve control region. The blue circular region on the counter between them deepens in color.

“Place sample in anti-gravity field!” Jarack stared at the field as it continued to darken.

“Okay.” Martin slowly raised his hands off the control pad. He expected everything to cease operating. It didn’t. He was mostly wrong about this alien technology, so he wasn’t surprised being wrong again. He picked up the Pod fragment and held it to the field. “Should I just shove it in there?”

Martin inserted the Pod fragment and its contents into the side of the anti-gravity field. The fragment hung there. Martin then gave the fragment a light tap. The fragment gently tumbled into the center of the field. A thin trail of the colony streamed out behind the fragment. A ring of intense yellow formed on the counter within the dark blue indictor of the anti-gravity field.

“Must have extreme gravity field surrounded by anti-gravity field!” Jarack's hands rocked on the graviton modulator polyps.

“Crush ship! Hold!” Jarack bent over and pushed a region of the counter with his small flattened nose. “Image should be forming!” The human form, whether from the 20^th century or the 34^th century had basically the same positive and negatives.

“Not correct type, either.” Jarack said. “Only nose appendage available.”

“Jarack actually made a funny! This is a day for the database.” Martin shook his head and then looked at the visually expanding colony. “Yep, it's getting bigger. Magnifying. They look hyphal, like fungus, but not with a rigid cell wall. No, they look more like amoeba. Amoeba that are holding hands, pseudopodia, that is.” Martin observed the magnifying colony a different angle. “Amoeba or neurons? They have obvious organelles. A major central structure. If these things are anything at all like humans, that central structure should be like our nucleus and carry the genetic information for these guys. Good thing to know. There seems to be other individual organisms in the colony too. Much smaller than the amoebae. Keep pushing the mag. Yeah, simple little rods and spirals. Colonies within colonies makes a community. It takes a village. Intellect requires complexity. Well, even these little guys have some form of simple organellar structure.”

“Maybe? Maybe, it's the gestalt of all of the beings that’s necessary. I have no idea. Still, you’re probably right. The amoebae do seem to be linked, while the rods and spirals are independent. The amoebae are forming a complex network of interactions. Just what you would expect to be required for intelligence.”

“There does seem to be movement of the intercellular organelles within their cytoplasmic matrix. Could just be random, Brownian movement but not likely, too viscous in there. The pseudopodia also moving. Maybe extending, slowly. If I had to guess, and I do, yep, they’re still alive. Just barely though.” Martin moved his head around the field until he can see the Pod wall fragment. “Jarack, can you now really jack up the mag? I want to look at this wall. If the mag goes high enough maybe I can recognise the molecular structure of some of its compounds. It’s thinning. Maybe they are eating it?”

“Okay, do it just for a second. We’re going to end up paying for this debacle someway. Yeah, polymers, not a surprise, but of what? Jarack! I’m beginning to feel a lot heavier!” Martin put his arms down onto the counter to hold himself up.

“Gravity field leakage! Shut down required!” Jarack removed his hands from the modulator pad and the yellow ring faded with the magnification.

“That was exciting!” Martin stood up. “I guess I almost became a black hole!”

“We were back to humor there for a minute, Jarack.” Martin brushed his light brown hair back into position. “Well, I don't know if we learned anything of use for our immediate problem. They’re not dead yet, but what can we do about it? How do we keep them alive?”

“Must return fragment to larger colony.” Jarack reached into the anti-graviton field collecting the floating colony with the wall fragment.

“Maybe, I'll think of something on the way back.” Martin wrapped the fur pelt around himself and shrugged. “Maybe not! What to do?”

Jarack walked on ahead of Martin and through the pale ship wall. Martin said to himself, the only person in the chamber. “It’s like talking to myself, which I am now. I don’t know why I’m not crazier?”

“My eye became red and swollen a little bit after you left to look at the Pod Thingy’s.” Martin examined Beth's right eye. “My sight in that eye is getting fuzzy, too.”

“Are the images dimmer or more blurred?” Martin pulled up Beth's right eyelid. The white of her eye were no longer white but red and visibly inflamed.

“Blink again. Yes, there is a translucent film forming over the pupil.” Martin crossed over to the water basin in the corner of the room and began to wash his hands. “It could be an allergic reaction, but the filminess suggests an infection of some kind.” Martin looked around for something to dry his hands but ended up flipping them dry. “I’ve only been able to isolate one strain of mold here so far that has any antibiotic properties. We should try the extract on your eye. If it’s not one thing it’s another.” Martin reached to his right shoulder and touched a stud on the Box attached to his shoulder. “Sarah! Sarah! She's always asleep. Sarah!”

“Stop with the not so wise cracks and listen! You know the mold I'm growing in the lab.”

“That's the beast. Scrape about two thirds of it into a pan, cover it with water and heat the mixture to almost a boil, but don’t boil it!”

“Okay, make some up and bring some over to Beth's and Ruthy's, as quickly as possible.”

“Fine by me. Nothing else to do. Later, Doc.” As Sarah's voice clicked off as cacophony of voices erupt from the box all demanding. “Martin!”

“Thomason, here, Martin everyone has been trying to get you. The Board is meeting this evening and we all have much to discuss.”

“Gee, I thought that's what the meeting was for?” Martin said with a slight melody in his voice. Board meetings made him laugh just like aliens did; they were both bizarre beasts that didn’t make a whole lot of sense most of the time and were damned annoying all of the time.

“I just want to clarify my position with you first!” Said the male voice from the Box.

“Okay, okay! Hold on all of you. Jarack and I,” Martin looked around the room and smiled, “and Beth and Ruthy have an emergency on our hands that is literally life and death, the life of a client and the possible deaths of all of us humans here on Earth. So, I'll get back to you when I can, Out!” Martin pushed the stud to OFF. “They have problems? Hell, I didn't get to finish my rehearsal today. I have a show tonight.” Martin shook his head. “And you guys wonder why I keep my Box turned off most of the time.”

Jarack was at the center table. “Pod wall is substantially thinner then previously. Either composed of volatile substance or colony is restructuring container! Consumption probable.”

“But it itches!” Beth rubbed the eye with her other hand. Martin released her arm.

“Brother, I wish those slugs would find a real doctor somewhere out there in time. I was only a Ph.D. molecular biologist, I had no formal medical training.” Martin went back over to the basin to wash his hands. “With the arrival of the Pod, the occurrence this eye infection, and what I saw in the colony sample, I think anyone who touched the Pod should wash thoroughly.”

“You think those Pod Thingy’s are in me?” It was Beth who backed away from Jarack and the table this time.

“Or an organism that infests the colony. There are bacteria all around us. In the soil, in the air, on our skin, even in our mouth and gut.” Martin stepped aside as Beth came over and pushed her face into the basin.

“Still, we should clean the whole room and you. You never know?” Martin moved over to the Pod beside Jarack. Jarack moved away from Martin, not the Pod.

“Yeah, around here.” Ruthy sat up. “Just 'bout any kind of nightmare will come walkin', flyin' or crawlin' through da door. ‘Dis Clown’s world! ‘dis Crazy-assed world! Shit! How’d I get here? How’d any of us get here to dis?”

“Earth based antibiotic likely not to be effective on off-world organisms.” Jarack said.

“Shhh, I know. Let's try to keep people as calm as we can.” Martin said as he looked at the Pod wall. From his appropriate distance, Jarack nodded once.

“I’m pretty certain that the Pod’s activities ceased when Beth exhausted the colony energy supplies. The colony is now on emergency starvation mode. When the human body has used all its energy reserves it begins to catabolize itself.”

“Correct! Pod wall served multiple functions: protection, transportation vehicle, and reservoir for basic biological building blocks.” Jarack said.

“Now, the distressed colony is reabsorbing the wall constituents just to survive.” Martin stood straight and pushed his hair back with both of his hands. “We need you get them some source of energy. The wall was composed of some form of polymer. The colony can use these polymers for energy if they have to.”

“Possible, colony growing in eye of Beth!” Said Jarack. Beth was still scrubbing her face vigorously. Ruthy was stripping the straw from the beds and throwing it out the window.

“Right! We humans are composed of polymers, nucleic acids, proteins, polysaccharide sugars, fatty acids.” Martin glanced at the scrubbing Beth and then at the Pod. “It is possible that the colony can utilise one or more of our polymers as an energy source. Which one?” Martin pulled a stool up to the table with his foot and sat down. “If the colony is living on the human body then it must be a carbon based life form.” He sniffed again at the Pod. It smelled worse than before but with less intensity.

“Oh, thanks! Let's see the most common polymers in the human body are mucopolysaccharides.”

“You sayin' that I’m made a snot?” Ruthy was in a bad mood. Ruthy was always in a bad mood.

“Fine day this turned into! Now, I'm made a snot and gonna die!” Ruthy threw the one feather pillows and straw mats out the window with force. “Can a pile a snot die?” Ruthy whined.

“Nucleic acids, DNA and RNA, are modified sugars polymers!” Jarack added and Ruthy screamed loudly enough to stop Beth from her face scrubbing. Ruthy quivered thorough out her entire body.

“Sugar maybe energy source.” Jarack had never smiled before, but maybe he had this time, slightly.

“But which sugar? I guess that doesn't matter. We only have sucrose here anyway. That's a combination of glucose and fructose. Should we give it a try?” Martin turned to Jarack.

“Why all this guessing? Why not ask the slugs?” Ruthy was following the conversation. Beth even nodded her head.

“Problems are doubly expensive to the Sluslunar. In this case I'm not sure how they will react.” Martin looked at Ruthy and shrugged.

“Well, dey definitely goin’ to be pissed, if dese Pod thingy’s here up and die?” Ruthy threw one of the bed frames out the doorway.

“I think we almost have it, just a minute.” Martin turned on his box. “Ulrich?”

“Can't say just yet. Bring a half a basket to Beth's and Ruthy's and hurry. Martin out.” Martin studded off his box.

“Sorry to cut you off like that Ruthy, but the nearest Sluslunar base is seventeen light years away.”

“What about the slug camps just over the hill?” Beth's face was bright red from the scrubbing, almost as red as her infected eye.

“Those are just robotic mining operations. It would take weeks for a Sluslunar ship to get here.” Martin got up and looked out the doorway. Off in the distance a tall thin man in a fur pelt carried a heavy basket toward the tree.

“What about asking one of da other clients?” Ruthy threw the water and the basin out of the window. She watched both hit the ground. One splashed. One bounced. Everything has its own action and reaction.

“Yeah, sure and scare everyone off forever, then what would we do for a living?” Martin came back to the center of the room. “Ruthy, could you help Ulrich get the sugar up here. Don't let him come up all the way though.”

“Couldn't you and futureman here do it?” Ruthy pointed at Jarack. “Oh, hell, I have ta do everything 'round here.” Ruthy stomped out the door.

