Author's Note/ Disclaimer: Okay, so it's been more than a week. I'm sorry. Really, I am. My DSL exploded (not literally... though I had a monitor explode once), so I've spent the last few days in the dark. This inconvenience came right on the heels of another one: a lung infection that put me in the doctor's office on my frikken birthday. This past week has been plenty... inconvenient for me. But I did manage to read Red Dragon. Helluva book. Read it now, if you haven't.

Well, it's here now. Chapter three. This chapter squeezes more conversational bickering into two thousand words than was once imagined possible. A.I.: Artificial Intelligence does not belong to me. It's from Dreamworks SKG and Warner Bros copyright 2001. This text does belong to me, Warson heyn, copyright 2002. Don't take it without asking. But do feel free to ask.

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"Worrying goes down better with food than without."

~Jewish Proverb

"S H A D O W T O W N"

By Warson Heyn

Part III: The Drawing Board

Day One: 2039hrs

The last rays of a Shadowtown sunset's half-light crept in through the gaps of the vertical blinds behind Leo's desk, casting a grid of gray bars through the cigarette smoke. In the tattered leather chair behind the desk sat Russ Freeman. His eyes were focused on the ceiling above him as he slowly swiveled the chair back and forth in a small arc. His face was tired and emotionless from hours of thinking.

"Gangsters," he suggested. "Big pack of punk kids from the Plate comes down here to do their little gangster thing. Boot-fight, Neuroin dealing, other kids stuff. Bunch of guys with Fair badges show up, kids panic, overwhelm the Hunters, drag off what they can, shock-gun the rest."

Leo, in the meantime, held a cigarette between his lips, as he stood with his back against the wall opposite the desk underneath the overly flattering portrait of Lord Johnson Johnson-- "Big-J" as he was known to his employees. Leo's eyes were closed, and he was slowly, rhythmically hitting the back of his head against the wall. "No good," he said. "Bangers from the Table aren't stupid enough to go down there by the museums in big numbers. Too many of our boys out there. And anyway they definitely wouldn't keep doing it." He took another drag on the cigarette and then hi his head against the wall again. "Besides, the stun gun they got Jacobs with was way too strong for some little gangster. It was like a Policeman's stick. And all of those have GPS on them, so kids can't lift 'em"

"Look, I'm just putting ideas on the table, alright?" said Russell, his eyes not breaking from the spot on the ceiling. "'Sides, it would explain the graffiti."

"Nah, I already had people look into that one," Leo replied with another dull whack of his head. Seems like this Teddy Bear thing is totally new. Nobody's got any tags that look anything like it."

"What do you mean, 'had people look into it?'" asked Russell. He had stopped his little chair-pivot too quickly, and was battling a mild head rush as he tried to focus on Leo's face.

Leo fished into the pocket of his jacket and-- punctuated by another thud against the wall-- pulled out a palm pilot.

"Always wanted one of those," Russell mumbled, and began rotating the chair again. Leo's head hit the wall again. "There are more efficient ways to hammer a nail, Leo," Russell said.

"What?"

"Your head-bang thing."

"... Shut up, Russell."

"Fair enough."

Leo finally pulled himself away from the wall and attempted to return some pseudo-professionalism to the room. "Okay," he said with a sigh, "lets go over what we've got." He flipped the burnt-out butt of his cigarette into an ashtray by the door, and shuffled less than enthusiastically over to his desk and pressed a button. The digital wall-screen next to the door flashed on and showed a map of southern Shadowtown (it was actually an older map of Seattle from the days before the plates were built).

Leo walked back over toward the wall. "This past week," he began, "three teams of Hunters went on routine trips to south part of old downtown to round up some iron." As he spoke, three lines denoting the routes of the packs began zig-zagging southward on the map. "All three teams get jumped en route somewhere near the old World Fair grounds. First by the Rock and Roll museum, then by the University stadium, then today's right by the Space Needle monorail station." The lines stopped crawling abruptly at the respective places on the map just as Leo had described them.

Russell seemed unimpressed. "I like this," he muttered, "you got a visual aid and everything."

"Shut up, Russell," Leo said.

"Did you get someone to do this one with your palm pilot, too?"

"Can I get on with the goddamn thing, Russell?"

"By all means."

Leo fished out another cigarette and lit it. "As I was saying, we don't know who got them. We don't know why they got them. We don't know what they plan on doing with those they captured.

"What we do know," he continued, "is that they must be highly organized. They must have some serious funding, and they must have some serious technical help because they carry some heavy-duty hardware. They kidnap most of the group, and hit the rest with stun guns so they don't know what happened to them. We think they may be pretty territory-oriented, because all of the attacks happen in about the same place. We also think that they are targeting Flesh Fair workers exclusively, and that seems to be their prime directive-"

"Shut up," muttered Russell.

"What?" Leo snapped his head around.

"You just said 'prime directive.' I asked you to shut up." Russell said matter-of-factly, still swiveling the chair back and forth.

"Russ, I'm trying to figure this out, alright?"

"I know," Russell said. "But do you really think that giving me your little Law & Order forensic presentation is going to get the damn thing figured out any faster?"

