Sorry about the COMPLETE FAIL and LACK OF UPDATES from last week!
My excuse is that I've been researching ways to make this blog...better, and have started putting them into place!
Also, I'm fat and lazy!
Wooo! Fat and Lazy!
Monday, October 6, 2014
Friday, September 26, 2014
E.L.F: Chapter Five
Author's Note: I am so sorry for the week-long delay. I was really tired and unenthused last week, and for my lateness, I have been punished. And by that, I mean I played video games and ate candy. Oh, also, this chapter has a lot more making out than I remember it having when I first wrote it in 2009. Oh, also, this book actually isn't new. It's an edit of an old book of mine. Have I mentioned that already? If I had, this is me reminding you!
###
###
Chapter
5: Young Love
As
they walked, they talked. It felt normal, like walking home from school. If
school involved being chased by a big, angry, three-eyed space lizard.
"So,
how did you get away from him?"
"Remember
when Richy tried to twist my antennas off two years ago? It was like that,
except with more kicking..."
"Oooouch...I
didn't know Xorquin had external gen-"
"Shh!"
That was from Anna, who had stopped at the corner of one of the interminable
hallways they were wandering through. This corner, though, was different. Mostly
because the corridor it led down ended at a door, not another branch of
Architect damned corridors!
Jimmy
wondered how sick he'd get of the generic corridors Harbinger's creators jammed
everywhere by the time they were done with this little 'adventure'.
Adventure.
Yeah. Some adventure. At least he had kissed Pix.
No,
wait. Pix had kissed him. Big difference.
Pix.
Had. Kissed. Him.
Oh
my. Pix had kissed him! Pix had kissed him! Pix had-
"Jimmy!"
Jimmy
snapped to attention as Pix snapped her fingers under his nose. "Geesh,
you're zoning out a lot today."
"Comes
from having, stuff, I mean..." Jimmy shook his head. "I mean, like,
I, uh, I..."
He
kissed her. Quick peck on the lips. Then it became a long kiss. Then she was
touching him. And he was touching her.
And
then nothing else was there. Just them. His hand slid along her belly, under
her breast, then slid up. Her nipple was hard. Oh my. Oh my. Oh my. She was
touching him too. He squeezed and she made a soft gasping noise at the back of
her throat. No, more like a mewl.
Now.
That. Was. Something.
"By
the Architects, can I leave you two alone for five seconds?" Anna asked,
sounding annoyed. "Or should I just duct tape you together."
Jimmy
and Pix leaped apart, flushing bright red. Jimmy looked at his feet, kicking
one against the ground, while Pix put her hand on her pocket and scowled when
she remembered her lighter was gone. The two of them looked back at Anna, who
frowned at them for a time, then shook her head. She turned back to the door to
continue whatever it was she had been doing.
Now
that Jimmy wasn't touching Pix, he realized the door had been welded shut.
"Why
is that door welded shut?" he asked.
Anna
gave him a "Seriously" look, then went back to fiddling at the door.
She pulled a small lighter and fiddled with it till it became a...a...
No
way.
"No
way," Pix said, proving her telepathic abilities were in full swing once
more.
Anna
ignored them and started using her mini-laser projector to slowly, very slowly,
as it was, cut her way through the welding.
Very.
Slowly.
Pix
and Jimmy sat down and Anna whistled to herself, softly. Jimmy looked at Pix.
Her head was resting against the wall and her eyes were locked on that lighter,
reflecting some of the glow that came from cutting through metal. Some hair had
fallen down over her chin. He brushed it away. It had seemed like a natural
move. She turned her head to him and grinned, eyes closed.
"For
some reason," she said, her voice soft. Very soft. "This all doesn't
seem so bad anymore."
Jimmy's
stomach growled, loudly. He started at the sound and tried to remember when he
had last eaten – let alone when he had gotten a drink of water. But then, Pix
opened her eyes and he forgot about silly things like drinking and eating.
"Not
so bad," he murmured back.
She
grinned. "You look sappy."
"I
like sap. I think." He pursed his lips. "What is sap again?"
"Uh,
tree stuff."
"Why
is it sappy, then?" Jimmy looked up at the ceiling. Pix snorted and leaned
over. Lips touched neck. Jimmy's back stiffened as her tongue touched that
place you put your fingers when you want to check your pulse. His toes curled.
Anna
sighed loudly and dramatically.
Pix
ignored her, lips traveling up to Jimmy's cheek bone. He didn't want to move.
Moving would be bad. Moving meant lips would stop touching skin.
"Open."
Jimmy
ignored Anna as Pix's lips moved to his ear. Oh did tongues go in there?
Apparently! He giggled. Tickles.
"Door
open!"
Oh
the door was open! He jerked away
from Pix, who stuck her tongue out at him. The door was open and Anna tapped
her foot. "Come on."
Jimmy stood up...just as a bullet
ricocheted off the door and hit him in the shin. He slammed right back down on
the ground. He looked at the hole in his pants and the blood that welled from
it. Wasn't a wound supposed to not hurt for a bit THEN start hurting? Because
someone obviously hadn't told his leg that fact. It started hurting like a
motherf-
Pix
started dragging him, her eyes wide and wild. Anna started shooting – again,
Jimmy was shocked by how loud guns
were, even with silencers and baffling devices. The door closed and Anna spun
the lock, then started to weld the lock shut. Jimmy took this as an opportunity
to experience what being shot feels like. He enjoyed it only slightly less than
he enjoyed taking a final exam.
Anna
zapped the lock and it stuck together. No time to weld the whole door, Jimmy
guessed.
"Can
you walk?" The wheel that opened the door groaned against the newly welded
lock – the Xorquin kept trying, making the groaning noise get louder.
"Don't
know," Jimmy hissed. Anna rolled her eyes, pulled out a small injector
thingy, and jammed it into Jimmy's neck.
The
pain floated away on pink elephants. Whee. Jimmy got up and got a fit of the
giggles. His head flopped back. Everything had this awesome color hue to it,
like someone had painted the world in that soapy stuff they blow bubbles with.
"Now
we run!" Pix shouted.
Anna
nodded.
They
ran.
Once
they got around the corner, Jimmy heard the door exploding as if the noise was
coming to him through a long plastic tube.
Jimmy's
leg didn't quite work right. He supposed it should have hurt, but the happy
juice was making everything fuzzy. Fuzzyish. The lights all had halos around
them. Bubbles!
Pix
was at his right. Anna behind. Anna kept dropping things. A green baggie that
burst and expanded to cover the floor with steaming moss. A mechanical drone
that stuck into the ground and bleeped. A bunch of spikes that turned invisible
once they hit the ground.
After
that, Anna stopped throwing things. Maybe she was out of things to drop.
"How
much farther!" Pix shouted as she ran. She didn't need to breathe as much.
Lucky her. Jimmy started wondering if she would let him touch her breast again.
That had be awesome.
"Far,"
Anna said.
Okay,
the hurt was starting to come back. An edge to the running. He could live with
it. By the fifth intersection and the second set muffled explosion and series
of Xorquin cursing- guess the toys Anna dropped worked, sorta- the pain was
back in full force. Each step made his teeth clench. Er. Jaw clench. Would be the
jaw wouldn't it? Teeth don't have muscles.
THIS
HURT A LOT!
He
said as much. Well, more, sobbed as much. Pix cooed at him.
They
got to the end of the corridor. Jimmy was shoved against a wall behind some
cover and Anna started fishing around in her pockets like a madwoman. Things
started to come out of those pockets, and sadly, most of them were useless.
Cell phone, ammo (well, kinda useful), watches, a weird dongle, a grenade.
Grenade?
Anna
pulled the pin, but held down on the thingy that had to pop open before the
timer would start. Normally, Jimmy would try and think up the name of said
thingy. Now, he was too busy grabbing his shin and hissing loudly as he felt
blood stream through his fingers.
Anna
licked her lips, eyes peering down the corridor, waiting for the Xorquin to
come around his corner.
A
grenade landed at her feet.
She
kicked it. It hit the wall, bounced, then exploded in midair. Anna flew
backwards, slamming into the wall right next to Jimmy. She dropped her
grenade...and kicked it as well. It bounced and then phoomphed, rather than
banged.
The
phoomph slammed into Jimmy a moment before a wall of smoke bloomed out to fill
the corridor.
"You
two, go that way," Anna hissed, pressing a dongle into Pix's hand.
"Get away, kay?"
"Kay."
Pix nodded. She looked at Jimmy and coughed. Jimmy coughed back. Not quite a
kiss, but for now, it would do. They blundered into the smoke and Anna started
firing her gun wildly into the air.
Five
heart stopping minutes later, they were out of the gas cloud, leaving the
gunfire behind.
"That...was...a
big...gas...bomb," Jimmy gasped.
"Anna
has way more toys than she should."
And,
with nowhere else to go, they kept going forward.
###
Jimmy
tried to visualize where he and Pix actually were. The sewage system sat in a
big nest of pipes and hallways that held the pipes. Those made sense, because
you'd need hallways so you could get to a broken pipe and fix it. Right. Then
there were the Urtish, who were around the big old freight elevator. That also
made sense, so you could move stuff up and down between the lower levels and
the middle levels.
So
what were all these pointless, endless, winding maze corridors doing here! They
served literally no purpose as far as
he or anyone else could tell – and he would have heard if someone had figured
the corridors out. At least, he was pretty sure he would have. And to add
endless insult to a very persistent injury, Jimmy had to walk down each and
every single one. That made it personal.
