The Gift of Darkness, part 8
by pari106
pari106@hotmail.com
http://www.pari106.homestead.com/index2.html
Disclaimer: See Chapter One
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Zack comes back looking for Logan. And finds Sketchy.
Gift of Darkness, part 8
It was dark by the time Zack made it to the district Max had told him; it was the same part of town she
lived in. Albeit a much nastier part of the same part of town that she lived in.
So nasty, in fact, that when he first got there, Zack had to circle around a few times, reading and rereading
the address, just to make sure that he'd gotten it right. When he was certain, he stopped the bike he'd
acquired, looking at the building in front of him with true amusement shining in his eyes.
*This* was Logan Cale's new crib?
Maybe there was a Blue Lady, after all.
Zack pulled the bike in with him, but soon realized that it would never make it up the rickety staircase to
the floor on which Logan's apartment was located.
Weighing his options, Zack looked from his bike…to the staircase…to the mean, shady-looking people
eyeing it, and him,…to his bike…and back.
Then he grabbed the nearest male by the throat and plastered him against the wall. Everyone else scattered
away like goldfish in a Koi pond.
"Look, man, I didn't…I don't…." The young man in Zack's clutches babbled quickly, asserting his
innocence in whatever matter had gotten this unbelievably strong person angry enough to lift him straight
off the floor. Then he realized he probably wasn't innocent at all. The guy still had his bike…so he hadn't
stolen from him. But that didn't mean he hadn't wronged him in some way. Which one of his girlfriends
had a blonde husband? "Oh, Lord…"
Then Zack said,"Shh." He held one finger to his lips, dropped his rather scrawny, squirming captive, and
shoved a couple of hundred dollar bills into the man's hand. Zack wouldn't have approached this guy at
all, if he hadn't noticed him pick-pocketing the old lady standing next to him. Doing so made him less
guilty about scaring the hell out of him.
The man blinked. "Wha…what?"
"There's more where that came from if you watch my bike," Zack said, gesturing to the vehicle behind
him. "But if you don't…"
Zack didn't finish. He didn't have to.
He mounted the stairs to Cale's floor, smiling as he heard the other man squeak behind him.
He really loved playing with the norms.
As Zack neared "Sketchy's" apartment, however, his smile disappeared.
When he'd entered the building, he'd found it funny that Logan would be living here. Mr. High-tech-
master-chef-Eyes-Only had to just love the new accommodations. But Zack didn't find it so funny
anymore. Truth be told, he'd obviously been spending a little too much of his time crashing at Cale's
penthouse. Because suddenly even his admittedly modest, but livable, apartment on the other side of town
had lost its appeal for Zack. If it had ever had one.
Unbidden, Lydecker's voice came to mind. A memory of childhood flashed through Zack's brain. It had
been a night right before one of the X5's training missions and one of his brothers…was it Jack?…hadn't
been able to sleep. He'd gotten the bad mattress. Everybody in the barracks knew about the bad
mattress…and they would secretly pawn it off on the next unlucky sibling anytime it had somehow ended
up in their own living space. Nobody ever complained aloud, of course. They knew better. And it was
probably silly amongst an army of genetically engineered super soldiers, but that mattress was about as
comfortable to sleep on as a rock. Nobody wanted it.
Usually, they'd give it to Max or Tinga. That seemed fair enough – since neither of the two girls slept
much. But, somehow, that night it had gotten itself placed on Jack's bed. Jack, who was the lightest
sleeper of them all. Zack used to wonder if maybe the lab had messed up and thrown some DNA from
something nocturnal into Jack's genetic make-up; the kid just couldn't rest comfortable. Especially not on
the bad mattress. And he had tossed and turned all night, disturbing just about everyone else in the
barracks.
They'd failed their training mission the next day.
And somehow, Zack never knew how because noone, absolutely no one would have told on him, Lydecker
was all over Jack for keeping the other "soldiers" from "performing at peak efficiency". As punishment,
they took Jack's mattress away and he slept on the hard springs of his cot for a week.
Now Zack shook his head, clearing away the unwanted recollections. The incident hadn't been without
total benefit. When they'd finally brought Jack a mattress, it had been a new one. No more lumpy rock for
one of them to have to sleep on.
