~*The writing has deteriorated! God help me!!!! And yes, it is bassically filler. Oops.*~
"Surprise! Happy birthday!"
Spike rubbed his eyes and looked at the little box next to his
bed that said 10:19. He groaned and rubbed his eyes. Did people
call this early in the morning?
"Ed," he irritably spoke at the camera. "One. It's
ten thirty in the morning."
The camera giggled. Silly Spike, sleeping in as always. "Oops.
Sorry."
"Two, it's not my birthday."
The little girl speaking through the camera "hmed" to
herself as she thought aloud. "Well, Edward hasn't visited
since yesterday, and she figured that if it wasn't Spike's birthday
that it would be someone elses."
Spike gave the survailance device a wary look and Kimari walked
in with the breakfast tray. She followed Spike's gaze and said,
"Oh! Good morning, Edward." The nurse gave the little
bubbly hacker a large but genuine show of her pearly white teeth.
The routine continued as the same. Spike chowed down, Kimari checked
the IVs, his blood pressure, his various injuries, and any part
of him that required mantinence.
She giggled again. "Nurse lady taking good care of Spike
person?"
She proceeded to write down marks on her clipboard. "Spike
is recovering quite nicely and should be with you again in another
two months or so, maybe even less."
"And Faye Faye?"
Both nurse and patient looked questionately at the little lense
in the cieling.
"Lady Valentine is staying in room 5C."
Kimari's eyes widened. "Oh dear." She looked down at
Spike who was concerned. "It's Nancy's first patient. She
was complaining about her..."
Spike was now amused. "You gave Faye an intern?"
"Uh-oh," said Edward. Kimari threw her confused look
onto Spike who answered, "let's just leave it at uh-oh."
He sucked the last drops of his disgusting concentrated orange
juice and placed it back on the tray. Kimari piled it onto her
cart and was almost on her way when Ed stopped her.
"Wait a minute, nurse lady!" She stopped and turned.
"Yes, Ed?"
"Is it YOUR birthday?"
She nodded your head. "No, sorry. You missed mine by about
three weeks." She went about her nurse ways out the door.
The sunlight streaming through the blinds
streaked across her closed eyelids and woke her. Too lazy to turn
over and look at her clock, she looked at her wrist watch, and
read 10:43, July Seventh, 2071. Sighing, she put her arm down
and mumbled, "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you..."
Her evil tempered nurse seemed to know excactly when she would
wake up and came in with her breakfast provisions. Faye eyed her
minut box of grain, pint of skim milk and little juice box and
said simply, "No." After a relatively short silence
that would have seemed so if it hadn't been for the tension filled
the room, she spoke again. "There's is no way you get payed
if I die of malnutrition. Now, I don't wanna see your skinny little
self back in here unless its carrying a meal, for Christ's sake."
The nurse gave her a look like a lost puppy that had just been
slapped. "God Dammit, this is your job and I will throw a
huge fit like your stupid little brain has never seen if you don't
do it. Now get out." The door slammed, and Faye was appauled
by the service. She fell back and restarted her singing. "Happy
birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear..."
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Joey, happy birthday to yooooooOOOOOOO!!!" Faye, mother and father sang Joey into his fifth year of life. And a glorious year it would be. His big sister had already taught him how to read so kindergarden would breeze by. He looked at his five candles, (with one in the middle for good luck,) thought hard about the new video game he wanted, and blew with all his might. The family clapped and he was smothered by his parents and sister. He smiled, his cheeks turning red where they were kissed. Faye broke him apart from the massive clump of people and sat him apon her shoulders. She pranced out the back door and into the yard, not a safe distance away from the pool.
Without any warning, Joey's chariot plunged into the blue water, and only by instinct did he plug his nose in time. They came up, laughing with glee, splashing each other. They made their way to the shallow end where Joey could stand and had a headstand contest, played some water basket ball, (both of which Faye lost horribly,) and smiled at their parents, who had been taping the enitre time.
Once again, Faye Russo morphed back into Faye Valentine, and got up from her restraining bed, adorned her hotpants, and limped down to information.
"Doctor Baquis?"
Faye shifted weight back to the other foot, her damaged one pleading
with her to go back to bed. "You heard me lady."
The secretary ignored the rude woman and opened up a series of
spreadsheets. "Ma'am, he's completely booked up for the rest
of the week."
Faye's expression was exasperation. "Well, there has to be
sometime you can fit me in with him. I'm his patient, you know."
The woman checked again. "He has a fifteen minute slot at
twelve where he usually doesn't like to be bothered, but I'll
do my best to get you into his office. I'll notify your nurse
once I find anything out."
Faye allowed herself to breath again, didn't thank the woman,
and limped to the elevator.
The door coming from the core opened and Edward bade farewell to Spike. She turned to Jet who had been withdrawn since there little adventure the day before. She gave him a sheepish smile.