"Let's
take a break,” Pix said, suddenly. He glanced at her and saw she was looking at
his leg.
"This
strikes me as an excellent idea!" Jimmy held one finger up to demonstrate
just how excellent he thought it was.
They
both plopped down. The corridors to the right of them got darker and darker,
while the corridors to the left were brighter and nicer. Too bad brighter and
nicer meant guns and bullets now-a-days.
"I'm
sick of this." Pix stuck her hand in her pocket. "I'm...really sick
of his." She took her hand out and flexed the empty fingers, as if she
could get her lighter to appear out of thin air.
Time
passed.
Really.
Really. Slowly.
"Okay,
enough of this." Pix pulled out the dongle Anna had given her. It had a
small glass cover over a red button. She popped the glass open with her thumb
and then hovered over the button, looking at it. "I wonder what would
happen..."
"Don't."
Jimmy put his hand on her wrist. She looked at him, pink eyebrows raised. “It
might explode, or something.”
"Well,
it's not like we have an instruction booklet or anything."
They
both looked at the device. Jimmy frowned. "Well, she gave it to us for a
reason."
"And
now that you mention it." Pix's thumb moved up and popped the glass down
once more. She sighed. "Anything Anna and her bunch want us to do, can't be
good for our safety."
A
distant bang sounded, bouncing off walls and down corridors.
"What
are we doing?" Pix moaned, putting her face in her hands. "We're
kids! We don't have guns, or kung-fu or computer hacking abilities. We're not
super smart or have telekinetic powers or anything and-"
She
blinked. "I'm getting a text, one second."
"Who
is it from?'
"Someone
named...Ed."
"Okay,
say what you say and say what he says." Jimmy watched her. She nodded,
eyes closed.
"Right.
Who is this?"
She
switched to a deeper, more masculine voice. It was actually pretty funny.
"This is Ed."
Back
to her voice. "Okay, who is Ed?" Her antennas sparked.
"I'm
Anna's-" Pix started, blinking. "Daughter." She looked at Jimmy.
"Daughter?"
Jimmy
shrugged and held his hands up in a 'confused' gesture.
"Okay,"
Pix said. "Uh, Ed?"
She
blinked and switched to a falsetto, equally as amusing as her masculine voice.
"Yes. Ed. For Edna. Now, mom said to get you guys out!"
Jimmy
perked up. "Okay, tell her to give us directions. Tell her
everything."
"Right."
Pix nodded. Then her face fell. "Oh, shit, we can send out a signal with
this doobobber." She held up the thingy Anna had given her, thumb over the
button. "But that will give our position away to anyone who is
looking."
"Aka
giant space lizard." Jimmy put his face in his hands. "Great!"
Pix
sighed, closed her eyes, then looked at him. "How is your leg?"
The
bleeding had stopped, but it still throbbed like crazy. The injections had been
stim/painkiller combos, which meant faster healing. Not faster enough! Jimmy
took off his shirt and Pix grinned, wide.
"Someone's
been working out."
Jimmy
blanched. Oh right. Secret work out sessions had seemed like a great idea a year
ago, but Pix had never noticed. Oh wait, Jimmy had never taken his shirt off in
front of her. Durr.
He
tied the shirt around his shin and sighed. "Probably too late for this to
do any good, but damn, actually..." He grinned. "That makes me feel
better."
Pix
smirked. Then she put her hand on his chest. He looked down at her wrist, then
up the arm to her shoulder, then finally to her. She stroked her fingers over
him and he felt goosebumps raise up.
"Okay,
I'm not complaining," he whispered. "But, uh, why?"
"Mm,
you got to touch me here..." her fingers closed around one of his nipples.
Now that was interesting. "I get to in return." Pinch.
He
jumped slightly and Pix laughed.
###
They
started to walk along and Pix pressed the red button on the gadget. The device
didn't make a loud pinging noise and there were no fancy graphics to show a
dramatic red blip appearing on some distant computer screen. Reality was a
whole lot more boring.
Pix
just started to say when they should go left, right, or straight.
Then,
about a half hour later, they got to another welded shut door.
"Great,
what now?" Jimmy looked at Pix, who was probably saying the same thing to
the girl on the other end of the line.
"Okay,
she says her Mom is in trouble and can't catch up with us." Pix scowled.
"And the Xorquin is in trouble too. So, we can either try our luck in the
dark or wait till Anna catches up with us in a day or so, and cuts through the
door."
Jimmy
bit his lip. The Dark. The last trip through the dark had been far from
pleasant.
But
staying still, especially with Mr. Give Our Position Away turned on, sounded
like the best way to get dead quick that Jimmy had heard all weekend.
For
some reason, Jimmy thought this was not going to be the last death or high
chance of death choice he was going to make in the near future...
He
squared his shoulders and his shin throbbed. His skin prickled with goosebumps
and his back got that maddening itch you get when you don't wear a shirt. None
of that stopped him from making a decision.
"Okay,"
he said. "Let's go into the dark."
"But,
we don't-"
'I
know." Jimmy sighed. "I guess, blood stained shirt goes on." He
took his shirt off and put it on his back. It was a bit blood stained and his
shin started to throb more. He slid his arm around Pix's shoulder and squeezed
him tight. She slipped her arm behind him, hand on his hip. Squeezed.
"Let's
go."
They
waked into the dark, Jimmy's free hand on the wall, the sound of his fingers
trailing along the wall as they walked.
###
"So,
you've been working out for a year? In secret?"
"Well,
it wasn't that hard. Just, every day, after school, when you went home, I pop
off to the gym."
"Really?"
Pix made a concentrated effort to feel him up. Not that Jimmy minded.
Not
in the slightest.
"Yeah.
It's not that hard to hide, I just wear baggy shirts."
Pix
giggled. Her hand kept feeling him up. Still no complaints. Nope. None at all.
Jimmy
wanted her. Badly. That hand on his chest, those fingers tracing the lines of
his modest muscles, the breath on his cheek...she was so close. And it was so
dark now. He slid around, hands went to her hips and he kissed her.
Things
got quiet. Nothing but the soft smack of lips. Rustling fabric. His hand slid
up her belly and then to her side. He felt the hardness of her data port. His
finger slipped around it.
"Oh
James."
Softly,
hot against his ear. Her fingers went around the back of his head.
Jimmy
gulped. "Pix," he whispered. "Wait…this...this isn't the best
time."
Pix
groaned, sounding really annoyed. Jimmy sighed – but having said it, he
couldn’t unsay it. And here, he thought that he’d never ever turn down the
chance to get laid. Well, then again, he also thought that he’d never be kidnapped.
Or shot at. Jimmy let go of Pix and he saw one of her eyes close in a wink.
"Don't
worry,” she said. “When we get a bed, and some free time."
“Pix,
I-“ He started, but she shushed him. Her antennas sparked softly in the
darkness, making Jimmy blink and rub at his eyes to try and get the spots out
of them.
"Okay,
Ed is coming through with more directions,” Pix said. She sounded just a little annoyed about that.
They
started walking again, slowly, as Pix read what Ed was sending out loud.
"Left...forward…right, right, left…"
"Where
are we going?"
"I
dunno." Pix paused, stopping in her walking. "Let me ask." Jimmy
squeezed her shoulder, comfortingly.
"Oh
cool!" Pix turned to him, her eyes glimmering in the darkness. "We're
heading to one of those safe houses in something called the Underground."
"Great."
Jimmy sighed. "Hopeful it has lights and a heater."
"It
might. Left."
A
while later - Pix said a half hour, and Jimmy was willing to trust her on that
- they got there. To Jimmy, the only thing that changed was the wall that his
finger suddenly sheered away, with the only clue that it was about to open
being the lip of a doorframe they had walked through.
"Okay,
we're here." Pix forced herself to sound chirpy and upbeat.
"Lights?"
The
air didn't reply to Jimmy's question.
Pix
sighed. "Okay, I'll go left, you go right. Feel around till you have the
wall and keep talking, or else we'll lose each other."
"Got
it." Jimmy felt his stomach turn over. This was something he didn't want
to do at all. He started groping out, trying to imagine the room. Okay, if it
was anything like any other rooms he's been in, there'd have to be-
Aha.
The wall. He followed the wall till he slammed face first into something. He
swore at it for a few moments before Pix found the light switch.
He
blinked away tears and gave Pix thumbs up. The room started to warm up,
thankfully, and he got a look at what he had run into.
It
looked like a perfect copy of one of the rooms he had seen way back when on the
other side of Urtish territory, complete with its own wall of weird trash-can
artifacts, left behind by the Architects. Jimmy's stomach verbally reminded him
for the fifth time in as many hours that it had been a long couple of however
long they had been running. He wiped more tears from his eyes and looked at
Pix.
"Pix,
how long has it been since we ate last?" Jimmy rubbed his belly. She
looked up at the ceiling and muttered to herself.
"Uh,
about...a while." She groaned, putting her hand over her eyes. "About
five, maybe six hours. I don't know, my chronometer is a bit screwy right
now."
"Same
here."
They
both giggled. Then they laughed.
Then
they both had a near enough simulation of a heart attack because one of the
trashcan shaped thingies with tubes sticking out of their tops came to life.
The end of the tube flashed blue and it hovered at Jimmy.
Jimmy
yelped, jumped backwards, tripped over his own feet and crashed to the ground.
The thingy juddered forward, then crashed down and fell to the side. Whatever
had brought it to life was gone.
Silence
reigned.
Pix
ran over and knelt down next to Jimmy, putting her hands on his shoulder.
"Okay."
