From: dmr@medicated.Corp.Sun.COM (Daniel M. Rosenberg)
Subject: The Castle [ part 1 ]
Date: 6 Oct 92 20:01:11 GMT
Lines: 221



It's warm inside this apartment, in the medina of the city.
Outside the window, and over the rooftops, Noah can see the
roiling waves in the Bay, throwing a thick layer of gray mist
down the streets that lead to the wharves.

An antique incandescent brass lamp on the battered desk lends
a golden glow to the room. Noah notes the pleasant contrast between
the golden light inside and the cool grayness on the other side
of the pane.

Tara lies asleep in the brown corduroy wing chair in the corner.
An old hardcover edition of "City of Quartz: Excavating the
Future in Los Angeles" lies spine-up on her lap. Wolfie's snoozing
on the floor beside her, nose characteristically tucked under tail.
The dog snuffles, barks in her sleep, then sighs.

Noah's sitting at the desk, looking out into misty Baltimore. The
intercom on the wall honks, and stays on, letting the sound of the
solenoid on the building's front door slamming out break the
pleasant silence in the room. People are coming into the building,
but Noah did not let them in. His stomach muscles contract,
and his lips involuntarily tighten.

As Noah turns around in his chair, three anonymous-looking men in
gray raincoats and wet hair open the front door of the apartment.
They close the door behind them; its deadbolt clatters to the
floor outside, leaving a neat cylindrical hole with a blackened
surface. They stand impassively in the foyer.

Noah leans the chair forward, and gets up, striding towards the men
with a questioning look on his face, noticing the pearly beads of water in their close-cropped hair. One the men cocks his head, eyes
an impassive black. Noah extends his hand in greeting to this
one, and the man responds, withdrawing his hand from under
his coat. He clamps a cuff around Noah's wrist, then grabs the
other wrist, and cuffs that too.

Noah says, "What--"
"--Quiet." The response is made in a low, quiet voice. It
is authoritative. Noah cannot imagine other than complying.

The black-eyed man turns Noah around, as the next one draws a
gun out. Noah is being pushed into the hallway as he hears shots
ring out, followed by the loud, high-pitched wailing of a dog.
The three men march Noah down the hall to the elevator as
the loud wailing fades in the distance.

They enter the waiting elevator car, and as they turn around to
face the front, a fourth man takes out a pistol and grips it by
the barrel.

The last thing Noah sees is the flash of the man's forearm
flying in a quiet arc towards his temple. He hears a deep thud,
and everything turns dark purple, then black.


			.	.	.


"Good evening, San Francisco."
"Good morning, Baltimore."
"He's gone. They've taken him. They even shot the
poor fucking dog."
"Understood."

Tara hung up the phone. She set her jaw, and did not allow
herself to cry.
			.	.	.


Noah is from a small town in the middle of Pennsylvania,
which even now is still mostly deep green fields and barns.
The Sprawl has not encroached here -- something slow and
isolated by the countryside has held back swollen exurbia.

He has long thought that it wasn't just the fact that people
still needed to farm the valuable land here for food that
prevented the shopping malls and their acres of pavement
from falling out of the sky and over pastures, obliterating
the open spaces with their oil-black parking lots.

The fields in that part of Pennsylvania always gave off
an aura of stillness. Some nights, when he was younger,
Noah would wander through the growing wheat, dragging
a Tonka truck by its shovel. He would go in until all
around him were nothing but gentle stalks, and the road
and the house and the fences could not be seen.
He was in a sea of whispering green.
The coolness was palpable. He knelt down in the dirt,
and set the toy steam shovel beside him, moving it back and
forth with his hand.


The fields felt safe. They'd been used for farming for such
a long time, Noah couldn't imagine them being used for anything
else. No one came out here -- what for? There was nothing
here but corn and wheat and soybeans.

Then he would wake up from a half-conscious reverie, hearing
his father calling him from the house. The truck might
be on it's side, or half-buried in a hole he'd made.
His throat would be sore, and his clothes damp.

He would go back inside, heading toward the house and
the setting sun, never looking behind him. And nothing ever
followed.


It's warm inside this apartment, in the medina of the city.
Outside the window, and over the rooftops, Noah can see the
roiling waves in the Bay, throwing a thick layer of gray mist
down the streets that lead to the wharves.

An antique incandescent brass lamp on the battered desk lends
a golden glow to the room. Noah notes the pleasant contrast between
the golden light inside and the cool grayness on the other side
of the pane.

Tara lies asleep in the brown corduroy wing chair in the corner.
An old hardcover edition of "City of Quartz: Excavating the
Future in Los Angeles" lies spine-up on her lap. Wolfie's snoozing
on the floor beside her, nose characteristically tucked under tail.
The dog snuffles, barks in her sleep, then sighs.

