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Let There Be More Light -*- Copyright 2004 by 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.
Let There Be More Light
"Hey Mike." Mike turned around, and it was Brian. "Heard some stuff at school today... You wanna take notes on this?"
He considered for a moment. "Later... Too many ears right now."
"Pam?" She turned at Mike's voice. "I don't know," he asked quietly, "if you think it's okay to pray for this but... Ask for some assistance in catching those who did it."
"And that he wakes up okay," Pam added. Mike's face screwed up in agony, and she reached out wordlessly and pulled Mike into a hug.
"Jeezus, finally," Brian sighed as Mike, the last of them, left the house. "I thought they'd never leave."
"Worse than Susan's friends?" Dad asked, humor popping out over the fatigue for a moment.
"I heard that!" Susan complained.
"They're quieter, anyway," Brian grinned back at Dad.
TTTALLTTT SUNRISE UPDATE NO CHANGE X STILL NOT CONSCIOUS X SIX
GUARDING X FIVE ENROUTE HOME X TSIXT END
"God, I feel like shit," Sarah told herself as she drove towards her home. "I need some sleeeeeeAHHHHEEEYAHHHHhhhhh," she yawned. "Badly."
"Yeah, well, I just had a thought," Mike said, still racing with the urgency of the entire meme that had crashed into his sleeping brain. "What if a reporter picks this story up and looks at it?"
There was a pause.
"Oh, shiiiit-"
"That's right," Mike said, feeling a bit relieved that it wasn't entirely dream-fear that was shaking him. "We need to start up full F-U-&-D on anyone who asks anything about it, unless they're a cop."
"Why not the-"
"'Cause Dobson the Dumbfuck called the cops and started an investigation on the entire thing," Mike growled. "And, who knows, MAYBE the asswipes can get off their tax-supported asses and do something USEFUL instead of writing traffic tickets and kissing corporate America's ass."
"Mike, go get some breakfast," George instructed. "You get like this when you haven't eaten anything lately."
"Fuck-" but George had hung up already.
Bill sighed. "Kid, why don't you wake up? You hate being here, and they won't let you go until you wake up for a while..."
His son ignored his advice, which he often did.
"I'm not going to call her," Susan insisted, "and Mom's asleep. You call her."
"Susan," Dad sighed into the phone.
"It's not going to work on me this time, Dad. I'm NOT going to talk to his therapist and try and explain this shit. YOU do it."
"Sheila, this is Bill Tucker. Something's happened, and Eugene won't be making his appointment today. Please call me back at..."
"Just six hundred dollars?"
"Yeah, man, but I like NEED to get my car fixed; that's more important than having this. I'm not using it as much as I thought I would anyway."
"Reporters?" Bill hadn't even considered that nightmare.
"Remember, though, you don't have to tell 'em the truth, so-"
"I've been dealing with this longer than you've been alive, brother of my son," Bill interrupted. "Come to think of it, didn't I tell YOU about that aspect of news reporting?"
"Probably, but I just thought I'd remind you of it."
"Well, thanks..." Bill looked over at his son. I wish the little shit would wake up, he frowned.
"Jill, it's fucking SATURDAY; can't we just sleep in for once?" Kim whined.
"Aw, come on..." Jill didn't want to admit she'd been having nightmares that sounded like Tuck's. "What about if Mike comes?"
Kim sighed heavily into the phone, and Jill kept very quiet as she crossed her fingers. Finally, Kim said, "Alright; but you call him and ask."
"Okay!"
"Kelly?"
"Uh, yeah?" Her mouth was nasty, she noticed.
"You wanna do breakfast this morning? We got Mike and Sabrina, and-"
"At the same place?"
"Well, I got the rabbi to say a few prayers for h- uh, Tuck," Sabrina admitted. "Figured it couldn't hurt."
Mike nodded. "Yeah, that's okay. Tuck wouldn't mind; we always figured, we could use all the blessings and stuff from any religion. 'M getting Dad to ask for prayer-ful help tomorrow, at services."
"Maybe you should ask Pam, too-"
"Did that already. Couldn't hurt, like I said."
"Mike, it's Homecoming tonight. I was hoping we could go..."
"Not with Tuck like this. Not with whoever did it still roaming around either. No way."
"Why do you assume that it's part of some grand conspiracy against you? Don't-"
"'Cause if I do assume and I'm wrong, I just look weird. Whereas if I DON'T assume and there really IS one, then I'm dead. THAT's why, Kim. Don't you fucking get it? This is how the real world-"
"Oh PLEASE, Mike! The world does NOT run like a damned Hollywood movie!"
"No, it's a fuckload nastier and Tuck ISN'T gonna be walking around today after he washes the FX makeup off!" He was astonished to find that his eyes were tearing. "He almost DIED, Kim! Someone DID that to him! I can't just go to a fucking dance and pretend like nothing fucking happened!"
"Shit," Mike sighed as he started Stupid. Not bad enough Tuck's down for a while; Kim's gotta pick a fight. About a stupid DANCE... Goddamned women.
"So what do we do now?" Kelly asked.
"Heard anything about Tuck recently?" Dan asked.
"Just called this morning; no change."
"Wish he'd wake the fuck up," Dan voiced.
"Yeah, don-"
"Wish I could take a nap," Kelly got out before she yawned.
That's it. "THAT'S IT!" Mike shrieked.
Pay phone? What the- Oh shit. "Hello?"
"S'me, Mike."
"Are you okay?!"