Jimmy closed his eyes. "Screw this! I refuse to be injured anymore, by the
Architects. If my bullet hole doesn’t close itself right NOW-"
"It's
okay." Pix hugged him, tight around the neck. Jimmy made a gack noise, as
that sorta cut off some of his air.
Once
she was done hugging/strangling him, Jimmy had gotten over his urge to rant at
his own body and they started to set up shop. Tucked into the corner of the
room, Pix found a bag of hardened plastic. Within the bag was a generator, a
wireless bouncer – one of the many that filled the vastness of Harbinger with
wireless communication – and another, smaller baggy, which itself was strapped
to the side of a heater. Pix turned on the heater, and the two of them pressed
themselves against one another, and sat near the heater as the air around it
started to grow warmer and warmer.
“All
right!” Pix said, her voice deliberately cheery. “Let’s see what we got in the
goodie bag.”
She
opened it and started rummaging through it.
She
tossed a protein bar to Jimmy, who grabbed it and started to munch. Pix took
her own and stuck it in her mouth and started to chew while rustling around
through the bag. She took out a few oversized jackets, grinning at Jimmy as she
did so. Another munch and she pulled out some medical supplies.
Then
she pulled out the gun.
She
dropped it and it hit the ground with a clatter that was far louder than it
should have been. The gun skidded aside and ended up near Jimmy's foot. He
reached down, gulped, and picked it up. It was heavier than he had thought it
would be. Heavy and clunky. The barrel was black, the handle had a brown swell
that made it easier to grasp. The trigger was thin, and when Jimmy put his
finger on it, the gun whirred and clicked to life, an indicator glowing on the
side. It buzzed in his hand, feeling almost alive.
He
set it down in a hurry. The gun stopped quivering and he looked at Pix.
She
held up two small magazines, green tipped bullets in each of them. Jimmy closed
his eyes. "Okay, okay, okay," he said, softly. "Okay.
Okay."
"Okay?"
Pix set the magazines down. "At least we can shoot back this time."
"Shoot
back!?" Jimmy opened his eyes and watched her as she pulled out a
flashlight, a pair of binoculars and a small multitool.
"Yes,
shoot back," Pix said, glaring at him. Not at him, Jimmy realized, but
rather, though him. Glaring at the world and all the shit it had decided to
dump on them. "Next time, I'm going to shoot back."
Jimmy
looked at her. For a moment, he thought of her lighter. Memories…he shook his
head.
"No,
Pix, I'm going to shoot back." Jimmy picked the gun up again, making sure
to keep his finger off the trigger. He had heard that from at least four
different people on the 3V: Keep your finger off the trigger unless you want to
make something dead. He grabbed one of the magazines and, after some fumbling,
he got it to slide into the handle of the gun. The gun clicked and cocked
itself, then dinged cheerily.
Great.
Pix
a moment later grinned, antennas sparking. "Well, I guess that makes
sense. After all, you played the most video games."
Jimmy
pursed his lips. "Maybe we could fire the gun democratically."
Pix
cocked an eyebrow. Very Spockian.
"Or...."
Jimmy grinned, trying to lighten the mood. "We could do it via
representative democracy."
"I
elect James Leonite."
"Any
objections?" Jimmy was finding it really hard to not dissolve into
hysterical laughter. No one spoke, not even the weird things in the side of the
room. He'd have to think of a name for them eventually. Hovering-Trashcan
sounded like a good name. "The motion is passed."
Pix golf clapped.
###
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Friday, September 12, 2014
E.L.F: Chapter Four
Author's Note: Updating my webzone here, pizza rolls, pizza rolls. Also, this week has been extremely exciting. I've gotten to hang out with some friends, and write a bunch of words, and help caretake for my Grandma (who is very glad to have me around the house, for some reason.) Also, I have recently heard about Pillars of Eternity, a new Infinity Engine style CRPG made by Obsidian. I have a warning for friends, family, loved ones, and internet people: Once this game comes out, I may vanish for a few weeks.
###
###
Chapter 4: Tinsel
"Mmm?"
"Mmmphm!"
"Mmnnmph!"
Jimmy gave up talking after that. It was a bit
self-defeating to try and say anything around a sock jammed in his mouth} and
did nothing to ease the ache of his wrists, bound as they were by tight
plastic. His eyes were covered by a scratchy fabric that smelled like it was
out of some pre-historical adventure story, not modern self-cleaning stuff.
With nothing to talk about and no way to talk and nothing to see, Jimmy had nothing to do but put one foot in
front of the other.
The walk continued. It got cold. Then warmer. Then colder
again. Then really cold. Jimmy shivered, his teeth trying to chatter around his
gag. The person marching them along at gunpoint laughed at their misery. It was
a kind of laugh Jimmy had heard a lot growing up, he could recognize it.
Suddenly, Pix made an indignant sound around her gag and
Jimmy immediately strained against his cuffs. That did nothing but made his
wrists sting and made the sock jammed in his mouth even more uncomfortable.
Eventually, Jimmy came to the conclusion that the walk would
never end. His had jaw moved from cramping to painful to sheer agony. Then,
finally, the blindfold was ripped off his head and the gag yanked from his
mouth. He spluttered and worked his jaw, blinking his eyes. When his eyes
adjusted to seeing again, he saw three gunrunners – no, four, he noticed Tlessia
sitting on Anna’s shoulder. The only other one he recognized was Phil, with his
trademark skeevy smile plastered on. Jimmy knew if his wrists weren't bound,
he'd have tried to punch that grin right out of existence.
And then Phil would shoot him dead.
It scared him how certain he was of that.
Jimmy looked around for Pix, then saw she was behind him.
The gag and blindfold came away from her and she spat on the ground.
"Bleck, ugh, your sock tastes like your face," she
said, glaring at the sock, then at Phil.
Phil just sneered. He put his hand on Pix's butt. Pix
strained at her handcuffs and Jimmy growled. Phil's hand came away, holding
Pix's lighter.
"Nice lighter...cyborg." Phil smirked, taking out
a c-stick and slipping it between his lips. He lit it and walked towards Anna,
who edged slowly away from him. And now that Jimmy was done looking at the
people he wanted to see in jail, he started looking at the room. Or, well,
hallway.
There wasn't much to it. Two long walls, two doors, a
ceiling and some lights that had been welded to the walls. The door behind
Jimmy was unlocked. As he watched, Phil slammed the lock back closed with an
audible clang.
"You okay?" Jimmy whispered to Pix. She shook her
head, her face pale, her eyes tired. Jimmy had never seen Pix look so
downhearted before. Even when Richy and Edward had been at their worst,
tormenting her and Jimmy with a gleeful abandon, Pix still had that spark in
the back of her eyes, the core of her personality that made her so fun to be
around.
That spark looked dim, now. Dim and angry, smoldering like a
coal. Uncomfortable memories...
Jimmy tried to smile. "Come on. We're almost-"
"Shh," Tlessia hissed. "Okay, you two, get
over here."
Jimmy glared at the cat. The cat glared right back, then
patted Anna's calf with her paw. "Come closer. Do it, or I'll have Phil
manhandle you."
Pix stepped forward first. Jimmy followed, biting his lip.
Tlessia looked from one to the other. Jimmy tried to read what she was thinking
but...she was a cat. It was really hard to see anything other than adorable in
her glittering eyes. Maybe that's why she exaggerated her anger and
frustration, to break through that illusion via extremes.
Or maybe she was just annoying.
"Now, we're at a city called Tinsel, it's-"
"We know what Tinsel is." Jimmy frowned.
"We've been to school, and I'm the son of a diplomat. "
"Well, fine, Mr. Son of Diplomat." Tlessia pointed
her paw at him. "Tell me, what is Tinsel's main export?"
Jimmy shrugged. “Elevator use.”
Tlessia drew her head back. Jimmy hastened to explain.
"That is, it's the only city actually built near one of the functional
grav-shafts. So, it's like a trading port."
Tlessia stretched her neck up so that she was as close to
his face as possible (which wasn't very close at all). Then she grinned,
showing her fangs in a surprisingly expressive motion. "Exactly. So, that
means you will know to not make any fuss at the terminal. Cause if you do, we
will kill you."
Jimmy glanced at Pix, then at Tlessia. "But,
wait-"
"If you make a fuss, you could bring the law down on
our heads, and if you do that, you'll cost so much that killing you will
actually make us a profit. And it'll make me feel better!" Tlessia's glare
locked onto Jimmy's eyes. "And, so you know we're serious, I'm giving Phil
the sniper rifle that will be aimed right at the back of your heads."
Jimmy kicked himself, mentally.
He had thought, a while ago, that this Sunday couldn't get
any worse.
He needed to stop thinking that kind of thing.
###
The Urtish had evolved in the outdoors, lived in the
outdoors, developed technology in the outdoors. They liked the outdoors, they liked
nature. And Harbinger, fortunately, had rooms big enough for them to feel
'outdoors', even if they lacked the trees and forests of their homeworld. The
grav-shafts of Tinsel happened to be one of these rooms. The ceiling sloped
upwards and outwards, stopping about half a mile above the ground. Ten tubes,
all about the width of a house, ran from the ceiling to the ground floor.
Between those tubes sprawled Tinsel.
It had been well named. The buildings were a glittering
pastel of paper thin metal that the Urtish spun and hung between intelligent
poles of hardened plastics, which folded and interconnected in complex
patterns. The structures did not differentiate themselves as much as the
buildings Jimmy was used to – instead, tunnels and tubes connected spires of
rippling fabric, distended and shifted by the weather patterns of the room and
the hefty weight of the Urtish moving along them – shadows cast against the
papery metal.