“Martin, I’m starting to feel real funny!” Beth took hold of her head. “It’s like the time I was on Acid. Images flashing.”

“Oh, great! What now?” Martin grumbled and sat down hard on the stool. “Jarack, does your hypermodified nose detect any noxious volatile agents coming from the Pod?”

“Unexpectedly, none!” Jarack turned toward Martin. “Strong chemical emissions coming from human bodies.”

“I bet! What you smell is fear. Beth, since Ruthy threw all the beds out the window, you need to lay down on the floor. I don’t want you falling and hurting yourself. Now, what kind of images are you seeing?”

“Like colors, flashes of light, numbers, people's faces, all kinds of stuff jumbled together.” Beth shook all over. “Martin, I’m so scared.” Beth began to cry on the wooden floor.

“Stay calm, Beth, I'll figure something out.” Martin pulled at his hair with both hands. He was surprised that he had any left. It’s always something here and now.

“This bastard is heavy!” Ruthy came into the room pulling the basket of sugar. “Next time ya guys need some help, ask someone else!” Ruthy slammed the basket on the table and then stomped to the window. “I think I'm just going to set fire to the place after you guys leave. The perfect end to a perfect day!” Ruthy quivered again. “Then I’ll jump out too.”

Martin bent down and took up a hand full of sugar. “Ruthy stop bitching and see to Beth. She's got real problems.” Looking a Jarack, Martin said. “How much do you think?”

“Addition could cause violent chemical reaction.” Jarack said from the doorway.

“Tote this, tote that, tote tote tote.” Ruthy picked Beth up off the floor. Jarack stepped aside as Ruthy carried Beth out the door. “She ain’t heavy, but she ain’t my sister.”

“Okay, here goes a handful.” Martin closed his eyes as he poured the sugar into the opening in the Pod. With the last of the last grain he opened his eyes. “Well, at least it didn't explode.”

“Thanks again for your impute Jarack or sarcasm.” Martin looked into the Pod opening. He sniffed. “Nothing different so far. One more handful.” This time Martin watched the slow addition of the sugar to the colony. “Yep, there is a faint glow around where the sugar drops into the colony. I think we are on to something here.”

“It’s them!” Beth yelled from the doorway. “It’s them! They’re in my head!”

“The Pod guys . . . They’re making the hallucinations, the images in my head.” Beth stopped and looked down into the Pod. “I can almost see my myself. Like a mirror or somebody’s face. Faces.”

“No, they aren't saying anything. Just when you added the sugar to the colony, all the faces I was seeing smiled. They’re still smiling.” Beth looked up at Martin.

“Could be anything? Ruthy?” Martin looked around the room. Ruthy was still outside.

“Nope, it’s them I know from the scent. They’re making me feel the way I did earlier. Yeah, it’s them alright. Wow!” Beth staggered but remained standing and looking.

“Beth can you give me some other sign that they are in communication with you?” Martin pulled the stool over to Beth. “Here, sit down.”

“What kind? A number sequence? Addition, calculus, physics?” Martin looked around for something to write with. “Damn, I’m not on the ship.”

“No, two circles of numbers linked together.” Beth made two circles with her fingers and held them close together. “Mostly 12s and some 16s and a whole lot of 1s.”

“Do some of the 12s branch off the main circles?” Martin was drawing in the dust on the floor with the tip of his sandal. “Like this?”

Beth looked down at the diagram on the floor. “Sort of like that, just the other way round.”

“Atomic weights for carbon and oxygen are 12 and 16.” Said Jarack looking down at the diagram. “Sucrose.”

“Absolutely, the chemical representation for glucose and fructose linked to make sucrose. It is them.”

Ruthy came into the room. “Beth, what are you doing?” Ruthy rushed over to grab Beth.

Martin waved Ruthy off. “I think it will be alright, Ruthy. Give it a second.”

“The happy faces are frowning a little. Now, the sucrose image is being linked together in long strings.”

“Now, the polymers have all kinds of different shapes made of different numbers attached to them.” Beth shook her head. “Never liked chemistry class, but liked the chemicals, some of them.”

“I guess so, now all I see is happy faces.” Beth nodded her head again. “Feel dizzy. Happy dizzy.”

“Modified polysaccharides, that's what they want. Of course, that's why they can live in Beth’s eye, her body. There are plenty of highly modified polysaccharides there.”

“Hey!” Ruthy backed toward the door. “You ain't supposin’ that we let those Pod thingy’s crawl into us to eat are ya? 'Cause I ain't goin' da have it."

“No Ruthy, I think there’s an easier solution than that and it was your idea.” Martin chuckled to himself.

“Not What! Snot! It’s composed of very complex highly modified mucopolysaccharides. I think they will love it!” Martin proceeded to put his face over the opening of the Pod and blow his nose.

“Interesting source of energy!” Jarack stated as he walked toward the table.

Martin grabbed her elbow and pulled her hand out of the Pod. “Don’t start that again. Ruthy, go find everyone that has a cold and get them up here fast.”

“Get dis! Get dat! Shit! Jus’ like ma own time era. Step and fetch it!” Ruthy mumbled as she walked out the door. “Nathin’ ever changes . . . Shittt!”

This Hanoi street was a typical Viet Namese street; narrow, noisy and filled with smoke from the curb side grilling of Bun Cha, charred strips of pork to be put over rice noodles. Bun Cha snack shops were everywhere. Smoke and red hot metal was thus everywhere too. The traditional squat grills sat right there on the low curb next to the street at about mid-calf level, old world, family business style; simply charming and yet a small hazard to be avoided. When he almost burned his ankle when stepping too close to one at the base of a tree, he realized quickly that all Hanoi streets were filled with such charming hazards, small and large. Despite modern industrialization, the small neighborhood family business (eatery, grocery, tobaccery) was still the main business in one of the last Communist countries on Earth. It was so obvious that politics never meant that much to the Viet Namese people. Governments come and go; came and went. Good times or bad times seem to be totally unrelated to the concept of government that had been imposed on them. It was the Family business that was important. It was the Family that was the imperative. The Family goes on. It always goes on. Governments don’t. And, as almost a proof of this, he was now here, an American, walking down this ancient thoroughfare not because of governments or politics but because of the basis of all that is family, love.

He hadn’t wanted to fall in love. He knew the physiological causes of love, that love was a type of addiction or maybe addiction was a type of love. It really didn’t matter which. Love was a hardwired emotion for all mammals. He knew this emotion was simply generated by a well known synaptic, molecular activity. That it was a specialized oxytocin hormone - opiate receptor interaction. That it was a biological necessity. It had an evolutionary basis. It held mother and child together. Still, no matter how it worked, it was Love. But like addiction, it just kind of happened while you were having fun. With love, you got conditioned to the associate your special person with your feeling “just wonderful”. That “wonderful” being an oxytocin – opiate receptor induced high.

His feeling “just wonderful” had caught him completely by surprise. “Wonderful” had never entered into his life before. So what? He had been just like everyone else. Most everyone he knew had a “Wonderful” deficiency. But he wasn’t that way anymore. He had been hooked on her, immediately. It surprised him, especially since he really should have known better. He had a Ph.D. in Psychology for God’s sake. Human psychology was so important to him that he had finished his degree while he was still active in the military. Up until her, he had kept his emotions under better control, but everyone slips up sometimes. It was her fault he slipped so badly.

Although he wasn’t officially a soldier any more, “Too many brains to be a professional grunt,” some Major had complemented him once, he was a civilian U.S. Government Interrogator. He was very good with languages too, so Interrogator seemed to be his default position in public service to America. He was patriotic and, apparently, a little foolish too. He only used psychological methods to get his required information. Physical coercion never worked for gathering accurate information. Everyone knew that. He simply had too many brains for torture. Unfortunately, many of his colleagues didn’t seem to have enough brains. Their brain deficiency made him very uncomfortable. There was guilt by association, so he never mentioned to people on the outside what he did. He just had a demanding government job to the rest of the world.

But because of that demanding job, just a few months back, he found himself in Los Angeles. It was a training session. He was doing the training. Still, he had to struggle to get them to do it his way. His way took too long. It was on the job training. It was secret. It was intense. It was draining. He needed an outlet. He knew no one in Los Angeles, but he was still social. He went dancing every free night he had. Each night he went to a different dance club. He wasn’t looking to connect with people, just the opposite. He wanted to disconnect, get away from society for awhile. Escape everything he had to do for that society during the day. Dance clubs were perfect for this. Just be physical, dance close to someone else for awhile without any more connection than proximity and then move on. At a dance club you didn’t even have to talk to people. The music was usually so loud you couldn’t really talk and that was good for him. The less the talk, the less he had to evade, the less he had to lie. He hated dishonesty more than anything, more than loneliness. So he just danced. He didn’t have too many brains for that. His Mom had taught him to dance when he was in middle school to help him in sports. The rhythm, rhythmic approach to life had helped him so much, in so many ways. “Thanks Mom.” He would say to himself sometimes when he was on the dance floor feeling just fine; not “wonderful” but just fine. That statement sometimes confused his dance partner if they heard it, mostly they didn’t though.

He would simply go from partner to partner with each new dance, random, temporary partners, a tentative connection at best. Nothing to say. Nothing to explain, just dance. And the young women of L.A., like in all other cities of the world, loved to dance. Even if they had boy friends, husbands or significant male others, especially if they had boy friends. Most guys didn’t like to dance. Most straight guys were embarrassed by their lack of rhythmic skills and thus thought dancing was too gay as a defense for their incompetence. He wasn’t gay, he wasn’t incompetent, and he didn’t care what other people thought so he would go dancing and simply dance with these women. And then that one L.A. night, that’s where he found her, Quynh Huong, and the feeling of “just wonderful.”

Because he had met her. Because she had met him. Because they had danced together, now he was in Hanoi. He had never been in Viet Nam before, this part of the world wasn’t that important to American security, anymore. He wasn’t needed here in this modern - ancient city. Still, because of his job, he did have some connection with the Hanoi American Embassy. He had trained many people. He knew staff, the special staff, that staff knew him. The American Embassy thus was his first stop in Hanoi. Of course, it won’t be his last stop.

He had met Quynh Huong in a dance club near Korea Town which was near what was called Downtown L.A. Like all dance clubs, this one was for locals, the young and the desirous to remain young, locals. So mostly everyone at this club was Asian. Mostly Asian women dancing with other Asian women. Too Gay a thing for Asian men or was it just too early? The guys mostly came in later, so late that there was only time for a dance or two with their girl friends, wives, etc. They would trickle in after a night of drinking or getting high with the boys. Just do a few dances with the little woman, just placate her, just make her happy so she would be more receptive to their drunken advances.

“Com’on baby. I danced with you and all.” And that lame seduction line worked. Well, it seemed to work. The situation perpetuated.