"Wh- yeah, me, Dan and Kelly, we're all fine." Bill let out a breath, holding the microphone end away from his mouth. Mike continued, "Had an idea, about why Tuck won't wake up."
"Let's hear it."
"He's taking a nap. He-"
"What?"
"Lemme finish," Mike complained. "He's been on the go all the time lately, and I think he's been doing it since, hell, Christmas? He worked almost all Spring Break, he worked full-time over the summer, he had other stuff going on... now with school, he's STILL working, he's got other things going on, this stuff with his mom lately, uh..."
My wife- And both of 'em are wrong, Bill thought.
Mike resumed, "He's gotta be fucking 'scuse-my-French but TIRED OUT. So, he's had, uh, well, he probably doesn't feel too good, and he's been, I mean, someone's been with him all the time since he got out of surgery, right? This is probably the safest he's felt in almost a year. He's gone on vacation."
It all fit. "Mike, sometimes you're a genius. Remind me to give you a raise."
"I get paid?!"
"If you ever do, remind me to give you a raise."
"Damn."
"Still," they both said at the same time. "It makes a lot of sense," Bill said first. "He hasn't been sleeping well, either, has he?"
"Uh... No," Mike admitted.
Bill glanced over; Eugene seemed to be sleeping quite well at the moment. "So why not take a nap?" Bill asked rhetorically. "Because," he answered himself, "we need him awake. At least for a couple of hours. Any ideas there?"
Silence.
"I can get him up," Mike finally said, hesitantly, "but I don't think that'd be a good idea; he's not gonna wake up nice an' easy if I have to do it."
Bill had a vague idea - which was more detail than he wanted - what was involved when Mike rebooted his son. Still... "Could you do it if he's not awake by Sunday morning? The longer he stays unconscious, the more the doctors want to do something like brain surgery on him."
"Sunday morning," Mike agreed firmly. "I'll think about what to do, see if we can come up with something easier on his body."
"Good idea. Double raise if you do."
"And double nothing is..."
Bill chuckled. "Six clear."
"Four clear. Out."
"So how can we wake him up?" Mike asked Dan and Kelly.
"Jesus," Susan groaned to herself. "I'll go see if she's awake," she promised Aunt Trish, and put the phone on hold.
"Trish, I-"
"Sarah, you can't just LEAVE things like this-"
"I don't damn well KNOW anything! They didn't call Friday," she said even as she realized they might have and everyone had missed it in the confusion. FUCK it, she thought viciously. "And in CASE you hadn't heard, I've had other things on my mind lately!"
"Like what?!" her sister shot back.
"Like my SON almost getting KILLED at that damned SCHOOL?!"
Susan winced at the shriek that came from Mom's bedroom. Ah, well, she WAS having a nice nap before Aunt Trish called. Susan hadn't been that old when they moved out of New York, but things like this had stuck in her mind, and she was glad to leave that behind for most of the year. Sarah Tucker and HER siblings did not get along nearly as well as Susan did with Tuck and Brian.
"What the hell's set Mom off THIS time?" asked the latter as he appeared unexpectedly.
"Aunt Trish called about something; Mom'd been sleeping..."
"Oh great," Brian sighed. "Hey, is there anything like breakfast around?"
"I dunno. You could make some," she pointed out. "I cooked last night."
"Aw man!" he complained. Then, quietly, "Anything on Tuck?"
Susan shook her head. "Mom said he hadn't woken up yet, and Dad said the same thing when I called earlier. No change, his, uh, they think his concussion's going down, but he's not awake yet."
Brian nodded solemnly.
They both flinched when Mom yelled something else, but it wasn't at them, so they both tried to ignore it.
"So," he eventually said, "you were gonna fix breakfast?"
"No, you were," she pointed out with a smile.
"How can we wake him up, when he doesn't want to wake up?" Mike expanded. "Gently?"
"You know him better than I do," Sabrina reminded Mike.
"Yeah, but I can't think of anything... and you've seen him in some unusual circumstances, over the past year. Including, like, how many sleepovers?"
"Not that many!"
"More than I've done, and the last time I woke him up-"
"Yeah, I remember," she snorted. "Not what you could call gentle." She winced as she thought of Val yanking up out of a hospital bed and pulling all the needles and tubes out.
"No," Mike agreed.
"So, I mean, did you have any ideas?" Sabrina asked.
"Uh, no... I really hadn't been thinking about it," Kathy admitted.
"Well, how do we-"
"I don't know. I'll think about it," she said. "Meanwhile, you're going to Homecoming, right?"
"I dunno," she said
Which shocked Kathy, almost to the point of dropping the phone. "What?!"
"Mike said something," Sabrina sighed. "What if, I mean, you know, sometimes the football teams hang out in the parking lot after a game, instead of going in to a dance or something?"
"Yeah?" Kathy admitted warily.
"Shit, Mike doesn't want- he REFUSED to go," Kim complained, feeling betrayed. "So now what?"
"He had kind of a point, Kim," Kathy said. "Especially for him and his friends-"
"Well, goddamnit, why..." Kim didn't know what to ask; there were too many questions and unexplained things for her to pick one out.
"Look," Kathy said in a reasonable voice that Kim hated, "he's gotta be worried about Va- Tuck, so-"
"I KNOW he's fucking worried! I'M fucking worried! But what the hell does that have to do-"
"You know it's got a lot-"
"FUCK OFF!" She slammed the phone down.
"Glad to know we're all being so reasonable about this," Kathy sighed to herself as she hung up her phone. "Besides, what were you gonna do, kidnap him? I think that would set them all off like an explosion, at this point." Talking to Kim or one of the other excitable girls was much easier when they couldn't actually talk back.
