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               Tuck Season, Wabbit Season, Tuck Season!
                            Part 11
                              -*-
      Copyright 1999, 2010 by either Joel Lawrence or Ellen Hayes


Any resemblance between the writings in this work, and any actual
persons or places, living or dead, are purely coincidental, except when
used for satirical purposes.

This work contains adult situations, adult language, adult concepts, and
possibly sex.  If you are legally not allowed to read materials
containing such things, then you will be breaking the law by reading
this.  I am not responsible.
Continuing to read this document, or storing it or reproducing it
in any format means that you explicitly affirm that you are legally
allowed to possess and read such materials in your city, county/parish,
state, and country.

All rights reserved.  See the bottom for distribution rights.

***


     "No, here's great," Tucker said as they approached the apartment
complex he'd noted.  Though it was more appropriate to call it a
'simplex', since it seemed like it didn't have more than two dozen
units.  But it did have two streets nearby, which meant he could depart
without being seen by everyone and their mother after they let him out.
     He trucked halfway into the parking lot, then turned back and waved
enthusiastically, getting Trish to nearly boff Jojo in the head, before
turning and running into the complex.
     "Gawd, she really did," Tucker chuckled to himself.  "Wonder if
that's gonna leave a bruise."

     "Oh, no problem," Stephanie said.
     "Thanks a lot," Mary Elise sighed as Jojo and Trish ran off to
Jojo's room.  Apparently Jojo had forgiven Trish for slapping her in the
head several times, when they let Valerie out.  "Did you guys have fun
today?"
     "Yeah," Stephanie decided.  "There's this new girl in town, that
Trish and Pauline met at the grocery store yesterday..."

     *Gee, a phone NIC,* Tucker smiled, not nicely.  *And all here in
relative privacy, too.  They WANT me to phreak it, or they wouldn't have
put it here at the back of the complex in this nice little alcove.*
     It didn't take long before he had gloves on, not much longer to get
the lock open, and only seconds after that before he had the micro-VOM
checking the line voltage, which was fine, and then started dialing a
phone bank in Chicago.

     "Thompson residence this is Darla," Darryl said in his Darla voice.
     There was a click, and then it sounded like someone was trying to
dial over him.  "Hello?  HELLO!?"
     Then his mind sang along with the weird tones of a touch-tone
phone, 'Pop! goes the weasel!'.
     Then the other side of the call hung up.

     Charlie was about to come in, having spent as much of the day
outside as he could, because no one else was outside and so it was
safer.  It was starting to get chilly, which always bothered him a
little bit, since it was almost June and L.A. was apparently a lot
warmer.
     But when he saw Darryl throw Jane's phone across the room, he
decided, *It's not THAT cold out here.  And I did eat already, today.
Maybe I should go check on the horses, see if they've been fed and
stuff.  Yeah.*

     Dialing home from someone else's NIC was horridly dangerous, and
worse in daylight, but Tucker WAS using a calling card, which SHOULD
mean it wouldn't show up on a resident's bill in a month or so.  And he
needed what he was downloading into his micro-tape recorder.
     *Well, sort of.  Depending on how you define 'need'...*
     When it finally finished, he hung up, then pulled everything back
apart and re-locked the box.  *Wouldn't want thieves and vandals getting
in here, of course.*
     *Now, where the hell is Jane's...*  He couldn't mark up his map, in
case he was captured, but it would take some work to figure out just
where she'd started from, compared to the roads and road SIGNS he'd
seen.  *Lessee...  I'm here...  I think...*

     "You are definitely running a fever," Marie said, sounding
disapproving.
     "I don't have time to be ill," Jane snarled through the pain in her
head.  "She's still out-"
     "Jane," Marie warned, before she turned and coughed into her hand.
     "Oh no..."

     After some work, and some beating of his head when Tucker's memory
initially refused to cough up some critical numbers, he finally had a
decent idea of where Jane was.  And, if the scale was correct, it was
about twelve miles.
     Which meant about six to eight hours of walking and hiding.
     Tucker sighed, and looked around.  *Good enough to hide here a
little longer,* he decided, and started Veritech-ing his gear into
Hiking mode.

     "E-excuse me, Darla?"  Darryl turned and started to say something
very nasty to Charlene, but managed to stop himself.
     "If Marie MIGHT be ill," Charlene continued tenatively, "maybe she
shouldn't be cooking?  Because we might get it too."
     "Oh, god," Darryl said, looking around.  This was turning out to be
the worst ever, and it just kept GETTING worse.  *Please, God, don't we
have enough troubles to sort through?  Couldn't you just put the rest on
hold for a few days, until we get these sorted out?*

     Charlie did the dishes, though there were hardly any compared to
normal.  Darla had fixed some soup and toast, and not much of that; but
that was enough to feed everyone.  Charlie was kind of worried about the
way Jane and Marie looked; they both looked bad, with Jane looking
worse.  Diana - who had changed back into female as soon as she got
home, unlike Darla - was taking care of Jane, leaving Darla to cajole
Marie into resting, and doing her chores.  Luckily, everyone else was
distracted enough that they'd just tell Charlie to do something and then
go away and let him do it, rather than nitpicking everything he did like
Jane usually managed to do.
     If it wasn't for Jane looking like she was going to die in the next
few days, and the stress everyone was feeling, and wondering what
Valerie was going to DO, since she'd obviously (to Charlie anyway)
gotten away clean and free, it might have been sort of nice.
     As it was, though, it was very uncomfortable.  Charlie kept
wondering what Valerie was going to do, now that she was free again.
Obviously she'd gotten Jane's phone number somehow - and he didn't know
how she'd done THAT; Charlie certainly didn't know what it was - and he
wondered what else she'd gotten.  *Credit cards would be the best, if
she was a thief or something.*  He had no idea how you could use someone
else's credit cards to actually steal money, unless-
     *No, Jane couldn't be stupid enough to write the PIN number on the
card.*
     *Could she?*
     *But then, wouldn't Valerie need the card itself?  Or could you
just use the number?  But then how do you get cash out of it?  Buy
something mail order and then sell it?*  He knew some people could do
things like that, but he hadn't thought Valerie was one of them.
*Though I never did find out what she'd done...  Maybe that was why she
was here.  If so, though, wouldn't Jane have been more careful about her
credit cards and stuff?*
     *And what is Valerie going to do?*  If Charlie had gotten away from
Jane's house, he would NOT have called up just to tease Jane and whoever
like Valerie had done twice already.  *So is she going to do something
worse?*
     *And if so, what?*
     Charlie had daydreamed about beating Jane with a baseball bat.
     He'd met a kid that had burned down someone's house, and it was
only luck that no one had been seriously hurt; the house had been
completely wiped out.
     And, of course, there were the crazies and gangers in L.A., stuff
he'd heard about on the news.  Sometimes they were looking for revenge
against one particular person or group, but it seemed like they were
never too picky about who else they hit.
     Charlie really didn't want to die because Valerie hated Jane.
     *But she wasn't making threats or anything...*
     He found his hand was winding a lock of hair around a finger, and
wondered if he ought to shave his head and get the hell out of here
while he still could.  *But I don't have any money, and if Jane and them
catch me leaving NOW...  They'd beat the hell out of me and THEN send me
to juvie.*
     He saw Darla go past, and she looked very upset, and he thought
about saying something to her, or something, but he couldn't think of
anything to say that wouldn't be incredibly stupid.