He didn’t really care about the relationship backdrop. It was just an opportunity for him to dance until Quynh Huong was the next temporary partner, not until he saw her face. Quynh Huong’s face stopped his heart. She was fashion model beautiful, while having a truly genuine smile. Immediately, her smile swallowed his common sense. Her eyes devoured too many of his excessive brains. After that first glance had floored him so completely, he was afraid to look directly at her. She had consumed him so thoroughly. He was afraid he would pass out. “Just wonderful” was so overwhelming.

Strangely, that he wouldn’t look directly at her, made her want to dance with him even more. Shyness was a new thing for Quynh Huong, well, at least a new thing here. Most guys here gave her too much attention. She thought this new white guy funny as well as a very good dancer. She had watched him carefully as he had danced with all of her girl friends. She had stood off to the side intentionally to observe him, to judge him. His skills were more than acceptable. The shyness showed that he wasn’t gay. Gay guys were never shy around her either. This straight white very good dancer could be fun for a few minutes. Fun, at least, until her boy friend came in, but that wasn’t for a couple of hours yet. Much dancing could be done and thus fun had. So she made her presence known to this new white guy. Her smile was genuine as she did. His response to her was very good, indeed. She smiled even more.

All Embassies have multiple functions. Everyone knows this fact as they do that one of those functions was intrigue. He sat in front of the desk of the Assistant Deputy Ambassador; the Embassy’s Head of Intrigue. He turned the screen of his mini-computer toward the Assistant Deputy. “I’ve identified this man as Dinh Tran Vo. Can you corroborate that identification?”

The Assistant Deputy rubbed his cheeks. He needed to shave again. As he aged, twice a day was almost not enough. He had been in and out of Viet Nam all the way back to the American War, as they called it here, he should be used to the weather. He wasn’t. He also should have been used to his aging, but he wasn’t. The humidity made his whiskers itch. Their itching made him feel excessively old for some reason. “Looks like him. Probably is. John, you know he’s not a very nice person?”

John nodded. He clicked on the keypad. “Is this the address at which he can be contacted?”

“How would I know that off the top of my head?” The Assistant Deputy turned to his computer keyboard and typed. “I’ll check but I know he’s no Islamic, if that’s what this is about? He’s kind of a fanatic, but not a religious one. Says here he’s Catholic.”

John shook his head. “No. No. It’s not that. It’s something else all together.”

“If they had organized crime in this country he’d be part of that. Just a warning. He’s a major prick at a personal level, either way. His quasi-governmental status makes him a truly dangerous bully.” The Assistant Deputy rubbed his fingers together in the universal gesture of a bribe. He read the computer and shrugged while he did so. “That’s the last address we have. But he’s just a prick to the U.S. government, not much else. Well, I don’t know. Part of his file his blocked here. Hummmm.” Assistant Deputy raised an eyebrow. “They don’t usually block files to me unless it’s a need-to-know.” He shrugged again with resignation. The Assistant Deputy reached into his desk drawer and took out a box. It was a nice box. It was a sealed box. It was a special box. “This is the package you asked for. This isn’t about that?” The Assistant Deputy glanced from the box to the screen. “I thought you were a background guy, not doing field work.”

“We do what we need to do.” John took the nice box putting it in his jacket pocket as he did his mini-computer. His jacket was too heavy for the weather but that didn’t matter right now.

So he had danced with Quynh Huong more than once. Much more than once. At one point, he even, reluctantly, attempted to move on to another partner, but she blocked his maneuver and kept him dancing with only her. He was too good of a dancer to let the other girls have. They wouldn’t appreciate him correctly. He was so skilled he predicted and complemented her every move. He made her look even better a dancer than she was. He was so attentive of her, he missed nothing. She even ran tests of that attentiveness; he always passed with flying colors. He was a whole lot of fun. He made her smile and giggle continuously. It had seemed like hours, the time they danced together, hours or seconds, time didn’t come into it, it was so much fun.

He had gotten lost in her movements. He had gotten lost in her face, her eyes. They were both so exotic and so familiar at the same time; beauty was like that. She seemed to want him to look at her, so he didn’t hold back. He looked directly into her eyes. It was unusual for him. He was so used to holding back. What he did for a living required that he hold back his emotions, keep them securely locked away. He had gotten good at detachment, but she had defeated him with single glance, so much for his training, so much for his strength. No holding back of his emotions with her. And they hadn’t even talked, the music was too loud.

She wouldn’t let him go and then, at one point, suddenly she was gone. She had come into his life abruptly and she had left the same way. It seemed to have a certain balance, but he couldn’t stay there without her. Feeling “just wonderful” was dangerous, especially when it went away, thus he left immediately. He wasn’t going to go back the next night. He never went back to the same place. There were too many other dance places to experience. There were always eager new women to dance with. Detached women who wanted to dance and nothing more. Exactly like he wanted. Well, until he met her and everything was so different, he went back every night.

John rented a scooter. Considering the price he paid, he probably bought it. He paid in cash. The Owner wanted Euros but John only had U.S. dollars, so the price went up quite high.

“Blow horn!” The Owner had said and reached over the handlebars and did just that. It was a surprisingly loud horn for such a small motorized bike. “Blow horn always. Just blow!”

John would have gotten that concept on his own. Everyone on the narrow Hanoi street, if they had a horn, was sounding it. Traffic was noisy chaos. The entire City beeped and honked and smoked. The dogs didn’t have horns though but appeared to trust human drivers way too much. The dogs would just cross at any old time. So many small yet charming hazards on the streets of Hanoi. John had to watch carefully for the random dog and pedestrian. The streets of Viet Nam were still as deadly as ever for an American, just for different reasons.

John came back to that same dance place every night it was open. It wasn’t the place he was coming back to of course, it was her. He would dance with anyone, everyone, until Quynh Huong appeared and then it was only her. They moved together in synchrony. They existed in that movement for far too brief of a time and then she would go. Go away somewhere. He never knew where. He never looked for her. He never asked her. She was simply gone and then he would go. His stay in L.A. became simply waiting for the next night to come, the next dance with her. That was as far into the future he could think. It was just wonderful. Out side of the dancing, all they had ever done was exchange names; John for Quynh Huong. Their verbal intimacy was only that. Physically though, they were as intimate as the dance club would allow. Such wonderful intimacy for a time and then she would be gone. Disappear, as if by magic. Magic suited her though and since John couldn’t compete with magic he would leave, immediately. There was nothing else for him to do was there, but go.

And then, after one of those nights, after she had left and he had left, he couldn’t resist any longer, and he did search for her, but on the Web. He found her pictures on the Internet. Not rude pictures by any means. She was a model, no surprise. She was so beautiful she had to be. She had a professional beauty with only a slight seductiveness. In the short personal profile the modeling agency provided, he discovered everything that he knew about her. The most obvious was that she was Viet Namese and not Korean. What she had given him of her name had not been enough for John to tell. Here though, he found out the rest of her name. Giving himself up to his need to search for her, he let the computer translated her Viet Namese name into English. The computer flashed back, Pink fragrant flower bird poem. He didn’t know if that was a correct or accurate translation, but it didn’t matter. She was a perfect poem to him, so it fit.

While gazing at the professionally posed pictures of her, he also discovered, realized, became aware of something that was so obvious it was embarrassing; he was deeply in love with her. The realization made him feel ridiculous and hopeless at the same time. It had to be love. He never fooled himself. There was no future for them. He didn’t think about it but he knew that her abrupt departures, he knew their cause, John was no naïve love-sick boy, he knew that her boy friend or husband must have arrived.

It was only fitting wasn’t it? A temporary dance partner; a volatile connection, a hampered communication, it was what he had first sought. It was what he finally had got. But was Love ever one-sided? Could it be one-sided? Did it really matter? He would be gone soon. And she would stay right there in the life she knew. Why would she want to change?

Unrequited love? It seemed almost medieval, so chivalrous, so courtly, so silly. The virgin princess with pale skin and cool hands, destine to be a nun. And the silly love sick knight, lost, the loser to God and tradition. But wasn’t that the ultimate point of love; sacrifice? Maybe not love actually but romance. Romance was all longing and sacrifice.

John punched himself in the side of the head and said aloud, “You aren’t in love, it’s worse than that you’re in romance.” He hung his head down. “Oh . . . What do the words matter? They don’t. My emotions don’t matter either. Just dance it out with her to the end. Doesn’t romance always end? That’s the thrill of it all isn’t it? Enjoy it while you can. You never know when it will end, ya dope!”

Getting to see Mr. Vo was more difficult than just walking up to the house and knocking on the door. John had had to talk his way through various levels of flunkies and security. John had even had to show his military I.D. and hint at illegal but lucrative import export deals. He even paid money out right to the senior level of security. They had wanted Euros too, but U.S. dollars had had to do. “Just let me give Mr. Vo this box. It is my gift. It is a special gift for Mr. Vo. He would be very disappointed if he found out I was here and he didn’t get this box. It is a special box just for him. And I was told to put it directly in his hands. For his hands only.” And John was searched thoroughly. No part of his person was too intimate for a probing. No weapons obvious. He was clean.

And then there was Vo. He was standing at a fire place; the mantle had an ashtray on it in which he flicked ashes from his Turkish cigarette. He was the type of Viet Namese man in which you couldn’t tell his age accurately. A thin face. It was a nasty face. A face that hugged to power tightly along side contempt. Contempt for what, didn’t matter. It was whatever annoyed him at the time. John’s presence was only slightly annoying to Mr. Vo.

“That is true.” Was John’s reply. It made one of the two body guards standing at the door behind John giggle.

The giggle was worthy of Mr. Vo’s contempt and he directed it that way until there was silence. “You have a gift as an introduction?”

“Right here in my hand.” John slowly turned his right hand over, palm up, to reveal the Nice Box.

“Value and size rarely match.” John said but thought to himself, “Quynh Huong is small and delicate and as valuable as any rare jewel. Size is irrelevant.”

“Size does matter though.” Vo guffawed. His tone must have signaled something to the body guards for they guffawed in unison with the BOSS.

“In some cases, yes, I agree.” John nodded extending his right hand and the Nice Box forward to Vo.

Vo studied the Nice Box. Evaluating it. If he had x-ray vision he would be using it now. But he wasn’t superman, just a flawed man. He took one last long pull on his cigarette. It crackled at his inhalation. He then stubbed it out roughly, almost with disgust, in the ashtray. He flicked his left hand for John to give him the box.

Vo extracted the Nice Box from John’s palm. Vo turned it over top to bottom; bottom to top. He shook it. He pulled on it. It didn’t open. “It won’t open/”

John pointed. “There’s a clasp. If you’ll let me show you?” John reached out twisting the Nice Box around. “See. Right there.”