"So, I mean, I dated him for, y'know, six months; I don't think he would EVER have gone in there. Not voluntarily."
Debbie pulled the eyeshadow brush away before Shauna asked, "What, you think they dragged him in there?"
"I'm just saying, it's really unlikely that he'd have gone in there himself. So... And you know everyone's been picking on him lately."
"Well, he's such a DORK!"
"Look- I mean, I KNOW what you're talking about, but... you know, so what? I mean, if he wants to be a dork, let him be a dork. Why mess with him if he is? Who the hell cares? Don't we have better things to do than mess with someone who's already a dork? Like, oh, Sam Porter?" Debbie smiled suggestively.
"HE'S not a dork!" Shauna giggled insistently.
"And so he's GOT to be more interesting. So what's he like?"
"Are we gonna do anything at the dance, or tonight?"
Mike had thought about it. "No." He winced, and waited until the phone stopped overloading as the protests died down, then continued, "Look, we still don't know who did the most. I know I saw some cheerleaders whackin' on him, but we're pretty sure they didn't start it. We HAVE TO wait until Tuck wakes up, or until we get good intel off, uh, other sources." Never ever mention illegal activities over the phone, he recited to himself. "What I was thinking, though, was... how many of us were gonna go to the dance? And, how many of us are vulnerable? I'm thinking maybe we should call around, remind everyone that being out in the parking lot in formals is a dangerous place to be right now."
"You think someone'd try something like that, out there?"
"I think it's too possible, especially with the way some of 'em get drunk and then just go hang in the parking lot," which seemed like the nadir of senselessness to Mike. "All we need is one spooked fuckhead seeing one of us, and it COULD be tire iron time. I mean, maybe, what, twenty percent chance? But it's a BIG lose if it happens, and there's not much reward in going, is there? I mean, it's Homecoming, right? What the hell does that have to do with us? That's all football and cheerleader shit."
"Man, I am tired of ALL this sports-team shit," Dan sighed, and the rest of them started chiming in.
"So do you know that kid who had to get helicopter-ed to the hospital? Nobody knows shit about it," Terry complained.
Bob did, but he wasn't sure he wanted to say anything. And he wasn't sure why. "I dunno," he said finally, shrugging his shoulders, and they let it drop.
George and his friends were definitely geeks, the sort of guy he'd called 'asswipe' and made fun of enough in his old town. But, when he'd had a seizure in the halls that time - Missed my meds ONE fuckin' day, he remembered in disgust - they'd apparently taken him to the nurse's office so quick and quiet that almost no one had heard about it. Or at least no one was making fun of him for it, like they'd done at his old school.
"Hey," Debbie said. "Why don't you come with us to the dance? I could really use-"
"'Us'?" Kim asked.
"Just, uh, have to check on something. Technical. For Tuck," Mike tried to slide between explaining enough to get in, and not explaining Too Much.
Susan glared at him. "Is this one of your little kiddie-ninja things?"
"Yeah, it is," Mike snapped back.
He was going to say something more, but she opened the door for him. "Just be quiet; Mom's trying to sleep, okay?"
"Sure." He watched her carefully; it was unlike Tuck's sister to be so reasonable.
"Hey, can you take a shift today, watching him?"
"Yeah, but I need to do this first. Who, uh, Mister-"
"Yeah, my dad-"
"Should I call him, coordinate with him?" Mike asked.
"That'd be a good idea," she nodded as she shut and double-locked the door behind him.
"What are you doing?"
"Technical things, Mister T. This is an unsecured line."
"I'm gonna beat you, you little gook. I KNOW that." Bill took a deep breath and let it out. "Sorry. Stress."
"No sweat," Mike agreed. "Anyway, we have some, uh, technical means going that need, uh, looking after, so that's what I'm doing here."
"Going well?"
"Not sure yet. The technical part's going okay, it's, uh, the data collection. Not getting as much data from the system as we'd hoped."
"Yeah, well, don't get extraordinary about it."
"Never, Mister T," Mike agreed, sounding like he'd already thought of it. Which was good: Bill had one kid in the hospital; he didn't need to bail another one out of jail.
A noise made Mike look around. Tuck's mom was standing in the doorway, looking completely wiped out. "Hey, Miz T," he said as he took the headphone off. "You look, uh-"
"Like shit?" she smiled grimly.
"I wasn't actually going to say that."
She smiled again, but not much. "How's he doing?"
"No change, but I think I figured out why he's not waking up."
THAT got her attention; she straightened up and stepped towards him as she barked, "Why?"
"He's taking a vacation, there in the hospital, with family around him. He, uh. He's been tired lately," Mike tried.
Mrs. Tucker sighed deeply and sagged. "That makes sense," she said softly.
"So I mean, y'know, why him? What's really creepy," Debbie mentioned, sounding casual, as she kept working on Elise's makeup, "is that it's not just him; he's just got the worst of it. Some of the other smart kids are getting hit too."
"For real?"
"Yeah... Hold still a second," Debbie insisted, and finished applying powder. "'Kay. Yeah, a couple of the guys in my math class have been- well, one got beat, the other one got his pack stolen with everything in it. Never found that." Of course, the first one had seriously swiped the side of Wyatt Nettle's Mustang and then laughed in Wyatt's face about it; Debbie deliberately left that part out, hoping that Elise wouldn't remember it. The second story she thought was true, but it had been almost at the beginning of school, not recently. "Anyway," Debbie continued as she turned back to her makeup kit, "I've been real careful with my stuff lately, you know? I don't want to turn around and find someone stole it." Since Elise used her school pack as a purse, and furthermore kept not only all her makeup in it but also some jewelry, Debbie was expecting the worried frown on Elise's face when she turned back around. "Oh, you are gonna look SO good," Debbie smiled at the other girl.