The center of Tinsel was dominated by a broad thoroughfare
that led directly to a security terminal of hard, black metal that sat,
spiderlike, at the center of the five grav-chutes. A throng of humans, Urtish,
and other races in lesser degrees all headed towards that terminal, ready and
eager to reach the upper levels of Harbinger.
And in the middle of that throng, Jimmy and Pix sat next to
each other, trying to look completely unconcerned.
It was harder than it looked.
"At least we can talk," Pix said, keeping her face
directly forward. The back of Jimmy's neck prickled as he imagined that psycho
aiming a gun at him. By now, that sensation wasn’t entirely unfamiliar, and
that was just a little bit depressing.
"Yeah," Jimmy said, reaching back to rub his neck.
"Sorry about your lighter-"
"It’s okay," Pix said, her voice tight. After a
long, long pause, watching the line around them mill about, and listening to
the voices and the rippling of paper-metal buildings in the wind, Pix looked at
him out of the corner of her pink eyes.
"Soooo, did you mean it?"
Oh great. Jimmy gulped, his dry throat suddenly seeming even
dryer, somehow. After a bit of a struggle, he managed to speak.
"Well...yeah."
The line shuffled forward as yet another person got through
the interminable security check. Jimmy had never seen a group of people so
thorough in their searching. And he'd been into the Council Chambers. Sure,
he'd been a little kid, but he could still remember an Anachros checking him
over...
Ugh.
That thought, though, lead to the serious problem of getting to somewhere where the security services
might actually help. Tinsel wasn’t the Council Chambers, the Urtish weren’t the
Anachros, and he was fairly sure that the gunrunners had their ways through this
security. But what if there was a way they could trigger things?
No, wait, then Phil would…would…
Jimmy suddenly realized that Pix was saying things, the
words going in one ear and out the other.
"Uh, yeah," Jimmy said, trying to catch up. She
looked right at him.
"Then why did you wait till now!" She sounded
annoyed. "I mean, leading me on and on like that."
"Listen, I'm sorry," Jimmy whispered. "But is
now the time to talk about this?"
"Apparently! Apparently it takes me getting smacked by
a crazy person to get you to..."
What had he missed when he'd been thinking of other things?
His look of panic must have been way too obvious because Pix's eyes narrowed.
"Wait, did you even listen to me earlier?"
"Well-"
"By the Architects!" Pix threw her hands up, her
antennas sparking. "Jimmy, you...you...by the...I...thought you
weren't...god I hate you sometimes!"
"I-" Jimmy's words clogged. Come on, say
something! Something funny, something witty, charming, something to make her
love you back. Just like every single other time he tried to think of
something, his brain failed. But unlike the other times, he was already
falling.
"Just drop it, okay?" She looked away from him,
back tight.
What was she thinking? Was she as terrified as he was of
losing what they had?
"So." She forced herself to sound normal.
Normalish. "How long's the line?"
"Uh, long." Jimmy glanced back over his shoulder.
Did he see the glint of a scope in the buildings around and above and behind
him? Unlikely, as the whole rippling paper-metal effect created a wild
profusion of sparkles and glints. "Listen, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't
wait for a better time, I'm sorry I was so cowardly that I didn't say this
sooner...I'm sorry I wasn't listening..." He bit his lip. "Um, w-what
was the question."
"It wasn't a question," Pix said. "It
was..." She trailed off.
Jimmy was just about to prompt her before her expression
registered in his brain: Wide eyes, jaw dropping in shock. Jimmy turned around,
to see what she was looking at.
The Xorquin was in the line right next to theirs, wearing
his rumpled brown hat. Tall as ever, one of his arms had a dull white bandage
wrapped around his bicep. All three eyes glared right into Jimmy, like laser
beams.
Jimmy's mouth dried up like a Slor shoved into a fusion
reactor. He half expected the Xorquin to whip out a few machine guns and blow
him and Pix away, right there in line.
The Xorquin slid his hand toward his pocket. He froze, the
motion incomplete. Jimmy blinked, then followed the Xorquin's eyes, to the red
dot glowing on the back of the Xorquin’s hand. The dot whipped around, then
settled on Jimmy's heart. Modern, civilian firearms had loads of smart systems
designed to make them safer, while military firearms used a bunch of advanced
optics and targeting systems that made laser dot sights a primitive
affectation…which did nothing to make the little red dot – ingrained over
millennium of social history – any less intimidating.
The red dot swept back to the Xorquin’s hand, then to his
chest. The meaning seemed pretty clear to Jimmy. He could almost hear Phil’s
voice in his ear: I can shoot anyone I
want here, so why don’t we all keep moving?
"Okay," Jimmy said. “Maybe starting anything here
is a bad idea, Mr. Xorquin.”
Pix’s hand closed tight around his, squeezing hard enough he
felt his knuckles pop slightly. Jimmy didn’t really care.
The Xorquin took the advice as passively as he took anything
from being shot at to being shot. What thoughts were going on behind that
thing's forehead? His line started to shuffle forward faster than Jimmy's line,
and soon the Xorquin was gone. For now.
"Okay," Jimmy turned to Pix, then shuffled
sideways with their line, having to abandon their seats in the motion.
"Um, he's gone. That’s good! We’re safer!"
"Jimmy, Phil is aiming at the back of your head."
Jimmy nodded. "Just ignore it."
"How can I!?"
"Think of it like Richy!" he suggested. Pix
giggled, just this side of hysteric. Jimmy felt a tickle at the back of his
neck. The dot. He tried to distract himself by looking at Pix. First he looked
at her cheek. He noticed how cheek became ear and how her ear had a swirling
pattern of cartilage and this cute little earlobe...
The tickle faded and Jimmy realized that he really could
ignore a gun aimed at his head sometimes.
"We need to..." Jimmy whispered. Pix looked at
him, a flash of annoyance on her face.
Jimmy choked slightly.
"Need to?"
"Get back to the whole talk thing later," Jimmy
said, feeling a lump in his throat. He had seen Pix annoyed, and he had seen
Pix annoyed at him before. So why did it feel worse now? Well, firstly, this
went beyond 'annoyance', and, well, because he, with his big mouth, had changed
their relationship. It was like yanking the rug out from under the world.
"Yeah. Later. When we don't have guns aimed at
us." Pix said. She looked down. "Jimmy, I..."
The line shuffled forward. Jimmy's hands slipped into his
pockets, where they clenched into fists. "Yeah?"
"I want to go home." Pix's voice was soft.
Jimmy looked up. A tear slid down Pix's cheek and she looked
so lovely, backlit by the slightly too white sunlamp that Urtish used,
surrounded by bored looking aliens. Jimmy's heart stopped.
Who hugged first? Jimmy didn't know. First, they were
standing apart. Then they were together. Pix rubbed her face against his cheek
and Jimmy whetted her pink hair with his own tears. All the awkwardness, all
the questions, all the unknowns. Forgotten for now.
"Me too."
###
The line eventually shuffled Jimmy and Pix into the
spotlight, so to speak. An Urtish customs worker, looking deceptively large and
menacing even though he barely came up to Jimmy's chin, walked up to the two of
them. The Urtish’s look – bulging shoulder muscles, broad arms, fingers the
size of sausages, and tusks that thrust out and curved up under their forelip,
all of it worked to make the shorter race seem taller and more intimidating.
The customs officer grunted, looking them over, then shoved a blunt metal probe
at Jimmy's nose. Jimmy flinched and the Urtish growled something.
A moment later, a translator built into a bracelet stretched
tight around the Urtish's huge wrist bleeped out, "Hold still,
human."
Jimmy held still. The probe went back to his face and,
faster than Jimmy could think, two wires slammed up his nose. He jerked,
feeling them worm their way down his throat, then back up. He coughed and
gagged as the probe was jerked away.
"You could have just used my mouth!" He
gasped/coughed. From the amount of attention the Urtish paid him, he might as
well saved his breath.
The Urtish then ran a blipping doobober over Jimmy's body.
It never flashed red or anything, nor did it bleep REALLY loud. Just soft
bleeping. The Urtish didn't say anything, but from half remembered courses on
alien cultures, Jimmy didn't think the Urtish looked that angry or annoyed.
Hopefully. Another scanner, this time looking alarmingly like a sex toy, waved
over Jimmy's hair.
And then they were through. Jimmy looked at Pix, who was
still rubbing her nose. They walked forward towards the waiting area set up
around one of the many elevators. There was the Xorquin, standing there,
staring right at them.
And there, sitting a bit to the left of the Xorquin, reading
a newspaper, was Anna. Her tail twitched under her chair, slipping through the
obnoxious hole most public chairs had between the backrest and the seat.
She stood up, folded her paper up, and walked over to Jimmy
and Pix. She looked from one to the other. After deciding that everything was
fine, she jerked her head towards the chairs. Pix pointed at the Xorquin. Anna
glanced over.
Her eyes narrowed. The Xorquin stared at her, with that odd,
unblinking look he had.
"Jimmy," Pix's voice quivered, like something in
her was stirring. Jimmy looked at her, heart jerking up a bit. She motioned
with her head towards...towards a security station! It may have been surrounded
by metal-paper and crafted in the shape of a polyhedron, but it had the
universal symbols for police and safety splayed over it.
"Phil?" Jimmy looked back, to see if he could see
that glint – but the glittering of the Urtish city obscured his view.
Pix shrugged. "Think he can shoot us through the crowds
and stuff?" she whispered.