Just as it got to heart level, John leapt forward, shoving the box into Mr. Vo’s surprisingly weak chest. The frame of the box collapsed into a three pronged ceramic blade that sliced through ribs and heart muscle with little or no hesitation. Vo didn’t even have time to shout before he was on the floor. As John bend over Vo, John said. “This is Quynh Huong’s ghost crushing your heart.” Vo may or may not have heard what he said but John wanted to image that he did. “I loved her!” John shouted just to make sure Vo’s vile soul heard that as it escaped Vo’s body.

The two body guards reacted but too slowly and much too late. One smashed John in the back of his head. The other shot John once in the back. Rushing forward and shouting, they threw John backwards against the fire place, as they attempted to aid their BOSS. John knew Vo was dead. That satisfied John. John wanted Vo dead. “It was only fair.”

John took out his mini-computer and played back the dance club’s bar surveillance tape. It was of that night. Quynh Huong had vanished from John’s life for good that night. Unfortunately, no magic was involved. True, she went to her boy friend that had just arrived at the bar in the back. She had even argued with him a little over her dancing with John. And then, that night, that time, a drunken Mr. Vo turned up. He was looking for Quynh Huong. “It is time for our marriage.” Some witness had reported that Vo said to Quynh Huong. “You were promised to me by your father, when you were a child, in Viet Nam. For a debt. Covering a very large debt. Debts must be paid.”

And the boy friend, a jealous but a protective guy had yelled back. “That’s a time gone by old man. Old country. Old school. Ya old fool!” And he had pushed the drunken Vo back away from the precious Quynh Huong.

Of course, men like Vo don’t take that kind of affront well. Vo pulled out a large revolver.

Vo, of course, only used large caliber, double powder loads, so the single bullet he fired ripped through Quynh Huong’s beautiful chest with complete disregard for its rare value. It killed the boy friend with equal disrespect. Vo had simply left L.A. that night returning to the protection of Hanoi and its ancient, charming streets. He returned more annoyed and more full of contempt than usual. He was annoyed at the level he would be if he lost one of his expensive cars. He liked his cars. He had killed many people before. He enjoyed killing too. He wouldn’t enjoy anything anymore.

John had loved Quynh Huong and she never knew it or maybe she did. Maybe it mattered. Maybe it didn’t. What did matter was that Vo was punished. Men like Vo needed to be punished. They had to realize there were consequences from their vile actions. Vo was dead now. John had killed him. John had killed Vo for her. That was part of the Romance mythology wasn’t it? Loss for loss. Sacrifice for love. That was what tragedy was all about. As was the next event. The tragedy had to be totally played out. As John weakly hit replay on his mini-computer, one of the body guards got up, came over, stepped on the mini-computer and shot John in the center of his forehead.

So, I was home again on Friday night. It happens a lot. I’ve done the bar scene, outgrown it for now. Unless there is a good band playing? . . . Yeah right. As we get older we find ourselves enjoying our own, hard earned environment more and more. We get stuck in these perpetual rut’s that lead us into an abyss of loneliness. Yeah, you heard me, Loneliness. I know. No one’s ever supposed to admit to loneliness in the USA and I don’t know why. The L relationship maybe? L for loneliness and Loser. People are so cruel now don’t ya think? Well, anyway, screw them! To L with them!

Ok, so what to do on a lonely Friday night? Spa Night! That’s the ticket. Great idea! Pamper myself but without a Happy Ending! Ha! Ha! I had gotten one of those paraffin baths from my mom for Christmas. Always nice to be able to keep your feet and hands soft for the occasion you may have someone touching them. See manual manipulation is in there, but softness is the ending here. It was winter after all, all that dry air. Keeping your skin moist was a challenge.

But if I’m going that way, why not all the way? First a mud mask for my face. Put on some music, light some candles set up the spa atmosphere. This is what girls do to make themselves feel better about being alone with nothing to do on a Friday night, so deal with it!

Whew, feels nice, skin soft, clean, clear… looking good! Meanwhile, the paraffin is melting. Almost ready. I find the bags, booties & lotion. Everything I’ll need, just like at the spa. Ahhh . . . this is going to be so relaxing and nice! I know, it’s really so complex, why would that be relaxing? It just is. The L with you!

I fill up my wine glass and prepare to dip into the relaxing hot wax! Alcohol always simplifies complexity. Let’s see, I think you’re suppose to dip & pause, dip & pause, and one more time. . . . 3 coats of wax. Put your freshly dipped hand into the plastic bag, and then into the little mitt.

Wait, relax and drink some wine. Repeat. Wait, relax, drink, and repeat. Very relaxing. Spa treatments at home. Complexity instead of loneliness, see it works. I am feeling great by now. Who care’s what night it is! Ok, I take the wax off of the first hand and dip the second. Wait, drink my wine and relax. This is such a great idea! I’m going to be so relaxed, I think to myself!

My feet are next. The problem is that the paraffin tub doesn’t reach to the floor when plugged into the outlet by the vanity in the bathroom. No problem I’ll just get on top of the counter and dip my feet from there. . . . “My dad would be pissed off at me for that!” So now, not only am I having a relaxingly fun spa treatment at home, wine included, I am defying my father and gravity as well! Great! What fun! Complexity, defiance and alcohol, Re-Great!

The right foot, dip & pause, 3 times . . . Repetition to increase the complexity. 3 coats of wax, bag and bootie. Whew, a little challenging but I have pretty good balance. No problem. I pull it off…. But, since I’m up here, might as well do the other foot too. Defiance within defiance.

Standing on the foot that was previously dipped in wax 3x and then bagged and booted, I put all of my weight on said foot and prepare to dip the other foot . . . dip, pause and… WOA!!!

The next thing I know I am sliding off of the counter top headed for the floor! Ahhh! Gravity must have gotten really mad at me. And behind me, the paraffin bath clips my ass… spilling all over my back, and whatever else, I cannot tell right now! UGH!

I am sitting on the floor of the bathroom, right in front of the vanity with hot paraffin wax all over my back and my two hands and a foot are bagged! I have yet to see what has really happened. I hadn’t just pissed off gravity apparently, but Mother Nature as well and she got really pissed. Really, Gia appears to be a vicious Mother.

I take a deep breath, laugh a bit at myself and prepare to see the damages. I slowly stand up and turns around… AHHHHH!!!!!

THE ENTIRE VANITY, MIRROR, SINK, BATHROOM is COMPLETELY COVERED IN A THIN COAT OF WAX… COOLED AND CLOUDY BY NOW OF COURSE!

Well, so much for relaxation! No loneliness here only increased complexity. How the hell do I get this wax off of EVERYTHING! It’s in every single little nook, crack, corner, wedge, everywhere!

First thing first, throw away that stupid paraffin bath! My mother and Mother Nature must have been conspiring together against me? It seemed like a set up. I bagged it with as much easy access wax that I could peel off of anything. Put it all into the nearest shopping bag I can find and take it outside to the dumpster . . . along with the clothes off of my back that were also covered in wax! My mother never liked this top. See it was a set up.

The work has just begun! I search high and low for any kind of credit card, playing card, business card that I do not deem more important than the immediate wax removal task. How irritating! Wax is literally everywhere. Once you scrape it off it leaves behind a smudgy film. How do you remove that? Nail polish remover? Alcohol? What else? Ok, let’s try that, first the nail polish remover . . . too much complexity. I could use some loneliness right about now. But I have to be satisfied with a big gulp of wine, not working, how about the alcohol? No longer relaxed!

So, for the next TWO HOURS I proceed to scrape wax from every single inch of my bathroom until I believe it is all gone. Whew, how stupid that was! But I wasn’t lonely anymore.

I turn on the sink to wash my hands and the water is not draining! Shit! The wax must have gone down the drain too! Vengeful Mother Gia is! What now! I call my friend Dawn; maybe Dawn’s boyfriend will have some suggestions. First, though, I have to inform them both of the events of the evening. Then they have to laugh at me appropriately for at least 10 minutes . . . now can we finally get to the reason for the call? See, I am no longer lonely at all.

Jim suggests to get some water really hot and pour it down the drain. Heat it up on the stove . . . Ok, sounds reasonable to me, so I try it.

Now I’m exhausted so I decides to go to bed and see what happens in the morning.

Well, in the morning, the same water I poured into the sink was still there but now it was cold. What next. Hot water didn’t work, where do you get a blow torch? Flames-R-US?

I look under the sink, probably for the first time ever to actually look at the pipes and plumbing, building a fire there was only a passing thought. I have to move all of my various hair and body products to gain proper access to the plumbing. Hoping I don’t need any tools I look at the situation.

Whew, that thing appears to be put together with some kind of self unlocking clamp. It comes with a cute little handle thing to spin and remove it. Suddenly the bottom U-shaped piece of the sink pipes is in her hand, filled with wax! There is still wax in the other section of the pipe too. I poke it out with a butter knife. This is ridiculous I think aloud! What a loser! I tried to have a relaxing spa night and here I am 15 hours later still cleaning up my big huge mess! Oh! The L with all of it! And all of you guys too. I’ll fix it myself.

So, off to Home Depot to ask someone to help me find the replacement piece. How much do plumbing parts cost? I know you guys know but shut up for now! This is my story. Afraid of the possibility of an outrageous cost for this U pipe thing! Nope, its only $5.00 and it looks like I can replace it myself, easily! Finally, a small feeling of pride. See, I didn’t need you guys. The end is near.

I take home the U pipe and install it under the sink. Yep, I installed a piece of pipe under my sink and threw the wax filled one away! Laura the defiant Plumber!

Success! The sink works great. There is still a bit of a film around the bathroom but I can handle that later. UGH! So much for at home spa night. Never again! Loneliness is not as bad and a lot less annoying complexity.

A RULE for the FUTURE: Paraffin treatments only in their designated areas. To this day I still catch a bit of wax in my finger nail here or there when unplugging something in that bathroom. I fear the day I need to paint! How will that ever happen? Who knows how much wax I could not see and was unable to remove.

As the slightly built but confident, attractive young woman sat down in the chair Martin had just offered, she began to cry. Judging from her body type though, she should have been the last woman, person; Martin would have thought to cry in public. Martin was wrong about women yet again. There she cried. It made Martin look up with the inevitability of his life. In front of his eyes was only the ceiling, the inevitable limitation to up and away, so he shook his head. As if to divert himself from the inevitable, Martin thought, “Why are people always crying around me?” He seemed to always be asking himself unanswerable questions, personal and professional. “Especially the ones I would least expect.” Out of frustration with the inevitable, Martin pulled his long light-brown hair back over his ears. While his hand was up there he scratched the back of his head and said to the crying woman. “Is there a problem? You're not in my Molecular Biology class are you, because I’m just the teaching assistant, I don't really have any control over the grades. Dr. Rivers does all of that.”