     *Damn sun,* Tucker thought.  *If it would go down, traveling would
be easier.*  Most people thought darkness was Bad, somehow; but not
Tucker.  *Cloak of... Shalpa?*  He couldn't remember the goddess, but
the idea of a benevolent or even maternal cloak hiding him in darkness,
and thereby helping him, was something he understood instinctively.
     *And ol' Ra up there is trying to get my ass caught,* he thought
sourly.  *Man, next time I get sent off to reform school or something,
it ought to be more like November, when the days are shorter.*
     Part of the problem was, there was only so much he could do to
change his profile, given the limited amount of gear he had; and if he
ever looked too much like a teen runaway to the wrong person, he'd set
off alerts and things that could snag him even if they weren't thinking
of Tucker, Eugene Wallace when they grabbed him.  So he had to spend a
lot of time dorking around, changing what he could, and looking like
anything but someone trying to cover a distance in a short time on foot.
     Which, of course, was exactly what he WAS, at the moment.
     *House should be calmed down by three or four in the morning... I
can check the outside of the house for lights.*  One nice thing about
Jane's house, was that almost every room seemed to have at least one
outward-facing window, that would probably tell him if someone had the
lights on.  *And they don't tend to leave lights on if they aren't using
the room, especially after bedtime,* he'd noted.  *So lights mean people
awake, and no lights would TEND TO indicate they aren't in there.*  He
was well aware that, by running off, he himself had disrupted the usual
patterns of the house, and perhaps they were laying in wait for him.
*Just possible...  Not likely, but possible.*
     Onward went the roads and paths...

     "Said he got it," Mike confirmed.  "Nothing else yet."
     "So, what," Dan asked.
     Mike shook his head.  "Dunno.  I bet he's gonna try and rescue the
laptop and the rest of his gear; that's probably why he's not asking for
pickup yet."  Dan nodded at the sense of that.  "He said 'Kingston Rhode
Island', and I sent the pack to West Kingston, and he got that, so he
should be somewhere around there."
     "Wasn't he going-"
     "Yeah," Mike shrugged, "but who knows.  Could've been a
misdirection so we might not be able to get him back so easy."  Not like
that would've worked; the only really reliable way to send one of them
someplace without them finding out where it was eventually, would
involve something like being nailed into a packing crate.
     "Gonna tell Debbie about this?"
     "Fuckno!" Mike gasped as he slapped Dan's head.
     "Hey!"
     "Are you nuts?  You know what she'd do if she learned Tucker was on
the loose and calling for his escape pack?  She'd interfere with the
plans, is what," Mike answered himself.  "We're just gonna wait a while,
see what else he says."
     "But what if he doesn't call?"
     "Lost comm procedure, which goes active twenty-four hours after I
sent that package," he checked his watch, "which is definitely now.  No
contact for twenty-four hours, then somebody goes to the post office
where I sent the package and waits for him there.  That'd be me.  You or
somebody stays in town to check his voicemail without long-distance
charges."
     "You've got his voicemail passwords?"
     "Somewhere," Mike said.  They, along with a number of other
important long-term passwords, was sealed in a glass tube that had been
carefully melted shut; easy enough to get out, but almost impossible to
conceal that it had been accessed.  They worked through 'back doors', as
they were longer and more complicated than the usual passwords, but they
didn't have to change as often.  Which was why they were sealed into
glass tubes.

     "Hello?"
     "May I speak to... John, please?" Charlie asked.  "It's Charlene."
     "Charl-  OH!  Um, hold on a minute," she said hurriedly and put the
phone down with a clatter.  Charlie guessed that Joan had mentioned his
name to the woman who'd answered the phone.
     *She did say to call any time,* Charlie fretted, because he wasn't
sure she'd really meant it.  *But I REALLY need to talk to someone.
Someone sane-*
     "Hello?" asked a voice Charlie almost recognized.
     "Joan I mean John?"  *Oh d-*
     "Charlene?" Joan's voice came back.  "What's up?"
     Apparently Joan/John was going to forgive him the lapse in names.
Charlie sighed in relief.  "Oh, god, I need to talk to you..."
     "What's going on?"
     "Oh man."  Charlie didn't know where to start, but a memory of Jane
snapping 'Start at the beginning!' made him say, "Okay, we got a new
student a few weeks after you left, right?"

     *Well, damn, that was quick,* Tucker thought, recognizing the gate
in Jane's fence even in the dark.  Pretty much.  He was pretty sure.
*Hustle hustle, get in the woods through the gate...  No!  Might be
alarmed or cameras.*  He started trotting down the road, looking for
another way in.
     It took him more than half an hour, but he eventually found a tree
which overhung the wall enough that he could use the 550 cord to make a
sling ladder and the hook to get his ass into the branches and over the
wall.
     *Man, not even razor wire or anything...  What a trusting soul.  By
which I mean 'victim'.  Or 'sucker'.  Or 'contributor', to the
delinquency of a minor...*
     Careful inspection with shielded flashlight (which hopefully
wouldn't screw up his nightvision adaptation too badly) of the top of
the wall didn't reveal anything that looked like a capacitance wire,
flex-resistor, or fiber optic.  *Tree's too in the way for a good line-
of-sight laser path, too,* he finally judged.
     *Jeez, does she even want people to stay out?  Or is this a goat
pen or something?*
     There were a great deal of trees and such, but after about fifty
meters - it felt like a hundred or maybe two, so it was about fifty - of
feeling his way along the ground and between trees and bushes, he ran
into a well-overgrown grassy path of some kind, running kinda-sorta
along the fence maybe.
     *Trails are bad to walk on, of course.  But fast.  Hmmm...  Chances
that someone will be out on one of these paths at this time?*  He
checked his backup cheap waterproof digital timepiece, the one on the
upright strap on his social work webgear that had a red plastic cover
cut out of an acetate report cover.  And was VERY dim.  *22:38,* he
eventually decided.  *Bedtime for the kiddies, and there's at least one
new person there...  Very little chance of someone on the path, in the
dark,* because it was very dark, the moon not having risen yet.  His
very cut-down ephemeride, included as a special in the bugout pack, had
said moonrise wasn't until 03:00 or so, so it wasn't going to get
brighter for a long time.
     *Still, just be slow and careful...*  At least his eyes had
re-adjusted about as well as they could.  *Wouldn't mind a pair of NVGs
out here, but only if they had red filters on the inside.*  It had
always struck him as funny, or government-issue stupidity, that they
made nightvision gear that was so damned bright and just the exactly
wrong color that, if it went out or you took them off, you were
practically sun-blinded.

