Well, here's chappie two! Yay! You guys will probably suspect the person I think you will, until the end of this chapter…

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'Who are you?' the janitor blurted out, looking at the figure in front of him as if he were a freak… the same way he had been stared at for a decade, by children and adult alike… but no one like this.

The figure frowned. 'I,' he growled, voice laced with hatred. 'Am Commander Sool to you, convict.'

'Convict? What?'

'Don't play dumb!' Sool snapped. 'You have been caught above ground mingling with mud men, as I have already stated. We have had our eyes on you for ten years, but we have been unable to prove whether or not you were a short mud man or a fairy!'

'Fairies?' Jeff wrinkled his nose. 'No such thing, those are just children's stories.'

'Don't you dare talk back at me!' snapped Sool. 'It took us years to try to get you to pick up an acorn at the right holy site and bury it, and instead we find you pick up an acorn all by yourself, though not completely! That school trip was arranged for a reason!'

Jeff blinked. His normal irritacy deserted him in favour for confusion. What was the strange… fairy? What was he talking about?

The room looked strange, as well as its inhabitants. Short people. Just like me… It was an interview room, the janitor suspected, looking around.

All of a sudden the door to the curious round room burst open before Jeff could examine anything else, and a… centaur? entered the room, followed by something small and hairy and another fairy, a fraction shorter than the other elves in the room. She looked… familiar… and Jeff's heart fluttered slightly at the sight of her. Love at first sight, pfft. No such thing, you're just nervous, he told himself, disgusted. He looked back at the first creature. The centaur was wearing a peculiar helmet, which looked like it was made of tin foil.

'Hello Sool,' said the centaur. 'I took the liberty of hiring private investigators. You'd better give me a raise for this.'

Looking at the expression on Sool's face, the janitor wouldn't have been surprised if the centaur – who looked like he worked here – was fired on the spot. He was very shocked to find that instead of doing this, the commander yelled at him.

'WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR!'

'Because,' said the centaur indignantly, his feathers ruffled slightly. 'There must be some important reason as to why this fairy,' he jerked his shiny head towards the janitor. 'Has survived ten years up there without Haven being discovered, all by himself.'

Sool's forehead wrinkled with concentration. 'True, I suppose,' he acknowledged gruffly. He had swallowed his pride. Great.

'So, here are P.I.s Short and Diggums – '

'I already know who they are!' snapped Sool. 'Diggums is a convict, just like – '

'He doesn't,' the centaur said, looking at Jeff.

'Are you really that stupid Sool?' asked the female elf behind the centaur. 'You're looking right into his face. Even I can tell from here he's been mesmerised several times, and not just from Kelp's doing.'

Huh?

'See?' the fairy stepped forward, followed by the hairy thing. 'His irises are jagged. For all we know false memories could have been put in there.'

As soon as he saw the fairy P.I properly, Leland was almost positive of something. 'Do I know you?' he asked as she came closer, ignoring his brain which was telling him to flush. She stopped in surprise, blinking, frozen in her tracks. 'You look familiar.'

'There we go!' Short waved her arm, her composure returned, though she looked slightly nervous. 'I don't recognise him,' at this Jeff deflated slightly. 'But he might have seen me from somewhere!'

Jeff concentrated, thinking, ignoring the enraged look on Sool's face. 'I think I dreamed about you actually.'

Short stopped in her tracks, looking completely bewildered. 'What happened in it?' she asked after a moment

Jeff thought for a moment, and then he recalled his dream from several nights ago. How long has passed? he wondered. 'I think you shot me.'

The hairy thing sniggered. 'That's just like you, Holly.' Short shot him a Look. The Look wasn't a nice one.

'What else happened?' she asked, turning back to the alleged fairy. 'It might be a memory, though I don't remember any convicts like you.'

'Uh… we were in this cave like thing. There were doors nearby but they were closed. You shot me and you looked like you were about to cry – ' more sniggering from the hairy thing ' – and I heard two words, but I don't remember them, and then something exploded. I think it was me, the explosion, I don't know, but there was lots of dust.'

Short shot him a glare, turned on her heel and stormed out of the room. Jeff blinked, confused. 'What did I do?' he piped up. His face grew slightly red as he became angry. 'She asked me what happened and I told her, what is wrong with her?'

'Don't worry about it,' the centaur shook his head, but his witty smile had disappeared. Leland's frown didn't disappear, but his anger evaporated as quickly as it came. 'Look,' the centaur continued. 'I did a search on missing persons and we can't find anyone named Leland – I learnt your name years ago, by the way, from other mud men – so I think that was a fake name given to you. I also couldn't identify anyone with your facial features, so I think you've got a chip somewhere.'

At Jeff's confused look, he continued.

'It's a feature chip, one that changes your appearance.'

'Like plastic surgery?' asked Jeff.

'What, that mud man thing? Yes, it's just as expensive, though, and it takes about a week for the appearance to gradually change. My theory is that you had one put into you, programmed to make you look like that. Not your personality, just your physical features. Meanwhile, you are getting mesmerised every hour of every day of that week to prevent you remembering who you are. But,' the centaur paused for breath at this point – he had been speaking without drawing one. Sool looked almost amused, as did the hairy thing. 'There's one fault – a copy of the person's memories get implanted into the chip as well. We'll be putting you in an operation in order to retrieve the chip, presuming there's one in there. We'll give you an X-ray.'

Leland nodded.

