Stuff and a Character Interview with Cale and Tammany

First, I have a guest post - a legit essay and everything - on the wonderful blog The Critical Psychopath. So. Go check that out.

Second, I applied for Harvard and Carleton today. Neither have the best music performance programs - or, like, any at all - but I applied. With essays and everything. There's a really big part of me that's freaking the fuck out. Because I'm going to be a legitimate adult, with responsibilities and stuff, in less than a year.

And on top of that, it just sort of hit me today that NaNo is in about nine days. I don't remember much after that revelation, but apparently I froze for several minutes and whimpered slightly. It was reported that I was also mouthing "Ohgodohgodohgod."

That more or less sums up my current feelings.

So I know I posted here a warm-up for the TCWT blog chain. That's not going to happen. All the people who say senior year is easier than junior year are lying liars who lie. I'm having to work far harder this year than I ever have before, which means that even a plot with the silliness of Ada Lovelace's ghost isn't going to be feasible, because it requires thought, effort, and a modicum of research. None of these are things I have in excess this November. So. Instead. My current plot idea is taking a bunch of characters I've thought about before and throwing them into that omphalskeptic favorite - "A Bunch of Friends Hang Out In a Coffee Shop and Don't Do Very Much," or as I like to call it, "[CENSORED FOR COPYRIGHT PURPOSES]". Highly original, I know.

On the upside, my favorite teacher and possible new best friend gave me permission to do NaNo for class credit instead of the normal assignments. So all of a sudden I have forty-five minutes a day to dedicate to NaNo that I've never had before. He might even participate in it, too. So there's a good thing.

But back on the topic of my own NaNovel, I have some characters that I've been sitting on for a while. I have the dynamic between them ready, I know who they are - I just need to send them into action. So, without further ado - Tammany Dreisang and Cale Smith.

• What is your lifelong dream?
• T: To own my cafe, which I've technically accomplished. To have it become a local Place, capital P, not just a Starbucks. To own a first edition signed copy of all of Neil Gaiman's books.
• C: To have a successful band. To not have to be an accountant other than for said band.
• T: And me?
• C: ... Fine.
• How do you feel about your life in general?
• C: Other than wishing I had an actual band, it's not bad. Sometimes a bit lonely, but whatever.
• T: I'm good. I don't really want anything more than what I've got now, except maybe a few more customers. I'm easily contented, I guess.
• C: Except when it comes to the last muffin.
• T: Shut up or I will end you.
• What do you fear most?
• C: Being a white-bread accountant for the rest of my life. And spiders. Spiders are scary.
• T: Teenage vandal hooligans with spray paint coming after the cafe at night and defacing all it's windows with nastiness.
• C: Bit specific, isn't it?
• T: At least it's not spiders. 
• If you could spend a week anywhere in the world, where would it be?
• T: San Fransisco, definitely. 
• C: Can I travel in time, too?
• No.
• C: Then... Sundance?
• Acceptable.
• T: How are you talking to the questionnaire? Is that even possible?
• C: Trade secret.
• What's the worst argument you've ever been in?
• C: Well, there was a nasty political argument that sort of got me exiled from my group of friends junior year of college, but I think the worst would be when I took Tammany's muffin. She would not rest until I had been thoroughly doused in cheez-wiz.
• T: You absolutely deserved it. A once in a lifetime experience - a cranberry triple-chocolate muffin with walnuts, custom-made by my favorite bakery, and you eat it. Idiot.
• C: You covered me with cheez-wiz. You are not the sane one here.
• T: Well, you grabbed the whipped cream and started spraying me back.
• C: Self-defense.
• Who's your best friend?
• C: We just told you about a cheez-wiz and whipped cream fight.  You need to ask.
• T: Yeah, honestly.
• If you knew you were going to meet your true love tomorrow, how would you react?
• T: I'd laugh so hard I'd probably pull something. 
• C: Hey, don't knock love.
• T: Wait, the high and mighty Cale with a soft side? Be still my beating heart. No such thing as true love.
• Final question: How would you react if your friends suddenly no longer wanted anything to do with you?
• C: Ask what took them so long. Go write depressing songs. Maybe move.
• T: Spend the night sobbing. Maybe get falling-down drunk and make some new friends.
• C: I don't think I've ever seen you drunk. No one likes you.
• T: Shut up, muffin-stealer.

I honestly really like these two. They'll be fun to write, at the very least. Next are Jim, Morgan and Nathan.

Chapter 17 (Almost There!)

Home stretch! I'm 130 words into the final chapter, and will definitely finish it tomorrow. This is probably, against all odds, the most coherent long piece I've written, and definitely my favorite. I will never speak of the post-apocalyptic thing, nor the alternate universe author tract. They have been forgotten. This I might even both to revise, which is a First of Firsts.

In this chapter: SOMEONE GETS SHOT OMG!!!!!111!!1!!1one!!!

I hate myself a little, for writing that. Sorry. But it's true. Still Not Safe for Those of a Prim Disposition.


Havisham and Jean stepped forward in front of the women, all three of whom seemed affronted. Stranger simply stared. There wasn't a lot he could do, at this point, except listen to the witty banter passing back and forth between Jean and Leroy. So, as the first verbal assault was made and parried, Stranger sidled around to where George was standing.

"Why, look at what we have here," Leroy said, saccharine sweet. "A plucky little band of heroes looking to face down the big bad man. You forgot a part of your cliche, though, it appears. I don't think a single one of you has a weapon, do you? Anyone?"

No one moved. Stranger froze momentarily, hoping Leroy wouldn't notice his momentum.

"Clark. You know, I thought you had a little more class," Jean said, and Stranger breathed easier and kept edging around to George. Of course he was on the far side of the group. "A little more je ne sais quoi, perhaps. Such a shame to see that I was wrong."

Stranger reached George and whispered, "George. George. Is it in the car?"

"I know exactly what you thought I had. 'Je sais quoi, mais tu ne sais pas' indeed," Leroy said, dropping quotation marks in his speech effortlessly. Stranger hated him a little more, for that. He and his lackey were drawing closer, both guns aimed at the group. Stranger really wanted those guns to be pointed somewhere else. Like, perhaps, at the people wielding them, instead. "You thought I had morals. Some kind of misguided sense of right and wrong? It seems you were mistaken, Jean."

George had gotten his point and was taking his turn inching awkwardly around behind everyone else, heading for the Caddy.

"It hasn't done you a lot of good," Caroline said, moving up and forming a united front with Jean and Havisham, both of whom were taking slow, angry steps forward. "Your people were panicking like rats in a trap." And now George was leaning casually on the car, one arm furiously searching the back seat.

"You forget something about rats in a trap, my dear. When rats are cornered... We fight," Leroy said, and fired a single shot. It was aimed over their heads, and must have had a silencer on, because it wasn't particularly loud. But it got his point across. Stranger was standing stock-still, trying not to breath too loudly in case it drew Leroy's attention. But, thank the capricious universe, George was inching back, not one but two familiar objects in his hands.

"I didn't know which it you meant," George murmured beneath the conversation and the sound of sirens in the distance. "So I got both." One was one of their high-tech phones, one that had promptly been stowed and forgotten in the back seat. The other was the katana, long forgotten and ignored in favor of flashy guns. It would do. Stranger grabbed both, slowly, and spent five seconds figuring out how to dial 911. Then he dropped the phone in his pocket, upside down, so the microphone was exposed, and held the katana loose in his right hand, so that the rest of the group hid it. He stepped forward, becoming even with Persephone and MacAlleister, and George did likewise, flanking them.

Stepping forward again, narrowing the space between the two groups down to a mere ten feet, Jean said, "I suppose it might be a bit much to expect honor from a trapped rodent. But still. A true Frenchman knows how to deal with these things honorably. I thought I might at least see that from you, with your Baroque stylings and Sun King allusions." Stranger swallowed. Jean was pushing it.

But it was effective. Leroy was turning strange colors, a flush of purple battling with pasty white on his face. His lackey was looking nervous, worried about his boss or their chances against seven people at short range, who might not really give a crap what happened to them. It couldn't have helped his state of mind when Leroy yanked his gun from his hand and tossed it to Jean. "We'll duel, then. How's that for your honor," he spat.

Stranger sensed his opportunity and started moving forward. His movement blended into the general surge forward of the rest of the group. "Stop," Jean said, calmly. To the evident shock of the lackey, whom Stranger was giving most of his attention, because he was the only one who might be paying attention to Stranger himself at this point, everyone did. "We'll do this like gentlemen," he said, and there was a brilliant steel edge to his voice, sharp as the katana's blade. He moved forward and out at a forty-five degree angle, circling until he was facing Leroy from a distance of maybe thirty feet.

"You fucking bastards," Leroy said. "You ruin Richard, and then because that's not enough, you ruin me, too. Everything I had, everything I worked for, you just come in and kick it down, not even knowing what you were doing, fumbling like children. Simply because of some illusions like law and order, or good. There's no fucking thing!" Spittle was flying from his mouth at this point and the hand holding the gun was shaking. Stranger found it alarming, and started circling around behind him, carefully, hoping to finish this quickly.

The sirens were getting closer.

The lackey saw Stranger coming towards him, his blade switched to his left hand so as to prevent Leroy from catching a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye. His eyes grew huge. Stranger hurriedly brought a finger to his lips. The lackey looked at him, confused, for just long enough for Stranger to smack him in the face with the flat of the blade. He took the opportunity to lie down for a while, where no one would bother him.

"We didn't do anything to you," Jean said, calmly, speaking over the meaty thump and slight metallic hum Stranger had caused, keeping Leroy distracted. Stranger envied his poise like an envying thing. Unfortunately, Leroy was extremely alert to any kind of clue that would let him flip out, and he heard anyway.

He whirled on Stranger, who held up the katana like he might have a clue how to use it. "You talk to me about honor and then you have this little shit come around to stab me in the back!" he screamed. "Well, here's this for honor!" And he fired at Stranger, and all Stranger knew was pain.

-----

He woke up in the hospital, in a private room if the Victorian decoration scheme was any indication, with a single, huge bouquet on the fiddly little table against the wall opposite. Stranger spent a couple moments staring at it, wondering over the sheer vibrancy of the colors, before he realized he was currently on the good drugs, and passed out again.

