Author: || Karen Murray || Little One || Dolly Snippet || Marta || MTV ||
ATM || X5-666 ||
Author's Note: To heck with finding the final beta'd version. I'm too lazy. Be happy. And remember that you're lucky to get them. I don't like this chapter. I like I think it's four chapters from now. No, maybe it's two. I'd have to check. It's something.
Part .18
A Dangerous Situation
I love computers. I love the way they have monitors that sort of glare at you while you're pounding away on the keyboard. I love the way that they crash at the most inopportune times, almost as if they know that what you're starting to save at that exact moment is important.
It's no wonder that we get along so well, computers and I. We're both alike. Contrary, hateful little beasts. I rather like being a contrary, hateful little beast, actually. It gets me things from my mother and my father when just being a spoiled brat doesn't help. The computer has never been a spoiler brat. The computer is always just as I described. It's dependable.
So I couldn't understand why the damn computer wasn't giving up its information. We were brethren! We were made of the same cloth. So why was it failing me in my search for Mikaele? I took the machine's inability to locate Miki personally. After two days of searching for Mikaele, I was about at my wit's end. Even taking the occasional break to look for other siblings in the system was nothing compared to the long task of nothingness from her. I decided to give Daddy a ring.
"Hello?" Third ring. Dad was breathless: perhaps he'd been chasing after one of the twins. I could hear one of the children screaming for a frog. I paused. A frog? Since when does a child want a frog? I mean, there was that old story about kissing a frog and him turning into a prince, but didn't you have to be a princess with a golden ball given to you by your adoring papa? "Hello?"
Uh, right, Ty. You need to speak. That is usually what happens during phone conversations. Just standing there with your mouth open doesn't exactly work very well. "Hey, Daddy," I said brightly. Could I have sounded any more 90210? Ugh! I shrugged it off. "I'm just working on the whole location thing for Mikaele. The big problem hampering my New Hampshire research is the fact that I can't locate her. It's like Martin checked up on her once, then ignored her."
"So you're looking for some help?" Dad asked. D'uh, Daddy. No, I just like calling my parents and complaining about things when I know that they can't help me. I like the sound of my voice when it's complaining. I have a very nice voice.
"Uh-huh." Perhaps the second voice that had joined the first was the thing that caused my Daddy's brain cells to play hide-and-seek. Knock-knock, no one's home! I quietly closed my eyes and envisioned playing search and destroy with the twins -- preferably being on the destroy end of the game.
"What's the information that you have?" asked Dad. I rattled off the things he needed word for word -- I am good for some things from my Manticoreling status -- and began telling him of some of the work that I had been occupied with for the past few weeks. In the background, underneath the half-laughter half-sobbing of the children, I could hear the rhythmic clinking of the keys as he performed searches on databases. My mother never liked to listen to me typing. She said that I worked the keys to quickly and never had a slow rhythm going like my dad had.
Twenty boring as hell minutes later, we still had absolute nothing to go on for Mikaele's location, other than Martin's short notes on her. Impatiently, I slammed some notes down on the end table next to the phone. I think Daddy heard me on the other end, because I could have sworn that I had heard him jump. "Know what?" I asked. "I'm gonna try again later. Today I'll take a plane and visit Alan."
"Uh," Dad said. Monosyllabic much, Daddy? Sighing, I opened up a fresh leaf of notebook paper and began to scrawl ALAN on it in fancy script. Underneath I took out the address I had found on Ally and waited for Dad to talk more. "Do you even have his information? For all we know he could be another fruitless chase."
"Yeah, Daddy, I already have his address. I got a little bored and did a search and up he popped. Not the best of things, to find him so quickly, but there are a ton of kids with the name Alan and the variant spellings of it in the foster care system. Plus, I had his last home and last name to work with." I searched my desk for some chicklets. I was certain I had spilled a packet earlier that week, hadn't I? There had to be at least a few left around. "Let's face it Daddy, I'm gonna go anyway. I gotta 'nuff for a plane ticket and a place to stay while there, though I don't think I'll need it."