But that week of Jack's punishment hadn't been worth it, from Zack's point of view. He would have gladly
taken the bad mattress for himself if he'd known it would have prevented that week. Because, sleeping one
space over from Jack, Zack knew his brother hadn't slept at all for those entire seven days. Not a bit. And
he never complained, never fidgeted. He just lay there, like a good little soldier, with his eyes closed. And
Zack could tell, from the rate of Jack's heartbeat, and the sound of his breathing, that he was wide awake.
He went that whole week without any sleep, and yet he'd performed even harder than any of them in their
training activities.
He was so exhausted that, when he finally did get his mattress, he slept so hard they had to slap him to
wake him up in the morning. And ever since then Zack had been the one who didn't sleep well at night.
Because even now, years later, Zack still hurt for his subordinate, his brother, lying there, eyes closed,
suffering for the sake of perfection. He still felt an anger over how he'd been treated. Even now that he
was dead. Asleep forever.
And even now, years later, Zack could still hear Lydecker's voice in his head:
"You think this is a pleasure stay, son?" the general had ranted. "You think you're a guest here? You're a
soldier. You were designed to be a soldier; you were trained to be a soldier. And soldiers don't care about
living conditions. Living is the only condition you need to concern yourself with, you understand me,
mister? Not the state of your mattress. Not the state of your barracks. Not whether or not you've eaten in
the last twelve hours, or even in the last twelve days. Living is what matters. And if a soldier lets any of
those other things distract him from his mission, he won't live to be distracted by them again. You got
me?"
Zack sneered.
'Yeah, I got you, asshole,' he thought. But despite that, he couldn't help looking at the building around
him somewhat differently because of the little flashback.
"…soldiers don't care about living conditions…"
Zack didn't care about living conditions.
But just to show himself, and Lydecker, that he could, he sneered again – this time at the surroundings.
And reveled in his disgust at the place.
Yeah, maybe he'd been crashing a little too often at Cale's penthouse. But maybe that was a good thing.
When Zack finally reached the apartment, the door was wide open, though the lights inside were still off.
He approached it carefully.
Sure, Logan *could* be trying out his new X5 vision, wondering about in the dark – he treated his new
abilities like a fun, new toy – but Zack didn't think so.
Letting his own eyes adjust to the lack of light, Zack entered the apartment. And zeroed in on a lone figure
on the other side of the room: a tall, thin, male who was obviously not Logan. And who was currently
trying to access Logan's laptop computer.
In a flash, Zack was across the room and had the intruder pinned against the wall in an imitation of how
he'd greeted the young man downstairs. But this time Zack wasn't playing.
"Who are you? Where's Logan and Max?" he asked, his hand around the man's throat. He was under the
obvious impression that this person had either somehow harmed or otherwise displaced his sister and her
boyfriend, or that he had waited until his sister and her boyfriend were gone, so that he could try and hack
into Logan's computer. Not something Zack could allow him to do, be it that all the information anyone
could ever want to use against the X5s was probably somewhere in Logan's computer.
The man tried to choke something out, but it didn't sound like an answer.
Zack dragged him up further along the wall.
"All I want to hear from you are two things, understand? One, your name, and the other, a location. And if
I don't like the ones you give me…" he flexed his fingers on the intruder's throat.
Until he suddenly realized that the smaller man was turning blue. And then he lightened his grip.
"I…I said…" the man began to wheeze "I said…I, I can't breathe…jeez…"
Zack blinked. "Oh." And dropped the intruder, who crumpled on the floor.
Sketchy rubbed at his neck. Too concerned with dragging air into his lungs to focus on the shock of the
situation just yet.
Meanwhile, Zack waited.
"Where's Logan and Max?" he asked.
Sketchy knew he wasn't supposed to tell anybody if they asked about Logan. But then, he was expecting
government-looking guys or pissed-off chicks with baseball bats, or something. But this guy didn't have a
chick with him, and government-types didn't wear beaten leather jackets. And he had one hell of a grip.
"I think they're at Crash," he told Zack, without much hesitation.
"Crash?" Zack asked.
"Yeah, you know, the bar. Crash? Pool, beer, the occasional hot girl…but mostly pool and beer." Sketchy
tended to ramble in moments of extreme stress. "I think they're at Crash," he repeated.
And Zack just blinked again. A bar. Manticore is on their asses, Logan's just had his DNA tinkered with,
and they went to a bar?
