tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65453029005606765442024-03-13T13:00:41.183-07:00Right BehindWhat "Left Behind" should have been.Spherical Timehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02435055266803359329noreply@blogger.comBlogger242125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-87417443905601216882012-08-19T19:41:00.000-07:002012-08-19T19:41:28.816-07:00Left Behind: with Hackers!I thought I'd have some fun with <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/08/17/nra-narrative-technology/">Freds idea of Hacker!Chloe</a>. It's actually strangely cathartic to write some <i>truly</i> terrible fiction.</br>
</br>
Note: the following is not intended as an accurate portrayal of hacking. Of of keyloggers. Or of piggybacking. Or of ip addresses. Or of Rayfords manliness. Or of firewalls...</br>
</br>
* * * * * * * * * *</br>
</br>
<i>[The following takes place in the small underground bunker underneath New Hope church.]</i> </br>
</br>
"Dammit," Chloe muttered under her breath, leaning closer to the computer screen, the blue light showing her profile in high contrast. Rayford, just closing his seventh phone call in the last hour, slammed the handset down on the reciever with extreme manliness and turned to his daughter.</br>
</br>
"What is it, honey? You've been on that machine for hours."</br>
</br>
Chloe leaned back in the office chair, closing her eyes wearily. "I was trying to find a backdoor into Nicolae's private net through the FBI's system. With the number of security camera's his forces are installing, I thought for sure he had to be using the existing infrastructure."</br>
</br>
"You hacked the FBI?"</br>
</br>
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Sure. They've got a direct link to the traffic camera system. Just piggyback a keylogger virus through the camera's wireless, have it record someone's password, and I can log in remotely."</br>
</br>
"And you made sure that couldn't be traced back to us?" asked Rayford, his brow creasing in worry as he wondered what pigs had to do with hacking. "If they find out where it came from..."</br>
</br>
"<i>Obviously</i> I used a proxy, dad. I'm not thick. As far as they know, I'm based in Ethiopia."</br>
</br>
"A proxy. That makes sense," Rayford said, nodding knowingly. He couldn't let his daughter realise the he didn't have the slightest clue what she was talking about. Manly men never let women think they knew more than them. "So what does that mean?"</br>
</br>
Chloe threw up her hands in frustration. "I can get the FBI's printers to print out your resume if you want, but there's no sign of Nicholae at all. I've also checked NASA, the DOD, and a bunch of other sites. Either he's building his entire net completely from scratch, or..."</br>
</br>
Chloe trailed off, and her eyes widened as they returned to the computer screen, which was scrolling through reams of code Rayford couldn't make sense of. Her fingers flew to the keyboard.</br>
</br>
"Or what?" prompted Rayford.</br>
</br>
"Gimme a minute, need to bring up the IP list" said Chloe distractedly. Different images and code windows popped up and vanished as her fingers based sharply at the keys. A large list of numbers appeared on the screen, and she scrolled to the very bottom, where there was a number separated from the rest of the list: 255.255.255.256. It was flashing red.</br>
</br>
"Ahah! Got you!"</br>
</br>
"Got what? What is it?"</br>
</br>
Chloe looked at her father triumphantly. "Web Two Point Oh. He's not building it from scratch, he's <i>copying</i> it. The sites I were hacking were just figureheads, filled with information after he'd had a chance to censor it. The <i>real</i> sites are stored on a private network. And now that I know where it is..." she grinned evilly. "... I can hack it. Give me a few hours to DDoS the firewall ports and write some java trojan C++ viruses in x86, and I'll be able to tell you anything and everything about Nicholae's operation."</br>
</br>
She leaned back into the screen, typing furiously, the light from the screen reflected off her determined face.</br>
</br>
Rayford shook his head as he walked back to the couch, striding with fatherly manliness. It was good for Chloe to think she was doing something useful, playing around with her computers, but what hope could there be for her technology against the antichrist himself? It would be up to the men to do something <i>useful</i>.</br>
</br>
He picked up the telephone handset for the eighth time, and dialed Bucks number again.</br>
</br>
* * * * * * * * * *</br>
</br>
Note (cont): ... or of DDoS attacks. Or of programming. Or of the internet. Or of doing anything at all with a computer ever. However, Java trojan C++ viruses are totally real and they will make your computer melt.Quasarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09398018171200335379noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-91125849224244962572012-07-30T13:00:00.000-07:002012-07-30T13:00:04.479-07:00Until the Rainbow, Part FiveAmong the things the old man left behind, I found some paper. I've been writing this while the others work -- and despite my expectations, they've encouraged it. I thought someone would rebuke me for not helping out, but no one did. Part of that, I'm sure, was because I'd made the climb into the boat... but I think that another part of it is a desire to be remembered, to have some record of who we were, and what we did when the waters rose.
Our final project is as simple to describe as it is difficult to complete: to rip the roof off the old man's house, whole and intact, and invert it. With any luck, and a lot of work, we can make an impromptu boat and put the children inside.
When the old man and his sons lowered me out of their boat, they gave me a length of rope. Once our own boat is ready, I'll make that climb again, and tie that rope to his ship. The other end will be attached to our boat, the life raft we're crafting from his roof, tying it to his floating barn.
I doubt the raft will last long. It might not even survive the arrival of the waters, but there's nothing I can do about that. Still, if it lasts until daylight... my last, great, burning hope is that the old man and his family will be forced to choose between bringing the children aboard, and watching them drown. I hope -- and, yes, even <em>pray</em> -- that they'll choose the latter. But if they don't, let them have my curse: let their descendents be just as we are now. Just as varied, just as selfish, just as petty and greedy and warlike. If God can curse the world to death by water, surely I can curse the old man's descendents to be human and imperfect.
And if my curse has any power, then you -- eventual reader, the person who finds this record -- will know how the old man chose.
None of the adults will go with the raft. There's only barely room for the children, and the old man will absolutely ignore any vessel with any of us in it. We've resigned ourselves to dying, to give them a better chance to live. If we are truly part of the sin and iniquity that brought about the end of the world, then we'll pay for it now.
I have an empty bottle here beside me: dry, discarded. When I finish, I'll put these papers inside and seal the top as best I can. If there's any justice in the world, someday someone will find them and learn what we did. And if there isn't, you can at least consider this my last defiant act: spitting in the eye of a god who would wipe us all from the face of the Earth for being what he made, rather than what he hoped for.Michael Mockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06233321050691782148noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-11263775059320374582012-07-29T14:05:00.000-07:002012-07-29T14:05:00.943-07:00Until the Rainbow, Part FourI gripped the wet, slick wood with trembling fingers, and pulled myself up to the edge so I could see in the window. It was a ridiculous position: I was fifty feet in the air, balanced precariously on an unstable structure, in the midst of the worst downpour the world had ever seen... and I was doing this mere hours after a cross-country hike (also in the battering rain) which had taken most of the day.
We'd tried to build a ladder, using anything available: bits of furniture the old man and his family had left behind, wood from a couple of outbuildings that we'd disassembled, bits of fence post, even some scrap lumber that looked to be left over from the construction of the old man's crazy boat. What we got wasn't really a ladder, let alone anything as useful as steps. It was just a very steep pile, held together by whatever we could find: bits of clothesline, belts, and as much of our clothing as we could spare.
I was the third one to try to climb it. The first attempt had been made by one of the teenage boys. Two-thirds of the way up, the pile had shifted and he'd lost his grip. The second attempt was made by the father from a young couple who had arrived with their small children on their backs. He'd made it halfway up, then came back down and refused to try again. He <em>said</em> that with all the rain he couldn't get a grip on the wood, but he'd also helped us with the boy who fell; he'd seen the bone sticking out of his shin, seen us force it back in and splint the leg. If his nerve had simply given out, I really couldn't blame him. The whole attempt was suicidal. Even if one of us made it up there, we'd never get anyone else up unless the old man and his family were willing to open the door, or at least lower ropes.
I couldn't blame him, but I couldn't afford to wait for daylight, either: the ground was giving the first faint hints of trembling, precursors to the unmistakable vibration that would herald the arrival of the devouring waters.
So I climbed. The gathering darkness may have helped, forcing me to feel for my next hold as I labored my way up. There was, at least, enough angle that I could stop and lean into the slope when I grew tired.
And now there I was, balanced against the driving rain, standing atop the pile and gripping the edge of the old man's ship. The exposed deck was covered by a massive roof, which was supported by a central structure (little more than a blacker area of the darkness) that probably held the stairs down to the lower decks. The edge of the roof was just above my head, forming a sort of window that went all the way around the boat. It was about a foot and a half high: enough room to squeeze through.
I shifted my arm, and got an elbow on top of the wall. Then I pulled myself up, feet scrambling against the slickness of the hull. If this didn't work, I wasn't going to be able to climb back down.
I got my head through, hooked my other elbow over, and pushed myself out over the deck. I tilted forward, then began to slip down; fortunately, it was in the direction I wanted. I crashed onto my forearms, barely shielding my head from the impact, and let the rest of my body slide down the low wall and flop to the side. For a long moment I could barely move; I just lay there on the deck, aching all over and trying to breathe.
I'd done it.
Then there were voices, and a flare of light that seemed shockingly bright. The old man's sons were spilling out of the central structure. They were just starting to spread out across the deck when one of them saw me and cried out. Then they were all approaching.
I flopped over and forced myself up to my hands and knees. I got a foot under me, then looked up. Kneeling was about as far as I was going to make it: they were standing around me now. The one in front of me held a shovel, and think one of the others had something else, but I didn't have the energy to turn my head and see. "We need--" I said, and began to cough. They just stood there, uncertain or maybe waiting. "We need your help," I said. "There are people down there. You have to get them onto the boat."
"I have to do no such thing," said a voice. The younger men parted to make way for the crazy old man. "I couldn't even if I wanted to."
I started to say, "You <em>can</em>--" but he cut me off.
"The Lord himself has closed up this vessel. He has determined to cleanse the evil from this world, and only we are to be spared. You and all your kind must perish."
"What?" I shouldn't have said that; I saw his expression harden. I took a deep breath and tried again. "You know me. I run a restaurant. What have I done that's so evil that... I don't know... the only solution is to kill the world and start over?"
"That is between you and God," he told me. "I know only what He has chosen to share with me: that the world has grown full of sin and iniquity, and that He will wipe it all away."
I couldn't believe this. All this way, all this effort to save my family, and this <em>monster</em> was going to stand there and let us die. Anger flickered briefly through my veins, but I was too exhausted to support it. Instead, I begged: "My daughter just turned two. She's too young to be wicked. You can raise her, teach her the proper ways of worship and obedience and..." I trailed off, uncertain of what else God might find us lacking in. "Whatever else God requires. At least save the children."
But the old man shook his head. "I would not dare. If the Lord Almighty intended to save them, they would already be aboard. To bring them on now would risk the safety of the ship. If I do not abide by His commands, none of us will survive."
I put a hand on the railing and managed to stand. With nothing left to lose, I asked: "<em>This</em> is your idea of righteousness? To stand by and save yourselves, while all around you children die? What good and loving God would have you make that choice?"
"No." The old man shook his head. "Your mockery did not shake my faith. Your whispers did not shake my faith. Your questions will not shake it now. Go back to your family. Enjoy what time is left to you."
"Enjoy...?" <!--I shook my head, too tired to respond -- almost too tired to understand what he was saying. How could he even think I could <em>enjoy</em> waiting to die? To watch my <em>children</em> die? -->I looked at his sons, and knew I couldn't take them. They were too many, and I was too weak. I had nothing left. I hadn't even brought a weapon; I didn't dare try to climb with one. "You know what? Fine. But you're going to have to lower me down." I paused, looking around me. "Or you can throw me off, and have my blood <em>directly</em> on your hands. I'm honestly too tired to care, at this point."
The old man stiffened. He was silent for a long moment, but finally he said: "Fetch some rope." One of his sons hurried away.
A short time later I was bumping my way down the side of the boat. They'd tied a sort of basket or harness around me, and helped me squeeze back out the window. It was not a comfortable trip, but after everything else I barely noticed.
Then I was lying in the mud, with the rain steadily battering my body: defeated, fallen, and utterly damned. There was a slight tug on the rope, and then it went slack. A moment later it began to pour down on top of me, coil after coil. They'd released it entirely rather than risk that I might try to climb back up.
Hands found me, touched me, helped up. I couldn't see the figures beside me; it was too dark for that. I could barely hear their voices over the rain. But they put their arms around me, and carried me back into the old man's house.
I should have been broken by the knowledge that we were all going to die, but I wasn't. It was as if, with my death assured, my body gave up the last of its hoarded energy. Suddenly, I had enough strength to be angry.
The others were looking at me as they carried me in the door: expectant, hopeful, sure that nobody would knowingly leave us to die in the rising waters. I stood there, not answering, and saw the knowledge and despair spread across their faces.
"One final effort," I rasped. "One last thing to try."
I knew even then that I was lying. I would keep trying <em>one last thing</em> until the waters claimed my corpse, or until the Almighty himself rose up to strike me down. I was only sorry that we lacked the tools to put a hole in that ridiculous, oversized nightmare of a boat. If God was really out to destroy the world, maybe <em>that</em> would have forced Him to renegotiate.
But we couldn't do it. So instead we tried something else. One last thing, before the waters took us.Michael Mockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06233321050691782148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-41282672104252490882012-07-28T13:00:00.000-07:002012-07-28T13:00:01.184-07:00Until the Rainbow, Part ThreeWe gathered in the crazy old man's home. The sound of the rain was muffled here, but we still had to raise our voices in order to be heard. The air was still damp, and we had no dry clothes - but at least we were out of the rain.
I was surprised by how few people were here. Including the children, twelve of us had escaped together from the town, and we were easily a third of the overall crowd. Most of the others had come in smaller groups, and ours were far from the only children. There was one older couple, a group of four children who seemed to have come on their own, a handful of individuals, families of various sizes... and all of us wet and miserable, bedraggled and profoundly <em>lost</em>. We stood or sat, with barely enough will to speak, and looked at each other. We knew this shelter was only temporary.
The situation hadn't changed. If we didn't keep moving, we'd die where we sat. I forced myself to stand back up, and started a circle of the room. I asked for names and gave my own; I asked questions, knowing already that I wouldn't like the answers.
The old man wasn't in the house. His family wasn't in the house. All those animals and supplies that they'd spent months collecting -- after months of laboring on their crazy project -- were in the structure outside, and we had no doubt that the old man and his family were in there, too: safe in their ridiculously oversized boat.
Of course we'd made fun of him. Who decides to build a boat miles away from the nearest water? Who makes a boat that's too large to navigate the river, even if you could get it there somehow, and it didn't collapse under its own weight when you put it in the water? We'd called him crazy because the entire project <em>was</em> crazy. When he filled the boat with animals, we called it the world's most elaborate barn, and went to gawk at his madness. When he told us the world was going to end, and loaded his boat-shaped barn with enough supplies for a year or more, we laughed -- or we nodded gently and helped him on his way, humoring him. What else could we have done?
But now that boat was our only chance of survival. If the old man had known that the rains were coming, maybe he'd also known how to build a boat that could withstand the rising waters - and who knew how long they would rise? I kept thinking of the river, covering more and more of the landscape as it rose and spread, following us here a few hills and valleys at a time. How much time did we have?
Some of the others had tried pounding on the hull, hoping someone would let them in. Nobody had responded; either the old man and his family were ignoring them, or they couldn't hear them over the rain.
So I went back outside and looked at the old man's crazy boat. It was a giant block of a thing, a good fifty feet high. There was only one door that I could see, and that was sealed and too high up to reach. I thought again of the river, rising to devour everything; and I wondered how much time we had.
We were going to have to get up there, somehow. Despite the height, despite the merciless downpour, despite our exhaustion... <em>somehow.</em> We had to find a way to get on that boat.Michael Mockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06233321050691782148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-46558820336304202342012-07-27T13:00:00.000-07:002012-07-27T13:00:06.711-07:00Until the Rainbow, Part TwoThe countryside was better. There were people here, too, but they were doing the same thing we were: fleeing the city. I only hoped that we didn't all share the same destination.
We staggered along for only a few minutes before we left the road. I don't know who suggested it, or if we all just realized it at once, but the road was hopeless: the hard surface lost beneath a stream of mud that sucked at our feet and slowed our steps. The grass was better, the trees better still -- though there was no escape from the merciless rain. The water was just as deep here, but roots and grasses held the soil in place.
I took a guess at our direction, and we staggered on: away from the town, towards the crazy old man in the hills. We splashed across a field that was now a shallow lake, scrambled up hillsides that were trying to dissolve into mudslides.
The rain pushed against us at every step. It was a horrible, monstrous thing -- I hated it as if it were alive. The deluge left us half blind and nearly deaf. It weighed down our clothes and sucked the heat from our bodies. We carried the children, now: they were exhausted and shivering. Our weapons were our only supplies, and we carried them only from fear of more bandits. If we didn't make it to shelter, we would starve -- or drown, whichever came first.
By midday we were well into the hills, alternating between walking on thankfully-solid ground and carefully crossing the impromptu streams and cascades that had grown between the high places. We stopped to rest, huddling together like a herd of sheep for warmth; there was no way to start a fire in this, and no shelter to be found.
It wasn't courage or determination that kept us going. It was simply the knowledge that there was nothing else to do. We could either keep going, or die where we sat.
The children surprised me. They were colder and more tired than the rest of us, but they staggered to their feet when we started to move again. Those who could, walked; those who couldn't, we carried.
Somewhere in the afternoon, our path took us close enough to see the river. Or, rather, to see what the river had become. Once slow and tranquil, it was now raging and wild. Once narrow enough to swim across, it was now as wide as the greatest of lakes. Once safely contained within its banks, it was now reaching out to tear away anything it could reach. We could feel its presence as a steady, rumbling vibration in the ground. The docks could not have survived this. The <em>town</em> could not have survived this.
Fortunately, it curved away as we continued on. We hurried, and I felt that we were not so much avoiding the river as trying to escape it. I couldn't see it through the steady rain, but I knew it was back there: growing, spreading, climbing. <em>Reaching.</em> We hiked on, eager to stay ahead of it.
And, finally, we saw it: the high hill where the crazy old man had done his work. With the rain, we were nearly on top of it before it came into view; but the massive wooden construction was unmistakable. Better still, there were only a few other figures crowded around it: only a few that had made it here from the town, or from the surrounding countryside.
With our goal is sight, our steps grew lighter. We hurried forward to safety.Michael Mockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06233321050691782148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-23828453453148009502012-07-26T13:52:00.003-07:002012-07-26T13:53:23.772-07:00Until the Rainbow, Part OneThe end was near. We all knew it, though some still screamed denials.
I led my family down the center of the street, staying away from the sidewalks and alleys. We kept the children in the center, while the adults encircled them with weapons ready. We'd fought twice already, once with another family and once with a group of men. My brother lay dead three streets back; when his wife wouldn't leave his side, we left her behind. The steady rain hid their forms from sight, but I carried that last glimpse with me.
Once, I would have prayed that she would be safe. Now... I could only hope, and I hoped with all my heart that her end would be quick and painless.
The rain continued its relentless descent, weighing us down, trying to drive us into the earth. The street was a steady stream, as deep as my ankle. We struggled against it, up the hill and away from the docks. One of the children slipped; another helped her up. Nobody slowed their pace.
The forecasters hadn't predicted this downpour. They had been as surprised as anyone when it came - maybe more so, not that it mattered. Surprised by its appearance, surprised by the way it covered everything, surprised by the way it <em>never let up.</em> We'd had stormy weather before, to be sure; but this was different. A week of storms was one thing, but this was <em>one unbroken storm</em>, and it had been going on for nine days, now. None of the forecasters could say when it would end; at least one swore that it wouldn't, not until it had consumed the world and everything in it.
We passed a shattered church and kept going. Two days ago, the steady flooding had chewed through the foundations and collapsed the building, crushing the minister and a crowd of devout worshipers; but still there were people clambering over the rubble, screaming for rescue and salvation. Their wails were audible even over the steady roar of falling rain.
No place was safe. Houses and places of business were targets, not shelters. The streets were even more dangerous. The docks... everyone wanted to get to the docks. Everyone wanted passage on a boat. Never mind that half the ships were gone, swept down the river and splintered by floating debris or underwater obstructions. Never mind that the docks themselves were half-shattered and sagging. Never mind that the remaining boats were overwhelmed with passengers, packed almost too tight to breathe. The docks were a steady riot of desperate violence. We wouldn't stand a chance there.