"I thought you could use a little help, if you're as worried about him as I'm sure you are," Elaine Johansson said as she hefted the ice chest and smiled at Sarah Tucker. "And especially a decent meal."
"Oh, Elaine, you didn't need to go to the trouble..." Sarah demurred as her eyes lit up with gratitude.
"No trouble at all, especially with the way you all take such good care of Mike," Elaine smiled back as she came in. She'd always been a little uncomfortable around Sarah's husband Bill; his religious 'beliefs' were fiercely held, and the way his faith had shattered was something she found horrifying. But they were good people, she'd found out over the years, and both she and her husband considered the Tuckers part of their flock. And, part of being a minister's wife was helping out those in need, whether they came to your church or some other church or none at all.
And with Eugene being in the hospital, after being attacked, Elaine knew that Sarah could use some comfort, some help, and some assurance that she wasn't alone in the world.
"I just don't know," Sabrina sighed. "Are you going?"
"Yeah, I think so," Debbie said, checking her watch. "Are you?" she asked carefully.
"I don't know," Sabrina groaned. "I mean, what if Mike's right?"
"Then we kick the shit out of 'em!" Kelly insisted, frustrated.
"Why do you want to go-"
"I've never been to one!" Kelly complained. "I mean, Yakutat is NOT, like, a popular place... And there is NOTHING to DO there." She sighed, and accidentally admitted, "And I bought a dress for it."
Mike started chuckling, and she was about to hit his shoulder like she'd seen Tucker do, when he pointed at her and said, "You sound just like Jill. Except you're not screaming." His face changed, and he asked, "Who are you going with?"
"Uh. Do I have to go with somebody? I asked Mister Zowbrawlski and he said I didn't have to."
"Who? Oh, your homeroom teacher," he remembered just before she could tell him. "Yeah, technically; I mean, they won't refuse to let you in if you don't have a date. On the other hand, going without a date to a dance makes you feel weird, and it's really hard to get other people to deal with you unless you've got friends there already."
And most of her friends were refusing to go, because of what had happened to Tucker. "Darnit," she sighed. "What do I do?" she asked. Tuck seemed to trust Mike's judgement, and she was starting to as well.
"You really want to go?" he asked.
Kathy, thinking she was missing something really obvious, said cautiously, "Uh, Mike, I'm photographing tonight, and I'm not in-"
"No! I mean, she wants to GO, she doesn't- She says she doesn't need a date to go, she just wants to see one. Or, someth- Here, you talk to her."
Kathy looked up at the ceiling and asked, "Why is this happenin-"
"Hello?" asked a voice she didn't recognize.
"Kelly?" Kathy checked.
"Yeah? Um, it was Mike's idea to call you..."
"Yeah, I figured that out," Kathy sighed.
"Well, call if anything happens... you know," Susan told Mike.
"Will do," he nodded, and slammed the car door.
"I just don't know," Kathy sighed.
"Aw hell, bring her along," Debbie shrugged. "I mean, I would HATE to be stuck in a small town like that, and then have the first dance I ever got to go to cancelled."
"Yeah, but-"
"If you want to go early or something," Debbie offered, "I'll take care of her, okay? Is that what was bothering you?"
"Part of it, I guess," Kathy sighed. "I'm not entirely sure."
"Anything?"
Mister Tucker shook his head. "Sleeping away, I guess. The docs seem okay with everything they can measure, but they REALLY want him awake. So do the cops."
"Yeah, well," Mike shrugged. "I haven't figured anything out yet."
"It's doing what?" Paul asked. This sounded ominous, and the last thing he needed was another excuse for the school board to look critically at him.
"Oh, god, Bill," Sarah sighed into his chest.
It still amazed him that, for all her feminist ranting and raving, she would still cling to him like this when she was extremely upset. On the other hand, it made him feel a little better at times like these, like he could do SOMETHING at least, when all they had to rely upon were the witch doctors and Eugene's crapped-out self-repair and immune systems.
"Do you think Michael's right?" Sarah asked. "About Eugene just..."
"It makes sense," Bill told her. "Kid needs to take some time off. It'd be just like him to take it at the most inconvenient time, huh?" he gently teased.
She just put her forehead back against his chest.
"I think it's happening again," Paul finished.
Bill Tucker agreed, "Yeah, that does sound suspicious... Are you there at the school?"
"No, but one of the secretaries is; she's the one that called me about the problem."
"Wait, there's a note here... he said you weren't making backups. ALL prices DOUBLE if you haven't been making backups."
"What?!" Paul spluttered. "I- I thought he was kidding!"
"You paid MONEY to an EMPLOYEE of MINE and you thought he was KIDDING?" Mister Tucker spat angrily into the phone. "About BACKUPS?" His voice changed to something that sounded almost reasonable, and therefore all the more frightening. "You, sir, have possibly made a grievous error."
"I THINK we have- I can check," Paul gasped.
"Do so," Mister Tucker said flatly.
"He didn't think he needed to pay attention, I guess, when Tucker said that they needed to be doing backups." Bill was speaking in that very precise manner he had when he was truly angry but had it under control. "The school may still not be doing them."
"Oh, did they think that Eugene was as stupid as they were?" Sarah snarled, not nearly as good at concealing her rage. "Or that he was pissing in the wind or something?"