The next time he woke up, it was to the sound of Persephone being very angry at someone. He tried to apologize, but his tongue was thick and his checks were numb, so all he managed was an incoherent mumble. Persephone immediately stopped being angry and started cooing at him, with occasional nasty asides to whoever else was there. Content that he wasn't getting shouted at, he slipped back off.

The third time he woke up, it stuck a little better. He was still in the private room, and the flowers had scented it thoroughly enough that they almost covered the antiseptic smell. Everything was a bit blurry, yet, so he had to blink a couple times when a face leaned over him before it resolved into the face of Mr. Rochester. Stranger was a bit put out with this development, to be honest. "Where's Persephone?" he asked.

"Which one's Persephone?" Rochester asked. "Never mind, I'll find out later. I'm here to tell you that you have been absolved of all charges. Neither of the weapons you held killed Sir Richard, apparently. It was all a malfunction of the experimental weapons system that he used for security. You will still be called in as a witness for the kidnapping charges that are being pressed against his staff, however."

"That's nice," Stranger said. "Did I get in any other trouble?"

"Only a slight issue with the whole association-with-terrorists bit, but that was dropped after they produced some extremely interesting papers from the federal government," Rochester said, a satisfied smile on his face. "Very interesting papers. Indeed, I don't think they will be facing any issues in the US for quite a while, now."

"Very nice." Then the most recent events of his memory hit, and he asked, "Leroy? I mean, Mr. Clark?"

"He is currently waiting for the trial, but he is definitely getting life in prison. The only real question is how many consecutive sentences he'll receive. His organization has been dismantled, piece by piece, by the same government that evidently deals with your friends. His attack on you and yours was a last stand, a bit of revenge before he fled the country. He seems to think you lot were responsible for it."

"Knowing them, they probably were, a little bit," Stranger said. "But definitely not mostly." Then, realizing he was probably going to pass out soon Is Persephone here? She's the brunette with the legs."

"The tall one? I'll bring her in. It was quite a struggle to get her out for this talk, to be honest," Rochester said. "Her real name is -"

"No, don't tell me," Stranger said. "Just ask her in, please." The drugs were making him more polite, it seemed. Well, no one would complain about that.

Rochester got up and left the room, taking a briefcase the size of a small desk with him, and Persephone entered almost immediately. "You are in more trouble than you have any idea how to deal with," she said. "But that can wait until later." And then she gave him a hug. It was the gentlest yet, and Stranger desperately wanted to hug her back, but he seemed to have a pick line in his right arm and lots and lots of bandages on the other.

So he settled for saying, "Hi."

She pulled back, and said, a little watery, "Hi."

"Do I get to know your real name, now?" he asked. "After all, I got shot being stupidly brave. Did I earn it?"

"You're an idiot." She shook he head. "It's Mary. But if you even think, for half a second, of calling me by it I won't ever speak to you again."

"Duly noted," he said. "... Quite contrary."

She swatted him upside the head, and he laughed. Unfortunately, that jogged his arm, and he cut off, wincing. Persephone immediately figured it out, and looked down at his arm, and he followed her gaze.

"How bad is it?" he asked. She wouldn't sugar coat it, and there really were quite a lot of bandages. At least it was his left.

She swallowed. "Lots of burns, and there's going to be a lot of scarring," she said. "They were worried about the muscle, but it seems to be alright. You're going to have to wear long sleeves or scare small children, but the hand was barely splashed, so it's fine. You're going to be basically okay."

Stranger felt the knot under his breastbone unravel. "Awesome," he said, smiling up at her. Then the details made their way through his morphine-addled brain. "Ah, what exactly did those guns shoot?"

"Flaming napalm," Persephone said.

Stranger stared at her. "What?"

"He was so upset, he mostly missed you," she explained "The building behind you now had some structural issue, but you escaped practically whole, compared to what a full shot would have done. Which would have been fiery death." And then she was hugging him again. Stranger smiled at the ceiling and moved his pick lined arm close enough that he could rest his hand on her back, then slipped back into medicated slumber.

-------

He thought about that moment fondly several days later, after he got himself released to the care of George's private bevy of doctors and now had to face the media circus that was on the other side of the hospital doors. It turned out that there had been a security camera keeping an eye on the parking lot they'd been in. The footage had hit Youtube so hard that it had left a dent, and it had only blown up from there. The fact that he was an published author of horror stories where people did stupid things and got themselves mutilated for it only made it worse. And then he'd patented the plans for the superconductor, and the world had collectively flipped its shit over him. Now he was going to have to walk through the reporters and such whom he'd so successfully avoided for the past week (by being unconscious or medicated, sure, but still) and that was, for some reason, more terrifying than getting shot with flaming napalm. Maybe because this he'd known about beforehand.

He turned to Persephone, who was leaving with him. "I know I promised I wouldn't tempt death anymore," he told her, "But I really don't see any way out of it this time."

She laughed at him. So did George, who was on his other side. "Honestly, it isn't a death sentence," he said. "It's fine."

"Says you," Stranger retorted. "You're the one who has to deal with something like this once a month."

"So do you, but you just ignore it," George told him.

"No, then I flip them off and run away," Stranger said. He looked back at the crowd of reporters. He hoped it was his imagination, and that they weren't really baying for blood. He shuddered. Turning back to Persephone, he said, "I know that you are going to take me out to dinner, but I intend to pay the first time, because I can afford it now. You can stand up for women another time. And if I die, you can have my CDs."

"Hey!" George said.

"You still get my DVDs," Stranger told him.

That was when Havisham arrived. (His full name was Lester Tristan Havisham. Stranger learned that, and for his own protection immediately forgot it.) He was the designated Big Guy Who Walks In Front Of Them To Make A Path. No one messed with Havisham when he wanted to get somewhere. "Ready?" he asked.

"Not at all, not in the least, no way," Stranger said. He was beginning to babble a bit, it seemed. "But let's go anyway, before I get readmitted."

So Havisham opened up the doors and Stranger did his absolute best to stay firmly in his wake.

"Mr. Stranger! What was it like?"

"Mr. Stranger, what was going through your mind?"

"Mr. Stranger! Would you have killed him?"

"How do you feel about your newfound wealth, Mr. Stranger!"

"How do you like all the attention, Mr. Stranger?"

Stranger was honestly tempted to stop and answer that last one, but thought better of it. He'd get eaten alive if he stopped moving. They were like piranha, honestly. So instead he ignored it all until he was firmly seated in the Caddy - back seat, not driving, unfortunately, because he was strictly forbidden, on pain of pain, from driving while on his meds. And while he was more than willing to abandon the hospital, he didn't want to find out exactly what his arm felt like unmedicated.

It was a mercifully short drive back to George's. Stranger kept himself slumped low in his seat to avoid being spotted, but considering the uniqueness of the Caddy and the fact that George kept waving to the paparazzi, he didn't think his tactic was successful in keeping them undiscovered. He knew that he was eventually going to have to give in and give someone an interview, but not just yet. He wanted his life to return to normalish for a bit, first.

Caroline was waiting for them in the (refurnished) foyer. "You know," she said, "I think you might be the most popular man in the country, just now. You might want to try running for president."

"Fuck you," Stranger said, and went to go hide in a guest room.

"You know, you might be useful after all," Caroline called after him, teasing. "We can just send you out and no one will even think about us."

"I repeat, fuck you." And then he collapsed into bed - an actually bed, not that hospital thing - and slept like the dead for the next fourteen hours.

Chapter Sixteen

I'm having a minor freak-out. I may actually have more plot than words. I think I can wrap it up relatively nicely, but it's going to take effort. Not that I mind. I think it's awesome.

Still Not PG-13. Yeesh. I have a dirty mouth. Well, so do my favorite authors, but still.

Stranger honestly wasn't really aware of the trip back to George's place. George was beside him in the passenger seat, drifting in and out of a hazy kind of consciousness. Alice's CPU was sitting in the back seat, carefully belted in. He didn't remember getting either of them there. He was just mentally fried. When he did get back to the parking garage dedicated to Stranger's building, the valet had raised an eyebrow, but made no comment. Someone had obviously paid him off to never speak of George's comings and goings, nor speak to him about them. That was nice. Stranger only really came back to full awareness when he heard someone wrapping on the window, trying to get his attention. "Stranger - Stranger, open up!"

He looked out. Jean was the one knocking on the glass, but the rest of the group - minus Havisham, who was probably back at the penthouse or standing guard somewhere, and Persephone, who was probably saving the universe - were all looking in at him with worried expressions. He opened the door, and stepped out, trying not to look too strained as he smiled at them. "Hey," he said. "Got him back. And Alice, hopefully."

"We see," Jean said. "Are you okay, though?"

"Yeah, fine," Stranger said. "Just... pissed, and tired, and feeling like the universe is a cruel mistress." It was true, all of it, although every word was an understatement of the highest caliber.

Jean eyed him warily, like he expected him to break down there in the garage. "If you say so," he said, then moved around to the other side of the car, with Caroline, to help George. Now merely groggy and suffering from a fierce headache, if his semi-coherent mutterings were anything to go by, he got out mostly under his own power. Meanwhile, MacAlleister got Stranger, pulling him out of the car and upright.

"You are not fine," she said, running a diagnostic eye over him. "But I'm not going to argue. Head inside, there's coffee and food."

The thought of food made Stranger feel at least slightly more human. "Good coffee?" he asked. "Not instant swill?"

"Not instant swill," she said, mock-affronted. "You've seen the coffee makers that were on the bus. We won't accept anything less than the highest caliber."

"Good to know," Stranger said, and tried another smile. This one felt at least marginally less like he would crack if he moved a muscle wrong. He wandered inside, slowly. The other actually passed him on the way in, dealing with a hungover George. A  hungover George, especially one who had moderate injuries from torture he didn't actually remember, was not a happy George. Seeing that he was mentally okay, and on his way to being physically fine, too, helped Stranger also. But to be completely honest, what helped him shake off the whole business the best was when he was attacked the moment he set foot inside the foyer. Persephone basically tackled him around the knees and held onto him for a while, not saying anything.