"Ty," Dad's voice was tired. When had he gotten old on me? Two minutes ago he was chasing twins. Now it sounded like he didn't have the strength to fart without assistance. "I think you should slow down." Oh, and do you feel cool, Daddy, because I'll put on sweater if you do. No matter that it is a fairly warm July day, Dad. I glanced out the window. Okay, so, it was raining. It wasn't a bright July day anymore. It was a dreary Seattle day again. "You've already found two siblings. Your mother couldn't find any of her siblings for over ten years. Just space it a little. I know how excited you are, but with the disappointment over Lezli, I don't want you to go gallivanting off for more." I frowned. I still wasn't over my freak occurrence with the leaves in Texas.
I found a red tickled and put it in with my paper clips. "Daaa-addy," I drawled out in my best little-girl-who-is-unfairly-treated voice, "Mama didn't have a little black book telling her where everyone was. I do." Can't find Lezli or Mikaele, but I will, I said silently. And I will find Alan because I have a good feeling about it.
"Ty, I worry about you." I groaned. I didn't really want to be worried about. I wanted him to need me, but not to worry about me. I wasn't a worry- attracting person. "Don't roll your eyes and groan, Tyronica." I didn't roll my eyes! "No matter how good your revved up genes are, you're still a little girl, barely a teenager."
Little girl? I frowned and picked up two more chicklets. The rain had stopped, I noticed. "Dad!" I said. I couldn't think of much else to say. What is there to say to your dad when he basically says he thinks of you like you're ten and having a seizure on the beach? "Never mind." I hung up disappointed with the way things had gone. Unhappily, I tossed the three chicklets into my mouth as I began to make plans for a plane reservation.
I stopped for a minute to open the window; it was getting pretty hot in there. I grabbed a band and lifted my hair up off my neck. I looked at my barcode sullenly in the mirror. I would get it burned off, I decided, as soon as I had the time to do so. The cat rubbed up against my leg and I absentmindedly gave him the rights to my hand. While I was up, I reasoned, I might as well get a glass of water.
I sat down again and got the tickets purchased. I then began packing up a small overnight bag for the trip, all the while thinking about my brother Ally. Even as a toddler, Alan was a very comely boy. With large eyes and deliciously long lashes, his face held almost uncanny appearance for the beholder. With lips full, he looked to be a sullen child who hid beyond his lashes. That was not true, of course. Though he was never much of a talkative child, he had been congenial in all his actions.
And he had been so beautiful.
I wondered how he'd fared in the world. Where his easy-going ways hindering his ability to adapt to a life outside of home? Or was it perhaps helpful in making friends and allies beyond the forests of our youth? Perhaps his good looks had gotten him in an adoptive or foster home. Or perhaps the looks which in boyhood had been a blessing gave him now an overly feminine look which would dissuade him from trying to flash prospective parents and half-hidden look from under his lashes.
Finished with my packing, I shouldered my bags and dropped a coat to my arm. Though it had been unusually warm earlier, one could never be too prepared. I wasn't certain that the rain wouldn't come back.
I stopped suddenly. I sounded like a mother or something. I tossed the coat on the couch, successfully covering Cat, and walked down the stairs. Halfway down, I took out my gum, and stuck it under the rail. Grinning, I pictured Mrs. Lindenstein finding it on her way down to the mailboxes early tomorrow morning. She always gripped the rail tightly when she walked down, as if afraid that she would fall.
By the time I'd biked to the airport, I was thoroughly drenched in a fine mist. I was still hot, but I could feel a chill begin to set. Great job, Tyron, I congratulated myself. You left your jacket at home just because of some silly, childish impulse not to act like your parents.
I was in a bad temper as I settled myself on the plane. My seatmate tried to strike up a conversation at first, but I wasn't feeling real charitable towards her and she stopped after I took my fork from the nasty dinner they served and bent it in half. Perhaps she was thinking of her fingers being bent like that; I know I was. In any account, she grinned nervously and shut up.
The plane was smoldering. It reminded me of the fiery pits of Hades. Not that I'd actually been there. Though there was this one time in training when we were doing tests with little electric shocks where I am certain that I blacked out for a minute. Since I don't have a soul or anything, I'm pretty sure that I got sucked into the flames. I had probably been warming my little feet and grinning my head off, despite the heat. I had half a mind to complain about the air conditioning on the plane, but I changed my mind when the steward came out.