"Maybe..." Bill shook his head. "I don't know." He sighed. "If what's going on is anything like he says, I ought to go. Do you want to come with me?" he asked unexpectedly.
"What?"
"You can still twist a screwdriver," he grinned at her.
She smiled absently back at him, and raked her fingers through her hair. "I... Not, not really. I was thinking... I can't sleep any more, and I want to... Do you think Mike would mind if I relieved him early?"
"All I'm saying is," Jill said, "is you need to be careful tonight, okay? And keep your ears open."
"Do you really think anything'd happen? I mean, like, to us?" Anne-Marie asked as she wrapped her finger in the phone cord.
"I don't know. I'm sure I'M not going, anyway. If you do go, you remember Kathy, right? The tall-"
"Yeah?" Kathy WAS memorable.
"Stick close to her. She'll take care of you."
"Oh, man," Anne-Marie sighed, looking at the dress that was still in the cleaner's bag. "I mean, should I go?"
"That's up to you."
"That doesn't help!"
"I don't know, Anne-Marie, I really don't. I don't think it's really likely, but I didn't think this'd happen to Tucker either."
"Is he okay?"
"We don't know. He's still in ICU," Jill replied stonily, which made Anne-Marie feel vaguely sick.
"Oh, thank God," Paul said as he clutched the tapes in his hands. When he could think again, he immediately picked up the phone and started dialing.
"We're banned from the dance too?" Jody gasped.
"Yeah, they said they would be checking and everything..."
"This isn't FAIR! We didn't DO anything!"
Paige mentioned, "Yeah, well, wasn't it the cheerleaders that beat him into the hospital?"
"NO!"
"Then who did it? And why was he in there, anyway?"
"I don't know! He was, he was... I don't know," Jody repeated, near tears at the unfairness of it all.
"I mean, she said they'd be checking and everything at the door, and they wouldn't let us in!"
"They can't do that!"
"Yeah well that's what Paige said on the phone just now! An-"
"What the hell does she know?!"
"And I called the SCHOOL!" Jody almost shrieked. "They said the same thing! We're suspended from any extracurricular activities and that includes dances!"
"They can't fucking do that! We set the whole goddamned thing up! Who the fuck thinks they can do this?!"
"Maybe the fucking PRINCIPAL thinks he can?" Jody shouted at Shannon.
"We didn't DO anything to the little shit!"
"YOU HIT HIM!" Jody screamed.
"YOU HIT HIM TOO!" Shannon yelled back, but then Jody slammed the phone down and buried her face in a pillow. And hoped that no one had heard her.
"Okay, Mom, we'll have someone come by in the morning, right?"
"Seven o'clock," Sarah confirmed.
"Okay- Hey, what was the big deal with Aunt Trish today?"
She'd forgotten about that, deliberately. "Don't remind me, Susan."
"Okay okay! Sorry!"
Sarah just nodded, as her jaw was clenched shut.
"See you at seven, then?" her daughter said tentatively. Sarah nodded again, forced a smile and a wave, and carefully shut the car door.
"Jeeeeeeezus," Bill Tucker said as he started typing, so fast it sounded like machine-gun fire. "Someone's up to no good, I can tell you that..."
"Can you fix it?" Paul asked.
Pause.
"Uh-"
"Go away," Bill Tucker said with a wave of his hand, not looking up. The gesture looked so much like Eugene that Paul smiled, for an instant, until he remembered-
"How is he?"
"Hmm?"
"How is Eugene?" Paul asked again.
Bill stopped typing and looked up at Paul. After several seconds of scrutiny, he said, "He has not yet regained consciousness. They think he's not going to die, but they can't be sure until he wakes up." Paul's eyes closed in pain. "And, this needs to be kept quiet. Do not mention any of this to anyone else, except your wife."
"Why?"
"Inappropriate information is one way to identify the perpetrators," Bill said calmly. "We'd also like it if the perps can't find him to finish the job."
"Do you think that could happen?!" Paul gasped, not having even considered that possibility.
"If they're smart, they won't. Remains to be seen how smart they are. Excuse me, I need to work on this," Bill said, and turned his attention downwards again, to the computer in front of him.
"Yeah, it's got over a thousand megabytes of memory, and- Hey, check this out!"
"No, you look great!" Debbie assured Kelly Madison. Bet George'll wish she hadn't dumped him, tonight... Wonder if he'll even be there?
"I've asked around," Michael expounded, "and if anyone else has a clever idea, they're supposed to call me or your house."
Sarah looked over at her son, who was - to all appearances - still sleeping peacefully. In a bed in Respiratory ICU that cost at least two thousand dollars a day. "If he's just sleeping, I wish he'd do it at home," she sighed out loud.
"You and everyone else," he agreed solemnly.
"Oh, your mother came by this afternoon-"
"Aw, jeez," he complained, which made her smile.
"It was a nice thing for her to do, Michael, and I did appreciate it. When you go home, could you stop by our house and pick up the Tupperware and the cooler and take it back to your mother?"
"Yeah, sure," he agreed, obviously still embarrassed though she couldn't understand why. Maybe it was a teen thing.
"Aw, Jody," Mike smiled at the computer. "Did you just say that on a phone line? Tsk tsk. Say goodbye to blue sky, asswipes."
"No, you look fantastic," Debbie assured Cody. "Come look!"
"Jill? You up for some more gaming tonight?"
"Huh? Wh-"
"Like Thursday night, remember?"