Finally, Stranger had to shift, because he'd had a bit of a rough time of it the past week or so, what with falling off roofs and bus crashes and all that, and lying on the floor, even while being hugged by Persephone, was not the most comfortable thing. This cued her to look up at him, a terrifying scowl on her face, and say, "You. I told you to try not to get yourself killed. You agree, then you immediately run off to get yourself killed. I intend to have dinner with you after all this is over, so I strongly object to your new-found suicidal tendencies."

"Not suicidal," Stranger protested, pushing himself into a sitting position.

"Stupidly brave, suicidal, pissed off," she said, waving a hand. "No difference. You are not to get yourself killed, nor needlessly enter situations in which death is a likely outcome because of some misguided sense of responsibility. Capische?"

"Got it," Stranger said, obediently. "Now, my entire spinal column is in the very early stages of recovery from a great fall, so, if you could be so kind as to let me up?"

She let him move, although a bit reluctantly, and he got back up gingerly. He wasn't in a huge hurry to actually do anything, though. There still didn't seem like a ton he could do. And then the exhaustion hit him. "Ah, is there somewhere I could sleep for a couple hours?" Stranger asked.

She looked at him, and then realized, "Oh, you haven't slept since yesterday, have you?"

"Not really, no," Stranger said. "I'd really settle for a corner where no one will step on me, at this point."

"Sure, just let me -" She was cut off by Havisham coming in again, looking worried.

"We've got twenty minutes to be somewhere untraceable," he said, abruptly. "We're leaving. Now."

And he all put grabbed their arms and pulled them back out of the room. Stranger looked longingly at the plush carpet he could see through the living room's open door as he went.

"You know, I'm experiencing the weirdest feeling of deja vu," Stranger cracked, as he was shoved into the driver seat of the caddy.  "I wonder why?"

Persephone just rolled her eyes at him as she slipped in the passenger seat, and George sort of toppled into the back. Caroline shoved his legs in properly and shut the door behind him, and said, "The Super 8 motel. You know the one. The creepy one," and made for the Vannagon.

Stranger went. This whole being-mortal-danger-without-a-say bit was getting old, but Persephone turned on some classic rock and started singing along. He decided there were definitely worse things to be doing that driving a classic convertible on a summer's day with a woman who wanted to take him out to dinner singing beside him. Of course, it was raining again, but he didn't really care. It made the drive that much easier, with fewer scary Boston drivers out and about.

The Super 8 was considered the scary motel in town, but Stranger saw it through different eyes as he pulled into the cracked asphalt parking lot. Compared to his last motel, this place was downright homey. It was an institutional kind of sketchy, just something built into the whole franchise.  It was welcoming, almost, to someone willing himself through the final dregs of exhaustion like Stranger was. He got out of the car and made it around to the other side of the car in record time, for all his exhaustion, to hold the door for Persephone.

"Chivalry isn't necessary," she told him, getting out. "I've already told you I'm taking you out for dinner."

"Maybe I want to be chivalrous," Stranger said, watching her sway back and forth. Actually, considering the fact that everything was swaying, it was more likely he was swaying. Unfortunate, that.

She grabbed his arm and steadied him. "Come on, sir knight," she said. "Let's get you to a bed."

George struggled upright in the back seat and Stranger turned towards him. "Oh, yeah, don't mind the severely injured billionaire," George said, bitterly. "Just go off and flirt with each other, I'm fine."

"George, you're bandaged up in roughly a million places," Stranger told him. "Your injuries have been taken care of."

"Then why do I fucking hurt?" George snapped, hauling himself out of the car.

"Because you got the snot beaten out of you," Stranger said. He turned to Persephone again. "Do you think anyone in the hotel will care if we book a room for three?"

"I'm sure it's happened before," she told him. "Come one, then."

Stranger grabbed George's arm and slung it over his shoulder, and George grabbed his and did the same. Thus keeping each other upright, they staggered after Persephone and inside.

The smell of both fresh and moldy plaster pervaded the lobby. It was obvious where the scents were coming from. The fresh plaster came from the wall where big ugly sets of scaffolding were up, and the moldy plaster came from literally everywhere else. The place didn't try to hide what it was, i.e. a place for slightly shady hookups of all kinds. The desk clerk didn't even raise an eyebrow at the time of day, nor when Persephone told him they'd need a single room. It did rise when she asked for three beds, though. Evidently having everyone sleep separately wasn't exactly common. But they got a room key and wandered down the hall. Stranger was glad that they had a room on the bottom floor. He was pretty sure that he wasn't doing any more defying of gravity than what it took to stay upright until he'd gotten at least fifty winks in, if not more. And George was just muttering imprecations against the world in general, and limping slightly. He was, suffice to say, not happy.

Their room was 113. Stranger watched the number swim a little as Persephone unlocked the room, and then headed inside after her. There were beds. There were two beds and a couch that could turn into a bed. Stranger abandoned George to fend for himself and fell, face-first, onto the nearest comforter. He didn't remember anything further for a long while.

------

When he did wake up, it was pitch black in the room, George was absent, because there were no logs being sawn, and Persephone was snoring gently on the sofa-bed. He shouldn't have found that endearing, but it was. But watching her sleep was a level of creepy heretofore undelved by mankind, and so he wrote a quick note - just out for food - and grabbed a keycard from where she'd put them on the nightstand and wandered out in search of sustenance. Predictably, there was none in the hallways, so he continued his wanderings out to the lobby and the desk clerk. Remembering the whole 'we need to leave now' bit from earlier, hazy though that memory might be, he realized it might be a good thing to find out whether the rest had all arrived intact. So he wandered up to the night clerk and said, "Excuse me, but did a group of people - two guys, two girls - arrive here ealier? One of the guys would be a giant, more or less, and one of the girls would have been a tiny little ginger. Ring a bell?"

"Oh, yeah," said the bored kid. "Checked in about an hour ago. Asked for adjoining rooms, if you know what I mean." And the kid winked at him. Stranger was only vaguely sure he knew what the kid had meant, and felt like his soul needed a rub down with a brillo pad for it. "Anyway, rooms, 114 and 116," the kid told him. "Have a good night, sir."

Stranger wandered back down the hall. Wandering was a good mode of transport, he felt, and so he employed it whenever possible. It was close to an amble, but with more side-to-side movement. It allowed one to take in all the sights thoroughly and spend as little time at the destination as was possible while still going there in a relatively straight line. As he was still mentally scrubbing himself, he wasn't overly eager to interrupt, in case the kid was right. (On a side note, it was just wrong that a spotty teen who probably knew more about Pokemon then he knew about anything else could fill a sentence with as much directionless innuendo as a leisure suit Larry.) And besides, this might have been his exposure to Alice talking, but it really seemed as if every time he rejoined the main group, bad things happened and he ended up nearly dying.

But still, Persephone would be upset if he'd gone out and not even tried, so he went.

He knocked on the door to 114, and Caroline opened it almost immediately, looking a little like death. "Have you heard about this thing called sleep?" he asked her. "It's the new caffeine. Way better for you, too."

"Shut up and don't talk to me until you're properly exhausted again," she told him, and pulled him inside. The door to the adjoining room was open, and Stranger saw George, shirtless, sitting on a bed, and getting his wounds tended to. The gash on his cheek had been thoroughly bandaged, as had several cuts on his arms and chest. Now Jean was kneading some sort of balm into his bruised and was showing no mercy. George was regularly wincing and twitching, but not saying anything. Stranger suspected that someone had been smacking him every time he talked. It was an effective method, and one Stranger often used himself.

He crossed through to that room, and said, "Hey. You okay?"

"Aside from the pain, and the scars that are going to form, and the fact that this guy here hates me and is taking it out on my poor battered body, I'm fine," George said, twisting as Jean did something particularly vicious to the bruises on his upped back. But then, he looked back at Stranger, and said, "Sorry, I'm being a dick. It's just. Everything. It all hurts. My fucking hair hurts."

"It's fine," Stranger said. And it was, honestly. He'd deal with a dickish George any day rather than think he was the reason the idiot had gotten killed. "But you owe me, like, all the money now."

George snorted, then winced, as Jean did something else. "Yeah, right. You'll settle for a hot dog and a drink."

"Probably," Stranger said, grinning at his friend's misfortune. Then he wandered back to the other room as George started berating Jean. "Is he really okay?" Stranger asked Caroline quietly.

"Amazingly, yeah," she told him. "No internal injuries, as far as we can tell, which is a shock considering all the contusions and such he's got. He's perfectly fine." There was a thwack from the other room and a sharp, "Ow, goddammit, really?" from George.

"Oh, by the way," Stranger said. "Persephone's still back in room 113. Although I guess you know that now."

"Yeah, we did," Caroline said. "Now go away and let me sleep."

"Yes, ma'am," Stranger said. He went back to the other room and watched George be treated for kicks, and called out for pizza to be delivered.

------

He had been reconsidering the whole 'main group = doom' thing he'd decided on when the sun rose an hour or so later and he'd gorged himself on pizzas with ungodly topping combinations - pineapple and sardine, honestly, MacAlleister was a sick woman. Maybe they'd been in time, they'd gotten out clean, and Leroy had no idea where they were. Of course, the author part of his brain, the part that had dutifully recorded both spy gibberish and the exact sensation of being so pissed off he'd gone numb, recognized his mistake. He repented immediately, of course, thinking about how much awful stuff they'd been through, how they were still unrecovered, worrying about George, but to no avail. Just to prove that the universe really did operate on story-logic, that it had a narrative, and that the author, whatever that might be, hated Stranger, Jean looked up from his laptop, his face pale.

"We need to go. Now." His voice brooked no argument. Every got up immediately, grabbed whatever stuff they'd brought with them, and made for the door, George pulling his shirt back on as he went. Stranger grabbed a box of pizza (mushroom, pineapple, and green peppers, now there was a combination) and hurried back to 113.

"Persephone?" he said, as soon as he was in the room. Then he heard the shower running, and cursed, as inventively as he could. "Persephone, tell me you can get out of there and decent in a minute and a half. We need to go, two minutes ago."

"Of course I can," she said through the door, the water already off. Stranger slowly started counting, trying to keep his breathing steady and slow enough he wouldn't hyperventilate. He'd only gotten to about twelve when the door burst open and she came tumbling out, her clothes rumpled and slightly damp, and her hair done up in a towel. "What are you doing?" she asked. "You said we need to go!"