[Ed. Note: Christ, Chris! This is not a Sci Fi load of crap is it? Not some techno mystery fairy story that Martin, I assume it’s Martin as protagonist, will solve by pulling some magic black box out of his egghead ass, with some snappily colored set of LED illuminated switches? Snap! Mystery solved! This is a Crime Mag! Not Pixie Magic Comics. I personally never clapped for Tinkerbelle. Let her die, I always shouted and then my mother would smack me. I hated Tinkerbelle! It was worth it.]

[Ed. Note: Damsel in distress needs to be more alluring; beauty, sex appeal, coy, but not just an abundance of tears. Tears are not enough. See, that’s not just a valid criticism, it’s even a good title for a story.]

“Okay, take your time.” Martin looked at the timer sitting on the lab bench to his right. The digital seconds vanished noiselessly. 27 – 26 – 24 – 23 -22. “I have a few minutes before the next time point.” He then picked up a box of Khem-wipes placing it beside the young woman for her tears. “We call them, the world's most expense Kleenex.”

[Ed. Note: Count Downs are good! See! All of my comments aren’t negative. Chris that was an unjustified comment you made at the Story Conference last week, that I only say negative things. Not true. Not true! Oh, and what’s a Khem-wipe? Science jargon muddles things, any unexplained jargon does, but I guess it’s good for backgrounding. It should be clearer, though.]

The centrifuge squeal from the other lab became a sharp whine, as a short red-headed man opened the door and walked into the smaller laboratory. “Making women cry again are you, Martin. How many do you have?” The red-headed man’s face was young and inexperienced yet self-assured. When he puckered his lips in a faux-kiss, the dramatic contrast of his lips with his smooth pale skin, made his lips appear to be artificially and inappropriately glossed a fire-engine red. But, of course, they weren’t. They were simply naturally inappropriate.

[Ed. Note: Why, “Of course?” Is this a God comment? I don’t like off hand God comments on principle. God is supposed to be infallible, but he never is. How would a flawed being recognize infallibility?]

“Would you shut up, Frank.” Martin pulled his index finger rapidly across his own throat frowning at Frank.

“Sure, sure, I just need the timer.” Frank reached for the timer on Martin's lab bench.

“But I need it!” Frank actually whined. He made another face that looked like he was going to break into tears. Frank wasn’t acting.

“Use the one in the other room just get out of here.” Martin grabbed the timer from the bench shoving it into his lab coat pocket. “You're like a baby. Get out of here.” Martin waved at him to leave.

[Ed. Note: Conflict is good. Sci Fi, generally, has no emotion. Emotions other than tears. That’s a good title too. First dibs.]

Frank bugged his eyes out as if giving Martin the Evil Eye, but returned to the sound in the other room.

“If I’m Don Juan then I am truly in Hell.” Martin shook his head. “No, Frank is definitely a lesser demon from Hell come to the lab to torture me. That’s it.” Martin thought, but said. “Sorry, about that, he's new here, so I haven't paper trained him, yet.” Martin took the timer out of his pocket, but before placing it back on the bench, he looked to see that the door was entirely closed.

“No, no, it is I, who should be sorry.” The woman wiped her eye with a fresh Khem-wipe. “I am being foolish. That is what the police said of me.” She held the used Khem-wipes out as if she were searching for an appropriate waste disposal site which she was.

Martin pointed to the waste basket behind her. “Campus cops? Those fat fools? Don't listen to them.” Martin looked at the timer. Digital time didn’t fly, it vanishes. It only ceased to exist. “Just tell me what's up.”

“The people in the Idleberg lab said that you were good at finding things.” She turned gracefully, and with one fluid motion, dropped the used Khem-wipes into the can and turned back to Martin.

[Ed. Note: See here! You could put some sex in here. “Full breasted” “Slim Waisted” “Curvy legs” Okay, that’s not so good, but anything is better than nothing. That’s a good title too. I’m on a Title roll.]

“True, I always have been good at that. Guess that's why I wanted to be in research, findin' stuff out.” Martin raised his eyebrows. He hoped it didn’t sound as foolish to her as it did to him.

“Good at finding things, not people!” Martin shook his head. “If the police won't help, maybe you should go to a private investigator. I could look one up in the phone book for you.”

[Ed. Note: Phone book? Isn’t this guy a scientist? Shouldn’t he be a computer wizzy nerd?]

The lab was small, crowded with desks, equipment and noise. The overhead fluorescent light flicker was just perceptible. Refrigerator compressor pumped along the wall. A large computer terminal broadcast a colourful molecular structure into the room from the corner. She looked at the screen. “My name is Mercedes.”

[Ed. Note: See computers! Oh, what is the time period here? I’m confused. I hate it when I’m confused by a story. A mystery story shouldn’t be confusing. It should build in understanding, but not run in all directions at once, well, stories I like that is. Life is too confusing. Fiction isn’t life, by definition. The clearer the fiction, the happier me.]

“Oh. Hi, ah Mercedes. Ah, that's the crystal structure I've been working on.” Martin smiled as he waved at the glowing screen. He took pride in that frail structure, even though he hadn’t yet verified if it was completely correct. It had to be though, the structure just looked so great. Nature was always beautiful, so this pretty thing had to be right.

“But I have no money.” Mercedes wiped her eyes with a fresh Khem-wipe. “He is gone and I don't know what to do.”

“Maybe, he just had an emergency business trip?” Martin said without conviction. He looked at the structure as it rotated, slowly in the screen. Maybe that part there it wasn’t so pretty, it looked out of place, maybe it could use some recalculation.

[Ed. Note: Pursuit of Beauty, instead of the pursuit of A Beauty? In a crime story? What a concept? Crime has no room for poetry. Hey, there’s another good TITLE.]

“All of his business was here in Los Angeles. He only had one client in Beverly Hills. He hasn’t left California since my mother died.” She pulled out another Khem-wipe as she threw the just used one over her right shoulder into the can behind her.

“Oh, god!” Martin said quietly to the inevitable barrier above, the ceiling. “What can I do?” He regretted it before he said it, but he said it anyway. His mouth seemed to have a mind of its own, sometimes.

“The people in the lab said you helped Lamont Jackson out of trouble, last year.” Mercedes attempted a smile of need. She took another Khem-wipe. This interview was becoming expensive, just in Khem-wipes, not including wasted research time.

“Well, I didn't help him enough, it seemed like. He was killed.” Martin looked into the computer screen’s multi-colored glow for momentary escape. Everything in the world needed more work! “So, if I were you, I wouldn't use that as a positive reference for my abilities to help you or your father.”

“I know no one else to help me.” Mercedes began to cry again almost as if done on cue.

“Oh, shit!” Martin frowned shaking his head. The lab timer started to beep seeming to verify that this time was gone for good. “Saved by the beep! Oh, ah. Excuse me for a couple of minutes, I have to take a time point on this experiment.” Martin picked up a rack of small white plastic tubes from his lab bench and hurried to the door. “I'll be back in a few minutes. Stay here.” He hoped she wouldn’t listen to him. What woman ever had?

Mercedes nodded her head and took out two fresh Khem-wipes. The box was finally empty, thank god. Martin then plunged into the shrill scream of the centrifuge room, with the futile hope that the sound would kill him, but it never had before. Was survival inevitable or was it simply inappropriate?

“Ah, sorry about that.” Martin said to Mercedes as he re-entered the room, strangling the whine of the other room by shutting the door behind him. His false hope was proved false. She hadn’t left. Of course, he hadn’t died as he hoped either, so why should she have left? Damn! This was how he always got into trouble; helping people that wouldn’t leave. “Things don't always go as planned in science. I had to fix a piece of equipment in there before I could use it.”

“Frank, strikes again, was it?” Rich said from behind the partition of his desk.

[Ed. Note: Rich! Who the hell is that? Rich. A new character without any motion in the plot? Where is the suspense? Too flat so far. Where is this going? This is too much like life to be interesting.]

“You back already?” Martin looked over the partition and down at Rich. He was taking a bite out of a still partially frozen burrito. Rich could never wait for the microwave to finish its Burrito cycle.

“Christ, it's been a half hour.” Said Rich through the crunch of his burrito. “I was just going to try to convince Mercedes to tell me what troubles her.”

“Oh, you’ve met?” Martin squinted at Rich with disapproval. Rich was thin and tall, so tall it exacerbated his thinness. Basically, Rich looked like a scarecrow and yet he knew every female in the Biology Department, knew them very well.

“Yeah, we met at the in-coming graduate student mixer. Remember, Rich Stanton?” Rich stood up so Mercedes could see him.

“Ah, yes I do. Nice to meet you again.” She looked up at Rich, frowned and then attempted a smile, a cordial one only, not needy.

“Sorry, sorry, about the interruptions, you know how things are.” Martin turned to Mercedes. She now sat at Martin's desk with an envelope in her hands. She also had a fresh box of Khem-wipes beside her on his desk top. Where did she get that?

She looked at Martin, “No, no, it is I who should be sorry. I am imposing on you. I just don't know what to do next.” Take another Khem-wipes was the immediate answer.

[Ed. Note: Enough with the random backgrounding. Too many Khem-wipes! Whatever they are?]

“Martin and I are all yours now, correct Martin?” Rich picked up a paper dish from his desk. “We’re always available to help a lovely lady.” Rich pushed the paper dish filled with corn chips at her. “Want a chip?” Despite, Rich’s thinness, he was always eating something.

“Uh, no thank you. I am too upset for fried food.” Mercedes said to Rich as she handed Martin the envelope. “My father sent me this last week. In the letter was an invitation to dinner for tonight. It’s why I’m here so late. He never showed up. Also, I was supposed to bring the sealed envelope that was included. It was to remain unopened.”

Martin parted the lips of the envelope. “It's opened now.” Martin took out the papers it held. “Am I supposed to look?”

She nodded. “When my father did not come to the dinner he had arranged, I became worried and opened the envelope. That’s when I went to the police.”

“What's in it?” Said Rich, now standing behind Mercedes. He crunched at the room temperature corn chip.

“Four, five, six pages of account numbers, banks and their addresses.” Martin said as he flipped through the papers. “Fifty-two accounts in all, mostly in different banks.”

“Why would this make you think something had happened to your father?” Rich said placing both his hands on Mercedes shoulders.

“Where had the bowl of chips gone?” Martin thought. “Eaten it all already? No. It was sitting way up on top of the refrigerator. Still, the bowl was empty. Rich was very tall and very hungry.”

“Because, clipped to those sheets, was this note.” Mercedes handed the small piece of paper to Martin.

“The authorization code for these accounts is your mother's name and the age she was when you, my dearest daughter, was born.” Martin read from the note. “It seems he wanted you to have the money in these accounts if he didn't make the dinner?”