     Charlie moved the drapes aside and just watched the outside, as the
wind blew the trees a little.  *I can't believe she's still gone...*
     *I can't believe I'm still standing around in a nightgown, either.*
Which he was.  The matching peignoir did not make him feel more dressed.
     *God, it's just so...   I mean, I still can't believe I'm doing
this, part of the time...  When I think about it, I guess.  I don't FEEL
that different, kind of... but, here I am, in a girl's night dress,*
because it was basically a long thin-fabric dress, *looking out the
window like some kind of Victorian romance novel heroine.
     *Or victim,* he thought, and smirked at himself.  *Yeah, like a
vampire is outside crawling up the walls or something...*
     He just stood and watched the dark outside for a while.

     *That should be Charlene's room,* Tucker decided, after counting
windows.  Charlene's was dark, but he thought he could see that the
curtains were open.  *So who's in those other rooms?*
     He spooned out another mouthful of cold 'corned beef hash' which
had been 'corned' about as much as Velveeta had been fermented with
cheese enzymes.  *Still, fills things up.*
     *Do I do the Metamucil now?  No,* he reminded himself, because he'd
already thought of this at least twice already.  *Don't wanna have to go
at an inconvenient time, like, oh, tonight or tomorrow.*  He shouldn't
wonder, at times like these, why he got so constipated...
     *Yeah yeah, shut up.  Anything else going on?*  There were two
lights on this side that were still on, he thought; one upstairs and one
downstairs.  *Library and... one of the bedrooms, I guess, because it's
on the bedroom side of the second floor.  Or first if I'm British, which
I ain't.*

     The phone rang, and Darryl almost dropped his coffee.  He stared at
Diana, who stared back at him, looking about equally startled.

     *Awww, ain't'cha gonna answer the phone?* Tucker smiled.  He had a
nice filter powering Jane's phone while absolutely (well, down to
microvolts) blocking any signals from passing, either in or out.  He
also had the CD player hooked up and paused.
     He gave the ring generator another five seconds of cranking, until
the circuit time limiter tripped the ring signal off.  *HelllOOOOO?!  It
might be an important call, y'know!*

     Art replayed the recording they'd made of the last call.
     "'Free at last, free at last,'" Martin Luther King Junior orated,
"'Thank God Almighty we are free at last!'"
     Followed by a click as Eugene hung up, somewhere.
     "Well, at least she has some historical education," Jane said
before she sniffed, rather more desperately than her usual haughtily.
"And there wasn't any Caller ID on this one?"
     "None, Jane," Art had to admit.  "We did the Call Trace immediately
after, but Bill Beale is the only way we'll actually be able to find out
where he was when he called."

     *Okay, so, that's Jane's downstairs parlor- no, that's her office,
the downstairs one,* Tucker thought.  *So they're in there.*  He scanned
with the monocular they'd made out of a busted-up pair of binoculars,
and the heavy but light-slurping optics told him that no, they hadn't
bothered opening the curtains or anything like that.  *Too bad for
central heat and air; otherwise I might could run a audio bug up there
and then listen back here.*
     One of the irritating realities was that, since it was only him, he
could only watch one side of the house at once; two if he stayed on the
corner lines but then his vision for either side was much reduced.

     *Wow, midnight already?* Debbie questioned, looking at her bedroom
clock in case her watch had fritzed.  *Wow, it is.  Damn...*
     *I hope Tucker's okay.  I miss him...*

     *Goddamnit I hate picking locks.*  That was one reason Tucker
thought he should stay friends with George; George was not only good at
it, he liked doing it.
     *Of course, even he wouldn't want to be doing it here...*  'Here'
being a well-lit back porch.  If he'd had a week or two, he'd have
popped the light bulb and maybe sprayed something in the socket to
corrode the contacts, but that was something that would take days to
work and days more before suspicions settled back down.  *At least they
can't see me from the driveway here...*

     Jane had to get up, because the angry fire in her throat was about
to make her start coughing uncontrollably, and Art seemed to be sleeping
soundly in their bed.  *Well, that seems to make one of us...*

     Tucker heard the ceiling creak above him, and froze as his
heartrate went up about twenty percent.  *Hell-lo,* he thought, and
waited for the next sound(s), counting heartbeats.
     At two hundred and thirty-six, the water-pipe noise almost scared
him, but he calmed himself down somewhat.  *If they come through the
door, go out the window and bug out, don't worry about the locks or
alarm or anything,* he recited to himself.  Since he was wearing latex
first-aid gloves, and at some points he'd been wearing dishwashing
gloves over those, he wasn't worried about leaving new fingerprints.
     *Just wish I could get rid of all the old ones,* he sighed again.
But if Jane had an ounce of brains - which he HAD to allow her, on
credit - she'd have gotten a latent or ten off something long before
he'd left, maybe by the second day or so.  At least, that's what he'd
done to Debbie by their third date.  Of course, he hadn't been able to
run the prints he'd gotten from Debbie, but he also had to assume that
Jane or one of her contacts could; and then he had to assume they'd
probably put out a warrant for all sorts of hideous crimes associated
with his prints.  So being careful now wasn't entirely stupid and
too-late; if things went wrong, they might not know it was him.
     The noises finally stopped, and Tucker mentally sighed and started
counting five hundred heartbeats.

     "Charlene, wake up!"  Charlie woke up, but he couldn't figure out
who the person was talking to.  *Must be someone else.*
     "Charlene!" the voice hissed.
     He rolled over to look at whatever fool had mistaken him for-
     About five seconds later, there was a fucking COMMANDO sitting on
his ribs and holding his mouth shut with both hands.  "Shhh!" it
insisted, sounding a lot like-
     "Valerie?!" he tried to say, but she was still holding his mouth
shut.
     "Shhh!" she repeated.  It sounded like her, and even sort of looked
like her, if she'd gone and done some serious shopping at Delta Force.
She even had a helmet on, and goggles and some kind of cloth over the
rest of her face.
     *What the hell is she DOING?!  Wait, wasn't she-*
     "Shut.  UP!" she hissed, shoving his head repeatedly into the
pillows.  "Will you be quiet?" she whispered.
     Charlie, beginning to notice a great lack of air in his life, was
willing to agree to just about anything at that point, so he nodded as
best he could with her hands holding his head down.
     Apparently that was enough for her, because she let go of him and
he could breathe again.
     He did that for a while, and was glad to do it.