"Good point." Jimmy glanced at Anna and the
Xorquin, who were sizing one another up. Anna held her hand up.
"Don't move," Anna said. Jimmy nodded.
Then he ran. His hand grabbed Pix's elbow, but she was
already running too. He grinned, on the inside, then started panicking, because
when he glanced over his shoulder, he saw Anna and the Xorquin unanimously
decide they could both stop sizing each other up, just so long as their quarry
didn't get away.
Out of the corner of Jimmy’s eye, he saw people looking
right at them. Did anyone else think it was weird that two teenagers were
running through a security terminal.
Yes, someone did.
"Now, hold on-" someone shouted, someone human,
stepping out of the line as if to stop them.
Pix got to the security terminal. She ducked inside, then
slammed her fist onto a bright blue button marked with the alarm symbol. A
green light flashed above the button and Pix grinned at Jimmy before the
Xorquin grabbed her. Anna grabbed Jimmy.
"Great," Anna muttered. "That way!" She
pointed with one hand, her other arm looping around Jimmy's neck. He couldn't
breathe.
The Xorquin saw whatever Anna was pointing at and they both
moved off. Jimmy tried to drag his feet, but Anna hoisted him up and over her
shoulder. It was rather undignified. And almost impossible to breathe. Her
shoulder dug into Jimmy's chest and he saw a strange, disjointed view of the
Urtish security running up, looking as confused as anyone would.
Then he was in a hallway – a Harbinger corridor, not an
Urtish construction. The Xorquin kicked the door closed. Where was Pix? There
she was, held under one arm like a notebook or something. "Put me down!"
she shouted. "Put me down you scaly-"
The corridor, details indistinct, split off. Jimmy saw the
Xorquin split off, heading down a different corridor.
"Pix!" he shouted. "PIX!"
Anna kept running.
###
Anna set Jimmy down. Jimmy shouted inarticulately and took a
swing at her. She batted the swing aside, used the momentum to flip Jimmy
around, and slammed her fist into the small of his back. Jimmy hit the metal
floor chin first. He looked at the floor, cross-eyed, and then he stood up,
shaking himself and turned around. Anna glared at him, arms crossed over her
chest.
Jimmy didn't swing at her, his jaw still aching, his back
screaming bloody murder. "Okay, listen, you want to make money off of me,
right."
Anna shrugged.
"You don't want to make money off me."
Anna sighed, slowly. "No."
"Okay. Then let me go."
"No."
Jimmy looked at the ceiling. Where were they, anyway? He
knew they had taken at least two lefts, but a lot of the run had been one big
blur. He looked back down. Where was Pix?
"Okay, we're going to have to talk. So drop your
goddamn monosyllabic routine and-"
Anna glared at him. Jimmy glared right back, pointedly
forgetting she was taller, stronger, armed and better trained than he was.
"Okay," Jimmy said, softly. "You've already
said you don't like taking hostages."
Anna shrugged. Jimmy thought he saw something in her eyes.
He wasn't sure what, but it was something. Okay, what would Dad do? He'd keep
pushing, shoving, arguing and bullying till he got his way. Go Dad.
"So, do you want me as a hostage, or as a willing
partner?" Jimmy stood up straight, shocked at how clear his brain was
working. Aim a gun at him, he panics. Threaten Pix...everything became clear,
but so much scarier. "See, if you let Pix get carried off by that Xorquin,
I will fight you every inch of the way. Get her back, and I'll help you ransom
me off."
Anna narrowed her eyes.
"Listen, Anna...Pix...I love her. Okay!" A big
lump rose in his throat. He looked at Anna's impassive face, his heart
stopping.
"Oh damn it," Anna muttered, putting her hand on
her forehead. "Do you have any idea where the Xorquin might have been
taking her? Or why?"
Jimmy's heart beat again. Who knew life and death
circumstances could stop and start breathing, heart rate, blinking, saliva and
so on.
"Well," Jimmy said, trying to not look relived. He
tried and failed, but Anna didn't call him on it. "It all started when we
found this Data crystal..."
Anna nodded once he was done. "He'll be heading out, to
the Far Dark."
"That's bad, right?"
She nodded again. "Yeah. If you don't want to be found,
then you head to the Dark."
Jimmy closed his eyes. He could see a million issues with
his plan. Maybe he should just give up...
No, never give up. If he gave up, then he'd have to think
Pix was gone forever. Gone and...
No. No. No.
"Okay, we have to head for the Dark, then."
Anna brought her eyebrows up and looked at him. Jimmy's
forced optimism crumpled like tissue paper. He looked down. "Okay, what
can we do then?"
Anna sighed, slowly. "Nothing."
Jimmy stopped. He looked at his feet. And then, like a spark
popping between his eyes, a thought exploded in his mind. He jerked his head
back up, grinning like an idiot. "Do...you have a phone?"
Anna looked confused. Pix didn’t have time for that. Jimmy
stepped forward, holding his hand out. "Do you!?"
"Uh-" Anna pulled out a small black phone. Jimmy
grabbed it, flipped it open and closed his eyes. Memories floated around his
head.
"Pix, stay out of
telemarketing."
"Yes, but I have
one advantage…”
"I can dial phones with my mind," Jimmy finished
out loud. Anna looked at the ceiling, crossing her arms over her chest. Jimmy
could practically read her mind. It went something along the lines of 'why do
all rich hostages have to be insane?'
Jimmy licked his lips, drew in a deep breath, then pressed
eight numbers on the phone. He selected the texting option. Then, slowly,
carefully, his thumbs typed out:
A.Sinclare: Hello?
Pixie: Who is this?
A.Sinclare: Jimmy! Pix, are you okay?
Pixie: Jimmy! <3!!!
A.Sinclare: Listen, Pix, we're coming for you
Pixie: Okay, how?
Jimmy closed his eyes and looked at the ceiling. Shit, that
was the question.
A.Sinclare: Are you blindfolded?
Pixie: Yup. And handcuffed. MFer.
A.Sinclare: Are you cold?
Pixie: Well, it's a bit chilly.
Jimmy sighed. "She might be going to the Dark, I can't
tell."
He squawked when Anna plucked the phone from his hands.
"Hey!"
She turned the phone around, shot a 'look' at him, then
rummaged around in her jacket pockets. She had a lot of those, and after a few
moments rummaging, she pulled out a doobobber. Well, it looked like a small
holographic projector with two batteries duct taped to the side. A
mini-computer was welded under the projector and a dangling cable strung out
from under the casing of the mini-computer.
It looked like something McGuffin would build.
Anna plugged the cable into the phone, tapped a button on
the mini-computer, and a fuzzy, three dimensional maze. In the center of the
glittering greenish maze was a glowing blue-white dot, and a few corridors away
from that dot was a red dot – which flashed and winked invitingly. It didn't
move for a few moments, then started – tracking through corridors in quick,
jagged motions. Anna handed the phone to Jimmy.
Pixie: moving, J. typing hard.
A.Sinclare: Don't focus on typing. We'll find you.
Pixie: actually idea I
The red dot vanished and a image showed up on the phone. It
said: Pixie has disconnected.
The plastic click of the phone closing sounded painfully
final to Jimmy's ears.
Anna sighed. "Let's go."
She started jogging down the corridor, heading for the
nearest right turn, shoving the apparatus back into one of her infinitely deep
jacket pockets.
Jimmy hurried after her. "Okay, what do-"
"Shh!" She hissed, pausing at the corner and
glancing around it. She cocked her head...and Jimmy heard the faint sound of
motion.
Anna glanced at him, then jerked her head in the direction
of that sound.
They were two corridors closer when the sound of a SNAP and
a "ARGH!" came. That snap had been metallic and the argh came from
Pix!
There she was, running down the corridor, her arms still
tied behind her back. Something was strange about her head, but Jimmy didn't
have time to notice that. He shouted, hand waving: "This way!"
Anna drew a cheapo revolver and started to pop off shots.
The shots made weird sploch noises rather than the normal bang Jimmy was used
to hearing from guns. Six green globs slapped against the walls, marking off a
circle around the middle of the corridor. One after the other, the globs stared
to grow, till most of the corridor was covered with the greenish guck,
dribbling and dripping from the ceiling. Like a giant's tissue after a bad
cold. The distinct smell of acid wafted through the corridor. Jimmy realized,
quite suddenly, that he didn’t want to see anything that wasn’t build out of
Harbinger metal touch that green goop.
"Now run," Anna said.
The Xorquin, stuck on the other end of all the green, glared
at them as they rushed away.
###
"By the...oh...I'm going to kill that son of a
bitch!"
"It doesn't hurt as much as it looks," Pix said,
her voice brave. Jimmy carefully ran his fingers along her hairline, face set
with worry. He felt the smooth base of her left antenna, then a jagged edge-
"I'm going to kill him!" He growled, softly,
wincing as his finger caught on a jagged bit of metal. "He just sapped
them off!?"
Pix nodded. Jimmy slid his hand down to her cheek...put her
face up. She looked into his eyes. She blurred, suddenly and Jimmy blinked away
the tears, sniffling. "I was so worried." Talking around the boulder
that sat on his chest was hard. It was worth it. Pix put her hand on his wrist,
stroking his skin. Jimmy slid his palm down...shivered.
Her skin was so smooth.
Pix slid forward and Jimmy noticed a line of red on her
cheek. Blood from his pointer finger, sliced open on the jagged end of her
broken antenna. His fingers brushed over her ear, then slid into the back of
her hair. She moved forward, pushing forward with her back foot. Breath hot.
