What do I have NOW? I have The Ozzman Cometh and two weeks of solid Christmas vacation, new DVDs, and the anti-Christmas spirit. WRITING TIME! Alright, a few thanks and warnings. Thanks: Lady Spoon/Cutiemew. Thanks SO much for the fanart. Same age, much different skills. Chocobo Goddess. I know yours is coming, but I have two weeks as of today and I want to squeeze all I can out of it. The links to fanart are all on my profile. Warnings: This takes us all for a twist, Chapter Eleven. I'm closing this one up soon, but I'm SO glad you read. And, um, the kid should be 1.5/8 Cetra. Special rule for them, though. Stealing your idea, Viridian. ( Bad math. Ugh. ) This is planned for two chapters after this. SORRY! And there'll probably be more, anyway, plus the extras. Mako Dreams lyrics, inspiration, breaking the fic down, chapter-by-chapter.
Silver Rose
by Reno Spiegel
Dante@towernetwork.net
December 5, 3076
Morning. Bedroom. Kala's Apartment. 9:30 A.M.
"The residents of Junon were shaken yesterday as. . ." - Reporter, Junon News
Well, when you wake up suddenly, wedge one of your arms out from around the other person in bed, and grab the note on the nightstand, the last thing you want it to say is:
Sephiroth,
Call me in Midgar. The
number is on the back.
Have fun.
Reno
Because he's telling the truth.
I'll call him later, come find him, and bruise his face up. It's quite a thrill at nine-thirty, first to look out the window and flip off the sun, then to glance at the floor, see your jeans, and think, Holy shit. We were drunk, but it happened and I remember all of it. I flex my jaw a bit out of habit and lay back down, snaking my loose arm back around Aeris' hips.
I was drunk. I knew what I was doing, though, and the realization that Kala's not the one with her face in my shoulder is welcomed this day. It's well past when I should be getting up, but I fade in and out for about another hour until she shifts beside me, opens her eyes, and gives me a crooked grin, trailing a fingernail down my cheek. "And how are you this morning?" she murmurs, about as awake as me.
She remembers it all. Not a regret in the world, as far as I can tell, and she keeps some humor in it. All three: The best signs I can get right now. I smile and kiss her forehead. "The church may've been better than the dumpster, but it's got nothin' on this. We should get up."
Aeris shakes her head as furiously as possible and tries to hide her face from the sun. "No way. I don't think I've ever been this tired right away."
"Makes enough sense, but Kala's gonna think we're dead if we stay in here too much longer." I'm not bossing her around today. In truth, this seems as good a place as any to stay the rest of the day. I poke her in the side. "We need to sit and have a talk later, hmm?"
She waves it off, stretches, and yawns out a "Whatever." Poor thing's never done this, but at least there's no hangover with it. I've figured out, if you stay awake long enough and, um, exercise, it helps to remove the headache you would otherwise be receiving in the morning from Junon alcohol. Hotel room, three years ago. I was foolish.
Aeris mumbles a few more things, scowls at the sun, and then sits up, fishing her clothing from the floor. I'm no better; one of my shoes ended up in the bookcase in one corner of the room. She is, even counting movies, the first I've seen to wake up and be almost totally normal after a night of that. I figured she'd either be jumpy, freaked, or clingy right away.
I finally, as I'm pulling my shirt back on, get to look around. Even for an apartment, the ceiling is awfully high, and angels' faces break away from the walls a ways up, staring directly down at us. I shudder and look away. Too much religion can kill a man, or so I've heard. Then again, I wonder what it can do to a Cetra.
God. We're going to have a kid. One time, like they said, is all it takes. I'm one-fourth Cetra, I'm in love with a half-human, and we're still being hunted by ShinRa for killing a highly-respected killer. Counting out Hojo and all I have to kill him for now. Never telling me, brainwashing Mother, never actually telling me about my real father.
We step out the door. Kala is in the kitchen, the radio on soft and a pan of bacon sizzling on one of the back burners. She hears us walk out. "One, what d'you want for breakfast, two, I ain't cleaning that up. Maid comes over at two."
I throw one of my shoes at her back. To tell the truth, I was hoping she'd be off somewhere when we woke up. "What's the plan for today?"
She kicks the shoe back at me without looking up from the pan. "You order your breakfast, then notice your early Christmas presents on the table, we eat, go shopping, then hit the concert. Made an alteration on where you're sitting, by the way."