He was hot. If you could get a group of men in a room and have them parade around in a swim wear to be judged by a panel of women on their hotness, he would have won the crown and roses. He had slim hips and broad shoulders -- how many times had I read about that and not understood what it *meant* until him? His eyes were so dark they might have been black for all I was aware and when he smiled, he blinded those closest to him with the wattage.
I eyed him as he casually walked up and down the aisle, his tight little booty workin' it. I ordered more food, even though I wasn't hungry, just to see him walk to and from me again. Much better than that little stewardess tramp from that last flight I'd been on.
The woman next to me opened her paper and blocked my line of vision. Glaring at the headline, I wondered why the crown prince of Britain, 27, had never looked particularly appealing to me beforehand. It was that little thing that tipped me off that something was wrong, because I had very definite memories of declaring forcefully to Mumma that he native country's prince reminded me of a horse with bad teeth.
Oh. Dear. God. I was in heat. The blood rushed from my face in shock. I noticed immediately the big, tell tale signs that pointed in that direction. My reaction to the weather was one; my reactions to any and all females within range; my reaction to the little, beautiful, scrumptious body of the steward . . . .
Bad Ty. Think about something else; something neutral. I stared at the paper, thinking how it was only an hour until the end of the flight; only an hour until I had to leave the sweet . . . I looked at each letter of the date, drawing it in my mind.
J. U. N. E. 2. 4. 2. 0. 2. 4.
Wait a minute. The twenty-fourth of June. This couldn't be happening to me. I was wrong. I had read it wrong. I glanced at the date again. June 24. Damn. I tapped on the woman's shoulder. Be useful, I silently thought to myself, before I have to rip your head off.
"Excuse me," I said as politely as I could to the vicious little trollop, "but is that today's paper?"
The woman looked at me down her ugly little nose for a moment as if she was trying to figure out if I was talking to her. Well, d'uh, lady, I just hit ya on the shoulder. Finally, she answered me, which was good for her health because two seconds more and I would have taken the paper and used it to wrap the pieces of her body in.
"Yes."
I sat back, frowning. Great. Today had been a wonderful day. I got into a fight with my daddy, I behaved in a childish manner, I was in heat, and I'd forgotten it was my fourteenth birthday.
Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday Tyronica Cale. Happy birthday to me.
Author's Note: To heck with finding the final beta'd version. I'm too lazy. Be happy. And remember that you're lucky to get them. I don't like this chapter. I like I think it's four chapters from now. No, maybe it's two. I'd have to check. It's something.
Part .18
A Dangerous Situation
I love computers. I love the way they have monitors that sort of glare at you while you're pounding away on the keyboard. I love the way that they crash at the most inopportune times, almost as if they know that what you're starting to save at that exact moment is important.
It's no wonder that we get along so well, computers and I. We're both alike. Contrary, hateful little beasts. I rather like being a contrary, hateful little beast, actually. It gets me things from my mother and my father when just being a spoiled brat doesn't help. The computer has never been a spoiler brat. The computer is always just as I described. It's dependable.
So I couldn't understand why the damn computer wasn't giving up its information. We were brethren! We were made of the same cloth. So why was it failing me in my search for Mikaele? I took the machine's inability to locate Miki personally. After two days of searching for Mikaele, I was about at my wit's end. Even taking the occasional break to look for other siblings in the system was nothing compared to the long task of nothingness from her. I decided to give Daddy a ring.
"Hello?" Third ring. Dad was breathless: perhaps he'd been chasing after one of the twins. I could hear one of the children screaming for a frog. I paused. A frog? Since when does a child want a frog? I mean, there was that old story about kissing a frog and him turning into a prince, but didn't you have to be a princess with a golden ball given to you by your adoring papa? "Hello?"
Uh, right, Ty. You need to speak. That is usually what happens during phone conversations. Just standing there with your mouth open doesn't exactly work very well. "Hey, Daddy," I said brightly. Could I have sounded any more 90210? Ugh! I shrugged it off. "I'm just working on the whole location thing for Mikaele. The big problem hampering my New Hampshire research is the fact that I can't locate her. It's like Martin checked up on her once, then ignored her."
"So you're looking for some help?" Dad asked. D'uh, Daddy. No, I just like calling my parents and complaining about things when I know that they can't help me. I like the sound of my voice when it's complaining. I have a very nice voice.