Her nose bumped into his nose. Pix flinched back and Jimmy's
arm dropped.
She turned a bright red. "Uh, what..." She looked
and saw his bleeding finger. "Ah! Your finger."
"S'nothing," Jimmy muttered.
But the moment was broken. A bumped nose, the electric
feeling of her skin, and that look in her eyes...all jumbled up...
Jimmy had no idea how he managed to stand still with all
these thoughts tumbling through his head. Say you love her. Tell her how the
thought of her being kidnapped or worse, how it had made his heart stop
working, made it hard to breathe. Say SOMETHING!
"Ahem."
Pix, being Pix, didn't move an inch. She just turned her
head and glared at Anna. "Ahem yourself, we're talking here."
Anna sighed and pointed at her own wrist. She didn't
actually have a watch, but the meaning was clear. Time.
Pix sighed. Anna turned back around and started walking
slowly.
"I guess we'd bet-"
Pix grabbed the front of his shirt, turned her head this
time, and slammed her lips into his. Jimmy's teeth bumped against his lips and
her tongue slid into his mouth. His eyes went very wide, even as hers went very
closed.
Five seconds and ten eternities later, she let him go and
stepped back. She was panting, face flushed. Her left eye opened. Jimmy stared
at her.
"Okay," she said.
"Iwasdumbforbeingmadandumlet'sneverdothatagain."
Jimmy nodded, unable to speak. Pix nodded back at him, her
two front teeth hooked over her bottom lip.
"Could...you...say that again slower?" Jimmy
asked. Pix opened her mouth.
"AH-HEM."
"Right." Pix took Jimmy's hand and dragged him
after her.
###
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Friday, September 5, 2014
E.L.F: Chapter Three
Author's Note: Whoa, had a really long week. Very tiring. Sorry for the delay!
Chapter 3: The Runners
"And then he realizes, he hadn't grabbed the lubricant but the paint
varnish!"
"Oh,
that's...hahahowww!" Jimmy looked over his shoulder, trying to look
horrified around the laughter. Pix giggled, the light from her eyes dimming
slightly as they narrowed. She was using her cute, scrunched up nose
expression, he just knew it. Normally that made her look as innocent as clean
water- now, since he could only see her eyes, it had only a fraction of its
normal effects. "That's really...I mean...ow! That's just wrong!"
"Yes, but it also made you
laugh."
Jimmy supposed she was right and
conversation trickled off for the moment – Jimmy just smiling and Pix shaking
her head. But, unlike a normal conversational silence, this time, the
oppressive silence of the darkened corridors returned. It pressed down on their
ears, complete and total save for the rasp of the cord through their hands and
the soft sounds their shoes made on the floor.
"I feel a bit cold,"
Pix whispered. Her breath misted in the air, a pinkish fog only barely visible
in the light from her eyes.
"Y-You're not the only one."
Jimmy rubbed at his cord holding hand with his other. A primordial fear of the
dark kept him clinging to the cord. Sure, the rational part of his brain said,
he could probably let go for a while and still find it again. It wasn't like
the cord was going to make a break for it.
His body's only response was the
mute tightening of his knuckles as his fingers wrapped around the cable, tight
enough to imprint the feel of it on his flesh.
Then, Pix stopped. She forgot to
mention this to Jimmy, who kept walking a few steps before she hissed at him.
He looked back at her, and the two pinpricks of her eyes looked far farther
away than he thought they should.
"Listen."
He did so.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Jimmy slipped closer, his free
palm itching. He rubbed it against the zipper over his jacket pocket. He put
his finger to his lips, and Pix's eyes bobbed in a nod. He heard a rustle of
cloth as her hand went to her pocket.
They started forward again and
slowly, but surely, the clicking got louder. And with it: Voices. Some louder
clunks and a single loud clang that echoed down the corridors. Someone yelling,
loud enough for the words to almost be recognizably Rench.
Jimmy paused, then whispered.
“Pix, close your eyes!”
The light from her eyes vanished
and in the total darkness Jimmy felt certainty. There was a dim light coming
from around a corner up ahead. But then Jimmy saw something standing between
him and that light. He opened his mouth to speak.
"Stand perfectly
still," a voice growled from the darkness. There was another soft click
and blinding light slammed into Jimmy's eyes. He yelped, throwing up his hands.
A palm pushed into his shoulder, spinning him around and slamming him against
the wall, cheek mashing against the alarmingly cold metal. He hissed in pain,
but kept his hands up.
"And you, freeze," the
voice snapped. Pix must have moved. Please,
please, please don't be heroic, Jimmy thought. The thug snapped out a thin
bar of metal – illuminated by the harsh light of the flash light, a light that
almost obscured the greenish laser-light that flickered out of the bar and
swept Jimmy’s body. Once the bar finished its scan, the thug snapped it shut, and
that faint light vanished. "Stay right there."
Pix's face pressed against the
wall right in front of Jimmy's, illuminated by the harsh white light of the
guard's flashlight. He looked at her. Her thug – there were enough to check
them both – had foregone the scan for something more intimate. Pix glared at
nothing in particular, her lips set in a thin line. The guard behind her
grunted, then stepped back and away from her. Pix glared over her shoulder at
him.
"Okay, turn around."
They did so. Jimmy looked at his
feet, blinking away tears, wanting to rub at the blazing pain in his cheek
where the upper layer of skin had been taken off by the wall.
The guard lowered his flashlight,
which was taped to the barrel of a stocky and effective looking gun- Jimmy
couldn't tell what kind it was, but it had a kind of junky, humanish
functionality too it- and looked at Jimmy and Pix. He had a square face, marred
by a single scar running diagonally across his forehead, over his nose, and
ending in his cheek. A pair of thoroughly ridiculous looking goggles sat on his
forehead, glinting in reflected light. Wires ran from the circular bits to
power packs that would sit right above his ears.
"Hands behind your
heads," The guard said. Then he reached for Pix and Jimmy took half a step
forward, wanting to do something. A boot to the shin stopped any of that,
helped by the fact that the boot had a smart-metal tip, which added oomph to
the impact that normal smart-cloth wouldn’t have. The guard glared at Jimmy,
then grabbed Pix by her right antenna, jerking her head around.
"Hey!" She said, but he
didn't try and snap it off like some bullies at school had. No, he tried
twisting it like a screw driver and she yelped, in pain.
"You're an A-3 model,
eh?"
Pix glared at him. Jimmy rubbed
at his shin, then looked up. "Yes! Don’t hurt her!"
Pix glared at Jimmy. Jimmy looked
at her, desperately, then at the thug, who twisted the antenna again.
She gasped. "Yes! I'm an
A-3.! Let me go!”
"Hurm." The guard tapped a small ear bud in his ear. "Strelock
here. Found two kids."
He listened to some response in his earbud. "Yeah, you heard me.
Kids. One looks like a snotty punk and the other's an E.L.F, an A-3...no, you
can only take them off A-4s and A-5s. Eeeh, if the computers do anything wonky,
we'll just shred her, and I don't think her boyfriend would like that."
Jimmy could swear Pix almost opened her mouth to say, 'He's not my
boyfriend.'
She refrained, eyes glancing to that gun.
The guard, Strelock, nodded, then brought his gun up. "In
front."
Jimmy and Pix did so, hands still on the backs of their head. Jimmy
wondered how long it would take till his arms started to cramp up, and if
they'd let him put them down. Probably not. He glanced at Pix. She tried for a
smile and gave him a thumbs up. An oddly positioned one, but a thumbs up none
the less. Jimmy didn’t feel particularly comforted, for some reason.
They came around the corner and into a fully lit room. It was about the
size of a blitzball arena, minus the nets, the water, the floating goal posts
and the stands for people to watch from. Instead, it was stacked full with
crates, most of them opened to show what lurked within: Nasty looking shredder
rounds, black tipped and spiny. Softly glowing spheres that might have been
batteries or plasma capsules. Black cubes, piled neck high in huge piles –
hunks of nano-ammo for multiguns.
Around the ammo sat all the guns that they went into. Guns built by
humans were obvious: They appeared in most of the video games Jimmy played. The
other ones, less so. He recognized the sleekness of Xorquin weapons, having had
a sudden and intimate meeting with at least two of them, though those memories
were blurred and filled with bowel-clenching terror. But there were also guns
that looked less built than grown; guns without triggers, guns with handles for
obviously inhuman appendages...
Jimmy snapped his attention from the guns and crates to the people moving
them onto a flotilla of rather odd vehicles. Squat, square and mounted with a
small cargo area, their only means of propulsion seemed to be four electric
wheels and their only means of guidance were a few thin strips of sensetape. A
few were already loaded with crates, one crate per vehicle. Jimmy realized what
was going on a moment before one of the armed thugs working to load them tapped
at some augmented reality interface only he could see and the cart whirred off,
shooting out of the lit area and into the cold, dark corridors beyond.
The pieces clicked together a second later. No one patrolled the outer
corridors, and robot driven cargo containers could keep pushing, even when they
got right up to the corridors that ran along the very skin of Harbinger itself, where the insulation failed and humans
(and most other races) froze to death in seconds.
The thugs themselves were an eclectic affair: Two Xorquin, five Yetel
that looked like they were part of the same queen brood, at least fifteen
humans. Some were wiry and pale, others were thick and pale, but all were
wrapped in synthetic furs. One had a dagget on a leash, the cybernetically
enhanced fenine snuffling at the floor. It noticed Jimmy and Pix and started
barking, its mini-antennas flashing. Pix flinched and glared at it.