I'm already headed for the presents when I tell her anything with eggs is fine. A new-looking, black trenchcoat is thrown over one of the chairs, and a wrapped CD is on the table. Mako Dreams: Hidden Metal. On the back, it describes how five copies were made, and then the songs destroyed. One for each band member, one for me. Aeris' is a large box of year-round flower seeds and a defensive stick.
"Figured you'd enjoy that one, Seph', since you're the biggest fan of ours I've met yet. Aeris, that's just for those shitfaced punks back in Midgar." Kala's converted directly to Mako Dreams mode, something she's known for doing before concerts. She once trashed the hotel room because they cooked her steak wrong, I heard.
She walks over with two plates and Aeris and I hug her in turn, thanking her thoroughly. We talk like rabid chimps all the way through breakfast, and then it's off to shopping. Junon has plenty of stores around, so it's not too hard to find what you want here. There's one tall office building you can see from all areas in the city. Inside, there are rumored to be fifty-eight floors, the top twenty owned by ShinRa and the others by small businesses from paper-making to pet shops. I hear about this way too late today.
Kala insists we stop in and get something to eat. The food court is on the bottom floor. She steps in the elevator, Aeris and I follow, and she punches the button for floor fifty-eight. This only disturbs me when she enters a five-digit code on a pad that extends from the wall, and then the machine jerks up. I narrow my eyes. "Seems like it takes an awful lot to get a bite to eat around here." My hand unconsciously finds Aeris'. "Special food court or something?"
"Not really, Sephiroth." She's used my name maybe twice before, always in a playful mood, but now she sounds serious. The elevator has a door on either side, the ideal place for an ambush. For someone without a weapon or protection from high-power rifle rounds, you're pretty well dead up here. If someone decides to run on a rampage, anyway. I know the smell around here, and from the sudden grip by Aeris, she does, too.
Seems like a Cetra talent to be able to identify the scent of gunpowder without a challenge. When you're in danger, a lot of things happen. It's called the general adaptation syndrome, or GAS. Your blood pressure rises, as does your pulse, and almost all your abilities heighten while it cuts off your digestion syndrome, using the power for other things, like reaction time, sight, and sound. Add on Cetra abilities and you've got a highly-dangerous lifeform.
What do I mean? I mean, when I hear even the slightest sound of footsteps coming toward the elevator, to the door behind us on the top floor, and said door creaks open, I push Aeris to the side where they can't fire, and shove Kala infront of me. A good pair of legs is all a man needs to vault off the side of the elevator and pin himself against the ceiling. Kala Makau screeches and goes down in a haze of bullets, and then the SOLDIER the shots came from seems downright shocked, judging from his reflection against the golden doors on the other side.
He starts walking forward, into the elevator. I see the barrel of a rifle, as I'd thought, poke inside. The signal to drop, grab the frame of the door, and swing my feet into his face. I land in the hall of an office with him infront of me, rifle three feet from his left arm. I flip it up into my own hand with my foot and point it between his eyes. "Who's your boss?"
He swallows hard, sweat beading on his forehead, and his voice wavers when he says, "I -- I'm not. . .I'm not permitted to give out that information, but he guarantees you won't shoot."
"Oh?" My first shot is direct, and blows out one of his kneecaps. He howls, and I see Aeris peeking out the elevator door when I glance back. I put his face back in the crosshares. "Rephrase or lose the other leg, Secret Boy." He tries to repeat what he'd just said through gritted teeth. I'm fed up. I take out the other leg and then put three in his chest. Aeris whimpers, and I'm about to turn around when someone else speaks.
"I really wish you wouldn't do that, Son. Quadruple murder, if I remember correctly. You could get in a lot of trouble that way."
When it comes down to "Father" Against Son, the son always loses. He's never got the balls to shoot his own father without assistance, and I'm alone today, I realize as I look up and see him sitting at the desk. He must have walked in during my interrogation. And when you're alone after stage one of the GAS, you move directly to stage three: The alarm doesn't shut off. You pump adrenaline until it hurts to breathe, but you have a short burst in which you have almost supernatural powers.
I have him pinned in with the gun, even from back here, but he pulls out a sword. An old man with a six-foot blade, no matter how feeble he may appear, is a scary sight. It'll take oil off of a driveway. "I'm not as foolish as the other. One shot, and then I attack."