So we went in the only direction we could: the crazy old man in the hills. It was madness, but what choice did we have? There was no other way to go, no other way that we might survive. Not unless the rain stopped, and it showed no sign of doing <em>that.</em> So the old man was crazy - so what? So we'd all laughed at him - so what? If he'd done what he said he was doing, he was our only chance.Michael Mockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06233321050691782148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-35007173788939860202012-01-20T19:41:00.000-08:002012-01-20T19:41:00.871-08:00They Are Legion, Part SixThe smell of coffee drifted tantalizingly through my room. Maybe that was what woke me up, even. For a time I just lay there, being awake... but, well, not awake enough to actually move.<br />
<br />
There was sunlight on the blankets, and on the wall behind me. It was bright enough that I knew I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. That realization brought me another small step closer to wakefulness, but it was so nice to just lay and drift until I was actually ready to move.<br />
<br />
I'd been dreaming about a roller-coaster, I remembered - an improbably massive structure that wound around an entire mountain, and even dipped through tunnels inside. There had been someone... no, that was gone. I couldn't remember anymore. I was too awake.<br />
<br />
I sat up at last, cracked my neck, and yawned. My room was the same as always, decorated with posters for a couple of movies and another for the Marine Corps, which I'd briefly considered joining after High School. The bookshelves still held my old favorites, but the computer desk was empty - I'd taken its contents off to college, and left behind an empty shell. I remembered telling my parents that they could do whatever they wanted with my room, but either they hadn't heard me or they'd just decided to leave it alone...<br />
<br />
Once things had settled down last night, I'd sent Tina and Mom off to bed and sat down to watch a little television. The news reported looting and other violence. At least some of the violence seemed to be a product of people trying to loot houses and stores that were still occupied. A lot of the rest seemed to be people who were convinced that the world was ending, or just taking advantage of the social disruption. I doubted that the troubles were anywhere near as widespread as the talking heads implied; for one thing, we hadn't seen anything like that around here, and for another the TV news programs had been getting ever more hysterical in their attention-seeking for as long as I could remember. Still, I made a note to go and find a couple of guns in the morning... just in case.<br />
<br />
One guy they interviewed said that God had clearly turned His Face from us. Since he knew he was damned, he said, there was no reason not to do all those things that he'd always wanted to do. That was right before the police stuffed him into the back of a patrol car. I found myself reminded, very uncomfortably, of Anna - and I realized that I should call her. Probably not then, though - it was after midnight.<br />
<br />
Instead, I'd shut off the television and wandered up to my room. I didn't exactly remember collapsing on the bed, but since I'd woken up there I was prepared to take that part for granted...<br />
<br />
Now I paused in the hallway outside the kitchen. I could hear voices inside: Mom and Tina, talking. I stopped where I was, just out of sight. It wasn't a desire to eavesdrop, exactly; it was more that I wanted to know what I was about to walk into. And I wasn't quite awake enough to make conversation myself, so I waited... and listened.Michael Mockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06233321050691782148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-14982298910433630392012-01-12T12:04:00.000-08:002012-01-12T12:04:00.574-08:00They Are Legion, Part FiveI told myself a story, about a young man who took an unexpected turn and found a strange set of ruins, where some evil genius had hidden away the world's children and covered his tracks by taking a few of the adults. In this story, the young man found his way into the hidden laboratory, and happened upon a death ray, and destroyed the evil genius and freed the children.<br />
<br />
Then I told myself another story, about a young man who woke up imprisoned on a spaceship. He tricked his captors, took control of their weapons, and brought the abducted children - and the others, his own father among them - back to Earth. <br />
<br />
That got me as far as Memphis. On the way to Little Rock, I told myself a story about a young man who came home to his father's funeral, and found that he'd inherited a book and a sword: the book to explain what had happened and what was coming, and the sword to fight against it. The Demon Lord commanded powerful forces, but in the end human stubbornness prevailed. With the Demon Lord vanquished, the ties between our worlds were severed - but the dead were still dead, and the missing, missing. <br />
<br />
They were vague and grandiose fantasies, though I took some pleasure in filling in the little details: how the ruins look, why the villain had bothered with a death ray, how the aliens differed from humans... It was comforting, to imagine a world where good would triumph and evil would be defeated. It pleasant to think that, with the right combination of wit and insight, things might still be set right. And it was, ultimately, just a fantasy. I knew that, but I indulged it anyway.<br />
<br />
I stopped in Little Rock to eat. I don't remember what I ordered. I don't remember my waiter. I don't actually remember eating the food, but I must have done so. I have a vague memory of latching my seatbelt on the way back out of the parking lot. Presumably someone would have stopped me if I'd forgotten to pay...<br />
<br />
Mom called me just as I was leaving Little Rock. I pulled over to answer the phone, then assured her that I was fine and still on my way. She said she was glad that I was coming home, and I told her I was, too. And when she was done, I put the phone on the seat and got back on the highway.<br />
<br />
It was starting to get dark, and I was tired. But I thought about it, and decided that I'd continue on; I wasn't too tired to drive. (This may not have been the wisest decision I've ever made.) So I drove, keeping the Jeep in its lane and watching the mile markers go past, and eventually I hit Texarkana. An impossibly long time after that, I drove into my parents' house in Grapevine.<br />
<br />
By then I'd gotten my second wind, which was a good thing: Mom and Tina were still awake, waiting up for me. I barely made it in the door before they they were holding me. I was worn out from the drive, and maybe still in shock, so all I could do was wait through their tears and their relief, and assure them that I was glad to see them, too. <br />
<br />
It was the worst homecoming I ever had.Michael Mockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06233321050691782148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-33432483823609128252012-01-11T11:20:00.000-08:002012-01-11T11:20:29.525-08:00The Courtship of Meta-Chloe: I did it all for the cookie!Cameron was used to Chloe being the more talkative one, and he was resigned to the fact she was probably the more clever one as well. She knew just how to tweak his ego, make him flustered and off-balance. So the drive to the airport was odd and unsettling, but not for the usual reasons. <br />
<br />
Chloe was chattering, nerviously at times. It seemed like silence was the last thing she wanted in the car. Buck knew she was anxious, but didn't want to press things. They'd only managed to make up the night before, when she realized his article on the Event was a smokescreen. Things felt good to Cameron, but delicate, and he didn't want to foul anything up before his flight to Isreal. <br />
<br />
The treaty signing was confusing. It was obvious that Carpathia had manipulated events to literally turn the entire world against Isreal, but why? He'd been successful, so why seek a treaty now? Cameron was so lost in thought he hadn't registered that Chloe had parked the car and was unloading his luggage from the trunk. Cameron found himself walking briskly to catch up with Chloe as she headed towards the ticket counter.<br />
<br />
"Hey, remember me? The one who's actually flying out?"<br />
<br />
Chloe blushed and looked embarassed. <br />
<br />
"Sorry. I was just nervious that you'd miss your flight, and I didn't want you to be late, and..."<br />
<br />
"Woah woah woah! You're with experienced world traveller <i>Buck</i> Williams! We've got enought time to get checked in."<br />
<br />
Chloe smiled as his self-depreciating use of the nickname, but she still looked tense and nervious. Cameron got his boarding pass, and they walked along the concourse.<br />
<br />
"I overheard you talking with Dad. Carpathia's offered you a job?"<br />
<br />
"Not formally, but it looks like it. I don't know if Steve Plank put in a good word, or if he was just impressed by my recent turn to bland propoganda."<br />
<br />
"I know you want to help the cause, I know you want to serve the Lord, but last night you said you wanted to protect... people from danger, and I just-"<br />
<br />
"Cookies! That's what I want right now!" The conversation was headed for dangerous territory, and Cameron wanted to defuse it as quickly as possible, so he hooked his arm in Chloe's, spun her to the side, and marched into Ms. Fieldsworth's Cookie Shoppe.<br />
<br />
"Cameron, could you please be serious for a minute?"<br />
<br />
"I am serious, Chloe. Look at this place? There's a Ms. Fieldsworth's Cookie Shoppe in every major airport in the United States, and every airport in Europe, eastern and western!"<br />
<br />
Chloe looked at him pleadingly, but Cameron wouldn't slow down or stop to let a word in edgewise.<br />
<br />
"I've flown out of a dozen airports in Africa, and there's only two things that all of them had: a Pepsi vending machine, and Ms. Fieldsworth cookies. Once, I was stuck in the North Korean airport for three days; it was Ms. Fieldsworth or kim-chi. At least, I hope it was kim-chi, but I wasn't going to risk it."<br />
<br />
"I hope this is important enough to talk about instead of taking a job for-"<br />
<br />
"Yes, as a matter of fact it is. I'm flying to Isreal; I hope to interview the Two Preachers, and I'll be standing on a dias next to the Antichrist when he signs a treaty that will start the end of the world as we know it. There aren't a whole lot of things you can count on in this world, even less in the End of Days. Small comforts are important, even better when they're shared..."<br />
<br />
Cameron walked up to the counter. A sullen teenager stood with an apron, visor, and nametag. His face was bleak, like so many others. Briefly, Cameron wondered who he had lost in the Event. One parent? Both? A little brother? Cameron blinked, and looked closer; the kid was young, possibly still in high school, but the grief on his face was deep. Maybe it was a son or a daughter he'd lost. <br />
<br />
"Excuse me, sir, but I need two oatmeal chocolate chip cookies."<br />
<br />
The kid shuffled, bagged the cookies quickly and rang up a total. <br />
<br />
"Oh, could I get two bags? One for each cookie?"<br />
<br />
The teen had almost no affect at all. <br />
<br />
"Store policy is one bag per purchase, sir. I'm sorry..."<br />
<br />
Chloe must have noticed the kid's grief, and she piped up. <br />
<br />
"Can I get a cookie? What's your favorite kind?" Buck eyed Chloe warily. Had she seen the same grief he had?<br />
<br />
Chloe happily bought the cookie, removed it from the bag, and handed it back to the kid behind the counter with a quick peck on the cheek before leading Cameron out of the store.<br />
<br />
"What? He looked like he needed a pretty girl to cheer him up a little. Here's your extra bag. Now what's with the cookies?"<br />
<br />
"I wish I could share more time with you. But since I can't, I'll share what I can."<br />
<br />
"Medeocre baked goods found across the globe?"<br />
<br />
"When I eat this," Cameron gestured with the cookie, "it's something I know is real, something I know wherever in the world I am, it's there. I know faith is supposed to provide that for me, but faith doesn't come with a little sugar rush between meals. When I eat this particular cookie, sometime while I'm in Isreal, I'll let you know, so you and I can share a snack, even if I'm on the other side of the world."<br />
<br />
"Bucky... I think you're trying to make eating a cookie over the phone sound romantic..."<br />
<br />
"Is it working?"<br />
<br />
"...let's get you to your plane, <em>Bucky</em>."Chris Doggetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04818552086179513521noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-84527576899162623122012-01-06T22:00:00.000-08:002012-01-06T22:00:03.423-08:00They Are Legion, Part FourThere really wasn't much left to do. I'd put most of my stuff in storage before Anna and I went camping, and it took very little time to load the last few bags and boxes into the Jeep. It would have been nice to stop and eat, but I didn't want to keep my family, and Mom in particular, waiting any longer than necessary. I could find a drive-through on the way...<br />
<br />
I called again when I was on the road. I didn't stay on the phone for long; I didn't like talking while I was driving, and this seemed like a good time to stay alert. I just told them that I'd left, and when I'd call next. Tina told me to be careful, which was advice I didn't need.<br />
<br />
The trip was remarkably uneventful, though. I mean, the end of the world is supposed to involve massive chaos, right? The highways should be littered with wrecks, city streets should be full of rioters or looters or partiers, and bands of cold-eyed survivors should be retreating to the wilderness with canned food and extra ammunition. Instead, I got... nothing. If anything, traffic was lighter than usual. But the roads were neither empty nor blocked with wrecked and abandoned vehicles.<br />
<br />
From Sewanee, Tennessee to Grapevine, Texas is about thirteen hours by car. Call it fourteen, since you'll want to make stops for gas, food, and sanity. The easiest route goes up to Nashville, then swings down through Memphis, Little Rock, and Texarkana. I found an eighteen-wheeler doing a respectable speed on the highway, and settled in behind him. Eventually, he turned off, and I found another. Their presence was reassuring: it meant that an awful lot of our economy was probably still in place. I didn't need to be spot-welding weapons-mounts to the outside of the Jeep just yet. <br />
<br />
I left the radio off. For a while I tried listening to one of my playlists, but it clashed with my mood and after a while I shut it off. So there I was, following the big trucks, driving in silence.<br />
<br />
And realizing that my father was dead. <br />
<br />
It didn't seem real. I couldn't make it real. Dad was a vibrant, living figure - he couldn't be dead. Not <em>dead</em> dead. He was still fixing up that old Karmann Ghia, for fuck's sake. No way he could die before he had it working again. It just wasn't possible.<br />
<br />
I could imagine a world without my father in it, sort of, abstractly. I mean, I'd been in college in another state for three years, now. Yeah, I came home for summers and holidays, but holiday visits were just visits, and summers were always a shock. My parents were trying to figure out how to handle a kid who was basically out on his own, and I was trying to adjust to having parents again. So the idea of not seeing my dad wasn't all that strange. I spent a lot of my time not seeing him.<br />
<br />
The idea that he wasn't out there, anymore... that it wasn't just that I wasn't seeing him, it was that he was really <em>gone</em>... That was something else altogether. I couldn't process it.<br />
<br />
And after a while I gave up trying. I thought about Anna for a little bit, and realized that I should call her... and then realized that I wasn't sure if I wanted to. We balanced each other in some important ways, but her insistence that the disappearances had been The Rapture... and that we'd missed it... was strange and unwelcome. It made me realize that maybe I didn't know her as well as I'd thought I had. That maybe we weren't as... <em>connected</em>... as we'd thought we were. <br />
<br />
But that was something else I wasn't ready to deal with. So I left it alone and kept driving, losing myself in the simple act of keeping the car on course. I wasn't thinking so much as <em>waiting,</em> letting my brain absorb the new information and giving it time to adapt, to formulate new responses.Michael Mockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06233321050691782148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-43316609126997859782012-01-03T21:42:00.000-08:002012-01-03T21:42:03.354-08:00They Are Legion, Part ThreeMy mom answered on the second ring. I'd been considering what she most needed to hear, so when she said, "Hello," I said: <br />
<br />
"Mom, it's James. I'm still here. I'm fine."<br />
<br />
There was a brief, choked sob, and then a moment of silence. I said, "Hello?" but nobody answered. <br />
<br />
I tried again: "Hello?"<br />
<br />
Then I heard my sister's voice: "James?"<br />
<br />
I said, "Yes... are you guys all right?"<br />
<br />
"Jesus," said Tina, "We thought you were dead, too. Why didn't you call us?"<br />
<br />
Something cold and tight curled in from my shoulders and settled in my guts. "I was camping. There's no reception. What do you mean, you thought I was dead, <em>too?</em>" <br />
<br />
There was a long pause. Then Tina said, "It's Dad." She hesitated, but I didn't say anything. I couldn't. "There was an accident. The driver beside him disappeared. The car drifted into his lane, pushed him off the road. He's... dead."<br />
<br />
<i>You hear that, Anna?</i> I thought. <i>It's not the Rapture. Because if that was the Rapture, your God just murdered my dad.</i><br />
<br />
There was sound of fumbling, and then my mom was speaking into the phone. "James? James, honey? You have to come home. You should be with your family."<br />
<br />
"I'm on my way," I told her. "I'll call you when I'm on the road. I love you."<br />
<br />
"I love you," said Mom, and cut off the call.Michael Mockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06233321050691782148noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-60922068249828262972012-01-02T21:38:00.000-08:002012-01-02T21:38:10.888-08:00They Are Legion, Part TwoA park ranger picked us up not five minutes after we got back to my Jeep. We'd left the parking area beside the trail head, but we hadn't even made it back to the main road. He filled us in a little - told us that there had been mass disappearances, world-wide, and that nobody was sure what had really happened - but mainly he took down our names, addresses, and family information. He said he was going to radio it in, so someone could put it in the big national database that everyone was using to search for missing family. It was something that FEMA had come up with, apparently. <br />
<br />
The radio wasn't much help. Everyone broadcasting assumed that everyone else knew as much as they did. They didn't give us any new information about what had happened, and we didn't understand the significance of what they <em>did</em> have to say. It wasn't until we got back to campus and found my roommate, Andrew, that we could get any real information about what had happened while we were away.<br />
<br />
And that was when Anna realized - or decided - that we'd been left behind. The Rapture, she said, had come. Jesus had claimed His own, taking them directly to Heaven to avoid the judgements that were about to be poured out upon the Earth.<br />
<br />
And I, in my usual <i>I'm-withholding-judgement-until-I-get-more-and-better-information</i> way, said: "That doesn't seem very likely."<br />
<br />
It didn't occur to me until much later that Anna would see that as a slap at her beliefs, or that she considered those beliefs so personal that rejecting them was rejecting <em>her.</em> She just went very still, the way she does when she's angry but doesn't want to show it, and then she told me that she was going to find her parents, and that Andrew and I should do the same. <br />
<br />
And then she left. It seemed a little abrupt, but I didn’t think much about it at the time. We’d just found out about a disaster, she needed to check on her family, and we’d been together all weekend; of course she’d want to get going. <em>I</em> wanted to get going, too.<br />
<br />
So I went back to my room, and picked up my cell phone, and called home. And what I learned then made me forget all about what Anna and I had said to each other.Michael Mockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06233321050691782148noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-81972253778007579852011-12-30T13:18:00.000-08:002011-12-30T13:18:02.295-08:00They Are Legion, Part OneWhat if the Rapture came, and you missed it?<br />
<br />
I'm not talking about being "left behind." That's all of us, everyone who's left on Earth. All the people who looked around and realized that their children were gone, all the people who looked up and realized that the car beside them suddenly had no driver, all the people who came home to empty beds or empty houses or empty neighborhoods. <br />
<br />
But there were some of us who missed the whole thing. I, for example, had taken a couple of days off after Finals to go camping with my girlfriend. Two college students all alone in the woods at the end of their Junior year: you can imagine what all we we were doing. Maybe that's why we got left behind. Maybe, and maybe not. <br />
<br />
Anna, you see, is very bright in her way. She can grasp complex ideas, do equations in her head, and memorize things in ways that I can't even begin to match. Unfortunately, she tends to take any idea she's given, and run with it. I'm smart in other ways; I can speak English, Spanish, and French (and read a fair amount of Latin), and I tend to withhold judgement and not take things at face value. Mine is the sort of intelligence that wants to do a lot of research, look for origins and evidence and support, and tends to ask uncomfortable and unwelcome questions.<br />
<br />
That may be why Anna was still a Christian (nominally, at least) while I was... not. On the other hand, we came back from our trip to discover that everyone - <em>everyone</em> - under the age twelve had disappeared, along with a fair amount of the adult population... and the adult statistics skewed heavily to certain strains of Christianity. Nobody knew how heavily, because nobody can organize a census that quickly, but even the preliminary, anecdotal information was fairly convincing. When the police department notices that eighty percent of their missing persons calls concern members of a certain church, and further investigation can locate only four or five people from a congregation of over one hundred, that's pretty convincing. So maybe I shouldn’t consider my disbelief a product of my <em>intelligence,</em> if you see what I mean.<br />
<br />
And yes, I know that everyone who's reading this now has been through it themselves, and remembers how it happened. I'm not writing this part down for you. I'm writing it down for our children, if we have any, if the world lasts that long. If there's one thing you learn studying history, it's just how much information gets lost. It's <em>frightening</em> how fast knowledge can disappear - a generation, maybe less, if it isn't needed or isn't wanted. <br />
<br />