"Wh- Oh. Yeah, I guess I am," Jill smiled. "And don't call me at work. I'll call you back after I get off."
"Mike out." She hung up the phone and went back to work, but she now had something to smile about.
"I don't look stupid?" Kelly asked nervously.
"You don't look stupid," Dad's girlfriend smiled, as Kelly remembered that she'd already asked the same question four times, and felt... Stupid.
"You look nice, angel," Anne-Marie's dad said as she came downstairs.
"Thanks," she said nervously, fiddling with her handbag. "Is anyone here yet?"
"No... Who's taking you?" he asked. "Are you going with, um..."
"Logan, you met him last week, remember?" she reminded him. "Um, there's this friend of my Big Sister, Jill? She's arranged something so, uh, so anyone without a car can get there and stuff." A peek out the window showed that no one was there yet.
Dad's hand touched her shoulder, and she flinched before she could stop herself. "Why are you so nervous?" he asked.
"Um, just, you know, it's a dance... at high school and everything, and..." She suspected that if she mentioned what had happened to Tucker, that he might forbid her to go, even right before she was supposed to leave. Besides, no one had done anything to her, or Jill...
Bill groaned as he came back into his body, which was telling him that, like his wife, it was getting jealous in its old age and wanted more attention paid to it. And why do my KNEES hurt?
He remotely started the second backup of the night, and picked up the phone in the principal's office. It was going to be a tidy sum of money, but he'd be glad to get the hell home... "Script kiddies," he sighed to himself. "At least this'll keep 'em out of trouble for a while." As reloading operating systems usually did.
On the other hand, this is the second attack in, what, a month? And I know Junior patched up the holes they came in last time. This is new. So how the hell did they get in?
"Hello?"
"Mister Dobson, this is Bill Tucker over at your school... I've gotten the data away from the roaches, and-"
"Roaches? I thought it w-"
"Children running around causing trouble, chewing on things, and generally acting like roaches," Bill explained. Not all bugs in a system were arthropods.
"Hi," Anne-Marie said to Cory as she got into the minivan. "You look great," she admitted, feeling rather short, dumpy, and over-boobed.
"Oh! Hi! Thanks," Cory replied, sounding nervous. "Who're you going with?"
"Um, Logan, that guy-"
"Oh yeah," she nodded as she looked around the minivan.
"I think we pick him up next," Anne-Marie added.
"Steve first," Pam disagreed as she got in. "He's closer, Anne- Marie. Sorry," she smiled.
"That's okay," Anne-Marie said, though it wasn't. She wanted Logan to look at HER, not at supermodel Cory; the longer ride would just give her more time to worry.
The door opened and a woman, who looked nothing like Kelly, looked up at her. "Yes?"
"I'm Kathy, Kelly's ride to the dance?" Kathy said, feeling tentative. The woman's gaze flicked down, to her clothes. "I'm one of the school paper photographers," she explained, and patted the camera bag on her shoulder. "It's hard to take good pictures in heels and stuff."
"Oh! Okay," the woman nodded, and opened the door. "I'm Audrey, her father's girlfriend. Been helping out tonight..."
"Hey," Kathy said to Kelly, who looked like she was having an acute attack of Teenager Uncertainty about the whole thing. Luckily, she was also ready to go. "Looks good," Kathy said, somewhat honestly. The dress looked nice enough; her hair wasn't really 'done', though, and her makeup had looked better the night of Tuck's party...
"Could you take a picture?" Audrey asked. "I did, but it's not a very good camera," she apologized.
"Oh come on!" Kelly protested, starting to blush.
"Oh sure, no problem," Kathy agreed.
"Aw, fuck it," Susan decided. "Pizza or Chinese?"
"Chinese," Brian said at the same time Mike said, "Pizza."
"I thought you said that Chinese was the perfect food?" Brian jabbed at Mike.
"Yes, oh round-eyed child, but not for the likes of you unappreciative gaijin."
"That's Japanese," Brian pointed out.
"Would you two SHUT UP?" Susan requested.
There were a lot of boys and girls at the table the hostess was leading them towards. And the girls looked very familiar.
"Well," Kathy mentioned as she leaned over, "now I know why you were so eager to get everyone to go."
"Everyone wanted to go to Homecoming tonight," Debbie emphasized.
"And how much are they paying you for taxi service and everything else?"
"Reasonable-" Kathy reached up. "Twenty-five each," Debbie admitted quickly, and Kathy let go of Debbie's earlobe. "That's for the dinner and a ride, both ways."
"Jeezus. How'd you-" Kathy shook her head. "Never mind." Debbie's profiteering was legendary, even when - like this time - it seemed almost reasonable. Kathy just wasn't sure how she kept talking people into going along and paying.
Well, dumbass, YOU'RE here, aren't you? she reminded herself. Yeah, but not like them, she grinned as she raised her camera and fired a couple of shots.
Kelly felt immensely stupid and out of place at the table. All the other girls, most with dates, were chattering around; she didn't know what to say or do.
"Hey, um," said the freshman next to her. "You're Tuck's little sister, right?"
"Uh, n- Yeah," she said when she realized the girl meant Little Sister, not a sibling.
"Is he gonna be okay?" she whispered.
"I dunno," Kelly admitted, feeling even worse. "I can't talk about it," she remembered to say. Mike had been VERY clear on that part; and this time, not just to her but to everyone else he'd talked to. She felt strangely better about that, like she was now 'one of the gang' this time instead of the ignorant outsider. "What's your name again?" Kelly asked.
"Anne-Marie. Jill's my Big Sister; she had to work tonight."
