The Last Word is Always Goodbye
Chapter Two: Lost Beloved

As it turned out, Brent was not very impressed by Amy's plan for the wolves. By the end of her explanation, he was staring at her with something near to malice.

Amy glanced up to see his reaction, but quickly glanced down again. "Or, some colour you like," she finished.

"I just want to know one thing, before I start saying things. One thing. You are serious?" he said, staring at her forehead as though doubtful of anything behind it.

"Well, yes, of course," Amy replied, slightly defensive, but mostly nervous. "I, at least, wouldn't mind a bit of extra money. Perhaps your paycheck has a few more zeros on it than mine does, but-"

"After working here for a decent while, most people get rich. You never get out long enough to spend anything. But then most go crazy and everything they have is confiscated by Downstairs again. - Have you read your contract? Wish I was the lawyer that wrote that thing up. - Which is not the point. " He paused. "The point was what again?"

"Wolves." Amy shrugged. "Or something concerning them."

"Right." He glared at her again, but whatever he was about to say was interrupted by a loud:

[BEEEEEEEEEP!]

Amy jumped and squealed in surprise, but Brent just calmly walked towards the display. It looked like it had been salvaged off a computer from the eighties. His face didn't soften; he just aimed the glare towards the screen.

Encouraged by this shift in his anger, Amy crept closer to him until she was facing the screen as well, but she still couldn't quite make out the words. This probably had more to do with the beige glare of the screen than any need for glasses. Amy squinted. Until now, she had thought only books yellowed with age.

"Oh, look," Brent said. "Her daddy wants her to marry someone she doesn't love, so she runs away. Haven't heard that one before. You?"

"Very original," Amy deadpanned, tilting her head. She thought the glow might disappear if she looked at a different angle.

Brent glanced at her, losing the scowl long enough to scoff. "You don't really want to read that. It hurts the eyes."

"A new screen might help," Amy said. She took a step forward. If anything, it made things worse.

"Nah, this one's good luck. We both started on the same day. It's aged slightly better, what would you say?"

Amy wondered just how long Brent had been working for the PPC. He took a step backwards until he was standing next to her, and gazed thoughtfully at the words. "You know what might make it readable? Nothing, really. But paragraphs wouldn't hurt."

She gave up on the text. Her eyes were beginning to tear. Brent took something lying on one of the consoles and turned it on. "Hey! Yeah, it's Brent again," he said into it. "Look, we've got another screamer. Just kick the doors until they open - I'm hiding the key inside." There was a pause, and then Brent snorted into the phone. "If you can't find it, you've got less brain cells than the average Sue. It's big, it's bay, it's got four legs... You know, generally a horse." He threw the object back on the controls. Amy, blinking at the spots in her vision, saw it was a surprisingly normal looking phone.

Brent pushed at the console's buttons, and a portal appeared in front of them. "I don't want it to stay in here until we get back," he said, gesturing at the dead horse that was spread across the room. "It's hard to air these rooms out when something rots in them, you know."

Amy didn't, nor did she have any intention of finding out. She grabbed her pink and yellow duffel bag which, besides being the smallest one she owned, was the only one not currently underneath the horse. She had already dumped her clothes out of it, and as she had nothing else to put in it, it just hung limply at her side. She took a breath to prepare herself, and stepped through the portal.

Brent was just behind her. His human features were gone, replaced by those of an orc. Amy knew she was in an equally unattractive guise, but she could deal with it. It was easier when she had some warning. The world around her felt dense and somewhat suffocating, results of the lack of paragraphs.

"Where are we?" she asked Brent.

"Mirkwood," he said. "Legolas left his One-True-Love behind so he could go save the world."

"Couldn't we follow him?"

"You wish. Me too, if anyone cares. But it's canon there until they get near Lothlórien." He swept an arm in a wide gesture. "This-a-way."

Amy followed several steps behind Brent. He wasn't dawdling this time, and Amy took this as a sign she didn't need to worry. As she stomped along, she dug in her pocket for the booklet that had been handed to her by a daisy in a pinstriped suit, who also happened to be the Director of Personnel. It had given out new assignments to the members of her now nonexistent division fairly randomly, and passed around the large white pamphlets as an afterthought. Her sheet had said useful things like Brent, and LotR, and had even included a curious smudge that Amy had deciphered as Room 1010. The booklet was titled, How To Bond With Your New Partner, with, or at least convince them not to kill you until the duty's done, as a rather lengthy subtitle. The remaining space on the cover was used up by a picture of two smiling people shaking hands. You had to look closely to notice the tight set of their teeth and the somewhat manic glint in their eyes.

Brent came to a stop, and Amy barely avoided running into him. She shoved the book back in her pocket, pretty sure this was the type of situation it was designed to help her avoid. They hid behind a large tree, and Brent took out his binoculars. He handed them to her.

"They should be straight ahead," Brent said.

"They? Plural?" Amy asked.

"One for each of us. Look for yourself."

Amy glanced down at the binoculars. "Do you think I'm stupid?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?" Brent said, all innocence. "'Cause I will."

Amy looked balefully at him. "I'm not blinding myself."

"Whatever. But someone has to look around us."

"You do it." She tried passing them to him, but he backed away.

"Hah. Right," he said. "Besides, you touched them last."

Amy debated chucking them at his head. She might have, but the chances were, considering her athletic ability, that they would have ended up somewhere behind her. Which meant that not only would she still be the one who had "touched them last," she would also have to find them.

"The book doesn't say anything about not killing your partner," she growled to herself. If Brent heard her, it didn't stop him from grinning. She squinted and raised the binoculars to her face.

All she saw was blackness, so she unclenched her eyes slightly. There were plants, bushes, some sky... and an Elf-maiden sitting under an exceptionally lovely tree. The plants around it were leaning away from it, as though they found it distasteful. "I think I've found her," Amy said. "At least she doesn't glow."

Brent started pulling on the binoculars, but Amy wouldn't give them up. "Ow. Hey! You had your chance. If you wanted to look at her so badly, you shouldn't have - Wait, someone else is coming."

A second Elf walked up to the tree and started talking to the first. "She's saying something... I'm not sure what... Now the first one is talking. Sore me... Sorry? I think she's apologizing for something...."

"She's been hiding since lunch," Brent explained.

Amy took the binoculars away from her eyes to look at Brent. "How do you know?"

He pointed at something in front of him: the sky, as far as Amy could tell. She noticed his eyes were somewhat unfocussed, and realized he was looking at the words.

"Oh," she said, glancing at them herself. Brent took the opportunity to snatch the binoculars.

"Talk what they do, okay?" he told her.

Amy, who was rubbing the plastic burn from her hand, did not bother to decipher his order. She was imagining taking the booklet from her pocket and bludgeoning him to death with it.

"Read the quotations," he translated. "I want to know what they're saying."

Amy sneered at the back of his head. She opened and shut her mouth a few times, mimicking, but he never turned around to see her. Amy was secretly glad.

"Fine," she said. "Elf One says, 'Oh, there you are.' Elf Two says, 'Yes. By the way, what's that?' Elf One: 'Why, I do believe there are two orcs sitting behind that tree over there.' Elf Two replies, 'Let's go kill them.' Elf One says, 'Works for me -'"

"Funny. Ha, Ha," Brent cut her off. "Really."


The rest of this chapter can be read at http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze3b4pq/PPC_TOS/anyamy/goodbye2.html. If you like humor and the death of those who deserve it, you might want to go there. If you are easily offended by that sort of stuff... I didn't post it here! There is absolutely no cause for anyone to care.

Except me. Tell me what you thought, everybody.