So that's what happened to us: we went into the woods, and when we came out the world had changed.Michael Mockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06233321050691782148noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-37222771762275359952011-10-23T10:51:00.001-07:002011-10-23T10:51:36.626-07:00Just When Things Are Going Right Part III by Rev ApocJudd loved the feeling of Mona’s hair in his hands. They’d been making out for a while, and he was in a good mood even though his beer buzz was fading away. A girl’s voice startled them as Judd realized another girl on the cheerleading squad was trying to get Mona’s attention.<br /><br />“Mona, we gotta go! You told me you promised your parents you’d be home at midnight or they’ll ground you!”<br /><br />Judd and Mona broke the kiss and looked at the girl. Mona looked at her watch and gasped. “Eleven forty-five! Shoot!” She looked at Judd apologetically and said, “I’m really sorry for stopping like this, okay?”<br /><br />Judd, a bit put out by the end of the great make-out session he’d been having, tried to hide it as he gently squeezed Mona’s shoulder and said, “Yeah, you don’t want to get in trouble. Maybe next time.”<br /><br />Mona smiled briefly, got off Judd and stood up to quickly straighten out her outfit and hair before retrieving her purse from her friend, saying, “Thanks, Rachel.” She rummaged around in her purse and scribbled something on a scrap of paper.<br /><br />She turned to Judd and said, “I like you; maybe we can go out sometime, huh?”<br /><br />He grinned and said, “Yeah. I live about a ten-minute walk from here. What about you?”<br /><br />Mona replied, “Just at the house facing this cul-de-sac, actually. But I really have to go so I can get home in time, okay?”<br /><br />Judd smiled. “Just leave the Bible alone next time, okay?”<br /><br />Mona nodded sheepishly, handed the piece of paper she’d been holding to Judd, then waved goodbye as she rushed off with her friend.<br /><br />After realizing Mona had given him her phone number, Judd found he was more tired than he expected. He looked around and noticed someone had turned down the music. As well, the lights had been turned down and there were people sprawled on the floor, either sleeping or cuddling with each other in their own little worlds.<br /><br />He needed to go to the bathroom, so he struggled out of the easy chair and wended his way through the living room and found a bathroom in a little hallway just off the entry foyer. After he was finished, he yawned and looked at himself in the mirror; he noticed some of Mona’s lipstick was still on his lips. He tried scrubbing some of it off with a tissue and some water, but it was pretty tenacious.<br /><br />Judd decided to return to the easy chair. He snuggled into the easy chair, deciding he just needed a few minutes of rest before he’d get up and go home.<br /><br />He closed his eyes, and a few minutes turned into several hours.<br /><br />===<br /><br />Vicki was starting to feel tired, which she thought was unfair considering she and Shelley were having the time of their lives.<br /><br />“Shel?” she asked softly.<br /><br />Shelley stopped nuzzling Vicki’s neck and looked up. “Sorry, am I doing something wrong?”<br /><br />Vicki smiled. “No, it’s okay. It’s just… I’m getting kinda tired. Are you?”<br /><br />Shelley looked disappointed, but before she could answer, she yawned, provoking Vicki’s own yawn.<br /><br />Shelley said, “I guess that’s our answer.” She hesitated, then put her hands on Vicki’s hips. “Look, I know I needed to get seriously liquored up to even tell you what I wanted, but I just… I didn’t know how to tell you any other way. Do you think less of me for it?”<br /><br />Vicki kissed Shelley on the forehead and brushed her hand through her friend’s hair. “No, I don’t. Look, I’m happy you told me; that’s all that matters.”<br /><br />Shelley sighed. “Well, now we’re kinda stuck. There’s no way we can get home at this hour. You wanna sleep here or try to find a bed?”<br /><br />“Let’s sleep here. The carpet’s pretty soft. We can probably just stretch out and lie down if we’re careful.”<br /><br />After a couple of minutes, the two girls had managed to get themselves in the right positions when Vicki rermembered the light. “Shit. Shel, I’ve gotta turn this off. You gonna be okay in the dark?”<br /><br />“Yeah. I’m with you,” she replied.<br /><br />Vicki snickered. “No pressure, then.” She scrambled up, yanked the chain, then carefully felt around the room to make sure she didn’t hit her friend as she laid down on the carpet next to Shelley, who cuddled into her arms to sleep.<br /><br />It wasn’t long before Vicki also fell asleep, content with the world.<br /><br />-<br /><br />Someone was shaking Judd’s shoulder. He half-heartedly batted the hand away, mumbling, “Lemme sleep s’more.”<br /><br />“Come on, Judd! I need to clean up around here, okay? Your dad’s probably really pissed ‘cause you stayed out, too.” Jason’s anxious expression convinced Judd to acquiesce; it wasn’t like Jason had to know he didn’t really care.<br /><br />Judd tried to get up, and moaned as he tried to open his eyes wider than a squint. He whined, “Light hurts, Jase.”<br /><br />Jason muttered, “Shit. Be right back.” Within a minute, he shoved a couple tablets into one of Judd’s hands and in the other, forced him to grasp the cup of water tightly. Judd mechanically went through the routine of chasing down the Tylenol with the water. He handed the cup back after emptying it, and let Jason help drag him out of the chair so he could stand up.<br /><br />Judd yawned, scratched his head, and tried to ignore the fact that he felt like he had a cold. He half-stumbled out of the living room, and ran into some of his teammates. They mumbled greetings to each other, and Daniel agreed to drop Judd off at his place. Daniel drove slowly in his expensive sedan, and Judd was thankful nobody felt like talking.<br /><br />The first thing that struck Judd after he let himself inside his house, was that, for it being nine o’clock in the morning on a Saturday, the house was eerily quiet.<br /><br />Usually his dad was up, getting the coffeemaker ready and making breakfast if his mother wasn’t downstairs first and making it.<br /><br />Maybe they just slept in, thought Judd as he grabbed some cereal and a bowl, deciding he’d watch some TV.<br /><br />===<br /><br />Vicki’s first impression was of darkness with only a sliver of light coming from near her head. A human body was next to her, and the girl was breathing steadily. Startled, Vicki tried to sit up, only for her head to start pounding as memories began filtering back into her head.<br /><br />She gasped, relieved, as she realized she’d just been sleeping in Shelley’s arms, and then a slow smile made its way across her face as she remembered how Shel had so nervously come out to her, and their mutual attraction had led to a pretty hot make-out session.<br /><br />But now they had to find their way home, and she needed to get a light turned on in this damn closet.<br /><br />Vicki carefully stood up and opened the closet door to let the daylight in. She squinted against the harsh light and her headache got worse. She reached down and shook Shelley’s shoulder. “Shel? Hey, wake up.”<br /><br />Vicki helped her friend stand up, and she thought from Shelley’s pale appearance that she must be even more hung-over than Vicki was.<br /><br />Shelley’s hand on her arm stopped her. “Vicki? Did we… y’know….” She couldn’t meet Vicki’s eyes.<br /><br />“Hey, it’s okay. I’ve never done anything with a girl before, either. We just made out, honestly. And kissed a lot.”<br /><br />“Okay,” replied Shelley softly.<br /><br />In an upbeat tone, Vicki said, “C’mon, let’s get outta here. Our purses are downstairs.”<br /><br />They passed other people stirring and preparing to leave. Vicki snickered as two guys blanched upon exiting a room when they saw the girls, She just hissed, “Hurry! Get going!” to them, and they took off, adroitly avoiding the few people sprawled on the spiral staircase going down to the foyer. She murmured to Shelley, “See? There’s more people like us if you look.”<br /><br />The two girls walked quietly to the closet they’d gone to before, and found their purses. Luckily, nothing had been stolen. As they passed by the kitchen, Shelley saw Jasmine starting up some breakfast and said, “Oh, God, that coffee smells so good. Jason’d better appreciate this!”<br /><br />Jasmine winked and whispered, “Oh, he will.” She looked more closely at Shelley, then at Vicki, and said, “You two better get some water. You look kinda peaked.”<br /><br />After getting the water and guzzling an entire glass, Vicki almost wanted to ask to stay, but realized if Jason was here, so was that Judd guy, and she didn’t really want to hang around some rich kid’s house being looked at like she might go wild and break something. She wasn’t a freaking rabid dog, for crying out loud. She put her water glass by the sink and tugged Shelley’s arm. “We better go.”<br /><br />Just as the two girls were about to leave the house, a guy who Vicki figured for a soph rushed up to them and said, “Have you seen Amanda? She isn’t here! She was on the couch with me when we went to sleep.”<br /><br />Wordlessly, Vicki and Shelley looked at each other and shrugged. Vicki said, “We probably don’t know her, but what’s she look like?”<br /><br />“Golden brown hair, um, kinda your height, I guess. She was wearing a party dress.”<br /><br />Shelley said, “What color? ‘Party dress’ doesn’t tell us squat.”<br /><br />The guy scratched his head and said, “Golden yellow.”<br /><br />Vicki shook her head. “I think I saw her last night, probably when we were dancing. Didn’t see anyone like that this morning, though.”<br /><br />The guy paled and moaned, “I must have really offended her or something. Oh, damn!”<br /><br />He pushed past them and ran out the front door before the girls could find out more. Vicki rolled her eyes and said, “If I had a dime for how many people’ve walked out on each other after screwing I could buy one of these houses.”<br /><br />The girls, walking slowly along the sidewalk in the early spring sun, only had the first inkling that something was wrong as they passed one of the large houses with a well-manicured lawn.Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11936002393931074811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-64410390447558382282011-09-26T19:43:00.000-07:002011-09-26T19:49:35.937-07:00The Courtship of Meta-Chloe, part-troiThe last few weeks had been a whirlwind for Cameron. He ran through as many interviews as he could for the story, sifting and sorting. Whenever he could, he did the interviews on-line or by phone, spending the rest of his free time studying the specially marked Bible Rayford had given him, or meeting with Rayford's pastor, Bruce. And whenever he could, he attended Sunday services and bible study. It wasn't <i>entirely</i> religious devotion... there was one other regular attendee he looked forward to seeing each time. <br />
<br />
When the GW article finally went to press, Cameron was able to breathe a huge sigh of relief. He had to re-write large parts of it just hours ahead of the deadline, and he wrestled long and hard with that decision. The pastor had actually been fairly helpful, though he did tend to eye Chloe at bible study ever since. <br />
<br />
That relaxed feeling vanished the very next Wednesday. Chloe was conspicuously absent from the prayer study, and when asked, Rayford just looked sheepish and embarrassed. (then again, Rayford looked sheepish a lot, in Cameron's opinion) Buck spent half the meeting writing a note for Rayford to give his daughter, but even simple writing gets tricky if you know that the father of the girl you're sweet on will be reading the note, and reading it <i>first</i>. <br />
<br />
Cameron was too nervous to attend the Sunday service, plus with his boss jumping ship to work for Carpathia, things were starting to slip around the office. But when he showed up for the mid-week prayer group, and Chloe still wasn't there, he started getting really confused. Rayford somehow picked up on that, and told Cameron to ride back to his house. <br />
<br />
Rayford walked Cameron up to the door, then gently laid a hand on his shoulder.<br />
<br />
"She's out back, on the porch. She's really mad at you."<br />
<br />
"She wants to talk to me?"<br />
<br />
"She doesn't know I brought you here, but she's mad, and you don't know what it was that you did to make her mad, and she's not the type to go calling, so you go back there and figure all this out with her. Now, go!" <br />
<br />
<a href="http://exharpazo.blogspot.com/2011/09/courtship-of-meta-chloe-part-troi.html">Read the rest</a><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
A solid slap on the shoulder sent Cameron stumbling through the house, towards the back porch. Chloe was sitting on a bench, smoking when she heard the door open. She quickly ducked the cigarette out of sight before she realized it was Cameron.<br />
<br />
"Oh Bucky, come to apologize have you?"<br />
<br />
"I'm... not sure what I have to apologize for, but I did sent you a note. And I did try to send you some flowers."<br />
<br />
"Hmmph. They were trashy flowers."<br />
<br />
"Yeah, well... I kinda picked 'em myself. Seems all the florists were either closed, or sold out for all the... um, remembrance ceremonies. Sorry you didn't like them, but isn't that enough of an apology for - "<br />
<br />
Chloe started to blush, then flushed with anger.<br />
<br />
"Are you kidding! Flowers you were so cheap you picked doesn't even come close to what you did!"<br />
<br />
"OK... I'm going to sound a little stupid here-"<br />
<br />
"Hah!"<br />
<br />
"... but what did I do?"<br />
<br />
Chloe sneered, grabbed a book bag from under the porch, and pulled out the latest copy of "Global Weekly"<br />
<br />
<i>"What could the cause of these mysterious disappearances be?</i> asks Global Reporter Cameron "Buck" Williams", Chloe read in a mocking tone, shifting to a hick drawl, "<i>I think it was the great Christian God, taking away the innocent and the virtuous before the final battle with Satan</i> says airline pilot Ray Steele, expressing a common fear of the supernatural..." Chloe flung the magazine at the already-cringing Buck.<br />
<br />
"I know my dad isn't as well-spoken or educated as a world-flying reporter, but <i>how dare you mock him!</i> You <b>know</b> the truth, know that he's telling the most important truth that anyone on this planet today can ever hear! And you put him next to a neck-beared <b><i>UFO-ologist!</i></b> Oh, and it's an extra-nice touch to mention his job, because if there's one thing that goes over well at airlines is newspaper articles suggesting their <b>pilots</b> might be <i>mentally unstable</i> or <i>just plain stupid!</i> He's had to walk into work for almost a week and act like he isn't under a microscope. Do you have any idea what you've done?"<br />
<br />
<b>"YES</b>, ACTUALLY," Cameron barked back, his voice slowly trailing off," I do know <i>what I've done.</i>"<br />
<br />
Cameron shut his eyes for a moment and balled his hands. He was trembling with anger, sudden and unexpected. When he opened his eyes again, Chloe looked slightly shocked, but was also biting her lower lip. Cameron took a deep breath.<br />
<br />
"I was in Botswana. I was supposed to be there for a story about AIDS medications donated from major pharmaceuticals. I was at a bush bar, when a villager, half-drunk, approached me. God knows how a scrap of my picture found its way there, but he knew I was a reporter. He gave me a lead on a story about-"<br />
<br />
"Child prostitution." Chloe cut him off. "The sex trafficking story?"<br />
<br />
"You've read it?" Cameron's mental balance was thrown; it was becoming a common occurrence around Chloe.<br />
<br />
"...while I was waiting for the story with my dad to go to press, I decided to do a little reading up on your work. Which, might I say, tends to be better than this last-"<br />
<br />
"Hey! Please, let me finish. Yes, it was about a sex trafficking network backed by former military. It was an important story, it needed to be told. But once the story broke, the mercs went looking for someone to blame. The harassed everyone I had been seen talking to. Every person at every hotel I stayed at, every cab driver, everyone. The guy at the bar? He was half-drunk because his niece was missing. He didn't know how not to draw attention. We talked <i>at the bar</i>, in plain sight of a dozen people."<br />
<br />
"They found him?" Chloe asked, already sick from suspecting the end of the story.<br />
<br />
"Of course they found him. And yes, they killed him. One of the first rules of journalism is that you <i><b>must protect your source!</b></i>"<br />
<br />
Cameron waited to see if Chloe was putting the pieces together. He couldn't tell, so he went on.<br />
<br />
"I was researching a story on 'The Event' and the vanished persons. I wound up doing over forty interviews with scientists, religious leaders, politicians, and kooks on the Internet. While everyone could find out who I talked to, anyone looking closely would find out I was spending a lot of time at a certain church..."<br />
<br />
Chloe blinked a few times, and looked down. Cameron was sure she was thinking it through to the conclusion, but kept going.<br />
<br />
"Nicolae Carpathia gets elected SecGen of the U.N., gets all kinds of absurd agreements signed, and Bruce thinks he's the AntiChrist. If I used <u>Global Weekly</u> to shout from the rooftops, I'd be killed or taken away in a black van. And then those thugs would do the same thing thugs did in Botswana, what thugs always do. And that would mean they would come here, and they would take you, and..."<br />
<br />
Chloe's face paled halfway through Cameron's speech, but by the end, she was staring intently at his face. She heard the catch in his voice, saw the despair on his face... Cameron wasn't hurt at the idea of 'thugs' hurting Bruce or Rayford or anyone else at New Hope. <br />
<br />
Buck drew a heavy sigh, and pressed on: "So Ace Reporter Bucky Williams writes... a bland article leaning heavily on the U.N. propaganda about radiation, acting as a mouthpiece for an official explanation. I'm sure my old boss is pleased by that, but I know any of my peers that read that article will think I've been feebleminded." <br />
<br />
"Isn't that a spell in Dungeons & Dragons?"<br />
<br />
Buck twitched like he'd be struck, looking confused and slightly embarrassed as he glanced over at Chloe. <i>How did she know that I played...</i> Buck flushed as he realized he didn't know until he gave it away just now. <br />
<br />
Chloe got up off the bench and walked over to Cameron. <br />
<br />
"You did a very noble and good thing. And you don't owe me any apologies. I owe you one for jumping to conclusions. I just wish you'd give me and Dad a little heads-up."<br />
<br />
"Oh. OK. I, um... well, it was a last minute change really. But um... look, since I missed you -er missed seeing you last Sunday and you weren't at Bible Study group, would you..."<br />
<br />
"Yes, <i>Bucky</i>?"<br />
<br />
"...see me off at the airport? I have to fly out tomorrow morning, but if that's all the time I have for a while, I'd like to spend it with you."<br />
<br />
She twisted her lips around in a smirk. "Just don't ask me to carry your luggage."Chris Doggetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04818552086179513521noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-16952567481477500562011-09-11T10:48:00.000-07:002011-09-11T10:57:59.746-07:00Just When Things Are Going Right Part II by Rev ApocVicki and Shelley got off the bus and began making their way to Jason Devlin’s house. Not wanting to keep gawking at the well-lit nice houses and fancy grass lawns in the evening twilight, Vicki said, “How do you even know this guy anyway? They usually don’t like us trailer kids showing up, you know.”<br /><br />Shelley waved her hand. “Oh, friend of a friend kinda thing. I know a girl who has a kind of off-and-on thing with him. She’s the one who told me about this party, actually.”<br /><br />“We had to spend <em>half an hour</em> on that stupid bus stopping at like every intersection along the way here, Shel. I’m gonna be so choked if they don’t let us in to <em>at least</em> get a beer,” groused Vicki.<br /><br />They were coming up to the large house which took up the entire end of a cul-de-sac. The windows blazed with light and the girls could see several shadows in them, showing that tha party was starting to get going. Shelley brushed Vicki’s hair back and said, “Don’t worry about it. With that red hair and that lipstick you’re a bombshell. Just flash your boobs or something.”<br /><br />Vicki, stunned, burst out laughing. Shelley, after a moment, joined in and the two girls had to hold each other up as they got themselves under control.<br /><br />Vicki studied Shelley’s outfit closely. Her friend was wearing the only high heels she owned, and she was dressed in a skin-tight one-piece black dress. Shelley had put on some make-up and brilliant red lipstick.<br /><br />Shelley seemed to notice and said, “Is something wrong?”<br /><br />Vicki stopped, looked at the house pensively and rubbed her hands on her shirt. “No. Just… how do I look? Okay?”<br /><br />“You look great, honestly. I already told you that back at the trailer park. Just be careful, though; that white T-shirt looks like it might pop if you try buttoning it up all the way. And that skirt! I’d like to borrow it from you sometime. It shows off your legs.”<br /><br />Vicki fleetingly wondered if that compliment was Shelley trying to tell Vicki something. Feeling a bit more fortified, she grinned and said, “Babe, this shirt? That’s the general idea. C’mon.”<br /><br />She tugged at her friend’s arm and walked up to the outsized front door.<br /><br />Luckily, nobody threw them out, and after pressing their way through the small groups of people that had formed in the hallways, Shelley and Vicki were able to grab two cups of beer from the guys manning a long table with a couple of kegs sitting on it.<br /><br />“Woohoo!” yelled Vicki as she knocked her cup against Shelley’s. She took a healthy gulp, feeling the liquor going down her throat. Shelley, gasping from the cold beer herself, nodded and said, “Pretty good stuff this time.”<br /><br />Vicki’s purse shifted, and she smacked her forehead. “Shit! What do we do with our purses?”<br /><br />“Goddamnit,” swore Shelley as she looked around. Vicki followed her gaze as it locked onto a brown-haired guy standing next to a table with a lamp on it in the large living room. He was talking with a cute black-haired guy who she thought she remembered from the basketball team, but his name escaped her.<br /><br />Shelley tugged her along, and when she was within talking distance, she said, “Jason! Remember me? Shelley? Jasmine’s friend?”<br /><br />He blinked and nodded slowly. “Yeah. Um, whaddya need?”<br /><br />“I’ve gotta put my purse somewhere safe, and so does my friend Vicki.”<br /><br />Vicki locked eyes with the black-haired guy, and she noticed he had dark brown eyes, like her. Right now, though, he seemed to be regarding her a bit distantly. <br /><em>. Damn it, just because I didn’t grow up in a fancy house like this,</em> thought Vicki furiously.<br /><br />She hid it all behind a fake smile and an insincere, “Hi.”<br /><br />The black-haired guy nodded brusquely and Jason took the strain off the meeting by suddenly recalling a small closet in the back of the house. He led Vicki and Shelley away from the family room and through an extremely nice-looking dining room (which, luckily, had been cleared of anything breakable, Vicki noticed) and into a corridor. There, Jason stopped them and said, “If you keep going down this hallway, you’ll end up in the garage. Here, just put your purses in this closet here.”<br /><br />He opened a closet which had a few coats in it, and had nothing on the floor. The two girls put their purses on the floor and then went back to rejoin the groups of people and see if they knew anyone from school they could hang out with.<br /><br />===<br /><br />Jason rejoined Judd and said, “Hey. You okay?”<br /><br />“Why trailer chicks, Jase?” He gestured with his beer at the girls who’d just left. They were kind of cute, but dating one? Kiss of death at school.<br /><br />Jason rolled his eyes. “Come on. Look, I’ve sort of known Shelley off and on and she’s all right. I mean,<em>Jasmine</em>says she’s a nice girl, and Jas isn’t trailer trash. You’d think she’d know if anyone from the trailer park was just a total skank, man.”<br /><br />Judd waggled his eyebrows. “I’m sure between the sheets she’s nice, too.”<br /><br />“Hey, shut up,” replied Jason, chuckling. “Look, I’m gonna put on some music and go find Jas. You find a girl to chat up or something, people see us hanging around all night they might start wonderin’ what’s up.”<br /><br />Judd found a cluster of his basketball teammates; just as he did so, the music began loudly playing and they all had to bellow at each other to be understood. Judd began thinking the only worthwhile thing was the beer, which never seemed to stop flowing.<br /><br />An impromptu dance floor had been created in the center of the living room, and Judd saw that Jason and Jasmine were dancing. He felt a bit jealous that he didn’t have a girlfriend with him at the moment, though he was pretty sure he’d seen a couple of girls at the party checking him out, one of them a blond cheerleader he spotted on the other side of the room.<br /><br />Judd, concentrating on moving between the people to chat up the cheerleader, didn’t quite see where he was going and nearly bumped into the redheaded trailer girl, who had to steady herself by putting her hand on his chest for a moment. He flushed in embarrassment and bellowed, “Sorry!”<br /><br />She nodded, gripped her fresh beer more carefully, and yelled back, “It’s fine!”<br /><br />As she trailed her way through the crowd, Judd couldn’t help but follow her with his eyes. That red hair really made her stand out. And she knew how to show off what she had, that was for sure.<br /><br />Shaking his head, he muttered, “Kiss of death, kiss of death…”<br /><br />===<br /><br />Shelley handed her back the cup of beer she’d just downed half the contents of, and Vicki took a sip, noticing with some concern that it was already getting harder to stand up straight.<br /><br />Vicki had to admit the black-haired guy, whose name she learned was Judd Thompson, was pretty hot up close. He had a nice set of muscles under that shirt of his, that was for sure. But damn it, he’d never end up with her except for a quickie if he was super drunk and super horny. Shelley had told her of the Football Bastard, Geoff, who’d just looked right through her the day after they’d slept together.