     Tucker was glad that Charlene seemed to be reasonable, even though
he'd woken her up in the middle of the night.
     Finally, she seemed to remember the world outside her lungs - most
people found not breathing to be very distracting after a minute or
three - and she asked, thankfully in a whisper so he didn't have to
punch her face, "What are you doing here?"
     "'I'm Luke Skywalker, and I'm here to rescue you,'" he quoted.
     After a short time, Charlene said, "What?" in that semi-exasperated
tone that said she Did Not Get It.
     Tucker sighed as he flopped onto his side next to her.  *You'd
think, living in L.A., she'd know more of the classics.*  "I came back
to get you out," he said, though he'd also gotten and packed all of his
stuff first.
     "Out of what?"
     *Guess she doesn't wake up as fast as I thought.*  "Out of Jane's?
Back home?  The fuck out of here?"
     "Wha-  HE-"
     "Shhh!" Tucker reminded her before he took his hands off her mouth
again.  "I know they've got cameras in here, and they probably have
microphones too."
     "What?"
     *My god, just how dumb is she?*  "Shhh," Tucker reminded her, and
rolled back to do some serious thinking.  This was starting to feel like
a Really Bad Idea.

     "I can't leave!" Charlie said desperately, though quietly so
Valerie wouldn't strangle him again.
     "Why the fuck not?"
     *Yeah, why the fuck not?* Charlie asked himself.
     "J-  Jane hasn't said I could go yet," he whispered miserably.
Miserable because it was the truth, and a truth he hadn't even suspected
until now.
     "Who cares?" Valerie asked, sounding exasperated.  Though also
quiet.
     Charlie sighed.  "It's really hard to explain..."
     This place was definitely a whole lot nicer than anything he'd ever
heard about, when it came to legal punishment.  And he sure as HELL
didn't want to find out first-hand about the other places some of the
kids in the county jail had bragged about attending.  Strangely enough,
while he now looked (and acted, and dressed, and all the rest) very
girly indeed, there hadn't been even a hint of someone ass-raping him
here...  Like some of the meaner kids had promised he was going to get
when they had 'some time alone' at one of the juvenile facilities in
California.

     "What the fuck is hard to explain about it?" Tucker hissed at the
idiot in the bed with him.  "You leave!  It stops!"
     "What stops?"
     "Whatever's she's d- Jane's doing to you!"  *Jeezus, she can't be
THAT stupid, can she?*
     *Or is she really Corrupt, so bad she can't even see it any more?*

     "She's not-  It's not that bad!" Charlie insisted, thinking of the
many many dicks that hadn't been forced into his body orifices by people
who would happily maim or kill him if he didn't submit.
     After a few moments, Valerie tried, "Wouldn't you like to go back
home?  With your family n' stuff?  Friends?"
     *The same friends that set me up?* Charlie thought.

     "Look," Charlene explained, quietly, "when-  If I finish here, and
Jane says so, my record gets sealed, and I'm- I don't have to go to
juvie, okay?"
     "What'd you do?" Tucker asked, curious.  "I mean, what'd they...
put you on trial for," he asked when he found a string of words he
thought she'd understand, and not argue with.
     "I was...," she sighed.  "Look, I don't really want to go into it."
     *Jesus Christ, fucking bitch is sitting here getting trained so
Jane can either make movies with her or sell her out of the country, and
she's worried about what the U.S. legal system thought.*
     *Maybe she's worried about what YOU'LL think,* Mike told him.
     Tucker thought back, *Oh, shut up.*
     He really wanted to leave, but Mike's conscience wouldn't let him,
not yet.  He tried again, "Look, Charlene, I can get you out of here,
get you someplace safe, so you don't have to go through this any more.
Or whatever she's gonna do to you next."
     "Wha- Jane?  Jane's not gonna do anything to me," she said,
sounding halfway sure about it.
     "How do you know?"
     She sighed at him, and he almost punched her, out of sheer
frustration.  "Because, Valerie, I know.  The- the girl that was here
before me, she's back home, and she's okay."

     "What?!" Valerie squeaked.
     "She's at home, in like Phoenix or someplace, the Southwest,"
Charlie explained.  "She was here before me, helped me learn how to deal
with, y'know, here, and she left maybe a month before you got here."
     "How do you know?"
     "What?"
     "How do you know that's where she went?"
     "What?  Because I got her phone number before she left, and I
called her last night!"
     "Shhh!" Valerie reminded him, and Charlie almost punched her, out
of sheer frustration.  "Look," she said, in a moderately good
impersonation of a sane person, "how do you know it was her, her house,
th-"
     "Because," Charlie hissed, "she gave me the phone number before she
left, and I talked to her!"
     That seemed to make her think about things.  "And it's not like a
phone transfer or someth-"
     "No!  Why are you so paranoid?!"

     Tucker had to fight with himself, because the Mike part still felt
kind of sorry for her, or maybe more so because she was so stupid and
blind; and the sociopathic part of him wanted to kill her before she had
a chance to betray him, or infect him with Corruption.
     When he got both sides reasonably under control, he managed to say,
"Charlene, she took me in, drugged me, then dressed me up in clothes
that pedophiles would pay thousands of dollars to see pictures of.  She
keeps threatening me with worse, remember?  And she's told me she was
going to break me, break my will to resist.  Either she's gonna get me
raped, and maybe videotape THAT, or she's gonna sell me to some
billionaire pervert someplace."

     Charlie literally couldn't say anything.
     Because, he could see that happening.
     Now that she'd said it, out loud.

     "I got me out of here, and she an' the rest of 'em think I'm in
California by now," Tucker mentioned, partially to remind himself that
he WASN'T trapped any more, that Jane COULDN'T do those things to him
if he wasn't here, and that he could blow her operation completely apart
if he talked to a non-Corrupted cop and/or media.
     *Hey, and Trish's mom works at a television station,* he
remembered.  *Bet their news department would love this!*
     Tucker forced himself to stop thinking about the pleasant future of
Jane being blood-eagled in the media, and went back to the girl he was
almost sitting on.  "Charlene, I can get you out of here.  Right now.
Come with me, and you'll be away from her, where she can't touch you
ever again."

     *But if she was going to do something like that, she'd have DONE
something like it by now,* Charlie realized.  *And Joan didn't say
anything, and she went HOME!  And I called her there...*
     But Valerie had brought up the point; how did he know Joan was
really there, where she'd said she would be?  *Maybe she was taken
someplace else?*
     *No, wait, she GAVE me her phone number at home, HER home, before
she left here, and that's what I called, and she answered.  So she has
to be there...*  Charlie didn't think that anyone could set up a phone
thing like Valerie had kind of hinted at, unless they were the CIA or
something, and that was just crazy to think that they might be involved
in something like this.
     *Plus Joan wouldn't have sounded so... normal,* he realized.  If,
say, CHARLIE had thought he was going home and then was... whatever
Valerie was saying which he didn't want to think about, he DEFINITELY
wouldn't have been calm about it.  He kind of wanted to think he could
be all macho, resist, and all that; but Jane had taught him where his
limits were, and now he really didn't think he could handle being, say,
imprisoned and raped, without at least being really upset for the rest
of his life.  And unable to keep from crying about it on the phone if a
friend had called him.
     "Charlene?  Come on."
     With a deep regret he could already feel, Charlie had to say, "No."
     "NO?!"
     He took great satisfaction in saying, "Shhh," back at her.
     Valerie made choking noises.