"Oh, yeah. I'm Kelly."
"Did you bring a date?"
"No," Kelly flushed. "Um, Mike..." He'd said she could go with Kathy, without a date, as had her homeroom teacher; but right now that sounded incredibly stupid.
"Oh God, I'm sorry," Anne-Marie said as she looked down.
"S'okay." The two of them were quiet for a minute, which Kelly hated. She racked her brain for something to say, and didn't come up with anything good. "Um, you look nice," she tried; she guessed that at least that statement wouldn't be offensive.
Anne-Marie smiled weakly, without looking up. "Um, thanks... I feel kind of stupid like this," she said quietly.
"You do? Why?"
"'Cause, I mean, I'm..." She bounced a bit.
"Oh." They were pretty big; a lot larger than hers. "You don't like 'em?" The girl shook her head. "Why not?"
Kathy had been on the verge of doing something to get Kelly involved in a conversation, but just about the time she'd decided to say something, Kelly had started talking to Jill's Little Sister, on the other side.
"You looked really good... at the party," Anne-Marie said.
"That was them," Kelly explained, kind of sweeping a hand across the table. "I didn't know anything about what they were doing. I mean, I KINDA did... but not why or anything, you know?"
Anne-Marie nodded. "You look okay, though," she said.
"No I don't," Kelly mumbled, obviously ashamed of herself.
"Wel- Hold on a second," she said as she had an idea.
"You're not charging for this, are you?" Kathy asked Debbie.
"What? NO!" Debbie complained, as Kelly looked suddenly ill. "Look, Kelly, if you WANT to, later, you can make an appointment with me, and I can come over and show you how to do all of this, and sell you the stuff you need, do your colors, all of that. Right now, though, this is gratis. A free sample. Okay?" Debbie asked both women. Kelly nodded nervously.
"So like how come you're using that blue stuff?" Karen, Debbie's Little, asked.
"She's got some greenish in her eyes," Debbie said, instantly calmer as she got to explain what she was doing, "and this is more of a turquoise, so it'll bring out the green a little bit, and match with her gown."
"Wow," Anne-Marie commented when Debbie was done with Kelly. "You look a LOT better. I mean, before it was okay, but this..." Kelly had been wearing makeup before, and hadn't been BAD exactly... but whatever Debbie had done - and while Anne-Marie had watched the entire thing from start to finish, she STILL wasn't sure what Debbie had done for some of it, or why she'd picked certain things for even more of it.
"Debbie's really good," Karen Stockman agreed heartily. She looked like Debbie had already given her the treatment before any of them saw her tonight.
"Say 'sex'!" Kathy demanded, and blinded everyone. "Yah, you do look better like that," she agreed, over the noise of her autowinder.
"Well, well, well," Kathy said, looking at the cops who were surrounding the entrance. "I think Dobson got a bit paranoid." There were at least four of them, and two patrol cars parked on the grass with their running lights on.
"Well..." Kelly said. "I mean, with Tuck..."
"I can kind of see that..." Kathy wasn't too sure, though. They couldn't be everywhere at once; and if anyone was in the mood to do something illegal, they'd go where the cops weren't.
And where she wasn't. She smiled as she put the camera out the window and took a shot at the cops.
"Uh-boy," Debbie sighed as she saw the uniforms. "Looks like we've got the city police to deal with too."
"Considering what happened to Tuck, I'm kind of glad they're here," Pam said as she put the parking brake and hazard lights on.
"Hey," Debbie said as she thought of something and turned around to the rest of the kids in the car. "Anyone with ANYTHING illegal, ought to leave it in the van when we get out. They might be doing searches."
A lot of blank looks was all she got. Well, I tried...
"Goddamnit," Sarah sighed before she lit a cigarette, her first in several years. The stress tonight was just too much, even though 'all' she was doing was sitting there watching her son doing nothing except breathe. She knew why she was doing it, and why she was falling 'off the wagon', and all the reasons why she shouldn't had kept her from doing this for at least a day; but tonight was just too much for her to stand.
After two puffs, she was surprisingly dizzy, and that helped distance her from the helplessness she felt; she just didn't feel it as intensely.
"I wish he'd wake up..."
And none of this helped with what had been turning all their lives upside down since last week, when she'd caught him in that mall. "I still can't believe that..." He'd looked so damned feminine, even more so than Susan, and that disturbed Sarah in some deep and profound way. Even more so than the tests he'd gone through, that they'd all gone through, that showed Eugene's chromosomes were screwed up enough for three people.
"Damnit, WHY? He should've known better!" She couldn't help but think that this was some sort of reaction to what he'd been doing; that someone had found out and punished him in this vicious and graphic manner, to give everyone including him a lesson in conformity-or-death. She'd seen some of that herself, in the days of desegregated schools and busing, as well as on her college campus. Those who were on top of the world weren't always content to stay there and do their thing; far too often, they stomped anyone who wasn't 'properly' cringing to them. A simple refusal to act ashamed when they thought you should be ashamed, was sometimes enough to set them off.
And if you didn't like their judgements; if you had your own life to lead, your own opinions, self-worth that didn't depend on others granting it to you... then, sometimes, you had to take a stand for yourself.
She'd seen the scrapes on Eugene's hands and knuckles; she knew he'd fought back.
It just wasn't enough...
She dropped her head onto her arm and cried.
A complete lack of patches and updates, plus some unauthorized software and a trojan or two, was how they'd gotten in.