<br /><br />So why did Vicki keep thinking there might be some hidden depths to that Judd guy?<br /><br />She decided to quit wasting her time, and said, “C’mon, Shel, let’s dance! Who cares what the rest of these idiots think.”<br /><br />Her friend’s grin prompted her to grin, too, as they made their way to the dance floor and began dancing to the pounding beat. Vicki loved seeing the way Shelley put her moves together, and she knew she could pull off moves just as good. Smirking as more and more boys started looking at her, she kept up the pace as the music kept playing.<br /><br />===<br /><br />The blond cheerleader’s name was Mona. Judd said, “So what’s that you’re wearing?” He wondered what the white blousy skirt thing was.<br /><br />She beamed. “This thing? A Jersey dress. You like it?” She winked.<br /><br />“Yeah, I like it. So you’re the team captain, or what?” Judd fleetingly noticed the red-headed girl dancing with her friend, and several of his basketball teammates looking on with envy. He reluctantly turned his attention back to Mona.<br /><br />Mona drank a bit of beer and said, “Nah, I’m co-captain. So me and Liz, we have to argue over what moves and dances we’ve got to put on and then choreograph it all for the rest of the team.”<br /><br />Judd thought she looked good. She had cute hazel eyes and was fairly tanned, which spoke of many hours outside the gym, practicing cheerleading routines.<br /><br />He looked around and spotted the easy chair someone had just vacated. “Hey, wanna sit down?”<br /><br />Mona grasped Judd’s arm and said, “Okay, but I’m not sitting in your lap – yet.”<br /><br />Judd sat in the chair while Mona sat on the arm. He thought it wasn’t too uncomfortable to look up at her, but wished she hadn’t put her butt so close to his arm. He fiddled with his beer cup in his lap as Mona took a large drink. She then put her empty cup on the nearby table, which already had several other plastic cups on it surrounding the lamp.<br /><br />Mona’s hand on his shoulder surprised him. “So, Judd, what about you? Basketball, right?”<br /><br />He nodded. “Yeah. I’m a power forward.”<br /><br />“Cool. When’s the next game?”<br /><br />Judd, intrigued, said, “I thought football cheerleaders didn’t go to basketball games.”<br /><br />Mona giggled. “Oh, come on, Judd. Not like there’s a law against it, is there? Now tell me, when’s the next game? I’ll cheer for you specially.”<br /><br />“Couple of weeks. We’re playing against the senior varsity team.”<br /><br />“Isn’t that kind of out of your league? You guys’re JV, right?”<br /><br />Judd nodded. “It’s kind of a warmup, but whoever wins kinda has bragging rights for a while, especially if it’s us ‘cause eighteen-year-olds are taller and stronger, usually.”<br /><br />“Hmm.”<br /><br />Judd hesitated, then put his arm around Mona’s waist. He said, “C’mon, have a seat now?”<br /><br />She didn’t shake his hand off, which Judd thought was a good thing. Mona seemed to think for a few moments, then said, “Okay. But if you try anything—”<br /><br />“I won’t, I promise,” replied Judd. “I just, um, think you’re cute.”<br /><br />Mona carefully sat in Judd’s lap, shifting so she could see him. Luckily, the easy chair was wide enough to let her sit at an angle, and she put her arm around his shoulders.<br /><br />She said into his ear, “I think you’re cute, too.”<br /><br />Judd relaxed and tried not to focus too much on his hand now resting between Mona’s shoulder blades. She smelled nice, too.<br /><br />A slow dance number came on, and Judd looked up, seeing the red-haired girl and her friend walk off the dance floor. They looked around furtively, and then left in the direction of the stairs. Judd knew there were several rooms on the second floor. He wondered if they were going to find some guys.<br /><br />His attention came back to Mona as she said, “You go to church or anything like that?”<br /><br />The music was just quiet enough that Judd and Mona could talk in low voices and be heard.<br /><br />Judd laughed. “You’re asking <em>that</em> at this party?”<br /><br />She shrugged. “Why not? The Bible tells us our ancestors drank beer and danced and still praised the Lord.”<br /><br />“Not to hear my parents tell it, that’s for sure,” groaned Judd.<br /><br />Mona gestured at the other people. “To be fair, this normally wouldn’t be the time or place. But…”<br /><br />Her face grew pensive. “I’ve just got a feeling something’s going to happen tonight, and I thought I should at least try to reach out.”<br /><br />Judd laughed and said a bit harshly, “Reaching out? So it’s flirt to convert, huh?”<br /><br />Mona, distressed, shook her head and replied, “Heavens, no! Look, I… oh, this is coming out all wrong. I’m sorry. Please, forget about it.”<br /><br />She looked so sincerely apologetic and flustered that Judd had a hard time staying upset.<br /><br />“It’s okay. I just get it from my parents, too, so I probably was ruder than I should’ve been,” Judd conceded.<br /><br />Mona seemed relieved. She said, “Now, believe it or not, but Christians do know how to have fun; lemme show you.”<br /><br />She leaned over and kissed Judd, who gladly opened his mouth to lock lips with Mona. His free hand wandered to her leg, and she didn’t swat it away.<br /><br />===<br /><br />Vicki wasn’t sure how long they’d been dancing when they finished, but she’d been wanting a drink for a while. She grabbed another beer – this time, a cold bottle – and took a healthy slug from it as she followed Shelley upstairs. She had seemed a little nervous when trying to get away from the dance, and this had made Vicki look around too, but she hadn’t seen anything wrong; she was pretty sure Shelley didn’t have any creepy stalker exes.<br /><br />They found the stairs leading to the second floor of the large house, passing by other people coming downstairs who had satisfied looks on their faces. It didn’t take a genius, Vicki thought, to realize what was happening on the upstairs floor as she and Shelley carefully made their way up the steps, trying not to overbalance due to the alcohol running through their veins.<br /><br />Passing by the first room in the long hallway certainly proved that making out (and probably more) was a popular sport as there were couples sprawled over the couches and even one couple on the floor.<br /><br />Shelley seemed to be hunting for an empty room; Vicki rolled her eyes and said, “Shel? There <em>are</em>no empty rooms. There’ve been people on the beds in the last two rooms, and I bet the next room’ll have people, too.”<br /><br />Vicki looked on, astonished, as Shelley grabbed the beer out of her hand and drank off nearly a quarter of the bottle. She grabbed Shelley’s shoulder and steadied her friend as she said, “What? What’s wrong?”<br /><br />Her friend licked her lips and slurred, “Need to find a room, okay?”<br /><br />They lucked out as they finally spotted a small walk-in closet just off a bedroom that, in the light briefly thrown into the room, showed two human-sized lumps on the bed. Inside the closet, Vicki reached up, felt the thin metal beads jangling against her hand and pulled, turning the light on inside the closet as Shelley closed the door and took another sip of beer before handing the bottle to Vicki, who carefully set it in a corner of the closet where she wouldn’t knock it over.<br /><br />It was just large enough for two people to walk into, but they would have to leave single-file. The wall opposite the door was behind Vicki, as she’d walked in first.<br /><br />Shelley’s hands shook. She nervously said slowly and carefully, “Would you be mad if… uh, I told you something?”<br /><br />Vicki knew, from being fairly drunk herself, that when you talked like that, you were concentrating entirely just on thinking about the one thing you were discussing. This must be super-important, thought Vicki as she wondered what her friend had needed all that beer for in order to loosen her tongue.<br /><br />“No, Shel. I… I promise,” Vicki said, enunciating her own words carefully.<br /><br />Shelley’s hand moved to Vicki’s hair, and she began fiddling with the ends. “I—just—Ikindoflikeyou,” she blurted.<br /><br />Vicki chuckled in disbelief as she swayed, trying to regain her balance. This couldn’t be happening, could it? Her friend – her very attractive friend – was lesbian or bisexual?<br /><br />Vicki wondered if that was just the beer talking, but hoped it was more than that. She tried to steady her breathing as her heart hammered against her chest. She suddenly realized how wide Shelley’s eyes were, and how she seemed to be readying for a bad reaction as she tried to stay steady on her feet. Maybe, just <br /><em>maybe</em>...<br /><br />Vicki said soothingly, “Look, it’s okay. I like you too, Shel.”<br /><br />She put her hands on Shelley’s shoulders to try and calm her. She could feel her friend’s shoulders shaking slightly. Shelley gasped, “Oh wow! You’re… a lesbian, Vick?”<br /><br />“Bi, actually.”<br /><br />Shelley’s tension vanished as she grinned drunkenly. “Oh, this is so awesome!”<br /><br />She hugged Vicki, who smiled into Shelley’s shoulder as she returned the embrace. The words began spilling out of Shelley’s mouth. “Oh God, I was so terrified of telling you, because we’ve been friends for like forever and I was afraid you weren’t into girls like I was and you wouldn’t like me.”<br /><br />“Hey. Shh, it’s okay.” Vicki rubbed her friend’s back, easing the tension out of Shelley as the other girl relaxed. <br /><br />Shelley leaned back, and Vicki was never quite sure afterwards how it happened, but suddenly, both seemed drawn to each other and the two friends began kissing. Their hands soon started roaming, as well.Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11936002393931074811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-24341825238968129652011-09-04T14:06:00.001-07:002011-09-04T14:08:27.318-07:00Just When Things Are Going Right by Rev Apoc[ I want to thank Mouse from Mouse’s Musings for being gracious enough to host this story on Right Behind as well as providing the impetus and encouragement to start this AU story about Left Behind: The Kids.
<br />
<br />I’d also like to thank VMink, who took time out of a busy schedule to read this and comment on it for me.
<br />
<br />Finally, please note that while some canon elements are the same, I’ve chosen to introduce, omit, or change characters as need be to help make more realistic, likable versions of Judd Thompson and Vicki Byrne. ]
<br />
<br />===
<br />
<br />Judd Thompson wasn’t unusual, as teenagers went. Sixteen years old, played basketball at high school and partied after the games, win or lose; maybe smoked a joint between beers. He’d dated a couple of girls, but for the moment he was just playing the field.
<br />
<br />Lately, though, it seemed like his dad and his mom were just constantly on his case about something or other. He didn’t clean his room well enough. He left his plates in the sink. He didn’t switch the outdoor light off on the way to his bedroom. He didn’t come along to church. He didn’t do this, he didn’t do that.
<br />
<br />Thinking back, he realized it had been three days before The Event that he’d cut afternoon classes with his friend Jason, knowing Mr. Stewart wouldn’t mark him absent from History. Kind of helped that he was also the school’s basketball coach.
<br />
<br />Judd had spent an hour killing time with Jason but still got home earlier than usual, so neither of his parents were home, but the mail had been delivered. He’d idly flipped through the pile of envelopes, dropping them one by one onto the kitchen table as he wondered if any were for him. Since he and his father had the same name, they sometimes got their mail crossed. He saw the “Citibank” return address on one of the envelopes, and felt around it, noticing the stiff part that meant a credit card had to be inside it.
<br />
<br />Later, the only really good explanation he could come up with for what he was about to do was that he’d been frustrated, annoyed and just fed up. He’d had yet another round of fighting with his dad that morning about not attending church again, and then at school he found out he’d bombed the English quiz from the day before.
<br />
<br />Not that it really excused what he did.
<br />
<br />He went up to his bedroom, closed the door and sat on his bed, fiddling with the envelope. It was addressed to “Judd Thompson”, but Judd knew without a doubt that meant his father. Nobody gave teenagers credit cards.
<br />
<br />Judd licked his lips, then ripped the envelope open and took out the contents. He noticed that there was a pre-approved card with a $5000 credit limit. All he had to do was activate the thing. He hesitantly plucked the card away from the form letter, and began picking off the sticky silly-putty-like stuff still stuck to the back of the shiny plastic.
<br />
<br />If I could just get away from here for a while, he thought.
<br />
<br />Suddenly, the card opened up a vista of possibilities. He and his friend Jason could go on a nice long trip, catch a few NBA games, maybe even pick up a few girls. He had a cousin down in Baltimore he might be able to crash at for a few nights.
<br />
<br />Judd grabbed his cordless phone and began dialling the number on the back of “his” credit card. He told himself he’d just use it for a while, then cut the card up.
<br />
<br />But not before he used it to have a little fun.
<br />
<br />===
<br />
<br />Vicki Byrne stormed out of her trailer, wondering when her mother would just get the point. She didn’t want to hear about her grades, about her dresses, about whatever. Her parents could God-bother her some other time too – preferably much later than now, as far as she was concerned.
<br />
<br />She was fourteen, and like several other girls in her school, she liked to drink and smoke, and cut classes now and then. She didn’t think that was worth all the fuss, but her mother clearly had different ideas.
<br />
<br />Vicki’s dad wasn’t as bad about nagging her, but she thought it was more because he didn’t have time for her anymore. He was seriously trying to hold down the latest job he’d managed to get, which meant he could be out on 12-hour shifts sometimes. He’d come home, shower briefly, try to eat a little bit of dinner at nine o’clock, then shuffle off to bed for more of the same starting at six in the morning.
<br />
<br />It was almost like he wasn’t there these days even when his body was at the dinner table. But, mused Vicki, at least they’d laid off the drinking for a few weeks now. Maybe that was why her mom was being crabbier than usual; waitressing at the truck stop on the highway probably didn’t help a lot.
<br />
<br />Her friend Shelley Brown, who lived in the trailer across the way and was sitting on the front stairs, eyed her up and down and said, “Lookin’ dressed to kill today, huh?”
<br />
<br />Vicki knew she looked older than fourteen, and she’d soon gotten the knack of dressing like the older girls at her school did. She rolled her eyes and replied, “My mom was just raggin’ on me again about this stupid skirt. The way she tells it I should dress like a nun for the rest of my life.”
<br />
<br />Shelley laughed. Vicki liked hearing that laugh. It wasn’t a nasty laugh like some of the richer kids had when they sneered at Vicki for being “trailer trash”, or a patronizing laugh like that jerk Daniel had when he was talking at her like she didn’t know anything about cars when he was bragging about his souped-up Camaro. It hadn’t helped that he’d been staring at her chest half the time.
<br />
<br />Shelley was attractive, Vicki thought. Straight black hair, light blue eyes, lips that stood out so well with red lipstick and a body to match Vicki’s. The two girls had danced together at a couple of parties, but other than that, Vicki didn’t know if Shelley felt about her the way she felt about Shelley.
<br />
<br />Vicki bit her thumbnail and tried to take her mind off the track it was running in. She said, “Hey, wanna get out of here for a bit and have a smoke down by the pond? I blew my science quiz today and you already know my mom was at me again about stuff.”
<br />
<br />Shelley smiled. “Yeah. Gimme a sec, gonna run in and grab my purse, okay?” She stood up and dashed in her trailer, letting the screen door shut with a clack.
<br />
<br />Soon, Shelley was back and the pair walked in the direction of the small forested pond behind the trailer park.
<br />
<br />The two girls sat on the old bench facing the pond. Vicki looked up; the late-afternoon sky was a nice clear blue, though some of the sticky humidity that portended summer was evident. Shelley opened her purse and rummaged for the cigarette pack she’d taken from her mom’s stash.
<br />
<br />Vicki grabbed her cigarette and Shelley’s lighter, not waiting for the other girl to light her up. As soon as the embers at the end began glowing, she inhaled deeply, then let the smoke trail out her nostrils as she breathed out. She already felt calmer, less stressed out. She tossed the lighter back at Shelley, who lit her own cigarette.
<br />
<br />“Hey, Vicki?” Shelley said after a drag.
<br />
<br />Vicki looked at her friend and at her concerned expression, she replied, “What? Do I have something on my face?” She gestured vaguely with her right hand, her left hand flicking the ashes off her cigarette in the direction of the pond.
<br />
<br />“No. Just… you look like you’re close to biting someone’s head off. You didn’t even wait for me to light your smoke like I usually do.”
<br />
<br />Vicki took another drag off her cigarette and sighed. “Yeah, I guess. It’s just… My mom and dad don’t even seem to know they’re just winding me up with all this do-better-this and stop-doing-that and it just never ends, you know? Man, I’m so glad you found out there’s gonna be a party this weekend, Shel.”
<br />
<br />Shelley moved closer and put her hand out. Vicki clasped it in response, feeling the strength in her friend’s grip. Solid. Reassuring.
<br />
<br />“It’ll be okay, Vicki. Look, if it gets too much, I’m sure you could stay over for a couple of nights. Mom’d be cool with it.”
<br />
<br />Vicki smiled. “Thanks. Boy, I can’t wait for that party.”
<br />
<br />Shelley grinned and released Vicki’s hand. She said, “Maybe we can find you a cute guy there.”
<br />
<br />Vicki laughed. “What about you, huh?”
<br />
<br />Shelley just smiled and took a drag off her cigarette.
<br />
<br />===
<br />
<br />“Boy, I can’t wait for the party at your place tonight, Jason,” said Judd as he heaved a sigh and threw the books he didn’t need into his locker. He stuffed his backpack with what he needed, and made a note to stop by the ATM on the way home.
<br />
<br />It had been a piece of cake to get authorized for a cash withdrawal PIN. Judd figured if he had about a thousand bucks saved up, he could let Jason in on the plan and they’d sneak off on the upcoming spring break to see Drew in Baltimore.
<br />
<br />Jason grinned and thumped Judd’s shoulder. “Me too. Hey, need a ride home?”
<br />
<br />“Sure; I didn’t bring my car today.” Judd closed his locker, locked it up and the two went to Jason’s car. Inside the car, he said to Jason, “What’s the occasion anyway? We don’t have any intramural games right now and the football guys don’t have theirs until next week.”
<br />
<br />Jason grinned cockily as he drove the car out of the school parking lot. “Kegger night. Dad’s already taken off for a week to somewhere with this lady he’s seeing and my brother Randy’s coming down with whatever you can fit into a pickup truck.”
<br />
<br />Judd whistled. “Is he loaded or something?”
<br />
<br />“He got a full ride at college, so all the money Dad sends is just gravy. I’m helping pay for some of it too ‘cause Dad left some spending money.”
<br />
<br />“Nice. Hey, stop at that 7-11, wouldya?” asked Judd as he pointed to the store coming up the road.
<br />
<br />There was an ATM in the store; not too many customers were inside and the clerk was engrossed in a newspaper. Judd withdrew the maximum daily limit, which was $400, and made sure nobody was paying attention as he stuffed all the bills into his backpack except for a twenty. He bought a couple of Cokes and gave one to Jason as he got back in the car.
<br />
<br />“Feelin’ generous, are you?” joked Jason.
<br />
<br />“Why not? Dad finally coughed up my allowance,” answered Judd easily.
<br />
<br />Judd turned on the radio and the two boys listened to the music playing for the rest of the way home.
<br />
<br />At Judd’s place, Jason said, “Come on over around seven or eight, huh? Things should be going pretty well by then.”
<br />
<br />Judd answered with a thumbs-up before he got out of the car and went into his house, remembering to toss his empty Coke can in the recycle box. He made a beeline for his bedroom and quietly locked the door. He pulled out a shoebox hidden under several others at the back of his closet and stuffed the thick wad of bills in with the rest, which were now creatively stuffed in between his golf shoes. He figured there was a thousand dollars in there now. He decided to wait for one more withdrawal, then talk to Jason after the party was over.
<br />
<br />After replacing the box, he reflected that he wasn’t going to play golf any time soon if he could help it. His dad seemed to have a fascination with the whole whacking-a-ball-around thing, but Judd couldn’t see the point to it. He made sure to unlock the door again before doing his homework.
<br />
<br />Judd fiddled around with his math homework, not really puzzling out the answers so much as just staring at the questions. What on Earth, he thought, was he going to use freakin’ conic sections for?
<br />
<br />Dinner was a welcome distraction as he ate his beef and veggies. Judd then grudgingly helped clear the table before escaping back up to his room to get changed for the party. Half an hour later, he was in his best jeans and a tight-fitting T-shirt. He grabbed just his house keys, deciding to leave his wallet behind. Jason was only a ten-minute walk away, anyway.
<br />
<br />Mousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11936002393931074811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-90703137223094847862011-08-30T18:55:00.000-07:002011-08-30T19:10:01.958-07:00Left Behind plus Zombies: ExtractBackground: a quick writing exercise I did after <a href="http://formerconservative.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/zombies-are-a-part-of-satanic-conditionong/">somebody</a> mentioned the two subjects above in the same sentence. This is a single page extract of a much larger story that, sadly, does not exist.
<br />
<br />...
<br />
<br />“Come ON! MOVE!” Buck shouted, motioning frantically as Chloe ran backwards through the O’Hare terminal, blowing off the head of the nearest lunging, ravenous monster with her shotgun. She tossed him the walkie talkie and he pressed the button, taking one-handed aim with his pistol as dozens more screaming, bloodstained undead burst through the glass doors. Chloe narrowed her eyes, still pouring buckshot into the oncoming hoard as they run backwards towards the opening to the runway.
<br />
<br />“I think we’re in trouble…”
<br />
<br />“Rayford! Rayford, where the hell are you with that plane?!”
<br />
<br />“Dammit Buck I’m bringing her in as fast as I can! Touching down now!”
<br />
<br />Rayford Steele brought Global Community One into abrupt contact with the ground, staring at the wreckages of other planes strewn across the runway as they zipped past. Lurching figures were taken by surprise and crushed under the planes wheels. The screech of the brakes against the wheels drowned out their angry vocalisations.
<br />
<br />Nicolae sat next to him in the co-pilots seat. Whatever else Rayford might think of the man, Nicolae had saved his life: the <i>thing</i> that used to be Hattie would have killed him if not for Nicholae. The man was even more pale than usual, his eyes were closed, and he appeared to have lost consiousness. Rayford wasn’t surprised: Carpathia had lost a lot of blood through the bite on his shoulder. But there was nothing do for him at the moment: not if he wanted to save Buck and Chloe.
<br />
<br />The pistol in Bucks hand clicked, empty, and he threw it away as he turned to run. Chloe followed, frantically fumbling more shells into her shotgun as the roaring, screeching hoard of gaunt, dark figures followed. They scrambled down a broken corridor onto the tarmac, and Buck turned to see a welcome sight: the headlights of Global Community One bearing down the main tarmac towards them. Chloe rapidly fired her weapon into the bottleneck they’d just escaped from, clogging it with inert corpses as they ran for the plane.
<br />
<br />Rayford saw the gunfire and his heart raced quicker as he turned the plane with agonising slowness, preparing to take off the moment everyone was aboard. There was a moan beside him. It sounded like Nicloae was waking up.
<br />
<br />Rayford glanced over at Nicolae and found himself looking into pale, pupiless grey eyes. Dead eyes.
<br />
<br />He screamed in terror as the zombie Carpathia let out an inhuman roar and leapt for his throat.
