Interlude

6

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A/n: Alright, it's SUPPOSED to be short. That's why its called interlude. Also, yay for Ed.

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Lorraine sucked her stomach in, sliding under the six inches of space between the garage door and the ground, her pinky finger clearing just as the door closed. Immediately she was up on her feet. The room was completely dark. In haste, Lorraine fiddled with the dial on the sunglasses, switching from mode to mode, until she found night vision. Although it did help, she was nonplussed. The room was empty, an eleven, by eleven, by eleven cube of air with a garage door. There were no other visible exits.

She turned about, looking at the giant steel bolts on the door, inspecting them. Titanium alloy. Next she walked the room's perimeter, hand running along the wall in a lazy fashion. Cold brushed steel. Next she walked to the center of the room, but stumbled and fell forward, hands thrown out in front to brace herself. The floor was cement. No telling how far it went. She picked herself up, looking at the ceiling. She pressed a few buttons on her sunglasses, but she couldn't analyze the substance.

Suddenly she got an idea. Pressing the hidden keypad on the palm of her glove, she scratched an ear, inconspicuously putting a small speaker onto her earring, which in itself was a microchip. You could never know when someone was watching you. She waited as the sonar sound spread through the room. The readings came back, filtered through the silver hoop to the LED lights on the sunglasses. Each wall was five feet thick. No luck there. The ceiling however, was only half a foot deep. Sheet rock.

She sighed. The walls were to far apart to vault. This meant breaking out the new equipment. One more press of the keypad, and her converse were lined with fast binding gel. Another neat substance she swiped. She reluctantly pulled on the new gloves, the fingertips forming micro beads coated with the same substance as her shoes.

As physically fit as she was, scaling walls this way was more difficult than she expected. She kept thinking she was going to slip. It took about two minutes to get up eleven feet. Lorraine made a mental note then and there to rock climb more often.

The sonic reading said that the ceiling wasn't dense. Even so, Lorraine hesitated. Something wasn't right.

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"Mac'n man, Mac'n man, josh-u-a's a Mac'n man! Mac'n man, Mac'n…" Francois sang/squealed, circling Joshua as he walked into town. He had had just about enough. Joshua had been listening to Fran singing 'Mac'n man." For over half an hour, during which, she had not stopped circling him.

"Fran!"

"Yeeeeeeeeeeeeees, mister Macintyre?" She said in a watery deep voice, arms undulating at her sides as she hop-skipped to keep up with him.

"Why Are you following me?"

"Because Father-person SAID…."

"Never mind. I don't want to know what 'Father-person' said." Joshua hunched over, his shoulders drooping, his hair starting to turn yellowy at the roots. The whole reason he had walked for an hour to get food was to buy Purple dye as well. Otherwise he'd've let Appeldheri do it. He rolled his neck, a few vertebrae cracking, at which Fran Shouted "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWW" and laughed hysterically, singing a new song which was called 'crack, crack'.

He sighed, mumbling to himself.

"The old geezer doesn't trust me."

"EEEXACKLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

"Ok. thanks Fran."

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He just watched silently as a ship flew by. He wanted nothing more than to be on that ship right now. The bag of tomatoes and eggs slowly slipped from his arms, only to be caught by Fran, who did a great job of balancing it on her head, a tomato or two spilling out every minute.

"Why did mister Macintyre stop?"

Joshua never looked away from the sky, though he was able to fish around until he plucked the bag from Fran's head, placing it safely on the ground.

"Mister Macintyre's stopped because he doesn't want to go back."

"Mister….Mister Macyntire doesn't…doesn't like us? Doesn't like Ed?" The girl whimpered.

He smiled, looking down to the girl. "Of course I do, it's just…wait…Ed!"

Ed nodded vigorously, face carrying that creepy grin that was too big for her mouth.

"Uh huh. Ed is Ed is Fran is Fran!" She exclaimed, throwing her arms out wide, starting with the airplane noises again. Joshua just watched her for a while, wind tugging at the tails of his pink shirt. He imagined it must look very picturesque, in an insane asylum way.

"Right."

Next Episode: My Head Feels like That.