But the oddest of all the people were the two talking the loudest. Jimmy
had to bite his lip hard to not smile...but it was really hard to not smile
(even in a situation like this) when you see a grown woman having a one sided
argument with a cat.
It was harder still, when the side doing all the shouting was the cat.
"Listen, Anna!" the cat said.
"I know this is your route, but Jack wants the Yetel guns sold here, not
in Tortuga."
Anna shrugged.
The cat hissed, tail curling above its backside. "You're a terrible
businesswoman, Anna. Doing this will only tick Jack off. He'll revoke your
business contract, and then where will we be?"
Anna shrugged.
"By the Architects." The cat paused as one of its henchmen, a
Xorquin that managed to look downright apologetic, picked up the crate it was
sitting on and loaded it up onto the second to last cart, which whooshed off
through the door. The cat leaped off before the cart started moving and
continued to walk along the floor, somehow still managing to look haughty and
self-assured. Anna followed the cat, hands in her jacket pockets, her own tail
dragging the ground.
Tail?
The cat reached Jimmy and Pix, craning its head up to look at them.
"At least you've got good security," it said, sounding
grudging.
The cat started to walk in circles in front of Jimmy before deciding to
climb its way up a crate that was set nearby. Its claws missed the purchase,
the crate being quite smooth. Anna stepped over, picked it up and set it down
on the crate.
"Don't do that!" the cat said. Then, rounding on Jimmy, it
snarled: "What are you laughing at?"
"I'm not laughing," Jimmy said, hastily. He pinched the back of
his head with one of his fingers, trying to stop the giggles that kept trying
to escape. It was less obvious than biting his lip.
The cat narrowed its eyes, then shrugged. “All right then, who are you,
and what are you doing here?"
Jimmy glanced at Pix. Pix shrugged.
"I'm Jimmy," Jimmy said. Being the son of a famous, top-level cryptanalyst
and an even more famous, Galaxy Prize winning diplomat might not be the best
thing to be at this time. "Jimmy, uh, Serbek."
Pix groaned audibly and Jimmy wanted to kick himself. Serbek!?
"Of course you are. And I'm Tlessia. Tlessia Berdinand.” Her voice –
the name made her gender clear enough - dripped with sarcasm. “Next time you
try thinking up a fake last name, don't pick one of the most famous actors of
the last hundred years.”
"Sorry," Jimmy said. Lying just wasn't his strong suite.
"I'm Jimmy Leonite."
Tlessia nodded. Then she did the most adorable double take in the world.
"Leonite, as in James Leonite? James Leonite Junior?! That Leonite?"
"Uh..."
Tlessia looked at Anna. "Anna, get the 3V!"
Anna shrugged and, with the air of long suffering, she walked to the side
of the chamber which had been turned into a makeshift living area. That was
where most of the light and heat came from: A string of mini-sunlamps and a set
of bed rolls. Nestled between some of those was a portable 3V set, wired to a
local mesh transmitter, which itself was hooked to the wire cable that Jimmy
and Pix had been following.
Tlessia sat down next to the 3V and pressed parts of it with her paws. It
turned on and the cat looked directly into the 3V, some internal augmentation
allowing her to change the channels and sweep through the news feeds until she
found what she needed. The feed showed a stern looking human (most likely a
digital construction) reading directly to the screen.
"Today, the Leonite family remains in shock as their home was
destroyed by a sudden, shocking terrorist attack," the newscaster said. “As
of yet, no one has taken responsibility for the attack, though we know a
Xorquin-" a fuzzy image, 2d, of the Xorquin looking to the side, shredder
blazing dramatically away at some police cars. "-is involved. The location
of James Leonite Junior, the son of famed diplomat-"
Tlessia turned the 3V off and looked at Jimmy. "Looks like we've got
ourselves a rich boy." She beamed, her tail lashing from side to side with
excitement. “Purrfect for a hostage.”
"Don't do hostages," Anna said. It was the first thing she had
said in Jimmy's presence, and her voice took him aback. It was a kind of
breathy 'pretty' voice that you imagined super models had.
"Oh be quiet you!" Tlessia scowled at her.
Anna shrugged.
Tlessia sighed and laid down on her paws, looking at Jimmy's chest.
"Hmmmm."
"Well-" Jimmy started.
"Shut up."
Jimmy did as Anna did, and shrugged.
###
The last of the crates rattled off. Jimmy and Pix celebrated by
continuing what they had done for hours: Sit in the corner with a guard aiming
a gun at their heads. The guard himself was a Yetel, so actually, calling him a
him might have been wrong. Yetel were four foot three inches of walking bug:
Glittering black carapace, with the buzzing wings of a fly, all topped by the
elongated head of a wasp. Really, though, Jimmy was a bit more disturbed by the
rifle aimed almost perpetually at either his or Pix's head. Pix dealt with it
by fiddling with her lighter. Jimmy dealt with it by...actually, he wasn’t sure
he was dealing with it.
"Can we talk?" Pix asked, looking at the thug. The Yetel, like
anyone who worked with other races, wore a translator of some kind. This one
was a cruddy little bracelet model, but it had a wire that ran up to the side
of Yetel's head, and from the tilt he put to his head the translator must have
worked.
The Yetel nodded.
"Okay." Pix looked at Jimmy. "Is it just me or is this the
worst Saturday ever?"
Jimmy shrugged. "It could be worse."
"Hmm?"
"We could be dead." He smiled.
Pix's laugh didn't even have half a heart behind it. She flipped her
lighter open, then closed.
The gunrunners closed the door that the carts had gone through. One of
them ambled over and sat down near Jimmy and Pix. He stuck his hands near the
sun-lampacks onp to warm them, before reaching into the pile of personal
belongings and pulling out a small computer with a creased screen that he
slapped onto the wall, angled away from Jimmy and Pix. He set his keyboard
input onto his knees and started tapping away. He whistled, glancing at his
boss.
Anna trotted over, looked at the screen, and nodded.
The man seemed to take this well. He picked at the corner of the paper
screen, peeled it away, folded it till it could fit in his pocket. He and some
other gunrunners started to pack everything but the transmitter up, rolling
bedrolls up, shoving them into packs, hoisting packs onto their backs.
Soon, they were all ready to go, all of them except for the Yetel who had
his gun trained on Jimmy and Pix.
"Hey, K'z'k!" One of the gunrunners shouted. "Get your
shit together."
K'z'k stood up, grabbed his stuff, then left Jimmy and Pix behind with
nary a glance backwards. Tlessia padded over. "Come on," she said.
"We're taking you away."
"Away where?" Pix asked.
"Weren't your hands supposed to be behind your head?" Tlessia
asked, pointedly, before turning and padding away.
Jimmy and Pix looked at the ceiling, then put their hands behind their
heads, trudging behind the gunrunners, who were filing out of the room through
an as of yet unused third door. Great. The vain hope the Xorquin would show up
and the two of their enemies would kill each other fizzled in Jimmy's brain.
That might have been for the best, Jimmy thought. After all, a crossfire
was never fun in a video game, and those were designed to be fun.
"Hey, Pix, is it bad that most of the survival tips my brain is
giving me are coming from video games?"
"Yes Jimmy. Yes it is."
"Well,
it's the best brain I have."
"Get
a new one then." Pix shrugged.
Someone
shushed them, and as most of the people who could shush them were carrying guns
and looked grumpy, the two teenagers shushed.
Darkness
made the walk infinitely long and infinitely miserable. After a while, Jimmy
took his hands from behind his head. He reached out and found Pix's hand. She
squeezed. He smiled, and then moved slightly closer to her, the cold settling
down around them, despite the surrounding bodies that walked around them. As
they walked, he had time to think.
What
were these corridors for, anyway? And what had that room been for? Most of the
places Jimmy had been on Harbinger – that is, the grand total of two – had some
kind of purpose. City-18, where humanity had made its smelly home, was built
over a big pumping station where all the garbage and junk got sent, recycled,
then sent back out. And the Council Chambers...he didn't remember much of those
when Dad had him there.
He'd
been six years old, and Dad had been allowed to bring his family up for a
visit. It had been all gleaming white and smooth corridors and strange rooms
filled with odd things Jimmy only remembered as abstract shapes and smudges.
Those impressions, combined with what he had read on the mesh, formed into a
ramshackle concept. The Council Chambers were a control room for the entirety
of Harbinger.
Then
any and all thoughts about anything but the here and now were broken up into
tiny pieces. The gunrunners went around a corner and suddenly Jimmy felt as
though he were in a bigger room, far bigger. A sunlamp whirred to life, slowly,
coils warming to a red blaze. The room was bathed in light, gleaming from every
hard surface. The gunrunner holding the sunlamp jumped up and stuck it as high
as he could get it before baking away, rubbing his palms.
The
left side of the room was stacked to the ceiling with the oddest things Jimmy
had seen. They were obviously native to Harbinger as they had that unmistakable
alien quality to them. And not just alien as in non-human, but alien as
completely and utterly unlike anything anyone would build. At least, anyone
Jimmy knew about.
The
objects in question looked like slightly tapered cylinders, made of some
material that looked like it might have been copper but probably wasn't. The
tops were rounded, like a dome, and from each dome thrust an arm with a dark
blue lens on the end. There had to be at least fifty of them, all jammed into
the left side of the room. Silent. Waiting.
Jimmy
shivered, despite the sunlamp warming the room up to the point where his every
breath didn't make his lungs feel like pincushions.
"Okay,
set up the transmitter!" Tlessia shouted. The gunrunners glanced at one
another. Jimmy wondered how often they did this. From the whispers and muttered
conversations, he'd say no.