<br />
<br />...Quasarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09398018171200335379noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-37316496809290823822011-03-24T02:26:00.000-07:002011-03-24T02:43:45.977-07:00FUNERAL FOR A HATCHET<b>Starring Verna Zee & Cameron "Buck" Williams</b><br /><br />Verna yawned and looked down at her watch: 9:13 pm. Time flew when you were having fun, she thought. She wished that she could have some so that it would. She wished that she weren't so swamped in work, that she could have gone home at a reasonable time like everybody else at the Chicago offices of GW had. But the deadline was approaching fast.<br /><br />Before the Event, she would have berated herself for putting things off until the last minute, and if she'd been in charge back then she might have berated those working under her as well. But they had lived through what might have been--what certainly FELT like--the worst disaster in the world's history. Few of her co-workers were able to function consistently, and they weren't always able to pull themselves together quickly enough to get everything done as scheduled. She could relate. She hadn't exactly been steady as a rock herself. It was rare these days to find anybody who was. Firing anybody for anything less than egregious failure to perform their duties wasn't an option; after all, where would she find replacements without the same problems, who'd been spared the same trauma?<br /><br />So here she was, working late, working her ass off to pick up the slack and make sure the issue went out on time.<br /><br />Thankfully, she was almost finished.<br /><br />She heard the door to the office open and close.<br /><br />"Hello?" she called out.<br /><br />"Oh, hi Verna," replied a familiar voice, one that she hadn't expected to hear again anytime soon. "It's me, Buck."<br /><br /><i>Great,</i> Verna thought. <i>Just what I didn't need.</i><br /><br />"What are you doing back here?"<br /><br />"Well, I think I left my phone here by accident. I'd be lost without it. Um, have you seen it?"<br /><br />Verna relaxed a little. Williams seemed different than when she last saw him. He wasn't confrontational. He wasn't acting like he was God's gift to the world of journalism. Maybe she didn't have anything to worry about.<br /><br />"I'm not sure. You could try your cubicle--well, the cubicle I'd assigned you before you made other arrangements."<br /><br />As she remembered how that had happened earlier in the day, some of the resentment started to come back.<br /><br />"I'll have a look," Williams said before heading to the back of the office. Verna turned her attention back to her computer, hoping to focus more on her work and a lot less on Cameron Williams.<br /><br />"Yeah, it was there. Thanks Verna," Williams said as he walked back into view.<br /><br />"You're welcome," she responded flatly, not looking up. <i>Now go away.</i><br /><br />She heard Williams take a few steps toward the door, and then stop.<br /><br />"Verna?"<br /><br /><i>God damn it, what does he want now?</i><br /><br />"What?"<br /><br />"I...um...I owe you an apology."<br /><br />An apology? From the allegedly legendary Buck Williams? This was something new. Verna looked up, surprised. She had no idea how to respond. After a few seconds, Williams--who looked genuinely contrite--went on.<br /><br />"I've been thinking about what happened earlier today, and, um...well, you can believe this or not, but I'm trying to be a better person than I used to. And part of being a better person means that I've got to learn to admit when I've been wrong. I remember how I treated you when I had your job, telling you that you were out of line for moving into Lucinda's office. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's where your hostility toward me comes from, and I guess maybe I deserve it. I'm sorry."<br /><br /><i>Is it really a good idea to get into this right now?</i> Verna asked herself. Maybe this guy was more reasonable than she thought. Maybe it would feel good to get some stuff off her chest...then again, maybe talking to him about that stuff would result in an even uglier argument. And she had work to do...<br /><br />Oh, screw it.<br /><br />"I appreciate that," Verna said, getting out of her chair and walking around her desk to lean against it as she continued. "And you're right. Getting chewed out like that wasn't exactly the high point of my week, you know? So I admit, when I learned you'd be working under me, I was looking forward to getting even. Maybe <i>I</i> owe <i>you</i> an apology for that, because maybe I went overboard. But there's more to it than just that. Are you willing to listen?"<br /><br />"I'm listening," Buck answered with a nod.<br /><br />"Okay. For starters, there's the <i>reason</i> you were assigned here. You were supposed to be covering a story. You didn't show up to cover it. And when Stanton Bailey called you on that, you lied to him. You said that you were there despite a ton of evidence to the contrary. So you were insulting his intelligence, and you were insulting the intelligenge of everybody else you repeated that lie to, including me. I don't know what to make of that, Cameron. As you said, you had this job before me. How would you react if one of your subordinates did the same thing?"<br /><br />Buck rested his chin in his hand and closed his eyes, evidently thinking it over. Finally he looked back up.<br /><br />"You're right, I wouldn't take it very well either," he finally responded. "I might fire me, too."<br /><br /><i>Well, this is going better than I thought. Still...</i><br /><br />"Can you tell me <i>why</i> you kept on lying? I honestly don't know what to make of it. Usually when somebody keeps repeating a lie that nobody's going to believe, it means there's something wrong with them. It means, I don't know, that they're either compulsive or delusional. I'm not calling you names," Verna quickly added as she saw Buck open his mouth. "I'm just trying to make sense of this, to understand it. A lot of people aren't 100% mentally since going through the events of that day, and maybe they won't ever recover fully. I'd be lying if I told you that I didn't have bad days myself. Will you tell me why you did it?"<br /><br />A long pause, and then...<br /><br />"You're right, Verna, I lied," Buck said in a resigned tone. "And yeah, I was affected by the Event. I was as shaken up as anybody. I was on a flight when everybody vanished, and you know how many planes ended up crashing. I thought that I was gonna die. Later on, somebody actually <i>did</i> try to kill me with a car bomb in England, and..."<br /><br />Buck seemed to be struggling to figure out how to say the next part.<br /><br />"And what?" Verna asked gently after ten seconds or so. "Can you talk about it?"<br /><br />"Yes, it's just...embarrassing..." Buck answered. "I was under a lot of stress, obviously. So what happened in New York was that I got stuck in traffic. I didn't get to the U.N. on time. I missed the story, and when I got the call from Bailey I just...God this is so stupid...I just panicked. I said I was there, like some stupid little kid who breaks a lamp with his parents in the next room, and then lies about it because he thinks that admitting it will get him in more trouble. Even though they know he was the only one in the room and they heard the lamp break. I wasn't thinking straight, Verna. The stress finally got to me, I guess. I was afraid. I don't think you're stupid, I don't think Stanton's stupid, I just...I wasn't right. I realize now that telling the truth from the start would've been better, but..."<br /><br />He trailed off.<br /><br />"I believe you," Verna said with a sympathetic nod. "I mentioned that a lot of people were still feeling the effects of the Event. Sometimes they have panic attacks. Sometimes they just seem to go into a catatonic state where they can't do anything. It's a terrible time to live through."<br /><br />"Yes, it is," Buck said, almost in a whisper.<br /><br />"You might have thought that I was being spiteful, telling you that you weren't going to cover anything major. And that was partly true, and I ought to be better than that. Let bygones be bygones and such. But even so, there was a question of your reliability. You got demoted for a reason, and you can't expect to be treated the same as you were before. You've got to prove yourself all over again, Cameron. I understand why you screwed up, but you still screwed up, and there are consequences that go with that."<br /><br />"I suppose you're right. Can you do me a favor, though? This might seem silly, but...could you please not call me Cameron?"<br /><br />"I...suppose..." Verna said, wondering at why he would feel the need to bring up his nickname now. "Why does it matter?"<br /><br />"I don't know, I've just always HATED the name 'Cameron' for some reason. I don't like the way it sounds. Every time I've introduced myself, it's been as 'Buck Williams', and usually nobody really makes a big deal of it, asks what my real name is, nothing like that."<br /><br />"I guess I can sort of relate to that. I didn't used to like 'Verna' either."<br /><br />She gave him a slight smile.<br /><br />"Okay, 'Buck' it is."<br /><br />"Cool. Thanks...'Ms. Zee'," he answered with a little smile of his own. "This is actually going a lot better than I thought."<br /><br />Verna chuckled.<br /><br />"What's funny?"<br /><br />"I was thinking the exact same thing! I don't mind telling you, Ca--Buck, I spent this whole day trying to put that scene between us out of my mind, and failing. You really got to me earlier. So I'm glad we're clearing the air here."<br /><br />"You got to me, too. I think it'd be good for us to talk about that, but I want to think about the most tactful way to put it...can you give me a second? Oh hell, actually I guess it's not important. You were working when I came in, and I've probably held you up too much already. We don't need to talk about it. I should probably get out of your hair..."<br /><br />"No, it's okay. I was just finishing up, and I want to hear what you have to say. Earlier today I couldn't stand you, but you really do seem like a different guy tonight."<br /><br />"I'll take that as a compliment, I guess," Buck said. "Well, you seem to be really concerned with, um...I'll say assserting your authority, and not just with me. Your secretary Alice, for instance, seemed really worried about getting in trouble with you. And there was what you said about how you expected all of your subordinates to call you 'Ms. Zee'. Not just me, but everybody. And that word, 'subordinate'...it just rubs me the wrong way, and I bet it rubs other people the wrong way too."<br /><br />"I don't think it's too much to ask that people talk to me respectfully around here," Verna answered.<br /><br />"You're right, it isn't. But Verna, less than a month ago all of these people were your equals here. They used to call you 'Verna' instead of 'Ms. Zee'--or so I assume--and you used to think of them as Alice or Bob or Carol instead of 'subordinates'. Or so I assume again. By insisting on this rigid protocol...well, to be blunt, I think you're making the same mistake I did with you. You didn't like it when I reminded you that I was the boss and you were the subordinate. I don't think anybody would have liked that."<br /><br />Verna had her mouth half-open to say that people didn't have to like it, before it sunk in that there actually <i>were</i> some similarities between the way Buck had reinforced their respective places in the GW pecking order and the way she'd done the same, not just with Buck, but with a number of others as well. And while maybe Buck had asked for it, not everybody in this office had acted like Buck Williams.<br /><br />"Go on..."<br /><br />"Well, I won't pretend to be an expert on management...and like I said, I'm making some assumptions here without knowing what your working relationship with the other people here was like before your promotion...but think about what we're doing here. We're addressing the problems we've got, we agree that it's been going well. And I think a large part of the reason for that is because we're not in a pissing contest any more. Neither of us is acting as though we're better, more deserving of respect or deference, than the other. Neither of us is demanding that the other acknowledge them as the superior. As I think we both know from experience by now, that kind of thing can make the employee feel like dirt, and resent the hell out of their boss."<br /><br />A pause.<br /><br />"True," Verna acknowledged.<br /><br />"May I ask why it's so important that people here address you as 'Ms. Zee'?"<br /><br />Verna paused again. Buck waited.<br /><br />"I'd actually prefer not to get into that right now. Sorry."<br /><br />"Don't be. It's fine. I'm sorry for prying."<br /><br />"Don't worry about it. I might tell you another time. For now, I'll think about what you've said."<br /><br />Buck nodded.<br /><br />"Well, I'd better get going. Thanks for listening."<br /><br />"Thank <i>you</i> for apologizing. I've heard you haven't really made a habit of it in the past, so it might not have been easy for you."<br /><br />"What's got you here so late, by the way?"<br /><br />Verna told him.<br /><br />"...it's rare to get a full week's work out of the entire office any more, and now of all times!" she finished a minute or so later. "Readers need to know just what the hell happened, what's <i>going</i> to happen. Plus, I just got this job, and I don't want to lose it. Others here might go home early if they have an attack or a breakdown or whatever, but I can't. I'm responsible for this whole operation."<br /><br />Verna blew out a sigh. It crossed her mind that after being up over fifteen hours, most of which had been spent working, it was nothing short of miraculous that she was able to avoid snapping at Buck through this whole conversation. She was glad she hadn't, but it was still...strange.<br /><br />"The problem didn't get any easier to handle when I found myself short one reporter today," she continued, a bit icily. And then she winced. <i>Did I just jinx myself by thinking about how civil I was being to this guy?</i><br /><br />"Well, maybe if--" Buck began hotly, and then stopped himself.<br /><br />Moments later, he started speaking again, this time calmly.<br /><br />"Is there anything I can do to help?"<br /><br />"As in work for me? Aren't you getting your assignments from New York now?"<br /><br />"You'd be surprised at how light the workload is, now of all times like you said. I found it kind of surprising. Hell, maybe after I dropped the ball at the U.N., they don't want to trust me with anything major any more," Buck told her with a shrug.<br /><br />"Hmm...well, if you don't think it'd still be a waste of your contacts and experience..."<br /><br />"I don't. Like you said, I've got to work my way back up, prove myself all over again."<br /><br />"It might be worth a try. How about we sleep on this and talk about it tomorrow?"<br /><br />"Sounds like a plan. Have a good night, Verna."<br /><br />"Good night, Buck," Verna said.<br /><br />They exchanged waves as Buck headed out the door and to the elevator. Verna plopped down into her chair and stroked her chin.<br /><br /><i>Huh. Just when you think you know somebody...</i>Rob Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09136538449753508917noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-54664101914155076082011-01-06T21:05:00.000-08:002011-01-06T21:56:25.003-08:00But Ruth Clung to Her. (A meta-Amanda story)Amanda sighed as she stared at the phone. How she hated phones.<br /><br />There had been no good thing that had ever come forth from one of the hated devices. She recalled nothing so vividly as the ring of the phone, and that sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that resulted from the knowledge that it was her husband calling.<br /><br />"Just so I know where you are, honey," he would have said. She recalled that slight edge he would place on the first syllable of the word; that faint sheen of ice that masqueraded a subtle threat. He used to have other threats too. The brushing of the back of his hand across his cheek, with a slight smirk on his lips. The dropping of the bible on the counter: a reminder that whatever he did, God would be on his side.<br /><br />She had hated him, and now he was dead.<br /><br />That thought brought a shiver through her as she considered the blunt, plastic receiver. He was gone, and he had taken his daughters with him. Her daughters. She could still recall the first moment that she had held them, the first steps, and...<br /><br />Amanda winced, her eyes closing and a shudder running through her body. There were other thoughts there. Horrible thoughts about how her husband had taken her lovely, free spirited girls.<br /><br />No.<br /><br />Taken was the wrong word. It was nothing short of a rape. A rape of the mind, like he had once done, long ago, to her own body. He had controlled their thoughts, forcing them into a mental slavery dominated by dogma and hatred. And to make it all worse... he had been right.<br /><br />It was the only explanation. The only possible way. God had indeed come and taken his people.<br /><br />A people that she loathed. A people that had taken her daughters.<br /><br />A people that had... Irene.<br /><br />That last thought broke Amanda free of her reverie. A new sense of purpose poured into her as she once again contemplated the phone. She knew where Irene had gone to church. She knew who she had been married to...<br /><br />But what to say...<br /><br />"New Hope Village Church, Come and Hear the Good News!"<br /><br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">Uhm</span>, hi, my name's Amanda White... I uh... attended a home bible study there a few months back."<br /><br />"Well, Good Morning Amanda! I'm Pastor Barnes, and I'm looking forward to seeing you here on Sunday!"<br /><br />"<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">Uhm</span>, no I... I was wondering if..." Amanda thought furiously, trying to come up with the most nonchalant way of phrasing the question, "I was remembering a friend who was there, and I was trying to get in touch."<br /><br />"We're all friends here at New Hope <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">Village</span> Church," Amanda could practically hear the "TM" at the end of that, "But I'd be happy to check the guestbook for you if you'd care to come down to see us."<br /><br />"Oh, I am born again, don't worry about that," Amanda spoke the code words that she knew by heart. It had been a survival instinct for so many years, falling into habit was easy, "But I wanted to thank that member, because it was her conversations which led to my personal relationship with Jesus."<br /><br />She felt sick in the pit of her stomach as she recited the words. Every little spark of sound a reminder of the sparks that had once dazzled in front of her eyes when she had failed to speak them.<br /><br />"Well that's wonderful to hear. Not many people truly understand why God left us behind, but I'd be happy..."<br /><br />"Actually, I was hoping you could help me find Irene Steele. I remember her name because..." FUCK! Amanda realized that she had said too much. It was a stupid move, and she needed to find some way... "because it sounded like Iron and Steel."<br /><br />She winced. No, THAT was stupid.detroitmechworkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06604868092029682328noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-72196277320538180832010-12-20T05:17:00.000-08:002010-12-20T05:54:50.885-08:00Malevolent Father, Part Two<span style="font-size:78%;">Okay, so I decided I really wanted to try to continue this, preferably with 'Our Heroes' actually trying to do something... Think of it as a kind of meta-Rayford in this... Rayford if he had a real personality.</span><br /><br />***<br /><br />Nicolae was staring out the plane window when it happened. He didn't know why it happened. Just that suddenly, the clouds had blurred and lurched right before his eyes.<br /><br />Rayford had been praying under his breath, from the pilot's seat. There was no reply. Of course, there never was. Nicolae seemed to hear voices no-one else heard, Nicolae seemed to move to the rhythm of a strange and ineffable certainty, but for the Tribulation Force, there was only prophecy from times long gone, and the desperate hope that if they followed along for long enough, maybe <em>this</em> time they'd be given a sign.<br /><br />They were the last believers, weren't they? The final hope? Surely the Lord wouldn't leave them stumbling blindly. Not again. Not even if there had been no warning, no chance, no time for farewells between those who were gone and those who were not -<br /><br />No. He couldn't think about that. Emotions hurt too much. Faith would have to be enough, because faith didn't tap on his mental shoulder at the sight of every discarded child's toy and remind him of his son, of how Rayford had put everything off for later, and then 'later' had happened, and there were no more chances -<br /><br /><em>Stop it, stop it, stop it!</em><br /><br />He couldn't break down. Maybe his focus on faith made him seem heartless, but it was the only thing holding him together. If he let himself consider the magnitude of the tragedy, if he let himself see it as a tragedy at all, his guilt and grief would swallow him whole.<br /><br /><em>And here I am, ferrying the Antichrist about his destined mission.</em><br /><br />It was grotesque. Rayford almost swore under his breath - <em>not allowed to say those words anymore. They might keep me from seeing them again.</em><br /><br />His eyes hardened. He'd spent so long thinking he was a great and mighty hero, the renowned and dashing pilot. What would that pilot do, right now?<br /><br />That pilot would do his duty by humanity. "To Hell with prophecy," he whispered, and jerked on the controls, sending the plane diving down toward the earth.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><em>Pain.</em><br /><br />Nicolae opened his eyes. At least, he thought he did. From the sensations racking his body, he wasn't entirely sure he had eyes left to open, or eyelids to cover them.<br /><br /><strong><em>This is not what was destined!</em></strong> The Malevolence was screaming at him.<br /><br />"Please. Father. I don't know what happened, I don't <em>know</em> what went wrong, please - <em>ahh</em> - <em>please</em>, let it stop burning..." His words trailed away as he saw the charred skeleton of the plane around him.<br /><br />Something told him not to look down at himself. He was likely in the same condition as the plane, and there were some things he just didn't want to see.<br /><br />He looked anyway.<br /><br />Nicolae screamed, just once.<br /><br /><strong><em>I will not be denied! This is fated, and it shall not be prevented! You are the instrument of my will, Nicolae, and you will not die. I forbid it.</em></strong><br /><br />And then his flesh was creeping back onto his body, even as the plane reconstructed itself around him and rose slowly, painfully, into the air.<br /><br />It was agony beyond agony. Why could his Father not let him rest? Why could he not find some new tool to carry out his cruelties? Tears coursed down Nicolae's cheeks, stinging flesh still red and raw as it healed with unnatural speed.<br /><br />"Please... no more..." The words slipped out like the pitiful whimpering of a hurt child.<br /><br /><strong><em>You will do my will, Nicolae. You will reign, and you will grant me your gratitude and service in all things.</em></strong><br /><br />Somewhere deep in his mind, he realised love had never been mentioned in that command.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Rayford writhed in place as his body was restored. How could he be sent back like this? He'd been so <em>close</em> to seeing them all again, he'd been sure he'd destroyed their enemy.<br /><br />And then he heard it; a great voice, a sensation just like when he'd said the words.<br /><br />The Presence was not welcoming this time. It was angry. It railed at him for his ingratitude and impiety, for daring to try to prevent what was destined.<br /><br />"Lord, please, forgive me!" he gasped, eyes filling with tears. He'd been wrong; it was nearly unbearable.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Nicolae heard the quiet pleading and prayers of his pilot. He could <em>almost</em> pick up a sense of rage-filled replies in the air. He listened closer, reaching out with the sense he'd developed over time.<br /><br />Strange, he thought, though he knew not the source of the chill rippling down his spine.<br /><br />The voice they both heard sounded just the same.Darth Emberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08248556769603371155noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-25747486444935965502010-12-15T05:21:00.000-08:002010-12-15T10:22:18.147-08:00A World Without God - Scattered Bits and Pieces<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">People asked for more A World Without God and I have been writing more of the story, after a fashion.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I've got a bunch of disjointed sections of A World Without God. In the end, if I ever get to that, it will probably be the case that some of this is canon, some of it is a apocrypha, and some of it is heresy. I'm not entirely sure which bits fall into which category. I'm trying to sort it into some kind of order, but in a lot of cases I'm not sure about the order.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Some of this is story, some of this is randomly quoting poetry, some of it is massive exposition dump, and some of it is simply random. And I didn't keep track of names so now I have two entirely unrelated Andrews.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Things in brackets are out of story comments.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">I thought the link to after the jump was supposed to appear automatically, but it doesn't seem to be, <a href="http://exharpazo.blogspot.com/2010/12/world-without-god-scattered-bits-and.html">so read it here</a>.<a name='more'></a></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I've been thinking about the crazy people who thought I was a witch. Clearly they're crazy since I'm not a witch, but that doesn't mean they're wrong about everything. If they're right that this was predicted in the Bible then maybe a Bible has something helpful to say.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I'm not sure what to do here, I don't want to leave Jessica any longer, but I'm not getting the sense she's in immediate danger and if looking for a Bible first increases the odds of successfully setting her free, it might be worth taking the time.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The light was dying, the fire was kindled, and I had time to kill. When the first star showed through I said the the only prayer I knew. "Star light, star bright," something moved in the bushes. I stood slowly, it moved again, and kept moving, circling counterclockwise at the edge of the firelight. "By the first star I see tonight," I got a glimpse of hairless flesh. I knew what it was, another of the countless nameless beasts that had emerged since the disappearances, these ones were about the size of German Shepherds and hunted in packs.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The one I heard was trying to distract and disorient me. It wanted to have me stay in place, hoping the fire would protect me, spinning in place to stay facing it. Then, when I was dizzy and looking where it wanted me to look, its friends would attack from behind. I had a different plan. The ambushers always stayed on the opposite side of the fire from the distraction, if I chased it I'd always have the fire between me and the others, and they'd be to my side, not my back.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I drew my gun and made my way to the edge of the light, in the direction of the sounds in the woods. I tried to walk silently.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Which was probably pointless given I was still talking, "I wish I may." I suppose I just wanted to stay in practice. The thing in front of me realized I wasn't playing along and broke into a sprint.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">"I wish I might," so did I. Soon my heart was pounding in my ears and my lungs burned. I reminded myself, yet again, that I had to find a way to get into better shape.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I knew running around through the trees in circles in the place where light meets shadow wasn't a sustainable plan, I had to make it change course. I switched the gun to my left hand and pulled out a rock I keep in my pocket, should ever the need arise, with my right. Then I threw it as hard as I could to my left. It probably would have been better to do that with my left hand, but the rock was in my right pocket. When it heard the rock hit whatever the rock hit, the thing made a bee line to elsewhere, and soon found itself right up a tree. I slowed down and caught my breath as I approached.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">"Get the wish," I hadn't caught my breath enough to start speaking. I ended up gasping.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">A few more steps and I could see it. No two of these things were exactly alike, but certain features were fairly common. They looked like mammals, sort of, but with the exception of a few seemingly random tufts they had no hair. Most of their skin was unbelievably smooth, almost rubbery, but there were always patches and streaks of course cracked almost scaly bits scattered about marring their naked bodies. This one's skin was almost Caucasian, but they seemed to come in all colors. Their long sharp teeth never fit in their mouths, and never followed any recognizable pattern. Their heads were shaped like a disturbed child's attempt at creating an alligator, their bodies were fairly doglike, their legs never seemed to have the same number of joints.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The fifth leg of the one on the tree was certainly distinctive, but it didn't seem to serve any purpose. Other than making the creature's left side longer than its right the extra leg didn't seem to do anything other than give it a redundant point of balance. I switched the gun to my right hand and took a step closer. It's outermost teeth were about level with my eyes, drool dripped to the ground.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">It's the drool I hate most. Be a disgusting creature dredged from the nether regions of a disturbed mind if you must, but don't drool.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I pointed my gun between it's eyes "I wish," it snarled and three of its legs tensed. I fired. I spun around. There were two more, one had already pounced, I didn't have time to shoot. I hit it with the gun as hard as I could, shot the other one, and then shot the one I hit. I took a moment to make sure they were really dead. "Tonight."</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I closed my eyes and said, "I wish I find Jessica." I hopped the star was listening.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I dragged the three things back to the fire. I ate demon dog tonight. In the morning's light I plan to find my rock.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I found a church on my fourth try. The first three had been burned to the ground. The one that survived was a simple wood building with an intact steeple. As I walked into it, torch in hand, I heard things flee the light. One of the things had too many legs to be as large as it sounded, and when I heard it skitter up the wall I was sure that I didn't want to meet it. Most of the sounds seemed to come from rodents.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">A quick look around revealed that I was sharing the building with several things that didn't want to be seen. A flash of color and they'd recede into the darkness. The larger problem was the darkness itself. Not all of it retreated from the torch. Some of the shadows couldn't be explained by simple optics, and that, as much as anything could ever be, was a sign I shouldn't stay longer than I absolutely had to.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">At first I thought it would be simple, I'd grab a Bible at the first pew and that would be it.