I make a mistake. I use my one shot. He sidesteps like the wind and turns to see the window shatter. "Dammit. Now we'll have to pay for another." He turns toward me and leaps. He leaps across the entire room, landing inches from me. "That's an expensive window. Son." His eyes. It's all in his eyes. They're glowing with power; a Mako injection, no doubt about it. When it's fresh, Mako is more powerful than Stage Three of the GAS, but not a Cetra in it.
"Your turn. Dad." The sword is thin, not like a SOLDIER sword, with a unique design on the handle. You notice a lot of things when you're cought off-guard with something that holds instant killing power rushing at your forehead. So you dodge, preferably rolling down at an angle and springing back up. I do, his blade his the carpet and bounces back, but I lose my footing on my own bounceback, then go tumbling.
The old man swings again, with the grace of a gazelle, this time clipping me in the face before I can completely roll out of the way, and nipping my cheek lightly. A straight line of blood splatters against the carpet, but I get on my feet and dance away from another swipe this time. He pauses to regain his figure. I almost wait, then decide against it and fire at his hand. It hits its target, but he barely moves. Three of his fingers skitter, I swear to the Ancients, skitter off into a crack in the floor. "What the hell?"
"Welcome to the wide world of Jenovans, Sephiroth. There are many more than you may think, and only a Jenova can kill one of its own. I would invite you to join us, but I think it would be an even worse chemical inbalance if Jenova were injected into a one-fourth Cetra-human." I fire another at his head, just to see what would happen, but it jumps over. I don't mean I missed, I mean it was on a direct path for his nose, and then it leaped over his head and continued on. A Jenovan trick.
I count out my bullets when I hear a click. One on the Hellion leader, one on Tseng. Two on the SOLDIER's knees, three in his chest. One in the far wall of this room, one at Hojo's hand. The last one, the tenth, splinters wood even as I run this check. Ten bullets to the gun at a time, and no extra clips. I'm empty. I don't both trying to pistol-whip the maniac, just dodge from here on out. I think of a plan, then scratch it with every dodge I take.
Can't steal his sword, sure as hell can't shoot him, and attacking would be both futile and fatal. I turn and dash. Not for the elevator, not for the window. Straight for the desk. The chair behind it, bless my luck, is on wheels. I lift it with a bit of effort, Hojo advancing in a walk just to taunt me, and throw. It works. He tries knocking it away, but ends up gouging it. A foolish mistake. He doesn't watch, and the chair ends up completely impaled upon the sword, leaving him about a foot on his end.
"When did we stop fighting, Hojo? When did we stop fighting and start hating? Start hating, killing, and destroying, huh?" I plan for him to drop the sword and start fistfighting me now. I'm wrong.
What he does instead is growl and kick the sword. It snaps off evenly at the one-foot mark I noticed earlier, and then he hauls off and throws it at me. With exaggerated speed, it flies directly for my head. Stupid me. Stupid, ignorant me, I try and deflect the damn thing with the back of my right hand. I gasp, louder than ever, when it continues on, and then stops a mere inch from my eye. it went between my index and middle fingers, a few inches below the space. It went directly through the back of my hand.
I fall. I've never taken a fall voluntarily in a battle, but I do now. A horrid, gut-churning, cracking sound like a chocobo thrown off the top of a building. Even Hojo pauses to wince, his face contorted in a mixture of pain and pleasure, but then he charges. Not so much a charge as a heated stomp, but he's making his way nonetheless. I don't scream. Screaming is a sign of weakness, I just grit my teeth, try to get back up, and fall right on my face again.
GAS Stage Three has made me vunerable to an attack. A physical attack, and if I don't stop this soon, the family curse will kick in and my heartbeat will go through the roof. I give it one last go. I leap up when he's in range and try to swipe with the half-sword in my hand. He's expecting me to stay down, so this catches him off-guard, making him lose his balance and go tumbling to the ground. I pin him down.
"Seph, roll!"
I don't even care who that voice belongs to, but it's telling me there's a bit of hope for me. I roll to the side, and a pulsing bolt of heat rams down into Hojo. In a few seconds, his twitching has stopped and his body is charred.
. . .It was that easy?