“Yes, it does and that's what made me so worried.” Mercedes wrung her hands. They were thin with well shaped nails without polish. “I did not know my father well, but he was not rich.”

[Ed. Note: “Well shaped nails without polish.” Is that a sexy comment? If you have a nail fetish, maybe?]

Rich squeezed Mercedes reassuring her, frowned at Martin and mouthed, “Asshole!”

“We were not close. I’ve only been in California for a few months. I was in private schools in Boston and New York, most of my time here in the United States.” Mercedes wiped at her eye with her index finger.

“I enrolled in U.C.L.A. just to be near my parents.” She began to cry more. Rich rubbed her upper arms, as if she were cold. She didn’t seem to notice his friction-based attempt at warmth.

“Have you talked to your mother about where your father might be?” Martin said as he glared at Rich.

“She did say that.” Rich made a face at Martin and continued to rub Mercedes’ shoulders.

“There is only my father and I left.” Mercedes looked directly at Martin. “My father was an accountant and investment consular for a Beverly Hills company. I don't know the name or address.”

“You think this money is theirs.” Martin tapped the packet on his legs and then scratched his nose with it. Confusion made Martin’s nose itch.

“You show this list to the police?” Rich changed tactics and gently squeezed Mercedes shoulders with his face close to her cheek. Rich was never subtle. Her hair got in his mouth as he spoke.

“No, no. They just wanted to know how long he had been missing.” Mercedes reached up brushed back her hair and touched Rich's hand.

[Ed. Note: Confident but easy, Mercedes is an easy woman. Now that’s crime fiction. Easy and dangerous.]

“Couple of hours wasn't good enough for them, right.” Rich mocked, but he smiled triumphantly at the touch.

“They treated me like a child. I was told that my father had just found something more interesting to do and that when it was finished, he would show up.” Mercedes tilted her head to lay on Rich's hand, more triumph in Rich’s smile. “For a missing person, they have to be gone over forty-eight hours.”

“Yeah, something like that.” Martin took off his wire rim glasses and rubbed his eyes. “So, what can I do for you?” Rich made another face at Martin that, thankfully, Martin couldn’t see.

“I have called his house and I only get his answering machine. Each time I beg for him to call me when he returns. He has not called.”

“We should go there with you and take a look.” Rich said. Martin just rubbed his face again. His nose itched so much still he put his glasses back on and slowly shook his head back and forth.

“Yes! Please, if you would.” Mercedes sat straight in the chair. The back of her head thus brushed against Rich’s crotch. There was more than triumph in his smile, now.

[Ed. Note: Sex! Sex! Finally some sex. Sex is good! Let’s get this show on the road. Setting up characters is important but it shouldn’t be everything. Need to get to the point, any point. This is a short story not short novel.]

Martin looked away from Rich. For the first time Martin looked at her, not as a student, but as an attractive woman. Obviously, Rich had done that already. Rich was pleased at getting there first. Getting her affection while Martin took care of her immediate family needs.

[Ed. Note: Yeah, Rich seems to be a self-centered shit. Maybe that’s why you like this story Chris. I hope that’s the point, Rich’s shitness, otherwise it’s a mistake, a misdirection that will mislead the reader. It makes my nose itch.]

“Well, all I have is my ten-speed bike.” Martin shrugged looking randomly around the room. The bike gambit was a flimsy way out, but still worth a try.

“We'll go in my 4 X 4.” Rich went back to his desk for his jacket. “I'll go get it and meet you two by the hospital entrance in ten.”

Martin looked over at the glowing computer screen. The three dimensional image of the molecule slowly rotated in the brilliant light. “Yeah, that one section still doesn’t look right. I could use this time to examine the data for that region, again.” Martin thought to himself as he bowed his head to Mercedes, so she would follow Rich out of the lab. The room was quiet now. The centrifuge had stopped long ago and the refrigerator was off its cooling cycle. Still, there was the background hum of the computers’ cooling fans. It was a non-silent silence, for Martin didn’t hear that background noise anymore, that’s the definition of background, wasn’t it?

[Ed. Note: Background hum? Things there that we don’t perceive? Oh, the story title? A foreshadowing of events? Not so bad, I guess? I’m not sure this is our kind of story. Characters are too, what? Middle-class? Upwardly mobile but common. Too real. I don’t know? I still can’t place the time period. I might just cut it off here with a No thanks. A BIG NO THANKS! Good title for a woman’s novel.]

The darkness of the canyon was embracing, more smothering, all encompassing. It was so late that the street had become lifeless, like most L.A. streets late at night. Rich's 4 X 4 swung into the short drive and up the hill to the house. Mercedes got off Martin's lap and struggled out of the small pick-up. Martin intentionally didn’t help her, so no accusations of improper touching could be lodged. “A funny thing to think when a woman sits on your lap.” Martin thought as he pulled himself out after her. “It wasn’t that funny.”

“Sorry about the bucket seats.” Rich said as he emerged from the driver side door. He then said quietly to Martin over the truck roof. “I should have let you drive.”

“That’s why it’s funny.” Martin thought and frowned at Rich. “Yeah! You should have.” And then to Mercedes. “You don't happen to have a key for the house, do you?” Martin looked over the darkened structure. Two lights were on, one up and one down. They were obviously left on for security reasons. There was no movement within the house. The house looked lit but dead, like a night funeral. It made Martin shiver in the cold dark night. It reminded Martin of Halloween for some reason.

“Thanks for telling me so soon. No matter.” Martin reached into his blue jeans pocket and pulled out a Swiss Army knife. “Go on and knock, maybe someone’s here by now.” Martin didn’t believe what he just said, though.

Mercedes rang the doorbell. The sound echoed through the darkness. Rich banged on the door with his large balled left fist. The house remained unchanged, except for a few echoes, the echoes of a tomb.

“Okay, I guess this calls for one of my other non-scientific talents.” Martin picked the two door locks, quickly. “I'm getting a little out of practice.” Martin said to Mercedes. “This is a legacy from my father, he worked for a bank and, well, I won't go into that.” Martin pushed open the door and then looked to the left and the right. On the right wall, a red light just above a key lock, blinked at him. “Interesting, the alarm is on.” Martin went at that the old style key lock, immediately. “Come on . . . COME ON . . . before the alarm rings . . . There! Got it.” Martin turned to Rich and smiled.

“Quit showing off. What if it had been a key pad, instead?” Rich looked amused at his own comment.

“I’d have used Mercedes mother’s name and age when she was born, simple.” Martin put away the metal toothpick and opened the main blade on his knife.

Rich mouthed, “Fuck You!” and looked up the winding staircase. “Why don't you take a look upstairs and Mercedes and I will check it out down here.”

Martin nodded in agreement. “Is your father's office upstairs?” Martin looked up the dark stairway, into the darkness there.

Mercedes looked around the living room for a moment in silence. “He is not here, I know it.” She then turned to Martin, “I think so, yes. But I have only been here one other time. I live in the university dormitory.”

“Rich, check the answering machine for calls. Maybe her father left a message. I'll be up stairs.” Martin walked slowly up the carpeted stairs. Martin held the bulk of the knife tightly in his right hand, the largest blade extended forward, but you can’t cut a ghost even when you need to.

[Ed. Note: Chris, what you said at lunch was uncalled for. You may like this story but I haven’t so far. You’re simply the reader here. I’m the Story Editor. I never interfere with your Editorship. But I will finish my editing commentary. I think it’s a waste of time, but you were so abusive; I’ll do it! I’ll do it! Just for office harmony. Ha! Harmony? Boy I would like that. Some peace and harmony. On McDuff.]

Martin sat at the desk. The office was only lit by the functioning security lamp. It was a low wattage bulb, so the room was dim. All of the desk’s drawers were open, filled only with shadows. On the top of the desk sat a cardboard file box. Martin looked into the file box and then wrote something on the pad next to the box. Martin then the checked the pages from Mercedes envelope, he had laid out on the desktop.

“Yeah, boy, was I afraid of finding Dad swinging from the rafters.” Rich said as he sat in the metal chair beside the desk. “Number of calls on the machine. Most were Mercedes messages, all the others were hang ups.”

“Oh, quite a few, actually. You think it’s important?” Martin shrugged and went back to the file box. Rich stretched his arms up toward the ceiling the brought them down behind his back. “I didn't get to work out today, a bit stiff.”

“You’re always a bit stiff.” Martin grinned. “You didn’t have to come.”

[Ed. Note: Chris! Stop with the yelling! Why does it always have to be about you? I’m reading. I’m reading it! Can’t you see?]

“I found her Dad’s papers and this box of files. These are orders, bills of laddening, accounts receivable, but not everything. Just certain dates, specific shipments.” Martin slapped the pages from the envelope. “No company name is listed but a few of these bank account numbers appear in the files.”

“’What’s being shipped and to where?’ Watson asked Sherlock.” Rich twisted his own neck until it popped, loudly.

“Plumbing supplies, about forty million dollars in plumbing supplies!” Martin threw his hands in the air.

“Someone’s got a lot of shit to carry off.” Rich twisted his torso to the left until his backbone cracked.

“Oh, wonderful, plumbing equipment to the middle east. President Reagan would be so pleased. This is deep shit and we are standing right in the middle of the septic tank.” Rich said as he laced his fingers together and bends them back. The knuckles reported loudly in unison.

“Would you stop making so much noise.” Martin exclaimed. “We have even more trouble. Mercedes’ father appeared to be ill. He was making an increasing number of trips to the doctor up until now.”

“I’m going to die anyway, so I might as well make some money for the daughter. That’s what you think Daddy’s done?” Rich stood up, bent over with knees straight and touched his palms to the floor. “She’s in big trouble. How could he have been so stupid?”

“Money and sex make people stupid. You know about one aspect of that, at least. We had better get out of here fast.” Martin grabbed up the pages and the paper he was writing on.

[Ed. Note: Chris, you need to stop with the accusations of adultery. Wherever did this came from? I want this in writing. I did not sleep with Anna! I did not have sex with Anna! She’s not your wife anyway, you just live in her apartment, so it’s not adultery, if I had, but I didn’t. Anna is unhappy though, but from your behaviour. She might do it to you, but not with me. I would in a minute if she asked, just so you know. Anna is such a wonderful person and you are such a shit! Stop making unfounded accusations. The world is hard enough normally, without stoking fires that don’t exist. Or whatever would be a good analogy. Just shut up so I can get through this!]

“Not likely, we’ll be finding Dad, is it?” Rich reached over and turned out the security light.

“Not alive at least, he turned on the house alarm the last time he left. He expected to be coming back and didn’t. We should do the very same thing and turn that light back on, damn it!” Martin walked hurriedly out of the dark room.

Rich stood in the dark of the room for a moment then said, “Shit!”, clicked the light back on and then walked out the door.

“Showing off again, Martin?” Rich asked as he and Mercedes walked out the front door.