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The problem was the Bible itself. It had been devoured by by bugs. Horrid twisty crawling things with more legs than I cared to think about. I screamed when I saw what I'd picked up. I also dropped the torch, thankfully the building didn't light on fire. The next Bible was the same, and then next one, and the next pew. And every single place a Bible might be stored. The church was useless to me.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">So was the church after that, and the one after that. Bookstores were no better. Finally I had a minor revelation. From when I realized what I should be doing it took me two days to get to a motel. I broke down one door, opened one drawer, and there it was. Thank you, Gideons.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Unfortunately it did not contain a chapter on what to do should the world be overrun by hell stuff. In fact the entire Book of Revelations seemed dense and unhelpful. Such is life, I suppose.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">–</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">[I have no idea when or where this takes place. I do know that it isn't in the character's home because that doesn't really have much in the way of tables. Or cabinets. This is clearly in an abandoned town, I'm just not sure when or why or where.]</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Jacob looked at Andrew and how we had tied him to the table. He inspected Andrew's bonds in disgust, and delivered his verdict as if it were the only sane conclusion.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“There's not a demon in him,” about half a second after Jacob said that a spike shot out of Andrew's right side. It impaled some helpless cabinet. We all scrambled to be on the other side of Andrew as something happened where the spike had come from. At first it was impossible to tell what was going on, the activity was obscured by his shirt, but soon his shirt was ripped apart.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">It looked like his skin was bubbling, and whenever it seemed that a bubble was about to burst it would stop growing, darken, seem to solidify and become heavier, and then, when it was a fleshy mass, more bubbles would form on it and the process would repeat.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">When the growth was the size of a small dog, Jacob said, “Ok, so maybe there's a demon in him.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Matt asked, “What do we do?” which was a good question, but I had no answer.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“I've got a hatchet,” Jacob said, “We could... you know ...” Something that looked for all the world like an octopus tentacle emerged from the growth and swatted at us, forcing us to retreat further from the table. “Ok, that's cheating.” I couldn't agree more. No human being should have an octopus part attached to them, demons or no.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">[at some point he meets up with the three people he saved in the quarry, they left their community shortly after the community as a whole tried to kill him. “Whatshername” who saved him is named Justine, Mary is the other woman, Ethan, is the man.]</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I couldn't sleep so I listened to them talk. That's not quite accurate. I couldn't sleep because I listened to them talk. I tried to tune them out, but I was unable to do that. Apparently Ethan had no such problems, I can say this because he snores. I think that they must have thought I was asleep too.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">They were talking about my friend.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Justine said, “I think we should be involved.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Mary said, “She's not one of us.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“So what? She needs saving, we should save her.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“It's insanely risky. I mean that. Insane. That or suicidal. Why would you even consider it?”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“'Whatever you do for the least of these...' I can't think of anyone leaster than a kidnapping victim.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“Look, maybe before I would have agreed, but it's just the three of us now. We've got to … it's not like we've got the community to protect us anymore.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“If we do this then it'll be the five of us. She wouldn't be the only one in our debt, he'd owe us too.” She was right, if they helped me save Jessica I'd be in their debt pretty much forever. “We'd practically double our numbers.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“Or, if we all died, we'd literally wipe out our numbers. It'd be the zero of us.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">There was a long silence and I thought that Mary must have won, then Justine asked, “What's the most important thing for us to do now?”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Without a hint of hesitation Mary answered, “Teach the word of God.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“Right, and we know about someone who is in need of being taught. The problem is that we're here and she's there. It'll be a lot easier to teach her when we're in the same place so we should get her out of there and bring her here. Otherwise, how will her soul be saved?”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Mary didn't seem to have an answer.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">That was the end of their conversation, and in the silence that followed I was finally able to sleep.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">–</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Once again I have to put rescue on hold. Again.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I am still convinced that if I had been taken and Jessica left behind she would have found a way to rescue me by now. I just haven't figured out what that way would be. Maybe that's why the took her. If the competent people are kidnapped, there will be no one left capable of saving them.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I've also come to a disturbing realization. Jessica was taken by demons, and while I'm sure she doesn't like being a captive, I'm also pretty sure that she can afford to wait. I can tell that she's still alive in spite of the time that's passed, and I'm pretty sure she's unharmed. That's with her being a captive of demons.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">If she had been taken by a human being that simply could not be the case. Each time something has forced me to put Jessica on hold it has been human action. This time the parallel couldn't be more close, someone has abducted people. Unlike the demons who took Jessica, he kills those he's taken. He does it fast. He started after I left and has gone through eleven so far. He alternates between male and female.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Ethan was injured and we were bringing home so he could recover. On our way the kidnapper, I don't even know his name, took Mary. Unlike Jessica, she can't afford to be put on hold. Her captor is human, and it appears that that's much much worse than a demon. Or at least worse than certain demons.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">We got to Mary before he had the time to do much of anything to her. He took her ear. He got away.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">What I feel now is not compassion for my friend, though I know it should be. No, I'm enraged because of how I feel. He hurt someone I'm responsible for, so I feel like it's a crime against me, not her. I know it's insane, but I cannot change how I feel.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">All I can think of is what my revenge against him will be.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">On the one hand, I want it to last. On the other, I want something that has flash and style. But if I set him on fire, then it won't last. How long can someone survive like that? Minutes maybe? Not long enough.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Still, I'll settle for it.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The thought of him screaming while engulfed in flame almost makes me smile.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">We came across a settlement, a little under 300 people. We killed everyone. Some because they begged us to. The rest because they were the reason the others begged us to.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I had a chance to look around and see some of the things that have changed. We have a cow. Sort of. It has an overall cowish shape, it apparently came out of a cow, it has udders. It also has what looks like an elk antler coming out of its right cheekbone.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">And she's full sized in spite of being very, very young, a week or two if I understand correctly. I don't know anything about cow biology, but that seems like it's probably as wrong as the antler.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I'm told that she produces a milk like substance. When I was shown it it didn't seem very milk like. It seemed like milk colored sap, but I'm told that if mixed with water and boiled it really is like milk. They tested it on the cat, which has not yet mutated into something deadly or deformed, thus they assume it is safe.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The cat is lactose intolerant.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">[In case anyone is wondering about the cowish thing's calf, it was created without the assistance of a bull and, after trying to eat a teenager's rabbit, escaped and has not been heard from since. The fact that no one has stolen killed and eaten the rabbit yet is one of the few things that gives people in the settlement hope that humanity might be redeemable.]</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I shot the bastard today.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">It was entirely unsatisfying, but at least he's dead. He had even more time his current victim than with Mary. I cannot repeat what David said to me, I don't want to remember the exact words. I don't want to remember how I felt.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I don't want to think about it at all.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">His captor cut off his arm. One bone at a time. Starting from the tips of his fingers. Now his right arm ends at the elbow.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">He's recovering now. That's not the right word. It makes it sound like his arm will grow back. I don't know what the right word is.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Mary went to talk to him, I suppose she understands better than anyone else being the only other person to have survived being the bastard's captive. I overheard how their conversation started.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">She said, “I heard you lost your arm.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">He said, “I heard you lost your ear.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I cannot see any way that such a conversation could possibly be comforting. Still, if she bounced back, and she did, perhaps she can help him.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The trees in the surrounding area had lost their leaves and changed into twisted spiked forms. The ground cover was a kind of black goop, and when we made it through we saw why the had been abducting people. The people, the slaves, were being forced to build. Other than being slaves there was no evidence that they were mistreated, in fact they seemed to be fairly well fed.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">What they were building was a giant temple, the finished portions looked like they were cut from solid obsidian, but it was really made of hardened goop on a wood frame. It was the biggest thing I've ever seen, a kind of stepped pyramid. It felt like it went on forever.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">[and in here there's the drawn out process of freeing groups of people and pointing each of them in different directions in hopes the faceless flying things won't be able to track all of them. At first it seemed like things went really well, as the the demons dropped everything to chase after the first group, making it easier to free the next group, and pretty soon there were more people free than demons to chase them, and it seemed like everyone got away. The narrator realized that that was pretty much impossible, and discovered that the demony things were herding the escapees into larger and larger groups that would be easier to track. And then, stuff happens. Um, yeah.]</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">In many ways Ethan is a great guy. For the most part he is a caring compassionate person. For the most part.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">He was safe surrounded by like minded people but when it turned out that they were only like minded for the most part, and not one the relatively small matter of whether I should be killed, he took a stand and walked away. He did this after I had gotten away and the point was moot. He did it on principle alone.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">That's great, we need more like him in that respect. Even though I think that he brings less to the table than Justine or Mary, who did the same thing, I'm happy to have him with us. For the most part. But just as Ethan reached a point where he had to draw a line and say one thing was going to far, I've been getting to that point with him.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">He hasn't been playing well with others. Or rather other. One specific other. It doesn't even make any sense, he and she have no need to interact at all anyway, I don't see why he doesn't just ignore her and hold his tongue when she's around. It would literally be the least he could do. He'd still be being an asshole, but at least not be as active about it.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Her name is Jenny and she's a really good cook. I don't know much about her beyond that. Dark hair, light skin. Tall I guess. She speaks softly, often to the point she's hard to hear. The only thing I care about is that she can make the dead abominations we bring her into edible food. Good food even.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">That isn't enough for him. I tried to explain that she's not an abomination, she simply cooks them, but no. He wouldn't listen. He said that somewhere in the Bible it says something about men acting like women, or wearing women's clothes, or something. I don't know exactly what. I don't want to know. I don't care. It doesn't apply to her anyway, she's not a man.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">He didn't listen. He talked about how horrible it was for her to have made the change that she did. He seemed shocked when I said that I didn't have any problem with it, he couldn't believe it. I suppose he's right, I do have one problem with it. She picked a name starting with J. I've always had trouble with names, and when they have the same first letter it's infinitely worse. Justine and Jessica and Jordan and Jane and the others to which Jenny has been added all run together. Even though I've known Jessica for years. I just suck at names, I get it from my mother.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">So I really would have preferred that she pick something in an Ellen or an Abigail or any of the other unrepresented first letters. I admitted that to him, and I pointed out that it was my problem, not hers.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I'm not sure if I really expected talking about me and my specific problems to get him to think about whether his discomfort might be more about him than Jenny, but it definitely did not have that effect. He brought the conversation right back to how Jenny was evil and wrong and should not be.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">This simply cannot stand. We kill abominations. We exterminate evil. To say that Jenny is one of these things is to say that she should be put down. It is nothing less, it can be nothing less. Middle ground doesn't exist any more. Well, it does, but not within the field of evil abominations. If we are to survive we need to oppose evil at every turn. We need to fight it tooth and nail. We are at war against the abominations.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">To say that Jenny is evil is to say that she is the enemy. That is not something that you say to a group of people who are on edge, armed, and watching their humanity slowly slip away. It is not safe.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">So I explained that if he does not stop acting this way I will shoot him. I will not kill him, I like him most of the time and I definitely wouldn't want to deal with the fallout from his friends, but I will shoot him. I also added that if he keeps on using the Bible to justify his bigotry I will go down to the coast, set a trap, and hit him with a lobster as soon as humanly possible.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">He can think what ever he wants, but his actions are putting Jenny in danger, and that I will not have.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I don't know Jenny that well, she's not my friend, but she is a part of the community and that's enough. She's a human being and that's enough. Plus, I'm the reason Ethan is here, that makes me responsible for any damage he does.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">It called me a demon. It said it was going to kill me. I didn't say anything nearly that coherent. I said, “What?! I'm not … I … I was born on the twenty seventh of may at Mercy Hospital. It snowed that day. Growing up I always imagined that it looked like a Christmas card, and when I got older I realized that snow in May doesn't work that way. My father died when I was three, I have no memories of him. But I know that demons don't have fathers who die of cancer.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“My mother was a mathematician. She had green eyes and long red hair. Her skin was pale and her freckles were many. She used to read 19th century poetry to me when she tucked me in at night. Do demons even have mothers?</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“I flunked sixth grade science because I spent my time thinking about a girl I thought I was in love with. I didn't even know her name. <b>I'm not a demon.</b>”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Walking backwards is an art. Anyone who ever looked down on tour guides needs to seriously rethink their position. Even knowing where every obstruction is it's hard to plant you feet well, keep moving, and keep the person in front of you engaged enough in what you're saying to prevent them from killing you all at the same time.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I'm really not that good at it.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">That point was driven home when he, apparently sick of me trying to argue I was human, threw a seven foot long evil looking sharp object that I think was a javelin my way.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">There was a moment's pause after the sharp thing missed me, in which I ran and added, somewhat stupidly, “You said that you used to be an angel, that makes you the demon.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">When trees spontantiously explode they create splinters. Splinters hurt like hell.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I've never been one to delve too deeply into symbols and meanings beyond what's on the surface. I think that Frost's Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening was about stopping by the woods on a snowy evening. In fact, I have a suspicion that he may be recounting an actual event.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">It would not surprise me if he really did stop by the woods, his horse really did shake the bells, and later on he wrote a poem about it.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I don't think that we need to resort to symbolic analysis. You read the poem, or better still speak it, and you feel something. I think that what you feel is the point.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">But then everyone has to bring their view to the table. “Of course it's about death.” “Of course the dark woods symbolize dying.” “Of course it's about suicide and obligations preventing it.” “Of course” they say. “Of course” means that it in no way follows. Their analysis is a way to tear something beautiful apart. To rip it limb from limb from limb in hopes that somehow the deconstruction will allow them to understand better.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Maybe we were never meant to understand. Maybe we were meant to feel. To feel it without a ridged framework, without dissecting it. To take it as it is and have that change us.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Yet today I feel like I have a better understanding of what they mean. I was trying to get something out of my head. Something I refuse to write down. Something that I don't want to do, but it wouldn't go away. As it felt more and more inevitable I suddenly found myself at a cliff face. There hadn't been one there Before, it looked to me like the land had been eaten away.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">It was so tempting to simply step out into space. My friends would all be safe from me. I wouldn't have to worry about losing control and finding that I'd let one of those thoughts get the better of me. Ever since I'd tapped into my other senses I've been the best killer around, I'm not convinced that I could be stopped. There are plenty of people who could beat me in a fair fight, but it wouldn't be a fair fight.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">And there was a cliff. Like a gift. I was tempted. I was very, very tempted.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. Miles to go before I sleep.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I've been thinking more about suicide.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I speak of Andrew. Not Andy, he died under entirely unrelated circumstances.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Andrew came to me one day, said he'd traded for guard duty with someone else but hadn't gotten a weapon, asked to borrow my pistol. I gave it to him, he walked away, and as soon as I was out of sight I heard the shot. It was a clean kill and he was dead when I got there.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Looking back I remember that he was acting strangely, looking at his knife and his hands in an odd way, his posture was different, maybe even his voice. But at the time I didn't really take notice.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">By the end of the day I'd figured out why. He'd been out making snares by the river in hopes of catching some food, and come across a woman bathing. She didn't say why she was where she was, but I'd guess she was so far from camp for safety. I think there's safety in numbers, but there are other theories. She probably figured that if she went far enough away no one would be likely to run across her and thus she'd be safe for that reason.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Anyway, he did run across her. She said that he just apologized and went away. That there was nothing that stood out as strange. The word she used to describe the encounter was awkward, not threatening or disturbing or anything that set off red flags.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">But I understood. When he came across her that meant they were alone, where no one would know what had happened, and he was armed. Plus she was probably naked. I can only imagine what might have gone through his head, and if he felt that he couldn't maintain control then I think he probably did the right thing. I hope that if I should find myself on the edge of losing control I can do the same thing. I have the same gun.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I found God today. I was considering doing what Andrew did, I was considering going away and never returning. I ran from our settlement. I ran as fast as I could and as far as I could until I collapsed to the ground gasping.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">And then I talked to God. I don't remember what I said exactly, but it was something like:</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">God, if you're listening, I'm trying to do the right thing, we all are, but I could really use some help.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I didn't realize at the time, but looking back the effect was almost immediate. I haven't wanted to do unspeakable things since I said it. God helped me. When I returned and saw Jessica I felt simple joy for the first time since the disappearances. Not even when I finally got to her after she'd been abducted have I really felt that way. It's like whatever part of me feels for others has been turned back on.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I told her that I'm better, I'm not sure if she fully understands what that means.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">[Theology]</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Jessica asked me what I believed today, I tried to get her to ask Justine or Mary instead, even Ethan. We have three Rapturist Christians on hand any one of who knew more about the theology I was coming to believe than I did. She wanted to hear it from me. I realize that I haven't written down what I believe yet, so here goes.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">God created the universe, but didn't exactly do a perfect job of it. When I speculated that it was a result of the raw materials God had available Jessica said that she understood, she's read the Timaeus. I haven't, but I assume it involves creating something from less than perfect raw materials and being limited as a result of it.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Anyway, God created the world, and created it flawed, but used a series of modifications to make it work. The problem was that even with the various patches the world still wasn't right and got worse with time. The world as we knew it was pretty well doomed and needed to be rebuilt from the ground up, which meant removing the various patches first, a process that would take about seven years.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Jessica had two questions. The first was whether I meant patches as in software or patches as in the hull of a boat. First off, the term patch does not appear in the theology, that's my own description. Second, I think that both fit. It is like reality was a flawed program with an extensive bug list that needed a lot of alterations. But also I think that a patch on a boat is a good analogy. When the first patch was removed evil flooded into the world like water rushing through a hole in a hull.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The second question was why this wasn't done before. If I'm right God knew this was coming at least two thousand years ago, yet it only happened now. My answer to her was in the form of a simple question. I told her to look around, to think about everything that had happened since the disappearances. I asked her if she could have delayed it, even for a single day, would she have.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I think that any God worth caring about wouldn't want to do this, no matter how necessary it was. I think that any God worth following would put this off to the last possible day. The last possible hour. The last possible minute. The last possible second.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">If I were God, and I knew that one day this absolutely had to happen I would put it off for a thousand years, and then when a thousand years had passed I'd put it off again. And again. And again. As many times as I could. Because the fact that something has to happen doesn't mean it has to happen today.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Anyway, once we got passed those questions I laid out a timeline, which is very hazy. Step one was that God had to leave to get to work, and took with</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Ok, I know this isn't attested to anywhere in the Bible, but I'm going to say, “Her.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">God left and took with her everyone that she could. Of course Jessica wanted to know what made it so she could take those people with her. One of the Rapturists could probably have quoted some verses or something, I can't. I've only got supposition. Or perhaps more accurately: wild guessing with no foundation in anything. My guesses are as follows:</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">First children haven't been in the world as long as the rest of us so they haven't been tainted by it. We have. Everyone who remains has been wallowing in it. Even with God placing a piece of herself in each and every one of us to hold back the darkness, we still lose our innocence with time.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I actually want to pause here for a moment to point something out. If I'm right, if the Rapturists are right, then that means that God was ripping off a piece of herself to protect every single human being. A new person is born, God rips off another part of her soul, the holy spirit, to protect our souls. By the time of the disappearances that means that God had ripped well over six billion pieces of her own soul off. And she did it for us. That is devotion.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Also, that assumes that she was recycling ripped off pieces and that she didn't do the same thing for animals, which she probably did.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Ok, so anyway, God had a piece of herself in each of us to hold back the greatest part of our darker natures. Obviously that worked better in some cases than others. That piece was not, for the most part, enough to evacuate us when the time came to leave. For that she needed to have us invite her in and consent to be taken when the time came. That required someone to consciously invite God in, be aware that the disappearances were coming, and be willing to go when the time came. Or something like that.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The theory is that if were were able to check we would find that every adult who disappeared was a Rapturist who had, in their heart, agreed to be taken. The group of Rapturists I came across converted afterward upon seeing the Rapturists they had known all disappear.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">This tells us something important about God, that being that God can only do so much without getting permission. The most important thing in the present situation is that what God can do without permission now is far less than it once was since God is now mostly withdrawn. To even get the previously unnoticed benefit of having God keep our inner darkness at bay, I believe that it is now required to invite God in, as I have done. As I want Jessica to do. As I want everyone to do.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">But the timeline.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I've forgotten most of the details, but the timeline is one of deconstruction. Seals are broken. Jessica asked what seals were and I said that seals are first century shorthand for, “John, I don't want to explain what it means to have cobbled together after market modifications to reality itself, so I'm going to use a metaphor, just understand that I need to break them.” Or something like that. Seals are what holds a scroll closed. When we get to bowls we again see a theme of containment. Bowls hold things in so that they cannot spill out onto the world below. The problem is that you have to move the bowls to fix the table and sometimes the bowl is too heavy to move unless you dump it out first, which does rain chaos and destruction down onto the table, but it's a necessary first step in clearing off the table so that it might be fixed.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">As for the trumpets, I have no fucking clue.