I slowly crawl to my feet and look around. Inside the elevator, the doors jammed open, Reno of all people is helping Aeris up. How he casted a lightning bolt down on a Jenova man and killed him instantly, I don't know, but I start hurrying over there. Until someone grabs the neck of my coat and hauls me backward. "What, no thank you for good ol' Jinaisim?" And I'm stunned into stillness. Not because of the name, but because of the man.
Holding what looks like a green marble in his hand, grinning lop-sidedly at me, and raising two fingers in a kind of wave, is the green-haired man from the ceiling of the asylum.
Silver Rose
by Reno Spiegel
Dante@towernetwork.net
December 5, 3076
Morning. Bedroom. Kala's Apartment. 9:30 A.M.
"The residents of Junon were shaken yesterday as. . ." - Reporter, Junon News
Well, when you wake up suddenly, wedge one of your arms out from around the other person in bed, and grab the note on the nightstand, the last thing you want it to say is:
Sephiroth,
Call me in Midgar. The
number is on the back.
Have fun.
Reno
Because he's telling the truth.
I'll call him later, come find him, and bruise his face up. It's quite a thrill at nine-thirty, first to look out the window and flip off the sun, then to glance at the floor, see your jeans, and think, Holy shit. We were drunk, but it happened and I remember all of it. I flex my jaw a bit out of habit and lay back down, snaking my loose arm back around Aeris' hips.
I was drunk. I knew what I was doing, though, and the realization that Kala's not the one with her face in my shoulder is welcomed this day. It's well past when I should be getting up, but I fade in and out for about another hour until she shifts beside me, opens her eyes, and gives me a crooked grin, trailing a fingernail down my cheek. "And how are you this morning?" she murmurs, about as awake as me.
She remembers it all. Not a regret in the world, as far as I can tell, and she keeps some humor in it. All three: The best signs I can get right now. I smile and kiss her forehead. "The church may've been better than the dumpster, but it's got nothin' on this. We should get up."
Aeris shakes her head as furiously as possible and tries to hide her face from the sun. "No way. I don't think I've ever been this tired right away."
"Makes enough sense, but Kala's gonna think we're dead if we stay in here too much longer." I'm not bossing her around today. In truth, this seems as good a place as any to stay the rest of the day. I poke her in the side. "We need to sit and have a talk later, hmm?"
She waves it off, stretches, and yawns out a "Whatever." Poor thing's never done this, but at least there's no hangover with it. I've figured out, if you stay awake long enough and, um, exercise, it helps to remove the headache you would otherwise be receiving in the morning from Junon alcohol. Hotel room, three years ago. I was foolish.
Aeris mumbles a few more things, scowls at the sun, and then sits up, fishing her clothing from the floor. I'm no better; one of my shoes ended up in the bookcase in one corner of the room. She is, even counting movies, the first I've seen to wake up and be almost totally normal after a night of that. I figured she'd either be jumpy, freaked, or clingy right away.
I finally, as I'm pulling my shirt back on, get to look around. Even for an apartment, the ceiling is awfully high, and angels' faces break away from the walls a ways up, staring directly down at us. I shudder and look away. Too much religion can kill a man, or so I've heard. Then again, I wonder what it can do to a Cetra.
God. We're going to have a kid. One time, like they said, is all it takes. I'm one-fourth Cetra, I'm in love with a half-human, and we're still being hunted by ShinRa for killing a highly-respected killer. Counting out Hojo and all I have to kill him for now. Never telling me, brainwashing Mother, never actually telling me about my real father.
We step out the door. Kala is in the kitchen, the radio on soft and a pan of bacon sizzling on one of the back burners. She hears us walk out. "One, what d'you want for breakfast, two, I ain't cleaning that up. Maid comes over at two."
I throw one of my shoes at her back. To tell the truth, I was hoping she'd be off somewhere when we woke up. "What's the plan for today?"
She kicks the shoe back at me without looking up from the pan. "You order your breakfast, then notice your early Christmas presents on the table, we eat, go shopping, then hit the concert. Made an alteration on where you're sitting, by the way."
I'm already headed for the presents when I tell her anything with eggs is fine. A new-looking, black trenchcoat is thrown over one of the chairs, and a wrapped CD is on the table. Mako Dreams: Hidden Metal. On the back, it describes how five copies were made, and then the songs destroyed. One for each band member, one for me. Aeris' is a large box of year-round flower seeds and a defensive stick.