He wasn't even going to think about it just yet.
"So who are you?" he asked the man he'd nearly strangled.
"I'm Sketchy."
"You're what?"
Sketchy stood, finally, still rubbing his neck. 'Oh, physical violence *and* insults, all in fifteen minutes.
How nice.' Who was this guy, anyhow?
"I said, I'm Sketchy. My name. It's Sketchy."
Zack just stared at him. Then it clicked.
"Oh, you're Sketchy."
The other man nodded, giving him a little hand gesture Zack assumed was an affirmative. It had better
have been an affirmative, or he was going to rip the cocky little prick's hand off. Then he realized he
probably owed the apartment's owner something in the way of 'I apologize for nearly strangling you in
your home.'
"Sorry," is what came out.
And, dropping into a chair, Sketchy gave the guy a look. "Sorry? You almost killed me and all you say is
'sorry' ?"
Zack rolled his eyes at the melodrama, but answered anyhow. "What, you don't think I should be sorry?"
Sketchy snorted.
"So… who are *you* anyhow?" he asked Zack.
If the X5 took offense to being spoken to in the same tone of voice he usually used when speaking to other
people – and he did – he tried not to show it.
"I'm Zack." Then, after a pause. "Max's brother."
This interested Sketchy. "A brother? Max has a brother?" He smiled. "Any sisters I should know about."
Then his smile evaporated under Zack's threatening glower. "I guess not."
Zack sighed, glancing back at the door.
"If you're 'Sketchy', and this is your place, why'd you just leave the door open like that?"
Sketchy shrugged. "I needed some light. It gets dark in here, you know."
Zack frowned. "Don't you have electricity?" This place didn't even have electricity? Oh, that was just too
good. But then, why was Sketchy even messing with the computer?
And then Sketchy was answering, and something in his voice told Zack there was more going on here than
he was saying.
"I…uh…I just don't like using it. You know, high bills and all. Old tight-ass Normal don't pay worth a
shit. So I thought I'd just leave the lights off…let the glow from the hallway drift in…No!"
Then he screamed as Zack turned on a light. And covered his eyes. Beneath it, both his eyes were black
and blue and red-rimmed.
Zack smiled. "You got in a fight." It was a statement, not a question. Funny, he didn't even know this
guy, but for some reason the idea of him fighting amused Zack to no end. Somehow, from Sketchy's
demeanor, Zack sensed he deserved it.
"I got in a fight," Sketchy confirmed. "So can you turn the lights off? Jesus, this hurts like hell, you
know?"
Zack sort of snorted, but he turned the lights off. 'Take a little trip to Manticore, buddy. Then talk to me
about hell.'
Meanwhile, Sketchy was still talking. "It wasn't my fault," he felt the need to clarify. "I told Sylvia…"
Then Zack suddenly realized what it was that seemed most amusing about Sketchy's fight. Those bruises
on his face looked unusually small. As though they'd been made by an unusually small fist.
"You lost a fight to a woman?" he asked.
"I did not lose!" Sketchy insisted. Then he sort of mumbled to himself. "I conceded."
Zack laughed. He really laughed. He kind of liked this kid, after all. Then he sobered a little as he realized
he could hardly consider getting beaten up by a girl as funny. After all, he'd fought Max. He'd let her win,
of course, but still…it wasn't like it took much effort on his part to do so. So he stopped laughing at
Sketchy. Although he doubted his was a case of letting anyone win.
"Maybe I should introduce you to my sisters, after all," he mumbled, but when Sketchy didn't hear him
well, and asked "What?" Zack didn't repeat himself.
He turned to leave.
"Hey? Hey, where are you going?" Sketchy asked, running after.
"To Crash," he tossed over his shoulder. "I don't suppose you're coming?" Then Zack remembered
something.
"What were you doing on Cale's computer, anyway?"
"Oh…uh, that. Yeah. Look do me a favor, and don't…"
Zack just crossed his arms. "My lips are sealed," he deadpanned. And Sketchy slapped him on the
shoulder.
"Hey, thanks, man. I wasn't messin' with anything, you know, I just…" He looked around, then grinned.