"Uh-huh." Perhaps the second voice that had joined the first was the thing that caused my Daddy's brain cells to play hide-and-seek. Knock-knock, no one's home! I quietly closed my eyes and envisioned playing search and destroy with the twins -- preferably being on the destroy end of the game.
"What's the information that you have?" asked Dad. I rattled off the things he needed word for word -- I am good for some things from my Manticoreling status -- and began telling him of some of the work that I had been occupied with for the past few weeks. In the background, underneath the half-laughter half-sobbing of the children, I could hear the rhythmic clinking of the keys as he performed searches on databases. My mother never liked to listen to me typing. She said that I worked the keys to quickly and never had a slow rhythm going like my dad had.
Twenty boring as hell minutes later, we still had absolute nothing to go on for Mikaele's location, other than Martin's short notes on her. Impatiently, I slammed some notes down on the end table next to the phone. I think Daddy heard me on the other end, because I could have sworn that I had heard him jump. "Know what?" I asked. "I'm gonna try again later. Today I'll take a plane and visit Alan."
"Uh," Dad said. Monosyllabic much, Daddy? Sighing, I opened up a fresh leaf of notebook paper and began to scrawl ALAN on it in fancy script. Underneath I took out the address I had found on Ally and waited for Dad to talk more. "Do you even have his information? For all we know he could be another fruitless chase."
"Yeah, Daddy, I already have his address. I got a little bored and did a search and up he popped. Not the best of things, to find him so quickly, but there are a ton of kids with the name Alan and the variant spellings of it in the foster care system. Plus, I had his last home and last name to work with." I searched my desk for some chicklets. I was certain I had spilled a packet earlier that week, hadn't I? There had to be at least a few left around. "Let's face it Daddy, I'm gonna go anyway. I gotta 'nuff for a plane ticket and a place to stay while there, though I don't think I'll need it."
"Ty," Dad's voice was tired. When had he gotten old on me? Two minutes ago he was chasing twins. Now it sounded like he didn't have the strength to fart without assistance. "I think you should slow down." Oh, and do you feel cool, Daddy, because I'll put on sweater if you do. No matter that it is a fairly warm July day, Dad. I glanced out the window. Okay, so, it was raining. It wasn't a bright July day anymore. It was a dreary Seattle day again. "You've already found two siblings. Your mother couldn't find any of her siblings for over ten years. Just space it a little. I know how excited you are, but with the disappointment over Lezli, I don't want you to go gallivanting off for more." I frowned. I still wasn't over my freak occurrence with the leaves in Texas.
I found a red tickled and put it in with my paper clips. "Daaa-addy," I drawled out in my best little-girl-who-is-unfairly-treated voice, "Mama didn't have a little black book telling her where everyone was. I do." Can't find Lezli or Mikaele, but I will, I said silently. And I will find Alan because I have a good feeling about it.
"Ty, I worry about you." I groaned. I didn't really want to be worried about. I wanted him to need me, but not to worry about me. I wasn't a worry- attracting person. "Don't roll your eyes and groan, Tyronica." I didn't roll my eyes! "No matter how good your revved up genes are, you're still a little girl, barely a teenager."
Little girl? I frowned and picked up two more chicklets. The rain had stopped, I noticed. "Dad!" I said. I couldn't think of much else to say. What is there to say to your dad when he basically says he thinks of you like you're ten and having a seizure on the beach? "Never mind." I hung up disappointed with the way things had gone. Unhappily, I tossed the three chicklets into my mouth as I began to make plans for a plane reservation.
I stopped for a minute to open the window; it was getting pretty hot in there. I grabbed a band and lifted my hair up off my neck. I looked at my barcode sullenly in the mirror. I would get it burned off, I decided, as soon as I had the time to do so. The cat rubbed up against my leg and I absentmindedly gave him the rights to my hand. While I was up, I reasoned, I might as well get a glass of water.
I sat down again and got the tickets purchased. I then began packing up a small overnight bag for the trip, all the while thinking about my brother Ally. Even as a toddler, Alan was a very comely boy. With large eyes and deliciously long lashes, his face held almost uncanny appearance for the beholder. With lips full, he looked to be a sullen child who hid beyond his lashes. That was not true, of course. Though he was never much of a talkative child, he had been congenial in all his actions.