"What's
going on?" Pix asked. Tlessia snapped her teeth.
"Both
of you, stay quiet, or I'll have to point guns at you again."
Jimmy
sighed and crossed his arms over his chest, then raised both eye brows at Pix.
She smiled.
"It
could be worse," she whispered when Tlessia went over to the transmitter,
which had been wheeled behind them by one of those automated carts. "They
could have been Reavers."
"Reavers
don't exist."
"They
might soon," Pix scowled suddenly. "I might have to eat
someone."
Jimmy's
stomach growled loudly. Tlessia sighed, then jerked her tail at one of her
gunrunners. "Get them some food."
And
so, Jimmy and Pix watched the gunrunners set up while munching those mealy,
cardboard tasting protein bars. Pix tried cooking one with her lighter. It
didn't work.
The
gunrunners didn't even bother taking the transmitter off the cart. They just
hooked the computer up to it, then wheeled it on over to Jimmy and Pix. A
webcam glinted like an evil cyclopean eye from the top of the computer, turning
it into some kind of vicious ransom device. Tlessia, who sat beside it, sighed.
"Okay, this is going to be kinda lowfi, but it'll be enough proof for your
parents, right?"
"Right."
Jimmy felt his stomach clench. Great, they were being ransomed. Well, at least
they weren't-
Two
gunrunners aimed their guns at him.
Great,
they were being ransomed and aimed guns at. Guns aimed at. Have guns aimed at.
Jimmy shook his head, closed his eyes and forced his knees to stop shaking.
When he opened them, he hoped to the Architects and to any Gods that may or may
not exist that he looked as tough and as capable as his dad did when he was
talking.
"Now,
don't say anything." Tlessia gestured to Anna, who sighed.
"Don't
do hostages," Anna said, arms crossed over her chest.
"Anna,
I love you to death, but your sudden attack of conscience is not helping our
fiduciary crisis!" Tlessia's tail slapped the side of the transmitter,
then the side of the laptop.
Jimmy
glanced at Pix. She tapped her foot and looked bored. Jimmy just wished he
could look so uncaring about the prospect of being surrounded by a bunch of
possibly bloodthirsty gunrunners. Her hands were in her pockets. For once, Jimmy
wished he had a talisman like her.
Just
like every other time Pix put on a brave, or in this case, bored face. Most of
those times had ended with at least one them getting punched. Or at least shoved
around.
"Now,
get in front of the camera," Tlessia pointed with her paw. "And put
on your evil face."
Anna
looked at the ceiling, then stepped in front of the laptop. A blue light
flicked on next to the webcam. She pulled a pistol from her rumpled jacket and
aimed it vaguely at Jimmy and Pix. "I am Anna Hellborn, and I found these
two stumbling where they shouldn't."
Hellborn!?
Jimmy's strong facade crumbled into sheer shock. These just weren't any
criminals, these were-
Anna
grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him in front of the camera.
"This
is James Leonite Jr. And if you people in the government want to see him alive,
then send us a message on this transmission stream. Broad beam it at
coordinates-" Tlessia held up a paw, three claws extended. "Three
by...four...by five five. Er. Fifty five.
The
webcam shut off and Anna sighed, holstering her gun.
"Nice
one, Anna." Tlessia nosed the laptop off.
Anna
shrugged.
###
After
the initial terror of being captured by gunrunners – gunrunners run by Anna
Hellborn of all people - and held for ransom subsided, Jimmy found he was just
bored. He couldn't talk to Pix without someone glaring at him. He couldn't play
video games, he had no books, and they just sat in the sparse room and did
nothing.
Well,
he and Pix did nothing. The gunrunners amused themselves by talking, playing
cards, and patrolling.
Then,
what felt like an hour (but was probably more like half an hour) later Anna did
something that seemed uncharacteristic. Well, uncharacteristic based off what
Jimmy had heard about her. Of course, what he had read directly conflicted with
how she acted in person, but still...
Anna
said something without being prompted. "I don't like this."
Tlessia,
who was busy walking in circles around the laptop, tail lashing and ears
twitching at every noise, looked at her. "Hmm?'
Anna
didn't say anything, hands thrust into her pockets, her tail twitching by her
ankle. It wasn't a fluffy tail. It was more like a rat's tail than anything.
Figures.
Anna
clenched her teeth, her brow furrowing as she did so. Her mouth opened, then
closed, then opened again. This time, words came out. "I don't like
this."
Tlessia
sighed, loudly and dramatically. Jimmy wondered if that cat had practiced being
so over-the-top or if she had been born that way. Had she been born? Was she
even an actual cat? He'd have to ask her when they weren't hostages.
"Anna,
Anna...come over here." Tlessia used her tail to gesture Anna over to the
corner. A conversation followed. Jimmy edged slightly closed and one of the
gunrunners glared at him. He edged slightly farther away.
"Nice
try," Pix whispered. "Fortunately, I can read lips."
"Can
you read catlips?"
Pix
opened her mouth, then closed it with a snap. "Oh shit, you're right.
Well, at least I can read the rattail-"
"Anna."
"She's
a bad guy. I don't care what her name is."
Jimmy
cocked his jaw back and forth, popping the joint. Pix's view of the universe
was somewhat simplistic at times. He said as much and she scowled at him.
"Does
everything have to be all American and complex and stuff?" Pix raised her
light pink eyebrows. "Some things are simple. Someone or other's Razor and
so on."
"Einstein's
Razor." Or was it Kobayashi's?
Pix
cocked her head and her antennas sparked. "Oh, it's Occam's Razor."
Jimmy
nodded. Then.
"Wait…"
His voice dropped to a whisper. Fortunately, the guard wasn't quite looking at
him anymore, his attention drawn by the increasingly loud argument between Anna
and Tlessia.
"Guns
ain't selling anymore!" Tlessia waved her paw in the air.
Anna
grumbled something.
Jimmy
looked at Pix again, resuming his whisper. "You have mesh
connection?"
Pix
nodded, a very small, very mischievous grin touching her lips. That kind of
grin meant one thing and one thing only...okay, two things. But they were not
likely to get their hands on super-soakers right now.
"How?"
Pix
jerked her head towards the transmitter in the back of the room. Jimmy bit his
lip.
"How?"
"Well,
it's technically secure, but that's for information coming in, not going out.
Going out, it's like...it goes to a hypermetric scrambler that will alert them
if anyone unregistered tries to-"
"Okay,
okay." Jargon made Jimmy's head ache. "Never mind. Can you do
things?"
"Hey,
hey!" the guard spoke up. "What are you two little shits talking
about?"
"Feminine
hygiene products?" Pix said, grinning.
What
happened next was so fast Jimmy didn't even believe it had happened till he saw
Pix on the ground, blood welling from a split lip.
He
tried to jump to his feet, but the guard’s pistol was in his hand.
"HEY!"
Tlessia
and Anna's voice cut over the sudden silence. "Phil!" Tlessia bounded
over, Anna right behind her. Jimmy had never seen her so angry, not that he had
seen her very often. "Phil, we're criminals, not savages. KEEP your hands
OFF the hostages!"
Jimmy
stopped paying attention to them, his rage and fear turning instantly into
concern and fear for Pix. He knelt down, but she sat up and pushed him away,
hand to her mouth, eyes closed. "Mmkay," she mumbled.
"They
were planning something!" Phil pointed at the two of them.
The
sound of Anna's gun sliding from its holster was way louder than it should have
been. Jimmy looked up, hand unconsciously sliding to Pix's shoulder. A part of
him noticed how Pix conformed to his body, pressing up against him.
"Then
separate them, you stupid moron." Tlessia snarled. A snarling cat was
usually only threatening when it was a big cat, like a lygon. But somehow,
Tlessia made it work. Phil scowled, then grabbed Jimmy, hauled him to his feet,
and frog marched him to the other side of the room. Phil spun Jimmy around and
pressed him against the wall.
Jimmy
clenched his fists. He barely noticed the pain of his fingernails digging into
his palms. His jaw throbbed as he clenched his teeth so hard he tasted blood,
blood from the tiny bit of his cheek caught between his molars. He felt like he
was about to snap, snap and...
And
what? There was a gun aiming at his chest. A nasty, brutish gun that could drop
him dead on the grating beneath his feet.
He
forced his hands open. It was the hardest thing he had done. Phil's grin had a
cockeyed slant to it, like he wasn't quite…present. Like he wasn’t quite here.
Well
of course he wasn't quite here! Jimmy had never seen a crazy person. Well, the
Xorquin was crazy (but who could tell with aliens?) But this guy, Phil, was
crazy. Human crazy.
"Don't
like what I did to your girlfriend, do you?" The smile got wider.
Jimmy
touched his tongue to the blood dribbling from the inside of his cheek. Don't
talk. Don't respond. You can't help Pix if you are dead.
"Oh
by the Architects!" Tlessia shouted. "Anna, get Phil on sentry duty,
for crying out..."
Anna
walked over. Phil turned his grin on her. She didn't seem amused. Phil left.
Jimmy
sighed, slowly. "Why?" he asked. "Why him?"
Anna
raised her eyebrows. "Cheap."
For
some reason, that made perfect sense to Jimmy. He turned his eyes to Pix. Pix
looked at him, hand still on her lip.
Jimmy
mouthed two words at her. Pix's cheeks went bright red. Her jaw dropped. Her
eyes went wide. She looked like he had just said "I love you" or...
Oh
wait...
Jimmy
just realized what he had mouthed and started mentally kicking himself.
###
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