"I'm only going to say one thing,
and I'm only going to say it once." He was silent for a moment,
letting his anger sink into the young girl's mind. "From
now on, Edward, you are to wear a seatbelt. Understood?"
She nodded her head, ashamed. Jet felt a tinge of remorse.
"How do you want your eggs?"
Faye's mass of eggs that lay waiting for her in her room didn't seem any more appetizing than her orginal breakfast option, but her hunger pushed the fact that were runny and gross to the back of her mind and she attacked the food like a starved lioness. It had been shoveled into her stomach within seconds and chased down twice as quickly by a plastic cup of water. Faye smacked her lips, but not with satisfaction. Tap water. She pushed the tray to the foot of her bed and climbed back in, her foot sobbing at her to please get off it. She put the TV back on and switched between the four channels that it got over and over again, hoping to find something halfway amusing. She stopped as the news came onto one of the networks.
"Hello, I'm Sarah Whitman, CNSBC
news, and we are now following up on the syndacate action that
has been occuring more and more frequently. I have here with me
a man who doesn't wish to reveal his identity, so we are calling
him 'Fred.' Hello, Fred."
A shadow sat in the chair opposite the bubbly reporter and replied
with an unnaturally deep voice, "Hello, Sarah."
"Now let's cut straight to the chase, Fred. You used to be
in the syndacate, right?"
He nodded at her. "Yes, that is correct. I was in a group
that was dismantled awhile ago called 'The Scorpions.'" He
crossed his legs.
"What made you leave the syndacate? Was it all the people
that you knew your organization was killing? Was it out of fear
for life?"
Faye was almost green from disgust. These network assholes had
no idea what a syndacate even was. "I got into a rather unpleasant
brawl with some bigshot from a very powerful group, and, well,
I was tracked down and nearly killed."
Sarah looekd briefly down at her notes. "It says here that
you were six weeks in recovery."
"That is accurate, ma'am."
"So you left out of fear? Were you cast out?"
He leaned back in his seat more, the shaded figure sent chills
down Faye's spine, though he was lightyears away on Venus. "Neither.
I had a moment of clarity, as alcoholics put it. My first week
in the hospital, I was in the bathroom, when I noticed that there
was an imprint of a shoe on my face. It hit right then, that what
I was doing was wrong. I vowed right then and there to have nothing
to do with the syndacate ever again in my life."
The newcaster sat back now. "But you do now. You have agreed
to provide us with information about the recent attacks, right?"
He nodded and said simply, "yes."
She looked down at her notes again. "One of the more recent
attacks occured in a bar, a civilian owned business, correct?"
"Correct."
Faye's stomach rumbled and lacking the human contact she so deprately
wanted, told it to shut up. "The bar tender was shot and
killed and one of the patrons was also injured, but we know nothing
of him or of his condition. He is assumed to be safe, though no
hospitals in the area reported any gunshot wounds. What do you
know about this attack?"
The shadow thought awhile and in his computerized voice replied,
"Well, my own syndacate was disolved years ago, which I mentioned
earlier in this interview, so I don't know any intimate details,
but the way the attack was planned, it sounded like the Red Dragons
to me. That's the way they operate; they send in a huge mob of
people, most of which will die, and the worthy ones that come
back alive are promoted."
The woman already had an answer ready. "But there were only
two customers in the bar according to survailance tapes that were
found. Why would they send so many people?"
He had to answer carefully. "I have not seen those illeged
tapes, so my guess is that the person was very important and they
didn't want to take chances."
The woman beamed. A way to make the interview longer always pleased
her. "I will ask the network to play the tapes now for you
and the public as well. Let's get going on that, please."
Two painfully familiar figures sat, lonely in the bar. That was her fault; she had caused this havoc with that insanely rich home, with only the skeletons of tacky statues remaining. Spike and Jet saw their shadows in the glass, and got out of the way as quickly as possible. The man tending to the bar was not quite as agile and was sent to the afterlife. She watched in horror at the multitude of people shooting at her dearest friends as if it were all new to her. The shooting continued, but Spike and Jet had dissapeared behind a pinball machine shortly after a bullet entered the latter's lower thigh. A figure cloaked in black approached them. A few minutes went by and Jet leaning onto Spike exited the bloody scene, leaving the man in black to do his work. The tape had ended once the one single soul had finished off all the others and dashed out of the broken window leading to the street of cowering citizens. Faye shut off the television This was where it had all started, how she had almost lost Spike forever. And in a sense, she felt that he was gone....
The door knocked and didn't wait for her
acknowledgement to open. Her prissy little nurse entered with
two crutches and said, "Dr. Baquis will see you now, Miss
Valentine."
Faye snickered to herself; she had won the battle. Without a word,
Faye took the crutches under her arms and followed the red headed
nuisance into the elevator.