     *Ican'tkillherIcan'tkillherIcan'tkillherIcan'tkillher-*

     "Look, I KNOW Jane scared the crap out of you," Charlie explained,
quietly, "'cause she scared me the same way.  But, it's not as bad as it
looks to you right now.  Joan, she got-"  *Uh oh.  Oh damnit.  Well,
can't fix it now...*  He went on, "She got out of here, she's back home,
her record's cleared up, she's caught up on the school she missed...
And I'd know if she was getting, like, raped or something, like you
said, 'cause she didn't sound that str- I mean, she wasn't- she just
wasn't upset when I talked to her, you know?  She would've been if she
was getting raped or whatever, right?"

     Tucker was still having urges to knife her repeatedly, to distract
her, so he could fully cut off her head and burn it someplace.  Else.
     "Right," he said raggedly, to keep her talking.

     Mike woke up with a start, then had to spend several minutes
convincing himself that there was no REASON for Tucker to be hacking
girls apart with an axe in Rhode Island.  *He KNOWS better than to do
stupid psycho shit like that; it'd flare his profile.*

     "Just call her, talk to her," Charlie pushed.  "Please."
     "Why should I-"
     "Because if you go screaming 'child molesting' to the media or the
police or whoever, it's gonna mess MY life up.  Just check with Joan
before you do it?" he pleaded.  "She wouldn't lie to you if it was
happening to her!"
     Valerie sighed.
     Charlie thought about saying more, but decided that, no, he should
just shut up for once and not over-argue like Joan had accused him of
doing.
     Eventually Valerie whispered, "On one condition."
     "What?" Charlie knew to ask.
     "You give me twelve hours, until..."  They both looked at the
clock.  "Three o'clock tomorrow afternoon," she rounded.  "Before you
tell Jane and them I was here.  I need the twelve hours."

     "I came back to get you out, take you with me," Tucker half-lied.
He HAD come back for her, he'd just made sure he got his stuff first.
     "And," he continued, "you owe me for that.  I could be on my way to
Australia now, or England, or something, but I came back to get you out.
You owe me for that... if you're not coming?"  He really thought it
would be a good idea if she left.  "You don't even have to come with me,
except for the first bit, if that's the problem."
     "No, that's not it, really," she said softly.  "I...  It's not as
bad as you thought, and...  I need to get done with this, so my record's
cleared.  And she'll-  Jane will do that.  If I stay here 'til the end,
it counts, and my records get sealed, and all of that."
     Tucker confirmed, "So you'll stay here... and give me the twelve
hours?"

     Charlie wanted to argue that it was longer than twelve hours, but
it was less than half an hour longer, and it was stupid to argue about
THAT.
     But he ended up saying, "Yes.  I'll keep quiet until three.  I
promise."
     He wasn't sure WHY he was agreeing, but it somehow felt right.
Like staying here felt right.  Maybe not the easy way, or the
comfortable way, but the right way.
     Somehow.

     Tucker gave up.  *Fuck it, man, I tried.  If she's telling the
truth, about all of it, and she's not wrong about Jane NOT being a
rapist or slaver or whatever, then I can kind of see it...*
     *And if she's lying, I gotta book it to get the fuck out of here.
I hope she gives me the twelve hours...*

     Valerie grabbed Charlie's hand in a weird way, and whispered, "Be
careful," as she squeezed.
     "You too," Charlie said, really truly meaning it.  "Please call
her."
     She nodded, and squeezed his hands a few times, and then let go.
"Try to go back to sleep, okay?  I don't need them suspicious of you
being up this early."
     "Okay, I will," he promised, though he wasn't sure he could go back
to sleep.
     And Valerie shut the door to his room, and was gone.
     And Charlie was still here.

     Tucker had planned to bail out of 'his' bedroom window if he'd
needed to, grabbing gear bags on the way out, but it didn't seem to be
necessary at this point; so he figured he might as well go down the
stairs and out the back door, because that would be a little easier and
a lot quieter, at least when it came to him landing from the drop.
     Also it was far less likely that he would sprain a leg part.
     Plus he'd gotten some ice, which could come in handy.
     He did, at least, remember to put his sunglasses on before he
opened the back door again, because the bright 'security' light would've
blinded him for almost an hour.
     He got out, not locking the rear door behind him, and got into the
woods as quickly as he could, so he could watch the house.

     Charlie was not going to go back to sleep, he finally realized.
     He'd just about convinced himself about why he should stay, talking
to Valerie about it.  What he didn't understand is why he promised to
give her the twelve hours of secrecy she'd asked for.  He KNEW he was
going to get in a LOT of trouble for it... and he'd known that when he
agreed to it.
     *It'd be simpler if I just didn't mention it at all,* Charlie
realized.

     After half an hour, Tucker hadn't seen any lights come on at all,
on his sides of the house.  That wasn't conclusive, of course, but it
was suggestive.
     Also, no phone calls had come in or out since he'd reconnected to
the jackpoint on Jane's line.  He knew none had gone out since he'd
started the 'assault', since he'd made sure the line was disconnected
before he left.
     *I think maybe she's keeping quiet,* Tucker dared to think.
     Then he waited, expectant, for lights and sirens and searchlights
to come on, maybe even dogs let loose.
     After five hundred more heartbeats, he decided that no, his psionic
powers and/or his hubris in thinking optimistic thoughts weren't going
to precipitate anything.  *So, no fuss; I'm not seeing any lights on
either, and I don't think Jane's on this side of the house.  Her
downstairs and upstairs office ARE, though, and I bet she would've gone
to one of those, or downstairs to the kitchen or something, if she was
awake.*
     *Now me, I'd go to the basement... but then she's got those windows
there, and they aren't blocked either.*  Tucker shook his head.  *Ya
gotta wonder if they were really serious about keeping me here...  This
stuff wouldn't hold a determined six year old.*
     *So, travel outward, re-expand the search ring...  No, wait, first
you Veritech your stuff into Hiking mode, including clothing...*  And it
was cold this morning, as the sliver of moon finally appeared over the
horizon.