Leo shot Russell a contemptuous glare. "Y'know, Russ, for someone whose job could be on the goddamn line with this little disaster, you are awfully laid back."

"I know, I know, but Leo, man... you need to calm down a little. You're getting all stupid and wired and uppity."

"Wired and uppity?" Leo asked with apparent frustration. "... Is that even a word?"

"Yeah, right up there next to 'prime directive.'"

Leo put his hands down on the desk and glared across at Russell. "I don't know how to make this any clearer to you. I'm unbelievably stressed out right now. Something is out there eating up my employees, and I don't know why. I don't know where fifteen of our boys are right now, I don't know whether or not they are alive or dead, I don't know how to bring them back, and I don't know whether or not whatever is out there is going to come waltzing up Pike Street to come get the rest of us! We have got to figure this shit out, and if we don't do something soon, the lives and jobs of us and about fifty other people could be in serious danger. I've got an awful damn lot to work on right now, and I think I have every damn reason to be getting 'uppity,' alright?"

A silence fell over the dark room. Russell had stopped swinging the chair as Leo delivered his short speech. Now he closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. "Shit like this never happened before Big-J got killed."

"He disappeared," corrected Leo. "They never confirmed his death."

"Ah, don't give me that glazed-over 'disappeared' BS. He was whacked and you know it. He knew how to piss people off, and someone-- an old creditor, ex-wife, some angry fan, anyone-- decided to make things critical."

Russell took a deep breath and slowly stood up from the chair. He yawned and stretched his muscular arms. He stood silently for a moment resting his forearms on the back of the chair.

Leo, in the meanwhile, gave an exasperated sigh, and walked back over to his post by the wall, and began the head banging again.

Things were not going particularly well for the Fair in the last few months. First there was the near-riot at the Haddonfield show. Then there was Johnson's death. The boycott in San Francisco where nobody showed up for a whole week. The mysteriously disappearing funds in the overseas shows. And now these attacks on employees here in Seattle. Leo ran his fingers mindlessly through his long red hair. He had never expected to have to deal with stuff like this when he joined the Show five years ago.

A few minutes passed by, ticked off by Leo's head thudding against the wall. The clock on the wall now read 8:45. The little amount of light that came from the sunset had already gone, and the yellowing old fluorescents were the only thing that stood between the two men and total darkness.

"You haven't heard any good news from the boys yet, have you?" Leo asked.

"Yes, I have," Russell mumbled, "I just wasn't going to tell you."

"Shut up, Russell," Leo said as he walked away from the wall. He went over to the window and looked out it. From this vantage point, he could look out across the quickly sloping cityscape that lay between the Flesh Fair building and the waterfront, and could even see a glimpse of the harbor itself. Leo took the cigarette out of his mouth, and parted two of the blinds wider for a better view. The water on the Sound reflected the purple light of the dusk sky above. It was quite a beautiful sight, juxtaposed between the old abandoned buildings and the massive steel platform that framed it. Leo watched as the small waves sparkled on the violet surface of the water.

He sighed again. How did I ever get myself into this shit, he thought. Five years ago, it had all seemed so simple. He'd just sit at the desk, direct the boys, and keep everything running like clockwork. Easy as could be. The Fair was as profitable as it had ever been, and the job was exactly what he needed. It was basically the same thing he'd been doing for years, and it paid… well, at least it paid. He was his own boss and could run things exactly as he saw fit. Plus, it was so low profile it was practically invisible. Had to be the best possible way to keep himself hidden from--

He shook his head. Best not to think about things like that.

He closed the blinds and turned around to face the back of the chair Russell sat in. "I'm ordering a pizza," he announced suddenly.

Russell spun the chair backwards to face Leo. "What?"

"I'm calling the Pizza Hut and ordering a pizza, Russ."

"Are you kidding?"

"I'm hungry, I want pizza, I'm calling the Pizza Hut."

"Leo, no, like you said, we've got to figure this shit out first."

"I think we should probably eat first, seeing as we've been locked in this room for about three and a half hours and have neither eaten nor come any closer to figuring this shit out."

"And you think getting a pizza will help."

"I think getting a pizza will make me less hungry."

"Fine, whatever," Russell resigned. He turned the chair back around and began his methodic rotation again.

Leo pulled the cell phone out of his pocket and dialed up the number of a Pizza Hut on the Plate above them. One of his few business connections with the outside world was the owner of this particular store, who would provide delivery to no-delivery zones (i.e.: Shadowtown) in exchange for free Flesh Fair tickets. While he was left on hold for a few minutes an awkward silence fell over the room. It was Russell who finally broke it. "Y'know I always wanted to try the pizza with the cheese in the crust," he said nonchalantly.

"Sounds good to me." Leo replied. After a while, he added, "I really did like things better before Big-J got killed."

"Yeah, helluva guy." Russell said without the slightest hint of admiration in his voice. "Like a hero to me, actually... A greasy, fat, balding, corrupt, twisted, old, soulless hero who was less of a hero and more like the owner of the company I work for and whom I have no aspirations whatsoever to be like."

"Couldn't have said it better myself... Hi, Jimmy! It's Leo from the Flesh Fair. If you're interested, I'd like to hook you up with another month of our little deal..."