She grabbed his hand and hauled him towards the door, shaking the towel out of her hair as she went. "I got you pizza," Stranger told her, following.

"That's nice," she said. "I'll thank you once we're moving again."

They tore past the main desk, where Jean was evidently checking them collectively out of their rooms. Stranger privately wished him good luck with that - the same clerk was working now as had been earlier, and Stranger didn't see him being the easiest person to work with in times of stress. They got out to the Caddy in what might have been record time, and Persephone all but dove into the passenger seat as Stranger got in. "Come on," she said, "Move, get us going, now."

Stranger started the car and was pulling out when he heard Caroline shouting behind him. He put it back in park, and turned to find out what the matter was, only to see her, Havisham, Jean, MacAlleister, and George stuffing themselves into the the back seat meant for three at most. "What?" he said, utterly confused.

"The Vannagon died," Jean said, tersely, looking around Caroline's head. "Just go, now."

"Going, driving," Stranger said, putting it back in gear. The Caddy, thank god, still worked perfectly. He drove out into the morning rush of Boston traffic, and hoped that that would help keep whatever was causing the others' distress from getting to them too quickly. "Might I ask why we're running away?"

"We're running away because all lines from our few extant agents in the States went dead about five minutes after they all started reporting that Leroy's organization is panicking," Havisham told him. "That means bad things are happening, one way or another. When even the biggest shark in the pond starts freaking out, the little fish all run and hide. Unfortunately, for the moment, we are a little fish. We are barely above plankton, until we get a couple months to rebuild."

"Got it," Stranger said, feeling a little queasy. He didn't even want to know what might cause Leroy to panic.

The traffic was awful, and he was trying to baby the car through it without some douche rear-ending him out of jealousy when he noticed the car tailing them. It was non-descript, a little rust bucket of a car, something from the mid-eighties that kept running out of sheer determination. And it took every turn they took, getting slowly closer as it weaved through the other cars on the road.

"Don't look now," Stranger said, "But I think someone's following us. Shit, I can't believe I just said that."

"Ow!" Stranger heard from the back seat. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he saw that Havisham had a grip on George's head, who'd tried to turn and look out the back window.

"Don't look at them," Havisham told him. "That tells them we've noticed them. Stranger, can you make out who's in it?"

"As far as I can tell," Stranger said, glancing at the car in the mirror every couple seconds, in between watching the road and the other cars, "It's Leroy and that bodyguard. They both look pissed. I think Leroy might be frothing at the mouth."

"But is there anyone else with them?" Havisham asked urgently. "Or any other cars?"

"No, not really," Stranger said. "And the car is an absolute beater. I think Leroy might be on the run, too."

There was silence from the back seat, and Stranger concentrated on navigating the particularly nasty intersection coming up. Then, as he narrowly avoided two cars that wanted his hood ornament for a wall trophy, he heard Jean say, "This could very well be an opportunity."

Stranger thought oh shit.

"Stranger, get out of this part of town and head for the warehouse region."
 
Oh shit.

"We're going to face him down."

Ohshitohshitohshi-

His internal monologue remained the same through the rest of the hour or so it took to successfully get them out of the main part of the city and to the wharves. It didn't change while he found a suitably abandoned parking lot, nor while he parked and everyone spilled out of the car into the early morning drizzle. It didn't change when the rust bucket pulled in after them and did likewise. It did change when the pair of men got out of the car, both of then wielding guns so nasty-looking that holding one counted as a misdemeanor.

Ohshitohshitohfuck.


 

Chapter Fifteen

You know, I think the whole Keep it PG-13 bit is failing again, on the language front. The ideas are all perfectly safe, if you don't mind implied violence against a kidnapping victim. And Alice. And lookit - Stranger's got both potential romance and a raging bromance going on! I knew there was a reason he and George hung out. 'Twill be a bromance to rival that of Romeo and Juliet. Only hopefully without the suicides.

So maybe the chapters won't be as short as all that, anyway. I'd completely forgotten that I still had another 3k to write after that last post, which means that they'll be about average, and chapter 18 will exist as an Epilogue of Sorts. That works for me. 

It took a while, but he did in fact get to George's place. The doorman didn't even take a second look at Stranger's slightly dishevelled appearance, likely because Stranger's everyday dress wasn't exactly better. And in any case, he was a bit busy dealing with the hordes of reporters that were clamoring at him. Stranger's appearance was nothing - not even to the reporters, which meant that his picture probably hadn't been released to the press as of yet, thank god.

The reporters confused Stranger a bit, until he realized they were probably here for George. Either it was because they'd found out about his relationship to Stranger, the murderer of Important People, or he'd gone and gotten himself arrested for something, too. And they'd just let the prime suspect and/or interiewee slip through them unmolested. That was ironic, that was. He pondered which of them was the media target on the long elevator ride up, ignoring the thought that there might not be anyone waiting for him there. That was not to be considered, because then he'd be screwed.

But when the doors opened, Persephone was there and dragging him out almost immediately. He breathed a sigh of relief even as she began to harangue him for being an idiot, a tosser, a complete chivalric knight in all the wrong ways, standing up for women who could and did take care of themselves far better than he ever could, and nearly getting himself killed. "You complete and utter prat," she finished.

"Wait, how did you know that I nearly got myself killed?" Stranger asked her. "Did that end up on the news, too?"

"Only on the police radio, so far, but it's probably going to blow up as soon as anyone finds your name connected with it," she said, glaring at him. Then, to Stranger's complete surprise, she pulled him into a tight, brief hug, and muttered into his shoulder. "Don't you dare get yourself killed." Then, pulling away, her nose wrinkling, she asked, "Why do you smell a little like rotting garbage?"

"Because I was busy not getting myself killed," Stranger said, doing his absolute best to keep his grin from becoming too silly.

"Shower," Persephone said, firmly. "Then you need to come and talk, because we've got more issues."

"Yes, ma'am," Stranger said politely, and walked toward the shower, supressing the urge to skip.

-----

Twenty minutes later, he had been brought back down to awful reality with a thump. "What the hell do you mean, George got himself kidnapped?" he shouted at Jean, the unfortunately elected spokesman for the group. "It's not like you had anything else to do but protect him!"

"He's a hard man to protect," Jean said, doing his best to stay calm. "And when there's one of me and eight of them, it becomes exponentially harder."

"What about Alice, then?" Stranger asked, well and thoroughly pissed off. "Where's he? He's strong enough to take out any men who needed it."

"Either captive with Stranger or dead, in his most recent configuration," Jean said. "They used an EMP on him. He went down immediately. I don't know if there wa something in place to protect him from them, so I don't know."

The thought that Alice, with his vaguely irritating pop clture references and insistence on the world being a fictional construct, might be dead shook Stranger. He calmed down, slightly. "All right. Fine. I guess that's understandable. HAve any demands been made? Do we know anything else? Has something been done, at all?"

"Yes, there has," Jean said. "Don't think I've forgotten how to do my job." It was a calm enough statement, but Stranger sense a warning beneath it, to not push his luck. Jean really was very good at his job, Stranger knew that, and he was almost as good of friends with George as he himself was. Therefore he was probably beating himself up over this enough as it was. Stranger took the hint. "The police have been contacted, and were immediately. That's the cause for the three-ring circus downstairs, by the way. They found out George had been kidnapped, and all hell broke loose.

"The demand came about an hour ago, and was also sent to the police, with all evidence. We no longer have our own lab, so keeping it wouldn't have done any good." Caroline, behind Jean, made a face, and the others seemed to concur. "But the basic idea was that an unseemly amount of money must be wired to a bank account in the Caymans, a nameless one that's been used in other high-profile kidnappings like this once."

"Does that tell you anything?" Stranger asked. "Tell me it does."

"It does," Jean said, grimly. "It means that whatever Leroy's - Clark's - intentions were back when we were in Chicago, they've taken a definite turn for the worse now. We're suddenly at war, and we've got no ammunition whatsoever, and won't for a while."

"What happens in a while?" Stranger asked.

"The last little uprisings among the other branches of our organization will have been put down, and we'll be back up to full strength," Caroline told him. "Which means that we'll have back-up coming on a private jet, and working computer banks and sources to find out what the hell Leroy is doing -"

"But until we have those, we've got very little to use to deal with him," Jean finished.

Stranger sat back down in the chair from which he'd leapt a moment or so ago, while exclaiming about George's kidnapping. "So. How much is an 'unseemly' amount, then?" he asked.

Jean named a figure with about three more zeroes than was really polite. Stranger felt himself shrivel a little at the thought that that much money could ever been in play at a single time. "Do we have that much?" he asked, just to be sure. He knew George was amongst the super-rich, but that was a little much.

"Non. It's about three million more than what we can get our hands on," Jean said. "And Leroy probably knows that. George has never been the most discrete person out there. It's just the initial, absurdly high offer that sets off the rounds of haggling. We just have to hope that we can haggle him lower, to something that we have a chance in hell of affording."

"And what price might that be?" Stranger asked. "Someone's firstborn? A soul? France?"

"Just money," Jean said, and named another number that was still shrivel-inducing, but with one fewer zeroes.

Stranger stared at him. "I'm in the wrong business," he said. "I should just kidnap people for a living. Way more remunerative."

"Also highly illegal," MacAlleister said, coming into the conversation for the first time. "I've done my best to de-bug the place, but a man on parole - on very, very high parole - should be more careful with what he says."

"Note taken," he told her, with a nod. "You'll hear nothing other than puppies and moonbeams from me from now on." He paused. "Wait, hanging out with suspected victims of my vicious crime is probably a bad thing too, isn't it?"

She nodded at him. Stranger glanced at Persephone, and did his absolute best to pretend he hadn't - not a very good best, if the slight color in her cheeks was any indication - and said, "Well, screw that. I'm not leaving the company of these ladies until George has been brought back safe."

Then, before anyone could say anything to that, Havisham spoke up from where he'd been feverishly typing in the corner. "The next demand came in," he said, looking up at them. "Email, a complete spamming of the server, all of it coming directly to the admin account. All the same message. It's demanding the same figure you just named, Jean. And it says it needs to be delivered by noon, or George gets hurt."