     *She cared,* Charlie realized.  *She didn't tell me what to do, she
let me choose... and she cared enough to put herself in danger, in a LOT
of danger, to come and get me out of here.*
     For all that Jane and Marie and Diana and Darla and even Joan had
talked about what was good for Charlie, Valerie was the one person that
had actually done something directly, and ONLY, for Charlie's benefit.
*They keep talking about all the stuff they'll do for me later, but...
And you KNOW Jane likes doing this stuff to me.  Us.  Even if she's not
raping me or anything, she wouldn't keep doing it, and PUSHING it so
hard, if she didn't like it.  If you don't like dealing with a dog,*
like his parents hadn't, *don't keep the dog.*  Which his parents
hadn't.  They hadn't believed his six year old self when he'd said he
would do all the care and feeding, and he could kind of see - now - that
a big dog like Rusty would've been happier with a place to run around,
rather than stuck in a small apartment all day and night, but...
     *Still, if you don't want a dog, don't keep a dog.  So Jane has to
keep doing this, to me, to Valerie, because she likes it somehow.*  He
didn't see the attraction, but a lot of stuff adults did STILL didn't
make sense, even though he was close to one himself by now.
     *So she's doing all this for her.  Darla... Jane adopted her, from
worse than I was dealing with, so yeah, she'd agree to anything Jane
said.  Diana loves Jane, and seems to like dressing up too, so that's
how THAT works.  Marie...*  He wasn't sure why Marie went along, but
then again, Marie seemed to like the work, and it was for damned sure
that Jane would pay more to keep someone like Marie than your average
maid made.  *Just living here is worth, like, fifteen hundred or more a
month.  Oh, and the food too.  Maybe she just does it for the money.*
     So, maybe it would be to Charlie's advantage later, to go through
all this hassle now; he could see that.  Actually, that was why HE was
staying.
     *But Valerie came BACK here, to get ME out.*
     That was something he couldn't quite see Jane doing.  Not if she
was safe and free.  She'd said often enough that she'd 'wash her hands
of' Charlie, which meant dump him, if he didn't obey her.
     Which did not inspire loyalty from Charlie.
     *Plus, Val let me stay here...  Which is sort of the opposite of
coming to get me out, but... JANE sure as hell wouldn't have let me pick
something like that.  She'd have done like she did to me that first day,
left me with a 'choice' that was no choice at all.  If she even bothered
pretending I had a choice,* which Jane hadn't plenty of times after
that.  *If she went to anything like the trouble Valerie went through,
she'd NEVER have just let me stay here.  Just 'cause I said I wanted to.
Well, needed to, or had to, or something, but Jane wouldn't.
     *Jane tells me to act like an adult - a 'lady' - but Valerie's the
one that treated me like I was an adult.  Like I was one already.*  His
throat tightened, and he knew he was going to cry, shamefully, again.
     *She treated me like I MATTERED.*

     Tucker was pretty satisfied.  It wasn't as good as he could've come
up with in a week back home, but this would leave fewer pieces for the
FBI to trace him with.  *Not to mention, I'm NOT home, and don't have a
week to screw with things.  Though this should definitely go on the list
of future projects.  Well, both...*  What he wanted to do if he had the
time and equipment, and what he'd actually done.
     Some of Jane's ice, some duct tape, two disposable plastic bags and
one black trash bag for insulation, and some aluminum strips and large
wire springs from his social work electronics-spares kit, were going to
keep Jane's phones off-net until the ice melted and the springs forced
themselves back into electrical connectivity.  And Jane had (supposedly)
already had one unexplained phone outage, so it shouldn't be too
suspicious that she'd have another one. 
     *And, ya know, I might as well call from here too,* he realized.
*If I'm going to call.*
     *Well, shit.*  He hated choices like this.
     *But I can't just wreck someone's life if I'm not SURE.  Plus,
Charlene...  IF she's right AND IF she's not lying, the media frenzy
would completely ruin HER life, pretty much forever.  The Witness
Protection Program doesn't do anything for people unless they're
rollover witnesses in large federal trials.*
     *Well, I can call 'from Jane's house', and the chick, Joan, can't
call IN until I either reset things or the ice melts,* which it was
doing steadily of course.  *So I'm safe if - plan on 'when',* he
remonstrated with himself, *she calls here to inform Jane that I just
called HER.*
     *Shit.  Best do it.*
     It took him a few minutes to reset the phone line so he could call
out on it, but it was more irritating than hard, and finally the phone
was dialed - though not direct; he wasn't THAT stupid - and ringing.
     "Hello?"  It was an older woman's voice, Tucker decided, and not
likely to be the 'Joan' Charlene had told him about.
     "May I speak to Joan please?"
     "Uh wh-  Who's calling?" the woman stammered.
     "Charlene," Tucker lied with a smile.  "I'm sorry I'm calling so
late, but it's really urgent," he pleaded.
     "Oh, Charlene, I've heard so much about you," the woman said
warmly.  "I'll go, uh, go get her."
     "Thank you," Tucker said politely, wondering why the woman sounded
so nervous.  *This is not a good sign, not at all,* he told himself.
     It took a while, and Tucker busied himself scanning around for
anything, but there wasn't anything alarming by the time another voice
said, "Hello?"
     "Joan?"
     "Uh, Charlene?  You sound different-"
     "This isn't Charlene, I lied to get you to the phone," Tucker said
to get that out of the way.  "But Charlene gave me your number, and said
I could call you for information on a Jane Thompson, that you had just
left.  I need-"
     "Wait, who is this?" the girl asked desperately.
     "My name isn't important," Tucker said impatiently.  "The reason
I'm calling is that you are the last chance to stop me from prosecuting
Miz Thompson and the rest of her little horde for child abuse and
anything else I can dig up.  So ka?  I mean, got it?"
     There was a pause.
     "Wait, who IS this?"
     *This one's not even as smart as Charlene,* Tucker decided.  "Never
mind," he sighed, "thank you for your-"
     "No WAIT!" the girl almost shrieked.  "What's going on?"
     Tucker took a breath, and decided to give out some more
information.  If this Joan chick didn't want to prosecute, she'd
probably call Jane immediately after Tucker hung up - if they weren't
using a second line to do that already - but that was why Tucker had
used a New York City outdial to route the call through.  And one of the
reasons he'd time-fused Jane's line.
     "Look," Tucker said, "I'm a 'student' at Thompson's place, like
Charlene.  And she's-  Jane is scaring the shit out of me, because I
can't tell if I'm going to get drugged again and raped to death while
dressed up like Shirley Temple.  Or worse.  Charlene said you got out,
went back to your normal life.  I need to talk to you about her,
damnit!" he hissed. "If she's doing what it seems like she's doing, I
can nail her for child sexual abuse and make sure she doesn't do
anything bad to any other kids ever again!"