"There's not much access to the net now, everything got so fucked after the Pulse. But I hear there's this
site. Man, the chicks on there…"
Zack listened a moment more before leaving. Strike that. This guy was never getting an introduction to
any of his sisters.
by pari106
pari106@hotmail.com
http://www.pari106.homestead.com/index2.html
Disclaimer: See Chapter One
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Zack comes back looking for Logan. And finds Sketchy.
Gift of Darkness, part 8
It was dark by the time Zack made it to the district Max had told him; it was the same part of town she
lived in. Albeit a much nastier part of the same part of town that she lived in.
So nasty, in fact, that when he first got there, Zack had to circle around a few times, reading and rereading
the address, just to make sure that he'd gotten it right. When he was certain, he stopped the bike he'd
acquired, looking at the building in front of him with true amusement shining in his eyes.
*This* was Logan Cale's new crib?
Maybe there was a Blue Lady, after all.
Zack pulled the bike in with him, but soon realized that it would never make it up the rickety staircase to
the floor on which Logan's apartment was located.
Weighing his options, Zack looked from his bike…to the staircase…to the mean, shady-looking people
eyeing it, and him,…to his bike…and back.
Then he grabbed the nearest male by the throat and plastered him against the wall. Everyone else scattered
away like goldfish in a Koi pond.
"Look, man, I didn't…I don't…." The young man in Zack's clutches babbled quickly, asserting his
innocence in whatever matter had gotten this unbelievably strong person angry enough to lift him straight
off the floor. Then he realized he probably wasn't innocent at all. The guy still had his bike…so he hadn't
stolen from him. But that didn't mean he hadn't wronged him in some way. Which one of his girlfriends
had a blonde husband? "Oh, Lord…"
Then Zack said,"Shh." He held one finger to his lips, dropped his rather scrawny, squirming captive, and
shoved a couple of hundred dollar bills into the man's hand. Zack wouldn't have approached this guy at
all, if he hadn't noticed him pick-pocketing the old lady standing next to him. Doing so made him less
guilty about scaring the hell out of him.
The man blinked. "Wha…what?"
"There's more where that came from if you watch my bike," Zack said, gesturing to the vehicle behind
him. "But if you don't…"
Zack didn't finish. He didn't have to.
He mounted the stairs to Cale's floor, smiling as he heard the other man squeak behind him.
He really loved playing with the norms.
As Zack neared "Sketchy's" apartment, however, his smile disappeared.
When he'd entered the building, he'd found it funny that Logan would be living here. Mr. High-tech-
master-chef-Eyes-Only had to just love the new accommodations. But Zack didn't find it so funny
anymore. Truth be told, he'd obviously been spending a little too much of his time crashing at Cale's
penthouse. Because suddenly even his admittedly modest, but livable, apartment on the other side of town
had lost its appeal for Zack. If it had ever had one.
Unbidden, Lydecker's voice came to mind. A memory of childhood flashed through Zack's brain. It had
been a night right before one of the X5's training missions and one of his brothers…was it Jack?…hadn't
been able to sleep. He'd gotten the bad mattress. Everybody in the barracks knew about the bad
mattress…and they would secretly pawn it off on the next unlucky sibling anytime it had somehow ended
up in their own living space. Nobody ever complained aloud, of course. They knew better. And it was
probably silly amongst an army of genetically engineered super soldiers, but that mattress was about as
comfortable to sleep on as a rock. Nobody wanted it.
Usually, they'd give it to Max or Tinga. That seemed fair enough – since neither of the two girls slept
much. But, somehow, that night it had gotten itself placed on Jack's bed. Jack, who was the lightest
sleeper of them all. Zack used to wonder if maybe the lab had messed up and thrown some DNA from
something nocturnal into Jack's genetic make-up; the kid just couldn't rest comfortable. Especially not on
the bad mattress. And he had tossed and turned all night, disturbing just about everyone else in the
barracks.
They'd failed their training mission the next day.
And somehow, Zack never knew how because noone, absolutely no one would have told on him, Lydecker
was all over Jack for keeping the other "soldiers" from "performing at peak efficiency". As punishment,
they took Jack's mattress away and he slept on the hard springs of his cot for a week.
Now Zack shook his head, clearing away the unwanted recollections. The incident hadn't been without
total benefit. When they'd finally brought Jack a mattress, it had been a new one. No more lumpy rock for
one of them to have to sleep on.