“Almost got it. Get out of the way, I'll be coming through fast.” Martin felt the lock give then roll into place. Martin quickly stepped through the front door and pulled it shut. Martin then worked at those locks. To Rich, Martin said in a low voice, “Don't start the truck up, yet.”

Rich waved an affirmative. As Martin worked on the locks, he could see up and down the road that ran through the canyon. About four houses down, on the other side of the street, a large dark Lincoln Continental sat with the shadows of two men in the dark front seat. Martin finished locking the door and walked passed Rich. “Down the street, the other side.” Martin continued to walk around the back end of the pick-up. He stopped at the rear, bent down and broke the light over the licence plate. “Hopefully, they stayed in their car.” Martin said to himself as he walked to the passenger side door.

“Nothing for now. Just let me get in here.” Martin got into the bucket seat. Mercedes squeezed in onto Martin's lap. Sandra was understanding but Martin decided to never tell his wife about any of this, especially the seating arrangement.

“We'll pass two men in a car on our left. Don't look directly at them, but see if you recognize anyone.” Martin said to Mercedes as he intentionally looked straight ahead.

Rich backed down the driveway into the street without lights. In the middle of the street he turned on the headlights on the brightest setting. “That should blind them until we pass.” Rich said. He drove past the Lincoln at moderate speed.

Martin tilted the side view mirror to watch the Lincoln attempt a fast U-turn. Roscomere was too narrow for a big American car, so the U became a Y. “Looks like they might be introducing themselves, very soon. These guys are not too happy. I think you had better punch it.” Martin put his arms around Mercedes for security purposes only and said, “Hold your breath!”

Rich accelerated through the traffic circle and up along the side of the hill. The Lincoln roared into the circle and swayed with the turn and skidded a bit to the side. The dark machine powered up the road behind the small 4 X 4.

[Ed. Note: Oh! A car chase. How exciting! Chris, I told you to stop talking trash about Anna and I. What do you think you are accomplishing? I’m reading this shit story just as you want. I refuse to rubber stamp anything, for anyone, not just you. True I have grown to not like you but we can still be professional or at least civil. Stop yelling!]

“What now?” Rich asked as he sailed around the curves, heading for Sunset Boulevard.

“Well, losing them would be the first item on the agenda!” Martin readjusted the mirror to see the front of the Lincoln. “When the road straightens out up here, hit the brakes once fast then go like hell. I want to see their licenses plate clearly.”

Rich jammed on the brakes, tires screamed. Martin watched the front of the Lincoln as it bore down on them. Rich floored the accelerator. Martin’s ten-speed bike bounced out of the back of the pick-up and slammed into the grill of the Lincoln, breaking both headlights. Martin groaned with the impact. He had forgotten it was back there. Martin hated the unforeseen inevitable the most. Something of his always gets broken when he ‘helps somebody out’. The Lincoln swerved, braking violently and loudly, more from the sudden darkness than from the impact from the small mass of the bike.

“Oops, there goes your bike.” Rich watched the Lincoln crush the bike through the rear view mirror. “I've been working on the engine. It's got a lot more power, now.”

“Good thing,” Reaching around Mercedes, Martin wrote numbers on his hand with a lab marker. “Now, let's lose these fucks.”

“Fine, I know just what to do.” Rich pulled a hard right on to Sunset then a fast left onto Veteran. “Next stop, lot 32.” The deserted streets of late night Westwood echoed with the pursuit.

“Wrong time to look for the cops. Winchell's is just taking their first batch of donuts out of the oven.”

Rich slowed the pick-up as they approached Wilshire. “Can they see us?” Rich asked looking in the rear view mirror. “Okay, close enough.” Rich turned left and drove straight into an exit for lot 32. Mercedes screamed. “Never done it this fast before.” Rich said calmly. The pick-up ran directly through the ‘Severe tire damage!’ exit device. “Watch!” Cried Rich as he skidded the undamaged 4 X 4 to a 180 degree stop.

The Lincoln followed the 4 X 4 over the teeth of the exit device. The tires of the Lincoln exploded and the front end of the car dropped onto the asphalt with a display of sparks. The Lincoln lurched to a stop.

“Now, that's Severe!” Rich laughed and gunned the 4 X 4 up to speed across the empty parking lot to another exit on the other side of the lot.

“There are a few teeth missing from that exit. The spaces are just in the right position to get my truck through.” Rich giggled.

“I'm certain Rich and his various tools had a hand in the creation of those spaces.” Martin laughed.

“Correcto mundo, again,” Rich looked at Mercedes, “How do you think I can afford this truck on a gradual student’s salary? I pay for it through what I save myself and other friends on parking.”

“Looks, like they’re really gone.” Rich looked out the rear view mirror. “Where to now, General?”

“I think we should all stay together until I can figure out what to do.” Martin scratched his head. “Let's go to my place for tonight. If that is acceptable to you, Mercedes?” His nose started to itch.

“I could not be alone after this. It will be fine to be with you and Mr. Stanton.” Mercedes replied.

[Ed. Note: Cute. Out of place cuteness isn’t cute. No title there. Chris! Your behaviour isn’t cute either. This office has always been loose relating to decorum. Artists all, at least in desire, come on. Artists need freedom of expression and behaviour but! A very big but. We all have personalities, distinct personalities, but this still is an office, a place of business, not your home! You need to be less indulgent with your expression of your too DISTINCT personality. If you’re doing all of this just to be cute, just like the story, it’s not working in either venue.]

“You know where things are up there Rich, show Mercedes.” Martin flopped down on his favourite couch. It was the only couch he had ever bought, but it was his favourite, so far. “I'll be fine right here.” He stroked the cushion with genuine affection.

“Where's Sandra and the little one?” Rich asked Martin from the stairs even though he gazed longingly up the stairs.

“Sandra and the baby are staying with grandma up north for a few weeks.” Martin sat up and looked at his watch. “Crap and Damnation, I was supposed to call them hours ago. Hell, Damn.”

“Trouble, every way you look, uh?” Rich replied with a disinterested tone which was an appropriate tone for his immediate feelings.

[Ed. Note: Rich is a self-centred shit just like you Chris. Screaming over the phone at Anna was uncalled for! I can get witnesses to verify where I was last night, so stop! Stop! Stop! Stop this foolishness. Stop it now!]

“Trouble, trouble everywhere and not the time to think.” The telephone rang. “Oh boy! More trouble coming.” Martin glanced over at the phone with caution.

“Where have you been all night?” Said the female voice from the receiver. “I tried the lab, at home! Where were you? I was worried sick. You know when I worry it goes straight into my breast milk and into to your child. You should be more considerate of my feelings and her body. I didn't know what had happened to you. You were probably just out screwing around. I hope that was all it was. You didn't get yourself into trouble again did you?” The voice on the phone took an anxious breath.

“And the baby is fine I hope?” Martin maintained a cheery disposition. Cheery avoidance. It hardly ever worked with Sandra.

“I knew it! You've gotten yourself mixed up in something again. You were almost convicted of manslaughter the last time. We can’t afford anymore legal fees! We can’t afford to repair the car again. It hasn’t driven right since and the insurance! You promised that when the baby was born you wouldn't do that again. How could you?” Sandra started to cry.

“Sandra, please calm down. You’ve got the car remember? I was just out with Stanton. You know midnight movie, pie at Polly's, bull shitting over science. You know, thoughtless fun.” Martin made a face. Did that sound like fun?

“You never have that type of fun. Are you sure you haven't been talked into ‘Helping’ someone?" Sandra said over her sobs.

“Nope, I’ve been as selfish as a Conservative Ronald Reagan Republican.” Martin rolled his eyes and saluted. It was sarcasm. Reagan Republicans have screwed up and continue to screw up so much of America. Sarcastic avoidance likely wouldn’t work either. “Yes, sir our commander and chief. I think you should get some sleep dear. I’ll be up on the weekend like I promised. By the bus of course. Kiss the baby for me.”

“I love you too, now go to sleep. Good night.” Martin hung up the phone. “These post partum mood swings make everyone crazy. Oh, what a mess! What the fuck am I going to do?” Martin fell back on to the couch and closed his eyes. “Damn you, Rich for pulling me into this thing.”

[Ed. Note: I have asked Carl to call the Police about you Chris. You are acting not only inappropriately, but also just down right crazy! We all have issues of success and failure. Just getting noticed is hard enough for writers these days. I completely understand, but settle down before you do something irreversible.]

[Ed. Note: What the hell is this, these, line(s)? I can’t get rid of them. I hate Windows!]

Rich came down the stair with his shirt off stretching his arms up almost to the ceiling. “Got to do a workout today.” He said.

“Well, that seems to be in the cards.” Martin said from the kitchen table. “Want some tea or coffee?”

“Got any OJ?” Rich stepped over the extended telephone cord and went to the refrigerator. “Caffeine will give me a migraine.”

“Tea would be fine for me.” Mercedes said from the stairs. Her dress looked as pressed and confident as it did yesterday. That should mean something?

“Pot’s on the table. Rich get her a cup.” Martin put his hand on the telephone beside him on the kitchen table. “I should be getting a call any moment, now. It should provide us with our next move.”

“Have you called the police?” Mercedes sat down opposite Martin at the table. Rich reached around her sitting a mug down in front of her. He kissed her on the cheek.

Martin shook his head as Rich banged himself in the chest with his open hands like a silver backed gorilla. “Okay, Tarzan, sit and I’ll talk.” Martin pointed to the chair next to him. “Nope, not the police, my uncle in Ohio.”

“Oh, that makes sense to me.” Rich sat his emptied orange juice glass on the table and shrugged his shoulders.

“Sarcasm didn’t work here, either!” Martin thought but said, “Come on, you know my uncle has a car repossession business in Ohio. He’s running down the licence tag number of the Lincoln for me.” Martin held up his left hand. The black numbers stood out on his palm. “If he can get it, we’ll know who to contact about returning these account numbers.”

[Ed. Note: Compromise instead of confrontation, odd for a crime story, but good in life. Hear that Chris? Compromise! Threats and violence only drive people away from you. Again! Stop! Stop! Stop!]

“I want to use the accounts to ransom him.” Martin looked at the phone. “I hope!”

They all looked at the phone in silence until it rang. Martin didn’t say Hello, he just listened and wrote. “Great, great, oh, I couldn’t be more pleased.” Martin said into the receiver. “No, no, that won’t be necessary I hope. It should be over in a few hours . . . Yes, I’ll let you know . . . Well, if I need that sort of help, you can call them . . . Okay, okay. Gotta go . . . Thanks again.” Martin hung up the phone smiling. “Got it, the Lincoln was registered to a Beverly Hills East West Plumbing Supplies.”