     *Oh, crap,* John thought as his body turned icy cold, and he almost
dropped the phone from nerveless fingers.
     *Oh crap oh shit-*

     "Shar says that Jane's not doing that," Tucker went on, "but she's
not reliable because she's still there!  You're out, you're back in
Phoenix, and Shar said you could confirm that Thompson's not a child
molester or a pimp!"
     "A WHAT?"
     "Whatever you call someone that sells kids for sex-"
     "You think she does things like-"
     "Hey, with what she's been making me wear and act like, and she
drugged me once already, and dyed my hair without my consent yesterday-
damnit, it's a REAL possibility!" Tucker panted, having terrorized
himself again by saying it out loud.
     "No!" the girl gasped.  "Jane-  She-  NO!  She would NEVER do
something like that!"
     "What did she do to you?" Tucker asked.
     "Wh-  What?"
     "What," Tucker repeated patiently, banging himself on the leg to
keep his voice calm, "did she do to you, while you were there?  What
weird or abnormal things did she do, or not do, or make you do?"
     "Wait wait wait...  You're a student of Jane's?"
     *Smart pills must've kicked in.*  "Yes," Tucker replied, trying not
to snarl.  "Rather, I was.  I've un-enrolled myself."
     "You RAN AWAY?" Joan gasped.
     "You could say that," Tucker said offhandedly.  "You're missing the
point, Joan, and I don't have much time to talk.  Listen hard.  What.
Did.  She.  Do.  To you?" Tucker asked slowly and carefully.

     *Slapped me a couple times, humiliated me more than I thought I
could ever live through, dressed me up like a girl, sicced Sandy on me,
got me clean of drugs, caught up in school, and got my record cleared
up,* John thought.  *She gave me my life back.*
     *What the hell do I say?*

     After a pause, during which Tucker managed to not scream at the
stupid bitch fifteen or twenty times in a row, Joan said, "Look...  I, I
mean, I know a guy who went through the same stuff you did...  And- at
Jane's, I mean...  You said she dyed your hair?  Who actually did that?"
     "They tried once before, the first day, with something in the
shampoo," Tucker answered, "and then forced me to a salon and this woman
did it there."
     "And you've been in girl clothes the whole time."
     *That wasn't a question,* Tucker realized, and the hair went up on
his arms.
     "That's it," Joan said.
     Pause.
     "What the fuck do you mean 'That's it'?!" Tucker almost screamed.
     "I swear, that's all she does!" Joan spazzed back, "The guys, she
makes 'em get rid of their clothes, and then puts 'em in girl clothes,
it's called 'petticoating'-"
     "She mentioned that," Tucker interrupted.
     "And that's IT!" Joan said firmly.  "She makes the boys look as...
girlish as possible, so they won't do the stuff they were doing as boys
any more.  And she teaches them manners and, oh, a variety of things,
like cooking and cleaning and the like, just like she does the girls."
     Tucker was pretty sure by now that this Joan person had been at
Jane's; she was speaking like an English teacher instead of like a human
being would.

     John had realized just in time that the new kid couldn't have been
there more than a month, and he apparently didn't realize that Charlene
was actually a guy, just like John himself was.  He'd just barely
managed to not screw that up, partly out of self-preservation and partly
out of fear for Charlene and all the rest that had been through Jane's
place.

     "I mean," Joan went on, "this guy I knew, I can't tell you his
name, but he was like on drugs, had been arrested for stealing and
stuff, and he got sent there by this social worker...  Okay, he gets
there, he doesn't know anyone in town, he can't really leave because of
the way he's dressed- like a girl," she emphasized, "and he's scared
that he'll get caught, caught like being a guy under all the clothes and
makeup and stuff, if he acts in his- like his old self.  So, he HAS to
behave nicely, like he's dress- like he LOOKS like.  He has to fit in,
and act, like a girl, like other girls.  You with me?"
     "Boot camp with fake tits?" Tucker summarized, and there was a
burst of nervous laughter from the other phone.
     "Um, y-y-yeah," she giggled in a nervous panic, "that's it,
exactly!  Soooo, that's it, I swear.  She does the same things, I mean,
she makes the guys go out in public, like shopping and restaurants and
stuff, and formal teas and dances and all that-"
     "What about the drugs?"
     "That just happened the first day," the girl said confidently, "and
that's, that's to get the guy out of his clothes, and so they can take
his stuff away, in case he has like a knife or something."
     *Well, that didn't work worth shit,* Tucker grinned.
     "She never ever used drugs again," Joan finished.
     "Are you sure?"
     "YES!  I am COMPLETELY sure, okay?  I mean, I was there!"
     "So what does she have on you?"

     "Nothing!" John lied.  It was just some photos, and he'd finally
believed that Jane would never ever let those go.  That, and the simple
fact that he'd been dressed up as a girl for half a year, which wouldn't
cause him any problems unless it became public knowledge, like this kid
was threatening to do.

     "Uh uh," Tucker disputed.  "She's got something on you too, or you
wouldn't be sounding so paranoid."  *Like I should talk,* he told
himself.  "What is it?"
     Joan sighed.  "I...  I had to get clean too, okay?  I used to do
drugs.  And I had to learn some manners, learn how to act in civilized
society, and get caught back up in school because I was about to flunk
out of another grade."
     "So it's a reform school?"
     "Not...  I mean, kind of, but it doesn't look like that on your
school record, and it's a lot- a HELL of a lot better than any place I'd
ever been, okay?  And I'd been a couple of places.  Jane...  She
actually CARED how I turned out, okay?  I wasn't just there to get
punished; she actually wanted me to improve, not just sit there and get
abused or beaten up.  I mean, has anyone beaten you there?"
     "Just Charlene, she tried a couple of times," Tucker admitted, "but
she's a cream puff.  So, like, no naked pictures, no guys or anything-"
     "Well, what do you mean 'guys'?" she asked, and Tucker got all
wound up again.  "Because," she continued, "I mean, I MET guys while I
was there, but it was-  You're asking me if I was a WHORE?" she gasped.
     "Involuntary," Tucker modified.
     "NO!"
     *She sounds kind of certain.*  "And she didn't have sex with you-"
     "NO."
     "Sex with anyone?"
     "No!"
     "No picture shoots of you naked or in lingerie?"
     "No-o-o-!"
     "Did she ever hit you?"
     "Y-  Only when I tried to hit her first," she admitted.  "And it
didn't work, either.  She's real good at blocking."
     "No pictures of you and Charlene doing the nasty tog-"
     "NO!"
     "Or kissing or ANYthing suggestive of sex?"
     "NOOOOO," she intoned.  "Why are you so, so..."
     "Freaked out?  Thinking of the worst?"
     "Yeah!"
     "Jeffrey Dahmer," Tucker explained.  "Killed seventeen guys and
dissected them, in a fucking APARTMENT with people on all sides of him,
and nobody found out for five fucking YEARS.  She's got a fucking
ESTATE, man; there could be HUNDREDS of dead kids buried out there-"
     "Don't you think that's crazy?!"
     "How many juvie rehab places have you heard of where the kids get
drugged in their food, or dress the guys up in girl clothes?" Tucker
pointed out.  "This is NOT mainstream behavior."
     "It worked," Joan claimed.
     "If she's not sticking to the mainstream," Tucker continued,
ignoring her comment, "then I don't have any idea where the limits are,
in HER mind."
     "She NEVER," the girl said, sounding very certain, "did ANYTHING to
me, that was anything more than embarrassing.  And that wasn't like
public humiliation or anything, either; it was just me.  Humiliating to
me, I mean.  And, uh, the guy I mentioned, same thing.  Charlene the
same way."
     "She's threatened me with being exposed in public," Tucker said,
then hit himself for stupidly admitting-
     "Yeah, but she never DOES it," Joan said, "she just uses it to
remind the boys, that if they mess up they are gonna be in trouble."
     *Okay,* Tucker sighed to himself.  *Either what she's saying is
true, or Jane has hooks so deep in her I'll never get 'em out.  True as
far as she knows,* he reminded himself.  "Alright," he said to her.  "Do
you swear that everything you said is true?  To the best of your
knowledge?"
     "Yes!"
     "On your life?  I can find you," Tucker warned.
     "YES," she firmly repeated.
     "Because," he continued, "if I go back, and I end up dead or
missing, you're going to be found and interrogated, and not by the
police, you understand?"
     "What are you, a ganger?" she asked skeptically.
     "I made it out of Rhode Island," Tucker lied.  He could be in
fucking Australia by now, and easily, so it was close enough.  "And my
friends can do what I can do; some of them are better than me.  And I've
got it deadmanned; if they don't hear from me every so often, they start
hunting."  Tucker debated adding some more, then decided that her
imagination would probably be worse than anything he could say.
     There was a pause.
     "Last chance," Tucker said.
     "It's true!" the girl said emphatically.
     "Alright, then.  Thank you."
     Joan shrieked, "Wait-"
     Tucker disconnected, then set about unplugging himself, so he could
get the fuck out of here.