And he had been so beautiful.
I wondered how he'd fared in the world. Where his easy-going ways hindering his ability to adapt to a life outside of home? Or was it perhaps helpful in making friends and allies beyond the forests of our youth? Perhaps his good looks had gotten him in an adoptive or foster home. Or perhaps the looks which in boyhood had been a blessing gave him now an overly feminine look which would dissuade him from trying to flash prospective parents and half-hidden look from under his lashes.
Finished with my packing, I shouldered my bags and dropped a coat to my arm. Though it had been unusually warm earlier, one could never be too prepared. I wasn't certain that the rain wouldn't come back.
I stopped suddenly. I sounded like a mother or something. I tossed the coat on the couch, successfully covering Cat, and walked down the stairs. Halfway down, I took out my gum, and stuck it under the rail. Grinning, I pictured Mrs. Lindenstein finding it on her way down to the mailboxes early tomorrow morning. She always gripped the rail tightly when she walked down, as if afraid that she would fall.
By the time I'd biked to the airport, I was thoroughly drenched in a fine mist. I was still hot, but I could feel a chill begin to set. Great job, Tyron, I congratulated myself. You left your jacket at home just because of some silly, childish impulse not to act like your parents.
I was in a bad temper as I settled myself on the plane. My seatmate tried to strike up a conversation at first, but I wasn't feeling real charitable towards her and she stopped after I took my fork from the nasty dinner they served and bent it in half. Perhaps she was thinking of her fingers being bent like that; I know I was. In any account, she grinned nervously and shut up.
The plane was smoldering. It reminded me of the fiery pits of Hades. Not that I'd actually been there. Though there was this one time in training when we were doing tests with little electric shocks where I am certain that I blacked out for a minute. Since I don't have a soul or anything, I'm pretty sure that I got sucked into the flames. I had probably been warming my little feet and grinning my head off, despite the heat. I had half a mind to complain about the air conditioning on the plane, but I changed my mind when the steward came out.
He was hot. If you could get a group of men in a room and have them parade around in a swim wear to be judged by a panel of women on their hotness, he would have won the crown and roses. He had slim hips and broad shoulders -- how many times had I read about that and not understood what it *meant* until him? His eyes were so dark they might have been black for all I was aware and when he smiled, he blinded those closest to him with the wattage.
I eyed him as he casually walked up and down the aisle, his tight little booty workin' it. I ordered more food, even though I wasn't hungry, just to see him walk to and from me again. Much better than that little stewardess tramp from that last flight I'd been on.
The woman next to me opened her paper and blocked my line of vision. Glaring at the headline, I wondered why the crown prince of Britain, 27, had never looked particularly appealing to me beforehand. It was that little thing that tipped me off that something was wrong, because I had very definite memories of declaring forcefully to Mumma that he native country's prince reminded me of a horse with bad teeth.
Oh. Dear. God. I was in heat. The blood rushed from my face in shock. I noticed immediately the big, tell tale signs that pointed in that direction. My reaction to the weather was one; my reactions to any and all females within range; my reaction to the little, beautiful, scrumptious body of the steward . . . .
Bad Ty. Think about something else; something neutral. I stared at the paper, thinking how it was only an hour until the end of the flight; only an hour until I had to leave the sweet . . . I looked at each letter of the date, drawing it in my mind.
J. U. N. E. 2. 4. 2. 0. 2. 4.
Wait a minute. The twenty-fourth of June. This couldn't be happening to me. I was wrong. I had read it wrong. I glanced at the date again. June 24. Damn. I tapped on the woman's shoulder. Be useful, I silently thought to myself, before I have to rip your head off.
"Excuse me," I said as politely as I could to the vicious little trollop, "but is that today's paper?"
The woman looked at me down her ugly little nose for a moment as if she was trying to figure out if I was talking to her. Well, d'uh, lady, I just hit ya on the shoulder. Finally, she answered me, which was good for her health because two seconds more and I would have taken the paper and used it to wrap the pieces of her body in.
"Yes."
I sat back, frowning. Great. Today had been a wonderful day. I got into a fight with my daddy, I behaved in a childish manner, I was in heat, and I'd forgotten it was my fourteenth birthday.
Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday Tyronica Cale. Happy birthday to me.