“The One and Only. It must be, in Beverly Hills.” Rich poured his third glass of juice drinking it down all at once just like he did the first two. He would have poured a fourth glass but the container was empty. Rich then put the empty container back into the refrigerator.

Martin picked up the receiver again, “Well here goes.” Martin dialled the number he read from the paper. “Hello, sorry about the damage to the Lincoln, last night. You know what damage and what Lincoln. Get someone important on this phone, like your boss’s boss . . . No, I’ll call back in three minutes . . . he had better answer the phone. Tell him we know where the money is . . . That’s correct, he’ll know what I’m talking about. Three minutes.” Martin hung up the receiver and then opened the refrigerator and removed the empty OJ container. He put it in the sink. He should wash it now, but he didn’t. He would have if Sandra was here, but she wasn’t. “Good, it’s the right number. You would think that if you were doing something illegal you wouldn’t put down your correct telephone number.”

“Generally, you don’t become a criminal because you’re smart.” Rich walked over to the kitchen sink. “Well, that’s what I’ve been told. What next?”

“After I set up the meeting, could you call Chuck Sayer’s and tell him to get himself and his camera with the telephoto lens to the hill above the U.C.L.A. Rec Center. I want him to take pictures of us with our middle eastern plumbers. We can use them as leverage against the bad guys.”

Rich was doing pushups on the floor between the sink and the stove. “Sure, what time, High Noon?” Rich counted push ups between breaths.

“Good a time as any. Now, I had better call back Mr. Big.” Martin dialled the phone again. “Yeah, it’s me . . . The me from last night. Come on! Let’s not play games . . . Yap, we know where the money is, we only want the old man back . . . Come on, again. Your disloyal accountant, that’s who . . . Oh, yeah, him . . . We exchange, the place where the money is for the old man . . . Just like on T.V. . . Not your house. Stop being funny! U.C.L.A. Pool parking lot at noon today . . . That’s why there, plenty of people. Safer for everyone . . . You don’t but I don’t like the police, either. See you soon.” Martin replaced the receiver, took a deep breath and wiped his forehead with his hand. “Call Chuck, tell him to get over there, now, no excuses.”

“Okey, dowkey.” Rich got up from the floor. His forehead was shiny with sweat. He looked at his biceps. Rich usually worked out in the University gym in front of the wall mirror. Rich had to tell Martin this once, because Martin has refused to go in a gym since he was a High school athlete.

Martin sighed and walked over to the bathroom. “We’ll be leaving soon ourselves. After, I’ve finished some important business.” Martin rubbed his lower abdomen, entered and closed the bathroom door.

“Calling Ralph on the porcelain telephone.” Rich said to the closed door. “Yeah, I feel like throwing up, too.”

[Ed. Note: Yeah, I do too. I can’t believe what just happened with Chris and Anna. She came to the office in person to stop the phone calls at her work. She was afraid of getting fired. She just came right into my office in tears. She wants Chris to move out of her apartment. A reasonable desire but she wants me to tell Chris to move out! Me? She thinks Chris and I are friends. Hardly! I don’t think Chris has any friends left, he acts so crazy. I didn’t want to get involved and relayed that to Anna along with my apologies. She simply cried in the chair until Chris realized she was here and burst in all shouty and righteous. Anna didn’t need defending! She jumped up and screamed back at Chris. I picked up my work and went into the Conference Room. They are shouting in my office now. How did I get in the middle of this?]

Rich frowned then smiled and turned to hug Mercedes. “Looks like it little lady.” Rich picked her up off the floor and kissed her passionately.

Rich and Martin sat in the shade of the large spruce trees outside the U.C.L.A. pool. Martin ate ice from a large paper cup. Rich took the last drink from a quart carton of low fat milk; no glass or cup necessary, here.

“You see! There and there. Where they’ve positioned themselves?” Martin looked out into the crowded parking lot.

“Yeah, they are pretty obvious. You would think they’d have dropped the suits, at least.” Rich shot the empty carton over his head like a Kareem basketball sky hook at the trash can. He failed to dunk it.

“Being obvious is what you dress nice for, isn't it?” Martin looked over at Rich's ragged high-water blue jeans and stained maroon shirt. “Well, maybe not always.”

“How would we know, on the shit money we get from the Biology department? Gradual stool is a good term for it. Lucky we can afford to cover our nakedness at all.” Rich sprang up from the curb.

“You know that Mercedes knows more about what's going on than she has told us, well me.” Martin said as he rose up slowly beside Rich.

[Ed. Note: Chris just burst out of my office and stormed out the front door in an explosive huff. Anna is still in my office crying. Crying and sobbing. So many tears. Tears are not enough but too many tears, eventually become unbearable! I should go in and comfort her. It is my office. Possession is nine tenths of the Law. What a thing to think? Too much emotion in the Work Place today. We all need to go home. Too much is more than enough!]

“Sure, no one ever tells all, especially our sweet goddesses. They don’t have to. They must remain a mystery to men, just like Mother Earth.” Rich watched a dark suited man walk down a row of cars checking licence plates. “You know Martin, you've got the kid and Sandra, I can handle this myself.”

“Sure ya can. Time to go.” Martin squinted as he stepped into the bright sun of a Southern California noon. Martin walked with a slight limb and the aid of a cane, toward the black Lincoln Continental at the far end of the lot. It was a different Lincoln but looked the same. Rich ran to catch up.

“All I had that wouldn't be noticed.” Martin stopped two cars away from the Lincoln. “Hello, in there come out, come out where ever you are.”

A dark suited man emerged from the front passenger door and opened the rear door. Another dark suited man stepped out of the car.

“You guys use the same tailor?” Rich raised his voice and looked around the lot.

“Let's not fuck around. Where's the money at?” Said the Head Man at the rear of the Lincoln.

“I have no fucking idea and I could give a fuck. Where's the money?” The Head Man also was calm.

“We only have the account numbers here.” Martin held up the pages. “I intentionally don't know the access code you need to get at the money.” Martin limped slowly toward the man. “I’ll call you later to give you that code.” Martin held the pages out to the man. “I also want you to know that we’re being photographed and those photos will go directly to the police if you try anything.”

“You think I fuckin' care about the police. Anything I try will be over long before the police move their fat asses.” The Head Man waved his hand. “You two are coming with us.”

[Ed. Note: I couldn’t believe it. I finally went into my office and Anna was bleeding from the lip! Bruises were forming on her face! That shit Chris had hit her! Hit a woman? A woman that was paying his rent! Chris isn’t that big of a person but he’s still a man and Anna is a woman! Well, that’s obvious, but I called the police. Carl apparently didn’t. He called the Mag’s Lawyer! The Lawyer said not to call the Police? Shit a double pile! This is a stupid situation. Life is just so stupid when it’s dramatic. Boring fiction, not good. Boring life, very good! I hate this shit! I hate my life.]

Martin jammed the pages back into his pants pocket turning rapidly back toward Rich. Two dark suits approached Rich from the sides. The dark suit near the front passenger door had his gun drawn. Rich nodded and Martin fell backwards. Martin extended his cane as he rolled backward, knocking the gun out of the man's hand. Rich did a backward leg swipe and tripped up the closest of the two suits near him. Rich punched up from the ground, taking the standing suit in the throat. That suit crumbled onto the pavement. Martin had continued to roll backwards, then shot both legs into the groin of the Head Man. The man flew backwards against the side of the Lincoln and tumbled to the ground. Martin flipped himself up right. He used the cane in a golf swing to propel the gun toward Rich. Rich grabbed up the gun as he ran toward the back end of the lot. Martin followed as Rich slid across the hood of his 4 X 4. They came to rest behind the front wheel hub.

[Ed. Note: Chris came back with a gun! Too many guns! Too many guns in America! I shit my pants, I really did. I couldn’t believe it! I have read this very scene hundreds of times, but it was nothing like any of this. Time wasn’t even involved. The gun was ugly. The gun was a demon from Hell. I froze. Well, all except my bowels. Anna screamed at him while Chris waved the gun around the room. I thought of the stories, could I see if the safety was on? Where was the safety? I couldn’t focus my eyes, anyway. I was almost blind with fear. Anna was screaming at Chris. He was yelling at who, I don’t know. Her? Me? The Man? It, none of it, made any sense. Just random input. My brain wasn’t working. I know it wasn’t. My memory of the event is full of gaps.]

“It's been a while, but yeah.” Martin held the barrel in the air and checked the clip. “Not even a full load. A bunch of boneheads. Done this alone, could you? Your karate alone could handle it?”

“Yeah!” Rich laughed rubbing his callused knuckles. “Dangerous boneheads though.” Rich looked under the truck to see the feet of the dark suits coming toward the truck. “Any ideas?”

“Running comes to mind.” Martin replaced the clip in the 9 mm, pulling back the slide, the safety was already off. “Not complete boneheads. Dangerous boneheads.” Martin rolled over on his stomach just as two grey suits jump from around either end of the truck.

[Ed. Note: Chris is dead! He bled out on my office carpet. His blood blotted out all the coffee and other random stains. Somehow, Anna got the gun and shot Chris. Multiple times, I can count the holes in his chest, but I don’t remember hearing any shots at all! There had just been shouting and then no shouting accompanied with the smell of shit and then blood. The metallic smell of blood. Human shit and blood. Our crime stories are full of death. I never realized that they were full of shit, too! Smelly human leakage. Humans are full of sewage! Humans are sewers. Maybe that is what our Mag really is about? I have never realized that. I hate real drama, clearly. Actual violence makes me sick. I threw up on my desk. Revolting from both ends.]

“Spread eagle.” The grey suits said in unison and then they patted down Martin and Rich. Martin's arms were secured behind his back a moment before he was jerked to his feet, as if he weighed nothing at all.

Beside the Lincoln, six dark suits stood in a row, hands behind their back. Rich and Martin were shoved into that line up. “Nice to see you again.” Rich smiled at the Head Man.

“Not friendly at all.” Rich said to Martin. “Some family?” Martin looked at the cracked asphalt. “Sandra is going to be major pissed.” Rich nodded.

“Those two at the end, un-cuff them and bring them over here.” Said the grey suit in the center of a circle of grey suits.

“I'm Agent Fuller, sorry about the cuffs, Mr. Forrest, Mr. Stanton. Better safe than too sorry, right?”

“A little bit of everyone, actually.” Agent Fuller surveyed the circle surrounding him. “Surprised someone didn't shot their toe off with so many department heads running around here.”

“How'd you know about this?” Martin looked at all the still emerging colors of suits.

“Oh, we’ve been following the girl for a week. Nice trick in the parking lot. I liked that.” Agent Fuller glanced at Rich. “You'll have to tell the staff how to do that.”

“You’ve been on our tail all along. Why didn't you do something? We could have been killed!” Martin stepped toward Agent Fuller, but arms from the circle restrained him as if he was a child.