"Figured you'd enjoy that one, Seph', since you're the biggest fan of ours I've met yet. Aeris, that's just for those shitfaced punks back in Midgar." Kala's converted directly to Mako Dreams mode, something she's known for doing before concerts. She once trashed the hotel room because they cooked her steak wrong, I heard.
She walks over with two plates and Aeris and I hug her in turn, thanking her thoroughly. We talk like rabid chimps all the way through breakfast, and then it's off to shopping. Junon has plenty of stores around, so it's not too hard to find what you want here. There's one tall office building you can see from all areas in the city. Inside, there are rumored to be fifty-eight floors, the top twenty owned by ShinRa and the others by small businesses from paper-making to pet shops. I hear about this way too late today.
Kala insists we stop in and get something to eat. The food court is on the bottom floor. She steps in the elevator, Aeris and I follow, and she punches the button for floor fifty-eight. This only disturbs me when she enters a five-digit code on a pad that extends from the wall, and then the machine jerks up. I narrow my eyes. "Seems like it takes an awful lot to get a bite to eat around here." My hand unconsciously finds Aeris'. "Special food court or something?"
"Not really, Sephiroth." She's used my name maybe twice before, always in a playful mood, but now she sounds serious. The elevator has a door on either side, the ideal place for an ambush. For someone without a weapon or protection from high-power rifle rounds, you're pretty well dead up here. If someone decides to run on a rampage, anyway. I know the smell around here, and from the sudden grip by Aeris, she does, too.
Seems like a Cetra talent to be able to identify the scent of gunpowder without a challenge. When you're in danger, a lot of things happen. It's called the general adaptation syndrome, or GAS. Your blood pressure rises, as does your pulse, and almost all your abilities heighten while it cuts off your digestion syndrome, using the power for other things, like reaction time, sight, and sound. Add on Cetra abilities and you've got a highly-dangerous lifeform.
What do I mean? I mean, when I hear even the slightest sound of footsteps coming toward the elevator, to the door behind us on the top floor, and said door creaks open, I push Aeris to the side where they can't fire, and shove Kala infront of me. A good pair of legs is all a man needs to vault off the side of the elevator and pin himself against the ceiling. Kala Makau screeches and goes down in a haze of bullets, and then the SOLDIER the shots came from seems downright shocked, judging from his reflection against the golden doors on the other side.
He starts walking forward, into the elevator. I see the barrel of a rifle, as I'd thought, poke inside. The signal to drop, grab the frame of the door, and swing my feet into his face. I land in the hall of an office with him infront of me, rifle three feet from his left arm. I flip it up into my own hand with my foot and point it between his eyes. "Who's your boss?"
He swallows hard, sweat beading on his forehead, and his voice wavers when he says, "I -- I'm not. . .I'm not permitted to give out that information, but he guarantees you won't shoot."
"Oh?" My first shot is direct, and blows out one of his kneecaps. He howls, and I see Aeris peeking out the elevator door when I glance back. I put his face back in the crosshares. "Rephrase or lose the other leg, Secret Boy." He tries to repeat what he'd just said through gritted teeth. I'm fed up. I take out the other leg and then put three in his chest. Aeris whimpers, and I'm about to turn around when someone else speaks.
"I really wish you wouldn't do that, Son. Quadruple murder, if I remember correctly. You could get in a lot of trouble that way."
When it comes down to "Father" Against Son, the son always loses. He's never got the balls to shoot his own father without assistance, and I'm alone today, I realize as I look up and see him sitting at the desk. He must have walked in during my interrogation. And when you're alone after stage one of the GAS, you move directly to stage three: The alarm doesn't shut off. You pump adrenaline until it hurts to breathe, but you have a short burst in which you have almost supernatural powers.
I have him pinned in with the gun, even from back here, but he pulls out a sword. An old man with a six-foot blade, no matter how feeble he may appear, is a scary sight. It'll take oil off of a driveway. "I'm not as foolish as the other. One shot, and then I attack."
I make a mistake. I use my one shot. He sidesteps like the wind and turns to see the window shatter. "Dammit. Now we'll have to pay for another." He turns toward me and leaps. He leaps across the entire room, landing inches from me. "That's an expensive window. Son." His eyes. It's all in his eyes. They're glowing with power; a Mako injection, no doubt about it. When it's fresh, Mako is more powerful than Stage Three of the GAS, but not a Cetra in it.