"Mmmmhmmmhmmm," Bill mentioned. "How cute. Have you kids ever thought of getting interested in girls? 'Cause obviously you have no talent for cracking." Sadly, but not surprisingly, the little roach had failed to secure his own system from the very same cracks he was using to get into McAllen's and lamely attempt to wreak havoc. This was one of the reasons Bill collected every crack, trojan, virus, and security flaw he could find. Another, of course, was countermeasures. Bill now had rather an impressive collection of information on this one, including some real names and what looked like a few class papers of recent vintage, as well as 'standards' like his registry and system information.
Also sadly, the roach was merely using a combination of easily- available tools to wreak his immature havoc, rather than doing anything truly interesting or novel, or even original.
After having found the CMOS accessible, Bill had written his own tweaks to the roach's system, while letting the roach merrily play in some bait. He was getting tired, though, and had learned all he needed to learn from this one, so he told the roach's computer to shoot itself in the foot, and started shutting down for the night. "On the other hand, stay away from girls; it's best you don't figure out how to reproduce."
"Who else?"
Mike just looked at her until she felt stupid, which didn't take long at all. "You sure you want to know, Jill? The less you know, the less you're tempted to tell."
Jill thought about it for a while. "Yeah, I guess you're right," she eventually sort-of agreed. "How'd you find this one?"
"Info from one of the others," Mike said. "This is why you never discuss anything illegal over the phone. It's a lot harder to bug a vehicle."
"And I checked it," Dan added.
"We have a great shining desire not to go to jail," Mike mentioned.
"Maybe you should try doing something else on your weekends. Like knitting or something," Jill facetiously suggested.
"This is better exercise," George said, and snorted at his own 'humor'.
"What the..." The computer had just shut itself off, and right in the middle of a download. "DAMNIT!"
Upon reboot, everything looked normal though slow as usual, until it got to the Windows screen and popped up a login box. "What?"
"That wasn't on there last-"
"I know that!"
Rod pulled up in front of the gym; Ginger didn't notice at first, because she was too busy looking at all the cops. "Man, what the hell happened?" Oh SHIT- "Did someone else get attacked?"
"How would I know?"
"Wait wait wait, lemme out here," she insisted. He stopped his car, and she got out as quickly as she could without falling over, and hustled over to Mr. Brinkman, who was standing around with a clipboard and looking grim. "Excuse me, did something happen?" she asked breathlessly.
"What? Ah, no, this is just a precautionary measure," he said, glancing at the police.
Jody slowed down in front of the gym, and then she could see it; there were cops all over the place, and they had some of the teachers there too, with clipboards.
"I can't believe this!" Jody half-screamed to herself. "We didn't fucking DO anything!"
"Say 'sex'," Kathy said, and photographed them just as their expressions changed. "Some days, I love this job," she smiled to herself.
Where his collection of pornography had been, there was now just one single README.TXT, which said:
POSSESSION OF OBSCENE OR PORNOGRAPHIC MATERIALS BY MINORS IS A
MISDEMEANOR OF THE THIRD DEGREE.
"Fuckin' lesbo," Natalie sneered, and Kelly's hands balled up into fists.
Before she could do anything, though, there was a flash over her shoulder. "I'm sorry," Kathy said to the other freshman girls over - way over - Kelly's shoulder. "It sounded like you were being unpardonably rude. Would you like to repeat that?"
They declined to answer, and just mumbled and shuffled off.
"This probably isn't helping your reputation any," Kathy said into Kelly's ear, "but it doesn't hurt as much if they don't insult you to your face. Or so I've found. Come on and dance," she suggested, and turned back towards the music.
Kelly followed, but not without a backwards glance. The girls were still in a clot, snickering and pointing, undoubtedly at her.
"Well, I thought you were dating him-"
"That ended a long time ago," Debbie told Ginger, flatly.
"Oh," she said, embarrassed that she'd forgotten. "Um... Uh, well, have you seen any of his friends tonight?"
Debbie shook her head. "They're not here; and I know a few of them had bought tickets. I think they're avoiding the dance tonight, in case someone does them like they did Tucker."
"Oh God," Ginger exclaimed. "Do you think that could happen?"
Debbie shrugged. "Tucker's in the hospital, and he's been unconscious for the last three days-" She ignored Ginger's squeak of dismay. "And he had to get some kind of emergency surgery right there in the ER, I heard, or he would've died before they could get him into an operating room. Someone did him REAL bad. I don't think the rest of them want to take any chances." Debbie shrugged again. "Hell, I'M not going anywhere alone tonight..." Her voice, which had been calm, almost disinterested, got just a bit shaky as she admitted, "I've known enough girls that got raped; I don't need anyone else to go through it."
"Oh God-"
"So you want to be careful tonight," Debbie said, looking directly at her. Ginger found herself nodding nervously.
Anne-Marie watched avidly as the principal spoke while holding the envelope which would have the winner of the voting contest for Homecoming Queen in it. Funny how none of the cheerleaders were trying out for it this year, she noticed again. She wasn't too sure, but it didn't seem like any of them were even here. Guess they're out drinking or something, she shrugged.
Jody wiped again at her face, but it wasn't helping; the tears just kept coming, slowly but surely. More tequila, she thought, and grabbed the bottle again.
"Hey, what's with you tonight?" Shane asked.
"Nothing!"
Great villains believe they're right.
-- Jean-Claude Van Damme, KC Star 12-23-95
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All rights reserved.
- @>--,--'----- Ellen Hayes o===[-------- __ vicki .sig +
-=[1990]=- / virus 12.2 + http://www.barkingduck.net/ehayes PGP key: EFC9 5D55 (1996) +
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