Both Jean and MacAlleister cursed, in various languages. "That means that the place is still bugged," MacAlleister said, even as Jean said, "The bastard." And as MacAlleister flew from her seat to go do something undoubtedly highly important and technical, Jean collapsed down into it. "This is going to be a complete and utter whore to do," he said.

"You become a lot more obscene when you're trying to get attention, you know that?" Stranger said, trying to keep his voice steady, trying to keep himself distracted from the fact that George, the closest thing he had to a brother, the best friend he had, was in danger of getting himself killed by, apparently, the biggest gangster in Boston.

Jean simply cussed at him in French, though, before getting up and grabbing the computer from Havisham, who growled and went around the back of the chair . Caroline had evaporated off to do something else of arcane importance, probably notify the police, and that left him and Persephone. In other circumstances he would have loved that, and it was at the top of his short list of situations to recreate as soon as George was safe and Stranger's life was back to semi-normal, but right now, he couldn't pay attention to anything other than the gnawing worry that he couldn't do anything about. But Persephone seemed to get that. She grabbed his shoulder, hauled him upright, and dragged him to the dining room, which was still completely empty.

"You know this place, right?" she asked him. He nodded, confused. "Do you know it well enough to know everything that's missing?"

"Probably," Stranger said. "Why?"

"We need an inventory of everything that was taken by Sir Dick, godresthissoul, so we can get it all back and sue the balls off of or arrest whoever currently has it all. Got it?"

"This is busy work, isn't it? George kne- knows money. He has a complete list of everything in this place lodged with two separate insurance agencies, probably. Right?" Stranger asked her. She hesitated, then nodded. Stranger took a deep breath, and thought about the absolutely nothing he could do at the moment. "Do you have something to write with? I don't want to have to do the inventory on the walls."

She pulled a pen and a slim notebook out of her pocket and handed them to him, and Stranger began his busywork.

------

Fifteen minutes later, there was an crash and an eruption from the other room. "What the hell does he mean, he wants a lone visitor?" Havisham shouted. "He's getting the damned money wired to him. There's no need for human interaction!"

"He's lording it over us, the petit putain," Jean said, voice almost as loud. "Making us jump through hoops just to please him. I'm not sacrificing anyone else to go after him, damnit!"

Stranger, who'd discovered that the busywork had made him feel worse and was now busy making highly complex paper airplanes and Not Thinking about Things, stopped fiddling with the rudder on his latest creation and went back to the living room. One of the metallic folding chairs that had been set up there had been knocked over, apparently the one in which Havisham had been sitting. Both he and Jean were standing up, shifting angrily from foot to foot as they stared at the laptop Jean was still holding with utter loathing.

Caroline came back in at that moment, looking not exactly pleased herself. "The police have been contacted. They didn't exactly strike me as being overly enthusiastic about solving this thought."

"YOu should have been here just now," Stranger told her. "He wants a human contact now, too, just to make sure, or something."

Stranger had never really seen someone turn purple with rage before, and technically he still hadn't. But with the sheer fury that emanated from Caroline now, he would have used the phrase anyway, because it seemed fitting. She was practically vibrating with it. But he cut her off, before she could start repeating what Havisham and Jean were still muttering under their breaths. "I'm going to go, obviously."

That shocked her into silence and stillness. "What?"

"I'm going to go. I'm the only one who can, honestly," he said. "The rest of you are all vitally important to something or other. I'm just a writer. And he likes me, he told me so. Therefore, he's probably likely to at least make any unexpected backstabbings less agonizing."

"Absolutely not," Caroline told him. "We won't be sending anyone. At all. Least of all an inexperienced writer."

"That hurts me, it really does," Stranger said, giving her his best wounded look. "I've lived through more absurdly dangerous things in the past week than most people ever will. I'm only inexperience when compared to you and yours, and the experience you and yours have gotten is exactly why you're valuable. I should go, instead." He honestly hadn't meant to say any of this, really, but as he did it began to make more and more sense.

"He does have a point," Jean said, reluctantly. "Leroy has said he likes him. Sending him would be the least-dangerous choice. An agent might get shot for doing any slightly suspicious thing, but Leroy wouldn't think Stranger enough of a threat to bother."

"Thanks," Stranger said, dryly. "When is this meeting, anyway?"

"At ten o'clock, so about half an hour. The deadline for the money has been moved up likewise," Havisham said, glancing at the screen. "If you're going, Stranger, you need to go now."

Stranger took a deep breath. "Then I'd best go then, hadn't I? Where am I meeting him?"

"At some warehouse down in the middle of the wharf area, a sort of sketchy place," Havisham said. He looked at Stranger, apparently and uncharacteristically concerned. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I am," Stranger said, brimming over with false bravado. "I'm always sure."

"Then here's the address," Havisham said, grabbing a piece of paper and scribbling something down on it. "Don't get lost, okay? We'll tail you, just in case."

"Sounds good," Stranger said, and walked out the door, clutching the paper. Part of him was aware his heart was racing and was busy panicking about being an idiot. The other part, the part he'd discovered he had back when the late yet unlamented Sir Dick had shot Caroline and George, was the one in charge, though. That part of him was calm, cold, and collected, and had decided, evidently autonomously, that Leroy was going to burn. He honestly wasn't sure how that would happen, considering the fact that Stranger was currently unarmed, but he knew it would happen.

When he got out into the parking garage, he hesitated a moment, looking between the Caddy and the Vannagon. He'd gotten the keys to both from the valet, and he really knew that if he loved the Caddy, he should protect it by leaving it here. But, screw it, he decided, unlocking the door to the Caddy. If he was going to do this, he'd do it in style, in his precious.

It was an appallingly short drive to the warehouse, according to the side of Stranger that was scared shitless, but again, his alarming side just thought, good. It wasn't a Bond type last minute rescue, the way things had gone before. That meant Leroy was at least a little likelier to not be quite ready yet, and that gave Stranger an advantage. Plus, it meant that George was spending less time smarting off and maybe getting himself killed for kicks.

Stranger went around the side, to the little service door that Havisham had mentioned, Entrance E. It was unlocked. Stranger carefully opened it, wary of some sort of hidden trap meant to take out whomever the unnamed had deemed fit to rescue a billionaire. But nothing happened, and he let his breath out in a hiss. The interior of the room was dark, and Stranger couldn't tell by sight alone how big it was. He sensed that the door led immediately into the warehouse, though - it seemed to echo, in there, more than it would in some dingy little overseer's office. He stepped inside.

Immediately, floodlights turned on, and lived up to their names by completely flooding the area with light. Stranger, his eyes adjusted to the cloudy, dim light outside, winced. He knew that was the reaction that Leroy had been aiming for, though, and hated him for it.

"Hello, there," came Leroy's voice, from about twenty feet away. It was still silky smooth, still that irritating calm, and echoed through the place. "I'm glad that my warnings weren't in vain. I quite like George. I wouldn't want to see anything untowarded happen to him."

"You know, that could have been completely prevented if you hadn't had him kidnapped," Stranger said, blinking away the glare. Leroy was indeed standing about a bus-length away from him, leaning on a chair. Stranger ignored what was in the chair. "He was completely safe until someone decided he should be ransomed."

"Yes, how unfortunate," Leroy said, smirking. "But you mustn't take it personally. It's just business, Mr. Stranger."

He gestured then, bringing his hand out and around and accidentally disturbing the thing in the chair. Stranger finally focused on it. It was the ruined hulk of Alice's former body. The only thing that appeared to be still completely intact was the hard drive off which Alice ran, and that had been supposedly wiped by the EMP pulse. Theoretically, he knew that Alice had been completely independent of the body he'd lived in, but seeing it dark and broken, not knowing if this incarnation of Alice had survived, still added another pound or two of dry ice to the coldness he felt. "Oh, silly me," Leroy said, watching Stranger carefully. "I'm going to get rust on my suit."

He really was a magnificent bastard, Stranger though, distantly. He heard himself say, quite calmly, "Any rust you get from Alice here is going to be hidden by the innocent blood on your hands."

Leroy's eyebrows shot up. "Such a poet, Mr. Stranger. You have a hidden appreciation for beautiful words, it seems."

"Writer," Stranger said. "The money should be in your account by now. Can I take our hostages home, now?"

"Indeed, Mr. Stranger. Just follow me." Leroy walked away past Alice, and away towards the far end of the building, where the floodlights hadn't reached and shadows still abounded. Stranger followed, the dry ice starting to form a single lump in the pit of his stomach. He refused to believe George would be dead. That would make the whole thing moot, and like Leroy said - this was business. Killing hostages was bad for business. It would make people try to find other ways to end a hostage situation, like getting rid of the hostage-taker.

As he walked forward, he began to make out a shape in the gloom. It was remarkably like that of Alice, poor broken Alice, sitting slumped in his chair. Only, in this case, brushing a careless sleeve against it actually would dirty it, because George was in a state. He was mucky from his head to his toes, and looked a bit bloody in places, too. When Stranger got close enough to make out the deep gash on George's cheek, he felt himself go numb, all over.  That was his best friend sitting there. The man who was smirking next to him had caused this. It wasn't an exaggeration to say that simply untying George and nudging him to consciousness, instead of leaping at Leroy's throat, was the hardest thing Stranger had ever had to do.

"Whuzzit?" George mumbled, stirring.

"We're leaving, George," Stranger said, carefully. "It's time to go. Can you get up?"

"Yeah, just... gimme minute," George said, his arms flailing slightly before he got a grip on Stranger's shoulders and pushed himself upright. Once on his feet, he managed to stay there, albeit swaying slightly. "There, goddit."

"Is he drugged?" Stranger asked. He didn't even need to look at Leroy to see the inevitable answer. George's symptoms were extremely familiar, from memories of many mornings where Stranger had acted the same way. George was drugged but coming out of it, and he would experience an absolutely godawful hangover when he did. Stranger slung George's arm over his shoulders. "We'll be leaving now, as soon as I get Alice."

"I'm afraid Alice won't be as accommodating as your friend here on the walk out," Leroy said, behind him. "However will you carry the both of them?"