"Your turn. Dad." The sword is thin, not like a SOLDIER sword, with a unique design on the handle. You notice a lot of things when you're cought off-guard with something that holds instant killing power rushing at your forehead. So you dodge, preferably rolling down at an angle and springing back up. I do, his blade his the carpet and bounces back, but I lose my footing on my own bounceback, then go tumbling.
The old man swings again, with the grace of a gazelle, this time clipping me in the face before I can completely roll out of the way, and nipping my cheek lightly. A straight line of blood splatters against the carpet, but I get on my feet and dance away from another swipe this time. He pauses to regain his figure. I almost wait, then decide against it and fire at his hand. It hits its target, but he barely moves. Three of his fingers skitter, I swear to the Ancients, skitter off into a crack in the floor. "What the hell?"
"Welcome to the wide world of Jenovans, Sephiroth. There are many more than you may think, and only a Jenova can kill one of its own. I would invite you to join us, but I think it would be an even worse chemical inbalance if Jenova were injected into a one-fourth Cetra-human." I fire another at his head, just to see what would happen, but it jumps over. I don't mean I missed, I mean it was on a direct path for his nose, and then it leaped over his head and continued on. A Jenovan trick.
I count out my bullets when I hear a click. One on the Hellion leader, one on Tseng. Two on the SOLDIER's knees, three in his chest. One in the far wall of this room, one at Hojo's hand. The last one, the tenth, splinters wood even as I run this check. Ten bullets to the gun at a time, and no extra clips. I'm empty. I don't both trying to pistol-whip the maniac, just dodge from here on out. I think of a plan, then scratch it with every dodge I take.
Can't steal his sword, sure as hell can't shoot him, and attacking would be both futile and fatal. I turn and dash. Not for the elevator, not for the window. Straight for the desk. The chair behind it, bless my luck, is on wheels. I lift it with a bit of effort, Hojo advancing in a walk just to taunt me, and throw. It works. He tries knocking it away, but ends up gouging it. A foolish mistake. He doesn't watch, and the chair ends up completely impaled upon the sword, leaving him about a foot on his end.
"When did we stop fighting, Hojo? When did we stop fighting and start hating? Start hating, killing, and destroying, huh?" I plan for him to drop the sword and start fistfighting me now. I'm wrong.
What he does instead is growl and kick the sword. It snaps off evenly at the one-foot mark I noticed earlier, and then he hauls off and throws it at me. With exaggerated speed, it flies directly for my head. Stupid me. Stupid, ignorant me, I try and deflect the damn thing with the back of my right hand. I gasp, louder than ever, when it continues on, and then stops a mere inch from my eye. it went between my index and middle fingers, a few inches below the space. It went directly through the back of my hand.
I fall. I've never taken a fall voluntarily in a battle, but I do now. A horrid, gut-churning, cracking sound like a chocobo thrown off the top of a building. Even Hojo pauses to wince, his face contorted in a mixture of pain and pleasure, but then he charges. Not so much a charge as a heated stomp, but he's making his way nonetheless. I don't scream. Screaming is a sign of weakness, I just grit my teeth, try to get back up, and fall right on my face again.
GAS Stage Three has made me vunerable to an attack. A physical attack, and if I don't stop this soon, the family curse will kick in and my heartbeat will go through the roof. I give it one last go. I leap up when he's in range and try to swipe with the half-sword in my hand. He's expecting me to stay down, so this catches him off-guard, making him lose his balance and go tumbling to the ground. I pin him down.
"Seph, roll!"
I don't even care who that voice belongs to, but it's telling me there's a bit of hope for me. I roll to the side, and a pulsing bolt of heat rams down into Hojo. In a few seconds, his twitching has stopped and his body is charred.
. . .It was that easy?
I slowly crawl to my feet and look around. Inside the elevator, the doors jammed open, Reno of all people is helping Aeris up. How he casted a lightning bolt down on a Jenova man and killed him instantly, I don't know, but I start hurrying over there. Until someone grabs the neck of my coat and hauls me backward. "What, no thank you for good ol' Jinaisim?" And I'm stunned into stillness. Not because of the name, but because of the man.
Holding what looks like a green marble in his hand, grinning lop-sidedly at me, and raising two fingers in a kind of wave, is the green-haired man from the ceiling of the asylum.