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">With each barrier broken down, and each step we take closer to a clean foundation on which a less broken world can be built, whatever the barrier was meant to restrain is released. As more and more things are freed from their restraints things will get a whole lot worse, but we only have seven years to wait, we still have each other, and God will presumably do whatever she can to help, even if it isn't that much at this point.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The important thing is to look after one another. We were given a list of commands, feed the hungry and such. If we want to do our part to make sure things work out, and based on the way things look right now God probably needs all the help she can get, we need to help everyone we can. We need to look after those she can't. We need to fight to make the world a better place because everything around us will be fighting to do the opposite.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">While Jessica isn't sold on God, she agrees on the general idea of what needs to be done.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">We've been doing a pretty good job of finding new food, but we've been doing an even better job of finding new mouths to feed.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">This cannot be sustained.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Hi God. How are you? I hope you're doing well because that would mean that one of us is. Tell my friends and family that I love them. Keep everyone safe.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I forgive you for your part in what is happening.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">We ran out of 9mm ammunition today. Fuck.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Justine thinks we saw the Antichrist today. If we did, he saved us.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The others finally attacked, land ones, things that somewhat resembled wolves and bears, were herded to towards us and then, once a stampede of those were attacking the others came from the air. We tried to fight them off with recently improvised bows and arrows and anything that could be used as a weapon. We were losing badly and then he came in. He was riding a strong white horse. He had a sort of metal headband, Justine says it's a crown, but it looks like a metal headband to me.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">At first I thought he was fighting with a bow and arrow too, but when I looked closer I realized that there were no arrows, there wasn't even a bowstring. He pulled back on empty air, the bow bent, he released, the bow snapped back, and what he was pointing at died. Demons dropped at an astounding rate.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Not that he did it alone, he had troops who were armed with guns, but he led from the front and he got the credit. I've not doubt that we would have died without him.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The bow was just a piece of wood. I'm sure of it. Lovingly crafted into a bow perhaps, but just a piece of wood with no power of its own. I have no idea how he was killing the things that he killed. I'm just thankful that he did.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">There was a sort of meeting ceremony thing. The man with the bow, the one Justine thinks is the antichrist, explained how things would be from now on. On the one hand, he wanted to be in charge. Just him, completely autocracy. Below him he said we could have whatever form of government we wanted, but he had final say.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The impression I had was that he wouldn't take a very hands off approach. He might not care who was on the city council, but the police force would be structured exactly how he wanted it.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">That didn't sound good, on the other hand, he was talking about moving back into cities and towns. Not home, home had been eaten, but buildings, and streets and electricity.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Also, law and order of some form or other. Not having to worry about being kidnapped and have parts of you cut off, or worse. He said that they had driven the darkness back elsewhere and would do the same here.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Tomorrow he'd move on, but he'd leave representatives here. I got the impression that the only real reason he was here was that we were between him and somewhere else. He felt to important to be one of the planned stops on his itinerary.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The question remained of course, what if he is the Antichrist? Jessica asked if we should kill him. I thought that was premature, what if he was just a guy? But there was also another reason not to. I could tell that that would be a profoundly bad idea. Everything in me screamed out that it was something we should under no circumstances attempt.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I said that it was a bad idea, but I couldn't elaborate on why. I tried to push out and figure out where this feeling was coming from, but it was impossible, as if whenever I thought I'd grabbed hold of it it slipped away. Then I felt something I'd never felt before.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I told the others he noticed us, because he had. Somehow I knew that he was looking at us the same way I was looking at him. Without his eyes.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">After his thing was over he came over to me and asked me to join him. No one else, just me. I declined. I explained that my place was here with my friends. He said he understood, and left me alone. It seemed perfectly fine. There was nothing threatening at all, but I got the distinct impression he could have killed me if he'd wanted to, and done it before I knew I was in danger.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">We met with one of his aides, someone trying to form a Resistance. He, like Justine, believes that Xaiver, the guy with the bow, is the antichrist. Again Jessica asked the obvious question. If he's evil, why don't we simply end him? His response was, “Yeah... don't do that.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Jessica asked, “Why not?”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“Have you ever seen someone die because their bones turned into sulfur and burned their way out of the person's body?”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“No.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“Well I have. It doesn't smell good and it's not how I want to die. I don't think he notices when people act against him indirectly, otherwise I'd be dead. But the moment you try to physically harm him he knows, and he'll respond.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I asked, “So what exactly are you doing?”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“Wherever he goes, I go, and whenever he tells people about his grand plan for the future I tell people that there is another option. I tell people not to give up, I tell them to start forming a resistance. I tell them that some things are worth fighting for and that they should know that whatever they do to oppose him, they won't be alone.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“And then I tell them to create resistance cells I know nothing about and whose member's faces I don't know. So that if I'm tortured I can't give them up.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“Now at this point you have a choice, you can work with me knowing that at any time anyone I've met can give me up, at which point I may be forced to name your names to people who want you dead. If you do then I can see about getting you inside information and occasionally divert supplies your way.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“Or, you can never speak to me again and do whatever you can to stop me from being able to identify you, and do your own thing without having to worry too much about me. Which is part of why I haven't asked your names.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">[logistics are discussed, as the aide is leaving:]</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I asked him about the way I'd been singled out and offered a job and was releaved to hear that I wasn't the only one. Just about everywhere he goes he does that to people apparently, sometimes multiple people, some accept, some decline. I was assured that if he ever does decide to act against those who turned him down I will be significantly down the list.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I have an apartment now. Free of charge. To get inside I have to use voice identification, as does any guest I bring with me. If more people enter than identify themselves the police will come. If there is any evidence of duress in a person's voice, the police will come. If a non-roommate is in the apartment for more than a certain unspecified time, the apartment will automatically demand the person read a randomly generated phrase, if this is not done, there is evidence that the words of the phrase was prerecorded, or evidence of unusual stress in the person's voice, the police will come. If my apartment is randomly selected by a computer, the police will come.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Also, reaching out with senses other than the usual ones I have noticed that there is some kind of device hidden from view in each room. I'm guessing that it is some kind of surveillance thing, though I really have no idea because anything electronic is just wires and circuit board to me. I assume that if I do anything naughty, the police will come.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Still, I have running water, I have a bed.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">We've set up a place in the woods. The running water was nice while it lasted.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">[What if she's an angel?]</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Jessica and I were first to the site of the impact, Ryan and Chelsea not far behind. There were broken branches, on the ground, knocked out by what had fallen through the trees, that was expected. What wasn't was the what had fallen. It was a woman. Actually that assessment is the matter of some debate.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Our first guess was that something had picked her up and dropped her, like shellfish on the rocks, just without the rocks. And the shellfish. The assumption was that she was a human woman. Then Ryan had to introduce a competing hypothesis just because we noticed that she happened to be alive in spite of the fact that, based on the apparent sturdiness of some of the broken branches, she hit with way too much force to survive.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Some she was half covered tree bits, clearly very scraped and banged up, unconscious, and breathing with difficulty. I went to help her and Ryan said wait. Generally speaking if someone tells you to stop moving, you stop moving. Doing otherwise could be fatal. But when the explanation is, “What if she's an angel?” It's somewhat- I cannot put into words what an odd thing it is to hear.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Ryan has a somewhat unique theology. We agree on just about everything, except for the parts that matter. Specifically he believes that we are here because we are damned, that God is doing the things she is doing not because she needs to, but because she wants to. Because she thinks that we deserve it. Though, actually, Ryan would say that God is a he.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">As such, as far as Ryan is concerned, an angel could only be sent to earth for one purpose: to torment us. As such in his mind the correct course of action would be to run like hell, and, as he put it, “We should be thankful to whatever demon did this to her.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">There are so many things wrong with that way of thinking that I didn't even know where to start, I just made my way towards her. Then Chelsea said that maybe Ryan was right, not about the angel thing but she said, “Nothing human could have survived that. When was the last time something inhuman wasn't evil?”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I looked at the woman again, she was half covered by pine branches, sap and blood mingled on her face, her hair was the same fiery orange, inexplicably known as red, as my mother's. She was having trouble breathing. She needed helping.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Ryan said that shed kill us all. I reached out and saw that he might be right, even weakened she probably had the ability to kill us all. I also saw that she really was injured. I told Ryan I was willing to take that chance. Jessica was ahead of me, she started clearing the debris off of the woman. When her wings came into view Ryan went apoplectic. Thankfully he was just shouting, he didn't actually do anything. I probably should have pointed out that if his shouting didn't wake her up, it was unlikely anything we did would cause her to suddenly spring up and go into terminator mode.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">What I actually said was that he could leave us, that worked out pretty well. All of a sudden Ryan changed gears the yelling stopped and he said, “I'm not going to leave you here.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I said we wouldn't think less of him if he did, Chelsea said, “I would.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">We picked the woman up and carried her home. Perhaps when she wakes up she'll kill us all.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The angel woke up. I probably should have asked about theology, truth, the creation of the universe, and that sort of thing. I gave her water and asked her about herself. Her name is Sofiel, she's on her own. From now till judgment day she's not getting any more help from Heaven than any of the rest of us. And she doesn't know any more about how things are going than the rest of us.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I asked her who would be fighting the final battle. She said, “We have reserves.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">She doesn't really have any kind of a plan. She's just here to do what she can. The same as the rest of us.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">She's definitely not going to kill us all.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Also, she has my accent. And Jessica's accent. And the accent of whomever she happens to be speaking to at the time. If I could have any accent, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't pick mine.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">We tied Alex to a tree good sturdy rope. I'm not sure where we got it. We had him wait for six hours first, to try to put the thing in him off balance. Then we brought out Sofiel. Being here is taking a toll on her and it really shows. Her wings are molting, her skin is pale and flaking, I think the hair loss has stopped, but it is impossible to not notice how thin it's become. She looks frail, but she still walks with grace and strength. No idea if she can still fly.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Alex, or rather the nameless thing inside of Alex, spoke. He laughed and asked what she'd done to be thrown out of Heaven. She walked over to him, he was seated on the ground, his arms tied back around the tree. She had to squat to look him in the eye:</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“I volunteered.” She let that hang a moment, then continued, “You think this is a punishment? You think I wanted to be standing idly by while the world burns? You think I wanted to be safe in Heaven dividing my time between training for the final battle and playing with children while people suffered?</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“I asked to be here, and I was lucky to be allowed to come. Many more wanted to but couldn't be spared. This is my reward.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“Now, let's see about getting you out of that body.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">We haven't actually gotten it out of Alex yet, but I think we've made some progress.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">[In the book The Mark, Buck and a sidekick go to a mark application facility (taking the mark damns your soul in Left Behind), one girl asks for some time to think it over. She's told, basically, to go head over to get her head chopped off, if she hasn't made up her mind by the time she gets to the guillotine they'll chop off her head. Buck does nothing. Nothing at all. Given that she doesn't really have time to think it over she defaults to “I'd rather not get my head chopped off.” This will damn her for all eternity. Buck does nothing.]</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“You're going to kill me just for wanting time to think it over?”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">There has to come a point where you say, “Fuck the mission,” and do the stupid thing. It simply cannot be otherwise. If you're not willing to draw a line somewhere, then nothing separates you from the other side. People can say what they wish about the ends justifying the means, but it seems to me that life is an endless series of means. Which is the only justification I can offer for what I did.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The fact that it did not result in my death and total ruin for the entire world I ascribe entirely to luck and other people rising to the occasion, I certainly can't take any credit for it.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I understand that we can't save everyone, I understand that we haven't even figured out a way to make sure everyone knows what they're getting into, that doesn't mean that I can accept that people will be forced to make the choice without even a moment to think about it. I couldn't stand idly by while that was happening.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">First I tried to do it without breaking cover. I tried to argue that the regime didn't want people who would reject the mark given the chance. That didn't work, I got louder, they didn't respond. So I grabbed the nearest one's gun, and shot him along with one of his coworkers. While I did that I reached out to the surrounding building, there was a pipe filled with steam, I neither knew nor cared why it should be there or what purpose it might serve. I convinced it to warm, then get hotter still, until it exploded. That distracted the guards near it for a moment, as blasts of hot steam are wont to do.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I grabbed the keys to the door from the guard I shot as he fell. I opened the door, told those inside to run, and turned to face the surviving guards. I shot one. The other one shot me. It's been years since everything collapsed. Years since demons walked the earth. Years since the Antichrist came. It's the first time I've been shot. I was on the ground before I knew what had happened.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I killed the remaining guard as I lay there. The cell emptied, though not entirely. Some didn't run. It took a bit for the pain to set in, at first I didn't even realize where I'd been shot. I didn't care either. I reached out and saw the whole facility. Many more guards, police, peacekeepers, soldiers, and assorted people with guns. There were dogs and cameras, and everything anyone would want if they intended to hunt down fugitives. An escape attempt was extremely ill advised, but I had to come up with some way to make it work, because I was the one who advised it.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">There were alarms all over, you just push a button, an alarm sounds, and the troops come pouring in. Really all that separated an off alarm from and on one was a charge in the tiniest of circuits. I figured that if I could burst a pipe I could probably work with that. I set off an alarm as far from where they were running as I could.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Then the pain set in. I cannot describe what it feels like. All I can say is that for a moment my entire world was my right shoulder. Everything else shut down and all I could experience was pain. I wondered, and still wonder, if that's what it feels like to have a hole punched in your shoulder, what must it be like to have someone who enjoys pain cut something off of you. Say an ear or a finger.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">That was the first thing I could think of other than the pain itself, but I pushed through it and tried to get the lay of the land. The people running had separated into two groups. The girl who had wanted more time was in the smaller one. Five other people, one of them female, the rest male. As near as I could tell at one intersection they went left, while the others went right. I wasn't sure what I could do to help beyond what I'd already done.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The alarm seemed to have worked, so I set off some more, again, far away from them. Guards went to them, but when they found nothing I expected them to return. I needed a more substantial distraction than alarms no one had sounded. I looked for something else. I found it when my attention turned to the guillotines and the injectors. Much as I may have wished otherwise they were not surrounded by large quantities of stuff that goes boom. They were, however, in the direction the escapees were not running, and they were crying out to be destroyed. I hated them, merely thinking about them roused in me a burning anger that no other inanimate object had ever created. I took my rage and gave it form. I connected my self to that facility and poured what I felt into every speck of dust or breath of air.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The temperature rose. I don't know whether it was the exertion or the blood loss, but I started to black out. I fought to stay connected, to keep on working. Plastic melted.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The larger group made a wrong turn, they found themselves surrounded and surrendered. But the small group was still free and still moving in the right direction. I figured that I just had to keep people occupied and they'd get away.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I kept on working on the mark application and beheading room. The windows and doors felt the pressure as the air inside became much, much hotter than that outside. That gave me an idea and I devoted some of my attention to helping the windows and doors hold.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The room was far from air tight, but I was changing the temperature fast enough that it couldn't hope to keep the pressure equal. I lost all sense of time. I quoted an evil computer's discussion of hate, and I made the temperature rise. Finally, I just let go. The windows exploded, the air rushed out, and then the room collapsed. Everyone heard it, everyone responded. Guards who had concluded the alarm was a glitch and had been heading back to their posts ran to investigate the explosion.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Everyone was safely moved out away from the escapees, who disappeared into the woods while darkness overtook my senses.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I was woken up soon afterward as I was dragged into the cell by those who hadn't gotten away. My extra senses were gone. Burnt out, I assumed. I was laid on the ground and I heard the cell door close and lock. Someone, presumably whoever was in charge started talking to me from the other side of that door. I couldn't see him, I was lying flat on by back, my feet towards the door.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">He seemed haughty, and angry. I really only remember the last things he said. “You think you can come into my base, pretend to be an officer, blow up my equipment, and break people out of my prison cells?” I don't even know where to begin. First off, I didn't think I could do that, I did do that. Second, what other type of cell would I be breaking people out of? His eukaryotic cells?</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Third, the fact he was saying that and not telling me that additional prisoners, or their corpses, would soon be joining me, led me to a simple conclusion, “So I guess the others got away.” Ok, maybe my logic wasn't flawless, but it made sense that the recaptured people would be returned immediately, and I would be dragged in when they were. So the other people couldn't be back yet, and he made no mention of their imminent return.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">He didn't answer. He didn't have to. Instead he asked me, “Who the hell do you think you are?”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I suppose there are any number of wonderful ways to answer that, but for me, in that moment, there was only one. In retrospect I probably should have put more thought into it. I was bleeding on the floor and unlikely to get medical attention, I should have realized that those might have been my last words. I should have considered them carefully. Then again, I might have come to the same thing in the end. I didn't ask myself what would Jesus say, or what would Nathan Ford say. I didn't ask anything, I just said what my mother would have said:</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“We are the music makers,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“And we are the dreamers of dreams,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Wandering by lone sea-breakers,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“And sitting by desolate streams;<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“World-losers and world-forsakers,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“On whom the pale moon gleams:<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Yet we are the movers and shakers<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Of the world for ever, it seems.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">When I paused between stanzas one of the other prisoners started doing something with my shoulder. I'm guessing that they were trying to stop the bleeding, put on an improvised bandage of some kind, something like that. All I really know is that it hurt like hell. I focused on the words and kept going through the pain.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“With wonderful deathless ditties<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“We build up the world's great cities,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“And out of a fabulous story<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“We fashion an empire's glory:<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“One man with a dream, at pleasure,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Shall go forth and conquer a crown;<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“And three with a new song's measure<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Can trample a kingdom down.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">This entire time I was staring at the ceiling, it was an ugly water damaged thing and had an unpleasant habit of going in and out of focus. It dropped into incredibly sharp focus and stopped being ugly for a moment, the concentric irregular stains had a strange sort of beauty to them, and for the next stanza I admired it them as I spoke.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“We, in the ages lying<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“In the buried past of the earth,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Built Nineveh with our sighing,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“And Babel itself in our mirth;<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“And o'erthrew them with prophesying<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“To the old of the new world's worth;<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“For each age is a dream that is dying,” tears started to roll down my face, the way they always do when I get to this point,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Or one that is coming to birth.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Some people would stop there, but if my mother taught me nothing else she taught me that you can't stop at just three stanzas. You've got to do the whole thing. As a tear reached my right ear, I became lost in a memory: the time I couldn't make it through.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">My mother's funeral. I'd wanted to recite her favorite poem for her, one last time. But after I struggled through the third stanza, stumbling over the last two lines, I couldn't form any more words. All I could do was sob. My entire extended family was watching me, on any other day the embarrassment might have killed me, but on that day I was too broken to even notice.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">There had been nothing right about the day. It was bright and the sun was shining, there was a pleasant breeze and the grass was green. It was like the world didn't know what it had lost. Like it didn't care. Like my mother hadn't mattered. It was supposed to be dark, dreary, windy, and if not raining at least with an annoying drizzle.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Two days later, standing in front of her grave, a rectangle of rich disturbed soil mixed with grass seed marking where she was, I finished the poem. It was a private recital that time, just me and her.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">As I spoke I remembered saying the same words that day, the smell of fresh cut grass, the feel of the sunburn I had had:</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“A breath of our inspiration<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Is the life of each generation;<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“A wondrous thing of our dreaming<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Unearthly, impossible seeming—<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“The soldier, the king, and the peasant<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Are working together in one,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Till our dream shall become their present,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“And their work in the world be done.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">The memory ended with the stanza, but I couldn't bring the room back into focus. For some reason my right hand suddenly seemed very important. It was sticky, obviously blood, but I had no idea how it would have gotten there. I'd grabbed my shoulder with my left. It would have been incredibly awkward to get my right hand anywhere near the blood. I definitely would have noticed.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Maybe I touched my right hand with my left.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">It was a mystery I'd have to leave for another time, because I'd caught my breath and was ready to continue. I rubbed my bloody fingers together and said:</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“They had no vision amazing<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Of the goodly house they are raising;<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“They had no divine foreshowing<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Of the land to which they are going:<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“But on one man's soul it hath broken,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“A light that doth not depart;<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“And his look, or a word he hath spoken,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Wrought flame in another man's heart.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">It didn't really make any sense, it didn't have anything to do with this part of the poem, but more memories of my mother were coming up I remembered us in a storm, standing at the sea, yards from where the water met the rocks, daring the waves to break higher, and for some reason that makes no sense now that I am no longer in shock, the words I was saying seemed like perfect narration for the scene:</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“And therefore to-day is thrilling<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“With a past day's late fulfilling;<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“And the multitudes are enlisted<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“In the faith that their fathers resisted,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Are bringing to pass, as they may,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“The dream that was scorned yesterday.