"Just watch," Stranger said. When he got over to Alice's seat, he carefully steadied George on his feet, then let him stand solo for a moment as he prodded at Alice's chest, opening it up. He pulled the important bits from the wreckage that had been Alice's means of transportation, then stood and bowed at Leroy, as ironic as he could. "We'll be on our way now, your Highness."

"Very well," Leroy said. "But before you go, just know this." Stranger looked at him, no longer even wary, just tired and so very, very cold.

"What?"

"Your friends have delusions of grandeur," Leroy said, an elegant sneer crossing his face. "They need to be taken down a couple notches. No mere organization imported from overseas is going to come in and disrupt my business. Tell them that what they faced with, how did you call him, Sir Dick? - what they faced with him was a simple exchange of bonmots compared to what I'm going to deal to them. Sir Richard was an amateur with delusions even greater than theirs. This... business... is the warning shot over the bow. The unmentionables, or whatever they call themselves, are going to be torn apart, until there isn't the least thing left." With that, Leroy turned smartly about, and started walking back into the gloom. Stranger suspected even that was a calculated maneuver, meant to make him feel impotent, showing off the fact that even while Leroy's back was turned to him, Stranger was incapable of harming him. Well, he though, a little savagely, it worked.

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter fourteen, here we go. Only four more in the next four days. Eight thousand words - four chapters - they're going to be short. Or combined. Either way. I might drop 18, just because it's more or less just a bit more of 17, and this way I'll have a prime number, which I like. *nodnod*

Not safe, unfortunately. Lots of cursing, from the inestimable Jim. Also a dart gun and a lawyer who will Take No Prisoners. Fun.

He was arrested post haste, because he'd obviously just shot someone and been threatening hostages. Stranger knew he wasn't exactly the least intimidating guy out there, but they way they were treating him, it was like he was built like Havisham or something. Caroline and Persephone were ushered out of the room post haste - oh, those poor girls, taken hostage by the evil crazy writer, nearly killed, forced to watch that poor man be murdered, etc., etc. Stranger thanked any deities which might be looking over him that they didn't stay or try to protest his innocence. That would only get all of them in more trouble, if his luck of the past week held true.

He was cuffed, brought downstairs (many, many stairs) and put in the back of a SWAT van, the kind that they only use for Very Important Prisoners. He went willingly, didn't fight in any way. He told them the truth about his name, his job, everything they wanted except why he was here and why he'd shot Sir Dick - although they called him Sir Richard, something that threw him off for a moment. This all just served to make them even more suspicious, or so it seemed to Stranger. He was a bit surprised that they didn't make him put on the strait-jacket that lurked menacingly in the corner.

All in all, he decided as the van pulled away, the day was turning out to be crappy and it wasn't even daylight yet.

------

He was sent through some sort of complex bureaucratic system that was only made more tense by the fact that he was thoroughly cuffed and there were men with guns giving him nasty looks. He filled out every form they gave him, except ones that looked like they wanted confessions or excuses. He wasn't going to give them either. What he did do was ask, whenever someone who looked like they might have some authority came by, if he might call his lawyer. The general response was yes, yes, of course, just fill out the paperwork, sir, first.

By the time he was allowed to call a lawyer, the sun was beginning to peek up over the horizon. At least, he imagined it was, and was creating memories of sitting up on a roof somewhere to watch it. It was a comforting though, that somewhere out there the world was still turning and he was not, in fact, going to get locked up for murdering a Very Important Person. He firmly believed that he firmly believed he would be rescued, which of course meant he'd resigned himself to Cell Block Number Four when he'd done something idiotically stupid and/or brave a couple hours ago. All this was swirling in his mind as he called the only lawyer he knew, thanking any dieties that might be still paying attention and not laughing too loudly to hear him that he still remembered the number.

"Hello?" came the prim and proper tones of the inevitable prim and proper secretary. "This is the office of Goodnight, Hattely, and Rochester, who might I connect you with?"

"Are any of them actually here?" Stranger asked, surprised.

"Mr. Rochester is."

"Does Mr. Rochester happen to be a criminal lawyer?" Stranger asked.

"He is. Are you interested in obtaining his services?" the secretary asked.

"Yes, I am," Stranger said. "I can pay any fees up front." That is, he could if George got out okay. "Could he meet me at the Boston Police Department? Tell him to ask for Mr. Stranger. If the front desk looks aghast, he's in the right place."

"Duly noted, sir," said the prim and proper voice. "I shall tell him immediately." Then there was a click, and Stranger was left wondering whether he'd just been effectively told to fuck off or not.

He spent the next hour back in the interrogation room signing yet more paperwork, or being left to sit and stare at the ceiling. It was a ceiling. There wasn't anything particularly interesting about it. He did his best to restrain the impulse to make childish faces at the mirror. If he was honestly in trouble - and all signs pointed to 'yes' in that respect - then being a model prisoner/arrestee would be his best bet.

Then he heard a slight commotion outside the door to his own cozy little piece of boredom. Considering the fact that he was pretty sure that door was both bullet- and sound-proof, that was impressive. Then the door burst open, and the man who shoved his way in was shouting, "-and sue you for preventing my client from properly accessing his rights! You will be a cold, dead hole in the ground by the time I'm through." Said gentleman was tall, ungodly tall, and built rather like a statue of a Greek god Stranger had seen once. It wasn't gracefull Apollo or brawny Zeus, though. It was gnarly Hephaestus, the god of the forge. This man reminded him of nothing so much as him. Bent over, gnarled, broken in places, absolutely on fire with some sort of passion - be it rage or interest - and completely, utterly terrifying. Stranger stared at him.

"Thadeus Rochester," said the lawyer, or so Stranger assumed. "You're Mr. Stranger?"

"Yes," Stranger said. Anything beyond that seemed unnecessary.

"Good. George, your friend, he's a good man, helped me out with some cases, so I said I'd keep an eye out for him or his acquaintances. He told me you were the only one I should bother with. Was there a reason for that?" Rochester asked.

"He's mostly afraid he'll lose his drinking buddy," Stranger said. "Plus I think he suspects that I make my stories creepy using personal experience."

"Do you?" Rochester asked, apparently out of professional curiosity.

"No, and I tend to pass out at the sight of dead people," Stranger told him. "I'm honestly a bit surprised I'm upright right now."

"Adrenalin will do that to a fellow," Rochester said. "Look, we've got privacy, lawyer-client confidentiality, right now." He glared at the mirror. Stranger almost swore it quivered. "So tell me the truth, the whole, and nothing but. Did you kill that man?"

"No, but I was there when he was."

"Obviously. He was only dead for a couple minutes when the police got there, or so I've been told. Who did kill him?"

"The two women I was with. Actually, one woman, Caroline, although I don't know if that's the name she told the police, I know she shot him, I'm not sure about Persephone." Stranger took a deep breath, and let it out in one long, slow sigh. It was starting to hit him, now that he was actually talking about it, and the dizziness he associated with death was starting to come back.

Rochester gave him a look, not devoid of sympathy, but clearly stating they had more important things to be doing, vis a vis clearing Stranger's name, and therefore should not be doing certain other things, e.g. passing out. "Then why did you have the guns in your hands, pointing not only at the dead man, but also at the two women?"

"Because if they got themselves arrested," Stranger said, "Then there is no way on this fucking planet Caroline at least wouldn't be given life for terrorism or something. And I don't even know what Persephone's done."

"I don't want to know anything else about those two," Rochester said firmly. "But this is all I need to know. You are innocent?"

"Yes."

"You were trying to protect those two lovely ladies of which you will tell me nothing else?"

"Yes."

"Good. I can work with this." Rochester nodded to himself. Then he looked at Stranger. "Oh, by the way, your bail is being posted now. Your friend gave me a sum specifically to be used in these circumstances. I do hope you won't lose it for him by doing something like, oh, leaving the city limits or cavorting with criminals for the next three days or so? That's the minimum amount of time I need to get your name cleared."

"I'd definitely prefer to help George retain his supersaturation of capital," Stranger said, nodding. He liked this fellow. Compared to Money-Pusher, or Hattely or whatever his name was, Rochester was a breath of air. Not necessarily fresh, but any air was welcome.

"Good," Rochester said, standing up. "If they don't let you out of here within fifteen minutes, tell me, and we'll get them on charges of 'unnecessarily detainment' too."

Stranger nodded, like he had any idea how that would work, and settled back into his chair to wait yet again.

Fourteen minutes and thirty-eight seconds later, the door was opened by one of the more or less interchangeable officers. Stranger, as he was led outside into the stormy, wet world, noticed that every person in a uniform looks the same after a while. Just like he'd been surprised when Persephone had been sarcastic at him, now he would have been downright shocked if someone had given him a genuine smile or even a genuine glare. Put someone in a uniform and they immediately start acting the way they think that uniform dictates. Interns for spy organizations act ruthlessly efficient, police officers act tough and a little wary, and he was sure all UPS employees put boxes labelled 'This Side Up' upside down. It was just something about the uniform.

At some point, someone had informed him of all the things he could and could not do while on parole, and it had summed up to what Rochester had said, so he'd tuned it out. He'd been paying much more attention to the weather outside the windows. And now, standing in it, the rain beating down on him and wind chilling him to the bone, he felt different. Maybe not free, because there was still the paper with all his instructions in it in his pocket, reminding him that he couldn't leave the city and all that, but in control. He could choose where to go, and not have to worry about the unnamed coming after him at this point. He honestly wasn't even sure if any of them had survived, other than Caroline and Persephone.

Persephone's name glancing through his consciousness did make him cringe internally a little, but he did his best to ignore that. He would go home, he decided. His flat must be lonely, and he really, really, really wanted to wear some of his own clothes, and take a shower in his own bathroom. And, he decided, he would walk there, because it wasn't that far and he had no money on him whatsoever to pay for some sort of transport. Even that felt like an actual choice, though; he still suspected that a black car would glide out of nowhere and pick him up. The decision to not wait for it felt good.

Of course, half an hour later, soaking wet, fumbling with the lock on the apartment building, he was wishing that the black car had arrived so that he could have made the decision to take it instead, but that was neither here nor there. He was, unfortunately, there though when Jim arrived, looking much the worse for wear for the days STranger had been gone. Jim seemed to have gone from hick to homeless in a week and a half.