     John dialed frantically, then sat, cursing in his head at the
delay, until he realized that no one was picking up the phone.  *What
the HELL!?  I KNOW she has an answering machine!*
     He hung up, counted to three as slowly as he could manage, then
redialed.

     "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go," Tucker muttered to himself
as he pulled on the 550 cord ladder to retrieve it.  *Where do I go
now?  Gotta get out of here... lay up for the day?*  The rest yesterday
had been nice, as had the rest at Trish's place, but he wasn't really
back up to normal yet; another nap would do him a lot of good.
     *Nap,* he decided, *and THEN think about things.  As long as I
don't get caught, that search ring keeps expanding... except that twelve
hour thing,* he remembered.  *So I need to get some ways away from here,
at least, then nap... then think some more about what to do.*
     If they had been searching, they hadn't been doing it very well;
Tucker had felt safe enough on the beach yesterday to sleep a LOT.
     *Man, that sand castle...*

     John had checked the number, checked the Caller ID from when
Charlene had called - and it matched the number she was trying to dial
now - and was trying to think if he could have the operator check the
line somehow... because it was ringing (and ringing and ringing and
ringing and ringing), but no one was answering.
     And that was just impossible.

     While the sun was coming up fast, Tucker had just managed to get
himself atop a baby strip mall, and he slowly pulled his baggage up via
the 550 cord because climbing with it would've been too hard.  *Sweet!*
It was Sunday, there was no reason for anyone to be up here, if he
stayed near the HVAC rooftop enclosure he was concealed on about 180
degrees, he couldn't see the ground so the ground couldn't see him, and
if he stayed on the shadow side of the HVAC while in his garbage bags
then he wouldn't overheat until afternoon.
     Finally, he got the lump of stuff close enough to where he could
secure the 550 cord - to himself, unfortunately; there wasn't anything
sturdy enough close enough - and then reach carefully out and grab a
handle and pull the entire assembly onto the roof.  *Excellent!  Rat
Boyz rule OK!*
     *Oooh, and I've still got some pizza left!  Better take care of
that...*

     *Oh, I hope they let me sleep in today,* Charlie thought, after
he'd panicked and finally beaten the alarm clock into silence.  *I feel
like hell.*
     *Oh, I hope I don't get whatever Jane's got...*

     John finally gave up after he almost hurt himself falling asleep
while listening to the ringing on Jane's phone line that apparently
wasn't reaching Jane.  He'd drifted into sleep, fallen while dropping
the phone, and somehow managed to hit himself in the jaw hard enough to
bite his tongue bloody.
     He checked one last time, picking up the phone, and it was still
ringing.  *I'll call later,* he told himself wearily, and put the phone
handset back in the cradle.  *Did she turn the phones off so they could
sleep?  Did she do that when I was there?*  He couldn't remember them
doing that, but then he couldn't remember any late night phone calls
either.  *Early morning,* he corrected himself after looking at the
clock; it was almost four.

     *But why would they send me here?* Tucker asked himself for the
thousandth time, as he bedded down.  This wasn't the first time he'd
slept in a garbage bag, and it probably wouldn't be the last.
     *Dad always said if I got caught, I'd go to jail, and Mom agreed
with him...  I don't think they were kidding.  And they couldn't, or
wouldn't have done anything unless the police were already involved - or
Dad would've nailed me years ago - and I think I would have noticed
getting arrested.
     *It's gotta be something else...*
     Sleep came before an answer did.

     "Oh, Jane," Art said, softly so as not to wake her.
     Jane coughed again, in her sleep, and thrashed herself sideways, so
that Art couldn't make out the tear tracks down her cheeks any more.

     Tucker sat down and smiled at his family, as Brian poured tea.  He
felt sorry, a bit, for Dad and Mike; they both hated suits - well, who
didn't? - and at a formal tea, you had to dress formal.  The dress he
was wearing wasn't nearly as bad as a suit, and heels didn't matter if
you were sitting down.
     Debbie sat down next to him, and smiled at him as he turned to look
at her, and then she entwined her arm in his.  "Milk, two sugars," she
said to Brian, who looked like he usually did when asked to do something
that prevented him from filling his own gob...
     "Eugene!" Jane Thompson called, and his face flushed.
     "I'm Valerie now," he told her, and everyone giggled at him.
Except his mom, who smiled at him, that kind of brave please-don't-die
smile he'd seen too often when he was younger.
     "You dribbled," Brian smirked, and his face got hotter-
     Tucker suddenly opened his eyes and found that the sun had risen.
     "That's IT!"


***

http://www.techlib.com/electronics/telephone.html


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+ @>--,--'-----   Ellen Hayes   o===[--------      __      vicki .sig  +
                  -=[1990]=-                       \/      virus 12.2
+      http://www.barkingduck.net/ehayes     PGP key: EFC9 5D55 (1996) +




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