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">At this point I nearly threw up. I don't know why.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Then for whatever reason my thoughts turned to setting up camp in the woods, after we had to flee the cities the second time. I remembered how different it was from the first time. That time we weren't worried about our baser instincts, that time we weren't worried we'd end up killing each other. Even though, theoretically, a global regime was out to kill us, there had been a lot of joy, and a lot of fun.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">And there was even some singing, so maybe feeling like those though went with these words wasn't so odd:</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“But we, with our dreaming and singing,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Ceaseless and sorrowless we!<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“The glory about us clinging<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Of the glorious futures we see,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Our souls with high music ringing:<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“O men! it must ever be<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“A little apart from ye.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Of course once the set up was finished there was work to do, the hard work of actually resisting a global force of evil wasn't nearly as much fun. Nor was having to pick up and leave once they found our home in the woods. Those thoughts waited until the break between stanzas, and I wondered what would happen if I were tortured.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I'd break, of course I'd break. But then what? Would the others have been smart enough to run away before then, or would they all die because of me? I pushed the thoughts from my head. I had a poem to finish.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">This part seemed like it fit. The prison cell, the hole in my shoulder, my blood on my hands, everything the other side represented, and everything we hoped for. It all seemed to fit.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“For we are afar with the dawning<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“And the suns that are not yet high,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“And out of the infinite morning<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Intrepid you hear us cry—“ I tried to raise my voice as much as I could without breaking the poem here,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“How, spite of your human scorning,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Once more God's future draws nigh,” and dropped off again around hereish,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“And already goes forth the warning<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“That ye of the past must die.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">If I'd had more than one left to go, I think I might have given up. I simply didn't have much more left in me. As it was I again found myself having difficulty staying in the moment. I was back in another memory. I was with my mother. I was a child in bed, she was over me. When I looked into her deep green eyes I felt completely safe, and when she smiled I felt like everything was right with the world. As an adult that sounds like a silly cliche, but as a child it was Truth. Her hair hung down around her face, as she told the poem to me. The memory could have been from any one of a thousand nights. I spoke the words with her:</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“Great hail! we cry to the comers<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“From the dazzling unknown shore;<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Bring us hither your sun and your summers;<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“And renew our world as of yore;<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“You shall teach us your song's new numbers,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“And things that we dreamed not before:<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; line-height: 16px; ">“And a singer who sings no more.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">And then my mother would get up, say good night, lean over me, and give me a kiss on the forehead. Sometimes she'd stop on the way down or the way up, so that her hair just reached down to my face. It would tickle.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I hadn't forgotten why I started the poem. “So that's who I think we are.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Someone to my right, a woman, said, “He left eight stanzas ago.” I rolled my head to the side to get a look at the speaker, but I was still having trouble focusing on anything.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">“Oh.” I didn't have a lot else to say. Though I did think of one thing: “The bastard.”</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Then I passed out.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">-</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">When I woke up I learned that the damage I had done would prevent anyone from taking the mark or being beheaded in the near future. They would have to ship in additional supplies. Our keepers decided that it would be fun to refuse to feed us in the meantime. Then decided that it would be even more fun to give the thirty or so of us in the one room exactly one meal. So that we could fight over it. Enough of my senses had returned that I could see what it was without looking. It was chowder and bread. I figured the chowder wouldn't survive the fight and whoever got the bread wouldn't be me.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">I was wrong. There was no fight. I was given the chowder, I was given the bread. They helped me up, lifted the bowl to my lips, and gave it to me. I refused to finish. Told them to share what I didn't drink. Then they gave me some of the bread, I told them to share that too. I lay back down, I was still exhausted.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">And then there was a miracle. I didn't notice it happen, I didn't sense anything odd. But they told me that there was enough soup and bread to go around, with some left over. With more left over than we started with. I tried to get up to look, but I moved to fast, my vision went black, and I collapsed back onto the floor. Even so, I could tell they were right. There was more bread. I didn't see the soup, but I had no reason to doubt it.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; font-size: small;">Someone had violated the laws of thermal dynamics, and it gave me hope.</span></p><p></p>chris the cynichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06872875475212333027noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-27114572777818646362010-11-17T19:22:00.000-08:002010-11-18T07:00:12.971-08:00The Rapture<p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; font-size: small; ">He didn't want to be having this conversation again. He tried to ignore her. He had something more important to do anyway. In theory clearing the memory card was the easiest thing in the world, put it in the reader, hook the reader to the computer, and tell it to transfer the files, and forget about it. In practice the only part of the process that worked properly was the memory card. If he didn't hold the reader perfectly still, which was nearly impossible in a moving car, the connection would break, and he'd need to tell it to move the files all over again. That might not be so bad, if not for the fact that the laptop's battery was shot and telling him it only had 15 minutes of power left. Given that it would shut down automatically when it got to seven minutes left, which never seemed right to him, it was critically important that he hold the reader steady.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Which was hard when she was saying things that made him so angry his hands shook. Couldn't they spend a day without talking about religion? He was clearing space on the memory card so they could take a thousand pictures of them having fun climbing a mountain. Wasn't that enough? Why did theology have to come into things?</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Finally he couldn't take it anymore. “You think I deserve to go to Hell?” He didn't mean to say it that loudly and harshly, and for a moment he felt bad. But not enough to stop focusing on the computer and card reader.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">“No, but...”</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And he was fully angry again. It was silly and self centered to think of it that way, and most of the time he would have recognized it as such, but at the moment it felt like a personal affront. She knew how much he hated people stopping mid thought like that. He had always said that if you didn't know what you were going to say you should take a moment to figure it out before you start talking. She knew that.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">He gave her what he thought was a reasonable amount of time. And then more time. Nothing. “What?! But, <b>what?</b>” Nothing. He turned to her.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">“Shit!” He didn't have time to think about how it was possible for her to be gone, how she got out, or why he didn't hear the door. He didn't have time to think about the way his computer went flying as his entire body lurched forward and his hand shot towards the wheel. Only one thing mattered: Getting control of the car.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">When he turned his attention to the road he found there was no road. The car wasn't going down the interstate at seventy miles per hour. It was parked. In what appeared to be a Walmart parking lot. He didn't understand. Had be blacked out? He picked the computer up off the ground, 14 minutes of battery left, the clock had the same time, it was still on the same file.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">No time had passed. Where was she? Where was the interstate?</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Where was he?</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">-</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Kelly was getting ready to lunge for the same hold that had made her fall of the wall twice before. This time it would work, this time she would grab it right and it'd be an easy climb the rest of the way to the top. This would be the day. She just had to go.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Which was a lot harder than it seemed. She knew the rope would hold her, she knew Jen was a great belayer. She'd been caught without problem a thousand times before. But the part of her that knew those things wasn't the part that was keeping her short of breath and making the chalk sweat off her hands.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">She closed her eyes to collect her thought. Then everything changed. She wasn't holding onto the wall anymore. She was standing on solid ground. She opened her eyes. She would have been standing next to Jen, if not for the fact that Jen had disappeared.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">-</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Michael was looking out the window at the fields below. He loved watching the scenery go by and wondering what was happening down on the ground and today was perfect, not a cloud between him ad the view. Then suddenly everything changed. He said, “Jesus,” but it didn't seem like enough an explicative. The fields suddenly came up to the window and the engine had stopped.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The plane tilted to the left until the wingtip hit the ground. They were in a random cornfield. He later learned that the pilot, copilot, and nine of the passengers had disappeared.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">-</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The ambulance wasn't hers. The shift wasn't hers. The supplies laid out on the ground in front of her weren't hers. But the people on the ground were hurt, that made them patients. And she was the only one around who could help, that made them hers.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The explosion had apparently happened mere minutes before she was transported to the scene. No one remembered how they were pulled clear of the wreckage, nor could they explain where the ambulance came from.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It didn't matter. There was healing to be done, the tools were at hand, and the fact that they didn't actually belong to her wasn't going to stop her from using them.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">-</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">He'd been watching Elizabeth Warren give a lecture, on tv, then suddenly he wasn't. His response was, he thought, understandable, “Where the hell am I?”</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The only answer he got was warnings from the equipment monitoring the patient's vital signs. Explanations could wait, there was a surgery in progress. That he was qualified to complete the procedure couldn't have been a coincidence. Somehow, whatever made his predecessor, Doctor Mary Jacobs, disappear decided to replace her with him.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Perhaps she had been needed elsewhere, what little he had seen of her work indicated she was better than he was. Being magically transported wasn't what bothered him later. Nor was it the look in the eyes of woman who, shell shocked, told him that half an hour earlier she'd been 8 months pregnant, though he knew it should be, or if not that the sobbing he heard as he walked passed the maternity ward, infant care, and the children's wing.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What bothered him was that there hadn't been any time for learning on the job. The time it took him to find out what needed to be done the patient should have died. Instead all signs pointed to a full recovery. It was impossible. As if someone had hit the pause button until he got up to speed.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">When he had lunch he found several others with similar impossible stories. One told of how he'd been so drunk he needed both hands on the wall to move, and then suddenly found himself sober in the place he was needed most. Another of being transported to the ideal place to catch and treat a man who had a heart attack after witnessing an entire school bus disappear.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">-</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">She had to divide her attention between the road and the mirror. She wished she didn't have to spend so much on the mirror, but there was bullying going on and she was determined to stop it. Maybe she couldn't stop it everywhere, but she could make sure it didn't happen here. Not on her school bus.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Then, the children were gone. All of them. She didn't think about the fact that the bus had been in motion. She didn't think about what would happen if she let it choose its own way down the hill. She didn't think at all. She stood up and looked at the empty seats.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">She called the names of the best students. Then the worst. Then she called every student whose name she knew. There was no response, and no sign of any of them, but it was impossible. Unthinkable. They couldn't simply be gone.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It would be much later that she realized that somehow the school bus had parked itself by the school, though she was nowhere near there when it happened.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">-</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Flying Pony wasn't a pony and she couldn't fly, but what she could do was jump and she was good at the steeplechase. Just as she was about to launch herself over a loon themed jump something changed on her back.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The weight of her rider was gone. She turned to look and then remembered the jump. She remembered it too late. She tensed, but never hit it.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">She was alone in a field. Her rider, the jump, the course, the audience, the competition, everything was gone. All she could see was open field. She didn't ponder the question. She was a horse surrounded by tasty looking grass. She started to eat.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">-</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">One moment there were six cheerleaders forming a pyramid. The next there were four cheerleaders all safely on the ground.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">-</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The tugboat didn't notice its entire crew disappear. It didn't notice that it was no longer in a crowded harbor, or that it's engine had been turned off.</span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A set of high definition cameras that a documentary crew had set up in hopes of seeing the Loch Ness monster recorded the tug's sudden appearance. The monster did not show up.</span></span></p>chris the cynichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06872875475212333027noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-70308414491530576382010-11-12T15:49:00.000-08:002010-11-15T01:26:12.028-08:00What IS Nicolae?<span style="font-style: italic;">Note: This is my first post, so if there's anything wrong with it that'll be my excuse. ;) After reading </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2010/11/tf-pocket-full-of-kryptonite.html">Pocket full of kryptonite</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> on Slacktivist, I kind of became curious what the answer to Steele's question about Nicolae might be. I'm not sure if L&J tell the readers eventually (although I doubt it), or what the Bible says. My research for this pretty much consisted of the following: briefly checking Wikipedia, and asking a Christian I know about the Antichrist's nature as she understood it. It was also inspired partly by reading "</span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://exharpazo.blogspot.com/2010/07/malevolent-father-part-one.html">Malevolent Father</a><span style="font-style: italic;">" during an earlier visit. I don't know a whole lot about theology, or about L&J's story. So basically, I'm an ill-informed guy who's just going to be making stuff up and hoping that it'll at least turn out to seem plausible. With that disclaimer out of the way, I'll start writing...</span><br /><br />"I feel like I'm going to meet the devil," Rayford told Bruce. "I've never felt as scared as I am right now--and I hate to sound like I'm bragging, but I've never been easily frightened. I feel as if I'll fall apart in there! Buck may have gotten through a meeting with Carpathia, but he's younger and in better shape. I know that I can count on prayer support, but I still just want to turn around and run while I have the chance, and not look back."<br /><br />On the other end of the line, Bruce listened sympathetically and instinctively nodded at Rayford's words, even though he knew Rayford couldn't see it. He didn't fault Rayford for being apprehensive--"apprehensive" nothing, the proper word would be "terrified". At any rate, it was a perfectly normal and human way to feel. But Rayford would need to keep his panic under control when meeting Carpathia. And even if Bruce were to forget all about the Trib Force's mission, hearing another human being in such distress made him want to ease that distress. It was simply his nature.<br /><br />"Okay Rayford, try to stay calm. I believe you'll be able to get through this. We all do. And things aren't as bad as you think. First, you're not literally going to be meeting the devil; only if you were encountering the Antichrist in the second half of the Tribulation would you actually be dealing with the person who was possessed by Satan himself. Second, you don't need to be in excellent physical shape for something like this. As long as you're not prone to heart attack, you should be fine. And between you and me, I think you might actually have more stamina than Buck; he might have hit the weights on a regular basis, but the poor guy can't walk very far before he needs a rest."<br /><br />When Rayford next spoke, Bruce was glad to hear that he <span style="font-style: italic;">did</span> sound a little most composed.<br /><br />"So what is Carpathia, then, if he's not actually the devil? Some second-rate demon?"<br /><br />Certainly, Bruce thought, Rayford wouldn't have asked a question like that when he'd first called. When he had picked up, Rayford had indeed sounded like he was on the verge of falling apart. At that point, his focus wasn't on the nature of his enemy as much as it was on securing protection from his enemy. Primal flight instinct, Bruce thought. An animal confronted by a predator just wants to run away, get away as fast as it can. Only when it feels some measure of safety does its fear become replaced with some measure of curiosity, as seemed to be the case with Rayford now.<br /><br />"Well, no," Bruce answered. "If he were a demon then I doubt he'd be a second-rate one, but that's moot because he isn't. Just the same as Jesus wasn't an angel. And, as I've already told you, Carpathia is not a manifestation of Satan, or even possessed by Satan. The simple answer is that Carpathia is a human being. He's a human being who has been given supernatural abilities by Satan, but human nonetheless. A human whom Satan has spoken to since the day of his birth. You almost have to feel sorry for him."<br /><br />"WHAT?! How can you say that, Bruce?! I mean, this man is the <span style="font-style: italic;">Antichrist</span>, and for the first time in my life I'm saying that about somebody without hyperbole! He's the embodiment of evil! He's the <span style="font-style: italic;">enemy</span>, and you're saying that we should feel sorry for him for some reason?"<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Me and my big mouth</span>, Bruce thought. Sharing that particular opinion with Rayford had him back to near-hysterics.<br /><br />"Rayford, I'm sorry that I've upset you. Please, let me explain. Imagine if you heard a voice in your head your entire life, a voice telling you to do this or that, a voice that praised you for some actions and berated you for others. A voice that drowned out the voices of your parents, teachers, people you looked up to, and a voice that you could never silence. That is what Satan has done with Carpathia. That's how Carpathia was groomed for the role Satan had planned for him. It's difficult to imagine any normal person not eventually succumbing to such mental conditioning. He had no choice in the kind of human he would grow up to be, and because of that he is doomed to burn for eternity. Jesus told us to be merciful, Rayford, to love our enemies, and a logical extension of that love is to pity them when they are in pain. Nicolae Carpathia may be evil, but I still wouldn't wish the fate that's in store for him on anybody."<br /><br />Silence, but no dial tone. Bruce wondered if he ought to say something more, and then...<br /><br />"I can't believe you're actually <span style="font-style: italic;">sympathizing</span> with the son of Satan," Rayford's voice grated through the phone. Bruce's words had apparently fallen on deaf ears. Rayford sounded angry and disgusted with him. "He's EVIL. He DESERVES it."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">It's not that simple, Rayford!</span> Bruce wanted to shout into the phone. But he could tell that it would only make things worse.<br /><br />"Look, Rayford, I have to go, all right?" Bruce lied. "We can talk more about this later. Just try to calm down. Meeting Carpathia while full of rage could be as bad as meeting him while full of fear. I'll make sure to pray for you and get the others to do the same, so you don't need to worry. Good luck."<br /><br />"Yeah, goodbye."<br /><br />Click and a dial tone.<br /><br />Bruce hoped that he hadn't made things worse. Was he wrong, he wondered? Did pitying somebody condemned to suffer for eternity make him a bad person? Did God frown on that?<br /><br />He hoped not. He couldn't help it. And he wondered, not for the first time, how a loving God could condemn even the likes of Nicolae Carpathia, even Satan himself, to such horrible and neverending punishment.Rob Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09136538449753508917noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6545302900560676544.post-20166192895911813842010-11-01T11:28:00.000-07:002011-09-26T19:49:25.603-07:00The Courtship of Meta-Chloe, part duex<blockquote>An ongoing effort to re-write the relationship between Cameron and Chloe; the original scene being re-written can be found <a href="http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2008/02/lb-educational.html">here</a> and <a href="http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2008/02/lb-losing-chloe.html">here</a> with Fred's commentary.</blockquote><br />
Cameron dragged himself to the airplane gate, glassy-eyed and near-mindless. Dinner with the Steeles was a strange but invigorating affair. On the one hand, he had to stop himself from mooning over the Captain's young daughter; he kept wanting to stare, to drink in the details of her face. On the other hand, if Steele's claims were true, then the internet-based attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities (the Gog botnet) and on the Russian Army (the elusive MaGog computer virus) were connected to The Event, and all of it was really just a warm-up for what was coming next. Cameron had researched conspiracies before, uncovered what powerful corporations and governments had wanted to cover up, and before dinner was done, he had already started identifying sources to contact, questions to ask, and information to research. <br />
<br />
Which was why, less than 12 hours later, he was barely conscious as he boarded his flight to Chicago. He'd spent most of the night writing emails, making phone calls, and lining up interviews with trusted sources. What he hadn't done much of was sleep, and his memory of Coach seating at Pan-Con didn't offer much hope of rest. He'd bought a bible at the airport gift shop, and had notes on sections to read and cross-reference with other sections.<br />
<br />
"Mr. Williams?" The preternaturally-chipper employee at the gate had keyed in his ticket information and seemed amused. "It looks like you've been upgraded to Business Class. We hope you enjoy your flight."<br />
<br />
Cameron blinked groggily before remembering the Captain asking about his travel arrangements the night before. Was Rayford trying to butter him up, make him think better of the Captain and by extension make his Rapture theory more plausible? Cameron smirked at the thought: sure, he'd been offered huge bribes, threatened by third-world dictators, but <i>hey, an upgrade to business class? That changes everything!</i><br />
<br />
<a href="http://exharpazo.blogspot.com/2010/11/courtship-of-meta-chloe-part-duex.html">(more below the cut)</a><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Cameron lumbered onto the plane and settled into the slightly-wider business class seat. He sat, trying to decide between the pillow and blanket in the overhead compartment or the Bible and notes in the bag at his feet. The decision was taken from him by a sudden press of scratchy wool all around his head and an enthusiastic cry:<br />
<br />
"Bucky!"<br />
<br />
Cameron felt a pair of slender arms wrapped around his head, and tried not to think about where his face might be. Muffled by the sweater, he asked: <br />
<br />
"Chloe? I hope?"<br />
<br />
It was indeed Chloe, who released his head from her hug and plopped down in the seat next to him. <br />
<br />
"Dad seemed strangely smug after dinner. As far as surprises go, this wasn't a bad one on his part."<br />
<br />
Cameron blinked sheepishly as a slow grin crawled onto his face. <br />
<br />
"Yeah, I guess being a pilot has its perks. I though he was just trying to bribe me into running with the story he wants."<br />
<br />
"Nope. Dad's not that clever. I think he knew you'd have a long, lonely boring flight, and since I was headed that way anyhow, he just made a call and got you a better seat."<br />
<br />
"Why are you going back to Chicago? I thought you were in college?"<br />
<br />
Chloe paused and looked down at the airplane safety guide.<br />
<br />
"It just doesn't feel right. I mean, it sounds a little odd to say 'I dropped out of college to read the Bible', but if my dad and Rev. Barnes are right, Bible study reall <i>might</i> be the most important thing in the world right now."<br />
<br />
They both smiled at the joke, but the silence hung in the air. If it was all true, then the world would end in just over seven years. Not very much time at all, really.<br />
<br />
Cameron broke the silence first, talking in an exaggerated Boston accent:<br />
<br />
"Hey there! College is important! You finish that four year degree, go on for your Masters, spend six months at an internship, and why in no time at all you'll be earning six figures! Seven, eight years at the most and you'll be on top of the world!"<br />
<br />
Chloe didn't actually laugh, but she smiled, and ducked her head to conceal her blushing gratitude for the humor.<br />
<br />
They kept talking back and forth; it seemed like the elephant in the room (airplane?) was that potential ticking clock. Now that it was out in the open, their conversation drifted away from it. They talked about if they believed in the Biblical prophecies. (Chloe was a skeptic, but knew <i>something</i> was going on) They talked about their families, about how and where they grew up. Cameron was still exhausted, but at the same time felt a manic energy; if his choices were sleep or to keep talking to this beautiful young girl, well, sleep could wait. Their conversation reminded him of those long-lost days of high school, sitting in bed & talking on the phone for hours about nothing at all.<br />
<br />
Chloe had been talking with Cameron for easily over an hour before she noticed it. He was wearing a goofy smile, he was staring at her, and when she talked, he hung on her every word. Chloe knew she was better at flirting than he was, and while she hadn't dated a lot in high school or college, she suspected Cameron had dated a lot less. She could see he was smitten. <br />
<br />
Her own feelings were a bit more mixed. He was older than her, but at the same time had this boyish earnestness. "Buck Williams, ace reporter"! He was interested in her, but he also cared about the story he was working on, and he wasn't going to compromise it. When he talked about getting to the bottom of a story, there was real passion in his voice, and Chloe couldn't ignore that. They both felt like The Event had shown them a larger world, that there was something more going on, and she felt a connection to him that was different than anything she'd felt before. <br />
<br />
As they stepped off the plane, she pulled him aside from the flow of disembarking travellers.<br />
<br />
"Hey, I still don't know about all of the Rapture stuff, but I'm going to go to the Sunday services, and I'll definitely be at the Wednesday Bible study, so I hope you'll show up for some of it. Now go home and get some sleep! You look like the walking dead!"<br />
<br />
Cameron smiled, and then began lurching away stiffly, groaning and doing his best zombie impression. Chloe giggled, and watched, waiting to see when he'd drop the act. Amazingly, he actually went the length of the concourse and down the escalators lurching around, groaning about "brains" the whole way. When he got an idea, he committed to it; Chloe gave him that.Chris Doggetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04818552086179513521noreply@blogger.com4