"What happened to you?" Stranger asked, appalled.

Jim glared at him. "I dunno. But I keep getting kicked out of my own place because of some damned things that the Feds and the Mob are searching fer in yours!"

Stranger almost felt guilty. "Sorry about that," he said. "I seem to have gotten something that some people want. It's been a bad week for me, too."

"Not as bad as it has been for me," Jim said, stepping towards Stranger. "I've been living on the street. I've been fired at work because 'I draw the wrong type of crowd.'" He spat to one side. "I cain't even get out of the city because the Fed keep 'detaining me for informational purposes.'" He spat again. "And it's because of you. I know it. You and your writing and your damned phone number!"

"That isn't my fault," Stranger said, backing away and fumbling with the latch on the door. "I tried to get the phones sorted out for months."

"I'm gonna fix you," Jim said, shoving Stranger against the door. It fell open, taking Stranger with it. Stranger had never, in his entire life, been happier to land on his ass. He shoved himself backwards, getting out of the way of the door swinging back towards him. It ran into Jim, who was still coming towards him. Stranger scrambled to his feet, running upstairs to his rooms. The door up there was hanging open, not a surprise and an unlooked-for aid. He just had to run in and slam the door shut.

Now that he had ten seconds to think, he realized that this whole coming home bit hadn't been the brightest idea. He needed to go find George and Persephone and CAroline and the rest. He needed to get himself a support net. They could back him up, prevent Jim from strangling him, and probably even keep him from finding some other way to get in trouble. That thought in mind, he went to his bedroom, hauled open the closet, grabbed a change of clothes and shoved them in a plastic grocery bag, before running to the window. He'd never been particularly happy with his view, which was of a rooftop and then the wall of the building next door, but now he took it as a wonderful way to get down without dying. As he hauled the window open, his door burst open, and Jim came roaring in. "You little fucker," he shouted. Stranger took that as his cue and ducked, a little awkwardly, out through the window and tried not to skid down the angled roof. It was slick with rain, and for the second time in in two minutes he landed on his ass; this time, though, he was sliding down a roof to his certain doom.

The gutter hurt, when he slid over it, but he ignored that to contemplate his destiny and desperately hope for a soft landing. He got one, if pile of garbage bags could be considered soft. He lay there for a minute, trying to catch his breath and let the stinging sensation radiating up his legs and spine subside, but then he realized Jim was trying to fit through the selfsame window Stranger had escaped through. That meant it was time to leave.

Readjusting his hold on his clean clothes - still, miraculously clean - he got up a little stiffly and started moving towards the road. It was light out, but only the dim and dingy light of a stormy morning. Stranger didn't care; it was better than streetlights, and the rain would maybe melt Jim. He could only hope. He heard a muffled curse as Jim landed in the trash behind him, and started double-timing it down the street. It was alarming how familiar this was feeling to him, how at home he was with imminent death, and that alarm ratcheted up the already considerable amount of adrenaline in his system, and he was running down the street and around the corner. There was Malcolm's, the familiar old building, windows dark and a 'Closed' sign hanging like the blade of a guillotine. But he wasn't aiming for that place, unfortunately. He was headed towards the pawn shop next door. He knew the owner, an elderly Russian immigrant, and he knew that said owner kept his own personal arsenal beneath the register. He also knew that the place was open, because he'd never seen it closed. And thank god, it was. Stranger got there and pulled open the door as Jim rounded the corner a hundred feet back. Stranger, ever one to push his luck, flipped him off before running inside.

Pavel Nikova, the owner, was behind the desk, as always. He started shouting at Stranger in Russian in such a way that STranger felt the air blister, even though he had no idea what curses the man was using. "Look," Stranger said, shouting over him. "I'm being chased by that idiot you don't like, and I need help." Pavel stopped shouting at him, and gestured. Keep talking. There was only ever one idiot when Stranger talked to him.

"I'm pretty sure he's going to try to kill me," Stranger told him, reaching the counter.

Jim, at that moment, beautifully illustrated his point - nay, even Illuminated it - by bursting in through the display window, sending shattered glass everywhere, and shouting, "I'm gonna kill you!"

Pavel's enormous eyebrows rose, his hand went down, and then Stranger was shoved sideways as Pavel knocked him out of the way for a clear shot with the rifle he kept under his desk. "Don't kill him," Stranger said, "That might get my parole revoked."

Pavel nodded and pulled the trigger as Jim barrelled his way towards them. A little thing that buzzed as it flew shot forward, and hit Jim in the neck. He kept going out of sheer momentum for a moment or so, then a look of confusion slipped over his face and he fell over, directly onto the counter in front of Pavel.

"It was a good shot," Pavel said, with a single, sharp nod, his accent changing the w to a v. "He should sleep for about six hours."

"Will being drunk affect the drug in any way?" Stranger asked, righting himself. "I really do not want to have a murder on my conscience."

"He should be fine. Maybe sleep longer, but that's all." Pavel put the dart gun on the counter. "He ruined my bear trophy when he came in. I feel no pity for him."

Stranger looked back at the minor path of destruction that Jim had wrought. THere was indeed a polar bear, stuffed, standing upright along it. It was missing an arm, and stuffing and wiring was coming out of it. "That's unfortunate," Stranger said. "I apologize, but I didn't want to run any further. He might have caught up."

"I should be calling the police now, I suppose?" Pavel asked him.

Stranger sighed. "Probably. I'm going to go change and then sit very quietly in the corner until they arrive, touching nothing and hoping I don't get re-arrested."

-----

Twenty minutes later, he was wearing his clean clothes, even his chucks, had gotten most of the garbage stink off of him, and dried off - Pavel had towels in stock, of course he did - and was feeling worlds better for it. The police had arrived, and they were questioning Pavel. "It was simple, really," Pavel said. "An old friend of mine, Stranger there, came in looking distressed, and said a man was trying to kill him. Then this man here came in shouting that he wanted to kill him, and destroying much of my stock. So I shot him with a mild tranquilizer. It had reacted with the alcohol in his blood and knocked him out cold."

"Sir, might your reaction have been a little over the top?" asked the officer interviewing him, glancing up from where he was taking notes. "After all, you friend happens to be on parole, having been found at the scene of a felony with the murder weapons in his hands."

"I don't know anything about that," Pavel said, calmly. "But he is my friend and I don't believe him capable of hurting a fly. And had you seen that man," nodding towards the unconscious Jim who was being loaded into an ambulance, "running towards you at high speed shouting threats, you would understand that it was not an overreaction, but rather justified fear for my life."

The officer looked back at Jim, as he was finally gotten into the ambulance. They'd had trouble, because Jim was not a svelte man. He was built like a brick shithouse, to mince no words. "Off the record," the officer said, "I can totally understand that, sir." Then, turning to Stranger, he said, "As far as I can tell, you've broken no laws. All I can tell you is please remain available for questioning in this matter, but as you're unable to leave the city, I hardly have to mention it."

"Thank you, officer," Stranger said, stretching. "So can I go?"

"You're free to leave. We already have your information on file."

"Awesome, thank you," Stranger said, getting up. He left the scene of the crime and started walking to George's place. He still had no money for a taxi, and he rather regretted that, but at least it had stopped raining.

Chapter Thirteen (Part 2)

So this is the second half of the Chapter that Wouldn't Die. In which there is Much Cursing, House-breaking, and Murder. And Fire. And a Club. You have been warned.

In other news, it's raining out and I'm cold. Bah. *wanders off to get a sweatshirt*


"I'm never letting you choose the place again!" Stranger shouted over the pounding beat of some unidentified techno song.

"Come on, this place is cool," Malcolm said, sliding back into the seat next to him with two drinks in hand. "I got you the beer you wanted. Maxine didn't believe me when I told her just a beer for you."

"Is it that difficult to believe?" Stranger asked, grabbing the beer. "It's not like I look like a clubber, with these sideburns."

"Yeah, where did those come from?" Malcolm asked. "No way did your stars grow out that quickly."

"You would not believe the story," Stranger said, popping the top and taking a swig. "Never in a million years."

"Come on, I'm your bartender. I listen to everyone's stories. Yours can't be that weird," Malcolm said. "And it's not like anyone else can hear it in here."

"You have no idea how stranger my life has gotten," Stranger told him, and started from the beginning, talking about the inheritance, the spies showing up and disguising him, the bus chase, the crash, his new car, the motel, the plan, Clark Sr., Alice, the relocation road trip, the confit, the second relocation, and then ran out of beer.

Malcolm looked at him. "You're right, I honestly didn't believe a word of that, but it was a good story," he said. "Now I understand why you're a writer."

"Well, that's the only one you're getting," Stranger told him. "Believe or don't."

"When I see proof other than your admittedly prodigious sideburns, I will believe," Malcolm told him, raising a drink that seemed to glow in the near-dark of the club.

"On another topic," Stranger said. "I thought you were a hippie. What's with the whole cybergoth scene club?"

"A person can get tired of being serene," Malcolm said. "And my soul harbors a place of affection for anyone who's willing to throw aside public oppinion enough to wear that." He pointed to a woman wearing eight inch platforms, a neon green miniskirt, a mesh top, and a glowing pink bra beneath it. Stranger looked at her, then looked at Malcolm. "And I am completely willing to admit I don't mind the scenery," he admitted.

Stranger was about to come up with a witty comment about scenery and scene kids when a scene kid walked up to him. "Hey there, Stranger," she purred. Stranger looked up at her, and resisted the urge to swallow hard. She was wearing a neon green corset with black lacings, a black miniskirt, and a pair of knee high leather platform boots, and as far as he could tell, that was about it. Her hair was done up in ponytails high on either side of her head, with green ribbons laced through, and her makeup was dramatic. And underneath it all, he recognized Persephone.

"Hello?" he said, trying to keep his voice from cracking as it desperately wanted to do.

"It's time to get back," she said, placing a hand lightly on his shoulder. "I hope your friend doesn't mind you leaving early."

Stranger glanced at Malcolm, whose bushy eyebrows were almost at his hairline. Go, he mouthed. Stranger nodded. "He'll be fine," Stranger said. "Just give us a second?"

"Sure," she said, trailing her hand down his arm as she walked away. His eyes followed her legs as she went, before he tore them away and looked at Malcolm again.