---

A day later, the centaur – since then Leland had learnt his name was Foaly – twirled something in his fingers victoriously. 'Well,' he said. 'I, and the X-ray, were right. Your appearance should change in the next week, back to what you looked like. Meanwhile, I'll try and find your proper memories, and you can have a look at them. You'll sleep in the backroom, where you slept last night. Then after, we'll take you back to your family and find out who's responsible.'

Jeff nodded. 'Where's Short?' he asked. 'I want to talk to her.'

Foaly looked surprised. 'She's probably in her office or working on a case somewhere,' he answered. 'I'll give you the address to her work place, but if she's not there don't be surprised, I'll write it down for you.' And he did.

'Umm…' Jeff said, looking at the hieroglyphics.

'Oh, sorry, which language?'

'Mine, preferably.'

'Uh, I can't write in it. Um… I'll just give you the address verbally… wait, the addresses here are in Gnomish as well.' Foaly sighed, and Jeff found himself growing irritated again. 'Oh, just wander around Haven and maybe you'll bump into her. Try a smoothie bar, she's fond of Nettles. Just don't get lost.'

Jeff sighed in irritation. 'Thanks,' he said. 'I guess.' He frowned.

Foaly shrugged and clopped away.

---

Foaly was right. Jeff caught P.I. Short leaving a smoothie bar with one in her left hand. She looked all too ready to dart off with another leer, but Jeff called out and she reluctantly hovered on the spot whilst he caught up with her.

'Um,' he said, almost blushing. Embarrassment you fool. 'Your name is Holly, right?'

She nodded, lips pressed closely together.

'You don't mind me calling you that?'

There was a bit of hesitation, until Holly finally shook her head.

'Look, Holly, I'm… um… sorry for upsetting you. I just told you what you wanted to know, I didn't mean to upset you or anyone. It… um… was probably just a dream or something.'

Holly bit her lip and nodded. 'Damn accurate dream it was, though,' she mumbled. 'Maybe you're… psychic… or something weird like that.'

Jeff wondered whether to ask, and risked it. 'What happened?'

Holly was silent for a minute, and Jeff wondered, as she leant against the wall, whether she was going to speak at all. 'Um,' she finally said. 'A… person I used to know. He was killed in an explosion. I was told that there was a sweet spot on the bomb on his chest, which clung there like… mud man glue, I think. And… it just…'

'It… wasn't really a sweet spot?' The term seemed familiar to him.

Holly's eyes were brimming with tears. She looked down and nodded.

'What did you say to the person who told you it was a sweet spot?'

Holly just shrugged. 'I don't feel like talking about it right now,' she finally said. 'But… you look like him, you know. Well, not really, but you act like him.'

'Really?' Jeff raised his eyebrows. This was only his second brief meeting with the fairy.

'Yeah, I heard you raging and storming about something last night, you were yelling at Sool I think,' Jeff cringed as he remembered the argument. Holly looked at him with a slight smile. 'He used to turn purple when he got angry – which was a lot, I tell you.'

'I turn red, sort of,' said Jeff uncertainly. 'At least, that's what the kids at the boarding school told me.'

'The place you worked at?' asked Holly.

'Yep. Ten hellish years, let me tell you.'

'But that's how long we've been keeping an eye on you, according to Foaly,' frowned Holly. 'What are your memories before that?'

'Uh, house burnt down during this probe thingy. After that I lived in an apartment with no job, because I worked at home and I was fired for losing all of my information. I was invited to this conference thingy and I met Giovanni – he was running it – his daughter, Belinda, who recommended the job to me – '

'Belinda?' said Holly sharply, almost falling over. 'What was her last name?'

'Zito.'

'Oh no, it's Opal! I'll have to tell Foaly about this, come on!'

Jeff blinked as Holly rushed off. He ran to follow her. 'Her name's Belinda, not – '

'Belinda Zito was one of her aliases!' said Holly, panting already despite being used to running.

The janitor was stunned. Who was Opal? And why was Holly acting like this? Something stirred. He didn't know what.

---

Back in the Ops booth…

'This sounds bad,' said the centaur, pale, when he learnt of this. He swivelled round on his specially designed chair. Jeff resisted from staring at all the computers… 'But, as far as I know, during the time of the probe nobody went missing. This is weird. What's worse is that Koboi's at large now as well.' Foaly frowned. 'Maybe you went missing before that,' he suggested. 'Before ten years ago.' Leland shrugged.

He felt something staring at him. Turning to his left, he spotted Holly staring at him. He almost flushed. 'What?' he said.

'Your jaw looks different,' she noted.

'Since when have you been looking there?'

Holly blushed and turned away.

'Feature chip!' said Foaly, jumping back into the conversation. 'We found one inside him and removed it this morning, so his face is changing already. Holly,' Foaly continued, his tone changing. 'Sool's got a job for you, and it might take a few days. Better go find him before he blows his top.'

'He probably already has,' groaned Leland aloud.

When Foaly asked how he knew that, Jeff had no idea.

---

When Holly came back at the end of the week, she was exhausted. There had been an important mission – to mind wipe thousands of men, women and children, with… portable mind wipe thingies. In her tiredness she couldn't remember their proper name. Holly almost felt furious at Jeffery Leland, but wasn't. She decided not to punch him in the face as soon as she saw him again, but would she recognise him?

When she got to the Ops booth, Foaly was talking to someone, someone Holly knew. Her jaw dropped as the person nodded and walked away. Foaly looked worried when he turned around and saw her.

'Holly,' he said. 'That's Jeff. He still doesn't remember.'

To say she was gob smacked would have been an understatement. Then…

'Is… is that Grub Kelp?'

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Twist? Or did you expect that?

:D Snicker