But that week of Jack's punishment hadn't been worth it, from Zack's point of view. He would have gladly
taken the bad mattress for himself if he'd known it would have prevented that week. Because, sleeping one
space over from Jack, Zack knew his brother hadn't slept at all for those entire seven days. Not a bit. And
he never complained, never fidgeted. He just lay there, like a good little soldier, with his eyes closed. And
Zack could tell, from the rate of Jack's heartbeat, and the sound of his breathing, that he was wide awake.
He went that whole week without any sleep, and yet he'd performed even harder than any of them in their
training activities.
He was so exhausted that, when he finally did get his mattress, he slept so hard they had to slap him to
wake him up in the morning. And ever since then Zack had been the one who didn't sleep well at night.
Because even now, years later, Zack still hurt for his subordinate, his brother, lying there, eyes closed,
suffering for the sake of perfection. He still felt an anger over how he'd been treated. Even now that he
was dead. Asleep forever.
And even now, years later, Zack could still hear Lydecker's voice in his head:
"You think this is a pleasure stay, son?" the general had ranted. "You think you're a guest here? You're a
soldier. You were designed to be a soldier; you were trained to be a soldier. And soldiers don't care about
living conditions. Living is the only condition you need to concern yourself with, you understand me,
mister? Not the state of your mattress. Not the state of your barracks. Not whether or not you've eaten in
the last twelve hours, or even in the last twelve days. Living is what matters. And if a soldier lets any of
those other things distract him from his mission, he won't live to be distracted by them again. You got
me?"
Zack sneered.
'Yeah, I got you, asshole,' he thought. But despite that, he couldn't help looking at the building around
him somewhat differently because of the little flashback.
"…soldiers don't care about living conditions…"
Zack didn't care about living conditions.
But just to show himself, and Lydecker, that he could, he sneered again – this time at the surroundings.
And reveled in his disgust at the place.
Yeah, maybe he'd been crashing a little too often at Cale's penthouse. But maybe that was a good thing.
When Zack finally reached the apartment, the door was wide open, though the lights inside were still off.
He approached it carefully.
Sure, Logan *could* be trying out his new X5 vision, wondering about in the dark – he treated his new
abilities like a fun, new toy – but Zack didn't think so.
Letting his own eyes adjust to the lack of light, Zack entered the apartment. And zeroed in on a lone figure
on the other side of the room: a tall, thin, male who was obviously not Logan. And who was currently
trying to access Logan's laptop computer.
In a flash, Zack was across the room and had the intruder pinned against the wall in an imitation of how
he'd greeted the young man downstairs. But this time Zack wasn't playing.
"Who are you? Where's Logan and Max?" he asked, his hand around the man's throat. He was under the
obvious impression that this person had either somehow harmed or otherwise displaced his sister and her
boyfriend, or that he had waited until his sister and her boyfriend were gone, so that he could try and hack
into Logan's computer. Not something Zack could allow him to do, be it that all the information anyone
could ever want to use against the X5s was probably somewhere in Logan's computer.
The man tried to choke something out, but it didn't sound like an answer.
Zack dragged him up further along the wall.
"All I want to hear from you are two things, understand? One, your name, and the other, a location. And if
I don't like the ones you give me…" he flexed his fingers on the intruder's throat.
Until he suddenly realized that the smaller man was turning blue. And then he lightened his grip.
"I…I said…" the man began to wheeze "I said…I, I can't breathe…jeez…"
Zack blinked. "Oh." And dropped the intruder, who crumpled on the floor.
Sketchy rubbed at his neck. Too concerned with dragging air into his lungs to focus on the shock of the
situation just yet.
Meanwhile, Zack waited.
"Where's Logan and Max?" he asked.
Sketchy knew he wasn't supposed to tell anybody if they asked about Logan. But then, he was expecting
government-looking guys or pissed-off chicks with baseball bats, or something. But this guy didn't have a
chick with him, and government-types didn't wear beaten leather jackets. And he had one hell of a grip.
"I think they're at Crash," he told Zack, without much hesitation.
"Crash?" Zack asked.
"Yeah, you know, the bar. Crash? Pool, beer, the occasional hot girl…but mostly pool and beer." Sketchy
tended to ramble in moments of extreme stress. "I think they're at Crash," he repeated.
And Zack just blinked again. A bar. Manticore is on their asses, Logan's just had his DNA tinkered with,
and they went to a bar?