"I have completely changed my mind," Malcolm told him, earnestly. "You've fallen in with super-spies. Can you get me one like her?"

"Just buy one of the chicks here a Three Mile Island," Stranger said. "And I should probably follow her."

"TO the ends of the Earth!" Malcolm said, toasting her back, sloshing glowing drink onto his hand. "And you'll have a nice view, too."

"I don't think I've ever seen you tipsy," Stranger said. "I think I'll avoid it in the future." And then he went to go follow Persephone to the ends of the Earth, while enjoying the view.

-----

"Since when are you in Boston?" Stranger asked her, after they left the club for the deafening silence of the city street.

"Since it was decided you needed a minder," Persephone said, "About an hour or so after they realized you and George had taken a detour."

"And you got here this quickly?" he asked. "And in full attire? And tracked me down?"

"I'm versatile," she said. "And I already had the stuff, it was just a matter of bringing it with me."

Stranger looked at her back - she was still walking ahead of him. "You are a woman of many faces."

"Yep."

Stranger was herded into a limo, and she slid in beside him. "Just back to where I came from, please," she told the driver, slid back the privacy glass, and turned back to Stranger. "Do you have any clue what time it is?"

"Not quite one?" he said.

"Exactly. And you have no idea what's going on. You don't know what the plan is, you don't know what you're supposed to do, you don't even know if it's still the same, because you left instead of paying attention," she told him.

"I'm going to be completely honest here," he said. "I wouldn't have had a clue even if they'd explained it to me in small words. I can do Machiavellian and Baroque plots when I'm writing, but listening to someone try to explain a practical spy operation is like so much gibberish."

"In very small words, then," Persephone said, "You are going to follow Caroline and me into the building. What she and I do, you do. If we don't do the same thing, follow her lead. Avoid anything that will get you killed - that includes not doing exactly what we do, talking, and irritating us. Once we get to the center of the compound, you are going to revert to just being Stranger, a smart alec guy who evidently irritates Sir Dick no end, and irritate him as much as humanly possible, preferably without getting shot. Capische?"

"Got it," Stranger said.

"Good." The limo glided to a halt in front of the penthouse. "You've got twenty minutes to get back down here, dressed in black and ready to invade. Your stuff is in the old guest room. Go."

Stranger went.

--------

Twenty minutes later, he was back downstairs, dressed in a comfortable black t-shirt, black jeans, black tennis shoes with a good grip, black fingerless gloves and - mercy of mercies - sans the fauxburns. He'd found a razor in the bathroom, and he'd shaved all his facial hair off. It had been a bit of a wrench, getting rid of the stars, but they would grow back, and he no longer had to worry about the fact that the fauxburns seemed to be rusting. His face felt a bit naked, but hopefully that would abate soon.

George had met him as he left the bathroom, his eyes growing wide. "Your face," he'd said.

"I know," Stranger had said. "They'll grow back."

"Good for you," George had said. "No more falsie-fury."

"You're a bastard."

"Yeah."

They'd headed down together, to find that they were the last people ready, of course. The general reaction to Stranger was silent shock, but then Havisham nodded. "They would have set off metal detectors," he said.

"Let's go," Caroline said.

They left in three different cars; Stranger, Persephone and Caroline in one, Jean and George in a second, and Havisham, MacAlleister and Alice in a third. These were their teams and each had a job to do. Stranger's group, unfortunately enough for him, was the group sent to actually take out Sir Dick. Jean and George would be working on making sure not a single of his security systems worked and that his people knew they wouldn't be getting paid. Havisham, MacAlleister, and Alice would be their back-up and the muscle, distracting any unforunately loyal guards from any noises they might hear.

Stranger felt the car ride was over far too quickly. It was one forty five AM, though, and the compound was only twelve blocks away, but still. It should have been longer, to give more time for dramatic brooding. Ten minutes didn't give him enough time to brood properly. He needed a good run-up for a proper brood. Persephone and Caroline had no time for his dark thoughts, however, and he proceeded to do what they did as exactly as possible: get out of the car, find a dark shadow, and stand in it.

This time he had a little bit longer to work up a proper brood. He was going to die. He would die sideburnless and alone, a criminal in the eyes of the world, trying to take out a man whome most thought of as perhaps a bit of a jerk and slightly eccentric, but harmless, and said jerk would promptly take over the world as soon as he figured out which apartment George had sent the dragon to. That just was unfair. He'd lived a blameless life, getting shot down trying to make the world a better place was not, in his opinion, fitting recompense. He glared at the sky, which had the appropriate 'dark and stormy' aspect - a thunderstorm had been rolling in since just after the sun had gone down, and was due to hit soon. He appreciated the weather's sense of style.

Then he went back to following directions, and followed the women as they moved from their shadows and towards a door - one of many doors in the brick wall of the building against which Stranger was leaning. When Caroline tried the door, it was open. She slowly turned the handle, then turned to Stranger and put a pointed finger to her lips. He wasn't to make a single noise. Then she drew said finger across her neck. Or he would bite it. He nodded. Message received.

The room into which they entered was an empty, white-plastered, bare-floored mess of a place, falling apart one chunk of plaster at a time. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling, its wiring showing. Stranger could just make it out in the slim light offered by the high, lonely window. Caroline led them out the only other door in the room, and into a hallway that was exactly like the room they'd just exited, only longer, with more light bulbs, and darker. Persephone, who'd brought the flashlight, held it up and turned it on low, so they could just make out each other and the floor where they stepped. Stranger watched as the women picked their way around plaster rubble and broken tile, and, not sure how far 'do exactly what we do' went, tried to follow their footsteps as exactly as he could. It worked rather well, he thought.

Somewhere far away, there was a scream. Stranger took this as a sign that MacAlleister and Havisham were doing their jobs. They kept going, ignoring the chaotic sounds that followed that initial herald. Stranger had no clue where they were going, obviously, but he was noticing a definite upward and inward trend. Whenever they came to a set of stairs, they took it, sometimes skipping steps for no obvious reason, sometimes using the railing and sometimes not. They'd go away from natural light any time they saw it, and further into the building whenever the opportunity arose. Stranger was beginning to wonder if there really was anything to this 'do exactly as we do' business - getting tired of adjusting his stride to make sure he didn't step on a specific tile - when he heard a piece of plaster fall behind him. He turned, out of habit, and saw it land on one of the tiles the women had avoided. A spurt of flame leaped from a crack in the wall to incinerate everything within ten feet of the tile. He turned back, wide-eyed, and looked at the women. They simply shrugged and kept going, and Stranger hurried after them.

The halls did increase in quality as they went, although all was still dark and the sounds of chaos now below them grew ever louder. There was no more plaster on the floor, and the tiles looked well kept-up. There was ever the occasional plant in the corner withering for want of water. There were signs of recent habitation, the occasional cigarette butt hastily put out and still smoldering on the floor, a coffee sitting growing cold around a strategic corner. All the guards were elsewhere.

When they finally did come to the room they were looking for, it was a surprise to Stranger. He had fallen into a pattern of watching Persephone's steps, and then watching his own to make sure they exactly matched up. He'd also though it would have taken more than the ten or fifteen minutes it had. Surely it couldn't have been that simple?

Then he remembered the gout of flame and decided maybe it hadn't been.

It was the last door in yet another long hallway, a thick door that looked like it could withstand an awful lot of damage. There was no way they were breaking through it with the tools they had - i.e., a flashlight and Caroline's crowbar. Stranger saw that immediately, and therefore was only a little shocked when they pulled out identical phasers and started going at the walls. In less than ten seconds, there was a hole in the wall the size of the door and a billow of smoke rolling down the hallway. Almost before Stranger had recovered from seeing something literally vaporized, Caroline was through the door and Persephone was following her. He stepped lively, before stopping short once again on the other side of the door. It was rather like that hotel room he and George had been lodged in, what felt like ages ago, the posh one with the big minibar. There was certainly the same aesthetic here as there had been there. Only there, only people who were posh or could pretend to be got in, while here Sir Dick looked like he'd had a brush with a Mack truck and then sat up nights worrying about it. He was glaring at them, sleepless red eyes twitching a little.

"Are you here to finish me off?" he snarled. "Then do it, end this stupid charade of yours. I'm broke, I'm helpless, and I'm not going to be of any trouble to you since all my guards are either dead or on their way to the Bahamas."

Stranger sensed this was when he was supposed to be doing his job. "Hello, Dick," he said cheerfully. "You look a little less than well-kept right now. Been having some issues?"

"You bloody fucking bastard," Dick said, wheeling to face him. "It was your damned friend that ruined me, and I can't even figure out how."

"He's good with money like that," Stranger said, nodding knowingly. "He probably just used a favor from a friend and told them to move infinitesimal amounts of money from one place to another, and you ended up broke due to natural movements of the markets."

"Natural movements my arse," he said, stepping menacingly closer. "If you'd just given me the damned inheritance -"

"I really don't recall you ever asking for it," Stranger interrupted helpfully.

" - Then none of this would have ever - "

"Or even offering to pay for it. You just kidnapped us and shot my friends," he continued.

"HAPPENED," Dick shouted, and launched himself at Stranger. There was an electric sound, sheet metal tearing, and Stranger was knocked down by one hundred and seventy pounds of dead weight. When he shoved it off and got his breath back, he noticed that the emphasis in this case would be on the 'dead' bit. Feeling the encroaching, familiar sensation of immanent unconsciousness, he looked at Caroline. She and Persephone were still wielding their phasers, and Stranger would have sworn that there was a wisp of smoke rising from the tip of Caroline's.

"That's what you get, bastard," she said, calmly.

There was a sound of stomping boots down the hallway and a shout of "Police!" Stranger acted without thinking, something he really needed to stop doing. In a split second he was up, he'd taken the phasers from the women, and was pointing on at them and one at the body on the floor when the police came in. All guns were immediately trained on him. "Drop your weapons, sir," came the commanding voice of whoever was in charge. Stranger did, after flicking on the safety, careful to drop them so they wouldn't break. Persephone and Caroline were staring at him, shock in their eyes. While he turned and raised his hands towards the sky, he could only think, I hope I haven't fucked this up.