He wasn't even going to think about it just yet.
"So who are you?" he asked the man he'd nearly strangled.
"I'm Sketchy."
"You're what?"
Sketchy stood, finally, still rubbing his neck. 'Oh, physical violence *and* insults, all in fifteen minutes.
How nice.' Who was this guy, anyhow?
"I said, I'm Sketchy. My name. It's Sketchy."
Zack just stared at him. Then it clicked.
"Oh, you're Sketchy."
The other man nodded, giving him a little hand gesture Zack assumed was an affirmative. It had better
have been an affirmative, or he was going to rip the cocky little prick's hand off. Then he realized he
probably owed the apartment's owner something in the way of 'I apologize for nearly strangling you in
your home.'
"Sorry," is what came out.
And, dropping into a chair, Sketchy gave the guy a look. "Sorry? You almost killed me and all you say is
'sorry' ?"
Zack rolled his eyes at the melodrama, but answered anyhow. "What, you don't think I should be sorry?"
Sketchy snorted.
"So… who are *you* anyhow?" he asked Zack.
If the X5 took offense to being spoken to in the same tone of voice he usually used when speaking to other
people – and he did – he tried not to show it.
"I'm Zack." Then, after a pause. "Max's brother."
This interested Sketchy. "A brother? Max has a brother?" He smiled. "Any sisters I should know about."
Then his smile evaporated under Zack's threatening glower. "I guess not."
Zack sighed, glancing back at the door.
"If you're 'Sketchy', and this is your place, why'd you just leave the door open like that?"
Sketchy shrugged. "I needed some light. It gets dark in here, you know."
Zack frowned. "Don't you have electricity?" This place didn't even have electricity? Oh, that was just too
good. But then, why was Sketchy even messing with the computer?
And then Sketchy was answering, and something in his voice told Zack there was more going on here than
he was saying.
"I…uh…I just don't like using it. You know, high bills and all. Old tight-ass Normal don't pay worth a
shit. So I thought I'd just leave the lights off…let the glow from the hallway drift in…No!"
Then he screamed as Zack turned on a light. And covered his eyes. Beneath it, both his eyes were black
and blue and red-rimmed.
Zack smiled. "You got in a fight." It was a statement, not a question. Funny, he didn't even know this
guy, but for some reason the idea of him fighting amused Zack to no end. Somehow, from Sketchy's
demeanor, Zack sensed he deserved it.
"I got in a fight," Sketchy confirmed. "So can you turn the lights off? Jesus, this hurts like hell, you
know?"
Zack sort of snorted, but he turned the lights off. 'Take a little trip to Manticore, buddy. Then talk to me
about hell.'
Meanwhile, Sketchy was still talking. "It wasn't my fault," he felt the need to clarify. "I told Sylvia…"
Then Zack suddenly realized what it was that seemed most amusing about Sketchy's fight. Those bruises
on his face looked unusually small. As though they'd been made by an unusually small fist.
"You lost a fight to a woman?" he asked.
"I did not lose!" Sketchy insisted. Then he sort of mumbled to himself. "I conceded."
Zack laughed. He really laughed. He kind of liked this kid, after all. Then he sobered a little as he realized
he could hardly consider getting beaten up by a girl as funny. After all, he'd fought Max. He'd let her win,
of course, but still…it wasn't like it took much effort on his part to do so. So he stopped laughing at
Sketchy. Although he doubted his was a case of letting anyone win.
"Maybe I should introduce you to my sisters, after all," he mumbled, but when Sketchy didn't hear him
well, and asked "What?" Zack didn't repeat himself.
He turned to leave.
"Hey? Hey, where are you going?" Sketchy asked, running after.
"To Crash," he tossed over his shoulder. "I don't suppose you're coming?" Then Zack remembered
something.
"What were you doing on Cale's computer, anyway?"
"Oh…uh, that. Yeah. Look do me a favor, and don't…"
Zack just crossed his arms. "My lips are sealed," he deadpanned. And Sketchy slapped him on the
shoulder.
"Hey, thanks, man. I wasn't messin' with anything, you know, I just…" He looked around, then grinned.
"There's not much access to the net now, everything got so fucked after the Pulse. But I hear there's this
site. Man, the chicks on there…"
Zack listened a moment more before leaving. Strike that. This guy was never getting an introduction to
any of his sisters.