Noah's sitting at the desk, looking out into misty Baltimore. The
intercom on the wall honks, and stays on, letting the sound of the
solenoid on the building's front door slamming out break the
pleasant silence in the room. People are coming into the building,
but Noah did not let them in. His stomach muscles contract,
and his lips involuntarily tighten.

As Noah turns around in his chair, three anonymous-looking men in
gray raincoats and wet hair open the front door of the apartment.
They close the door behind them; its deadbolt clatters to the
floor outside, leaving a neat cylindrical hole with a blackened
surface. They stand impassively in the foyer.

Noah leans the chair forward, and gets up, striding towards the men
with a questioning look on his face, noticing the pearly beads of water in their close-cropped hair. One the men cocks his head, eyes
an impassive black. Noah extends his hand in greeting to this
one, and the man responds, withdrawing his hand from under
his coat. He clamps a cuff around Noah's wrist, then grabs the
other wrist, and cuffs that too.

Noah says, "What--"
"--Quiet." The response is made in a low, quiet voice. It
is authoritative. Noah cannot imagine other than complying.

The black-eyed man turns Noah around, as the next one draws a
gun out. Noah is being pushed into the hallway as he hears shots
ring out, followed by the loud, high-pitched wailing of a dog.
The three men march Noah down the hall to the elevator as
the loud wailing fades in the distance.

They enter the waiting elevator car, and as they turn around to
face the front, a fourth man takes out a pistol and grips it by
the barrel.

The last thing Noah sees is the flash of the man's forearm
flying in a quiet arc towards his temple. He hears a deep thud,
and everything turns dark purple, then black.


			.	.	.


"Good evening, San Francisco."
"Good morning, Baltimore."
"He's gone. They've taken him. They even shot the
poor fucking dog."
"Understood."

Tara hung up the phone. She set her jaw, and did not allow
herself to cry.
			.	.	.


Noah is from a small town in the middle of Pennsylvania,
which even now is still mostly deep green fields and barns.
The Sprawl has not encroached here -- something slow and
isolated by the countryside has held back swollen exurbia.

He has long thought that it wasn't just the fact that people
still needed to farm the valuable land here for food that
prevented the shopping malls and their acres of pavement
from falling out of the sky and over pastures, obliterating
the open spaces with their oil-black parking lots.

The fields in that part of Pennsylvania always gave off
an aura of stillness. Some nights, when he was younger,
Noah would wander through the growing wheat, dragging
a Tonka truck by its shovel. He would go in until all
around him were nothing but gentle stalks, and the road
and the house and the fences could not be seen.
He was in a sea of whispering green.
The coolness was palpable. He knelt down in the dirt,
and set the toy steam shovel beside him, moving it back and
forth with his hand.


The fields felt safe. They'd been used for farming for such
a long time, Noah couldn't imagine them being used for anything
else. No one came out here -- what for? There was nothing
here but corn and wheat and soybeans.

Then he would wake up from a half-conscious reverie, hearing
his father calling him from the house. The truck might
be on it's side, or half-buried in a hole he'd made.
His throat would be sore, and his clothes damp.

He would go back inside, heading toward the house and
the setting sun, never looking behind him. And nothing ever
followed.

[ Comments appreciated. ]


---
# Daniel M. Rosenberg        Dan.Rosenberg@Corp.Sun.COM   +1 415 688 9580
# Opinions expressed above aren't Sun's.


Subject: The Castle [ part 2 ]


Tara grew up in the city, first in Alameda, then San Francisco.
She went to school in the City, and found Noah there. They met
through a mutual friend who brought Tara
to Noah's place in Noe Valley for dinner.

They were all sitting around in Noah's living room,
the college station turned on, eating shrimp toast --
Noah's specialty. It seemed exotic, but all you had
to do to make it was pound the hell out of some shrimp,
put the paste on some French bread, and fry it in olive
oil with garlic. Shrimp toast made for fun meal
preparation: as you ripped the crustaceans apart, and pounded
them out, you could pretend they were professors,
politicians, or former housemates.

Tara had been making a big deal of one large shrimp which
she named for a former classmate who had apparently sold
his soul to a big company. She bit its head off and spat
it into sink.

"Jeez, who's that?"
"Marko -- guy I used to date." She ripped the shrimp's feet off.
"Handsome fella."
"Well, yeah, all of the guys who've sold their souls are."
The shrimp went down on the cutting board, and was followed
by Tara's well-aimed clenched fist.

"Where's he now?"
"FuckifIknow. Maybe still raping sorority chicks on the side
while stepping on the heads of those around him." Tara
mashed her palm back and forth on the cutting board.

"Fun while it lasted, heh?"
"You bet."
"Sorry -- I mean, I didn't mean to be flip."
"S'okay. I like you."

Noah developed a hopeless crush on Tara by the time coffee
was served.

The determined look on her oval face, her expressions punctuated
by the physical effort of her motions -- including the
earlier impassioned destruction of hapless shrimp
representing an endless parade of the curtly-described slimy
characters in her life -- burned her image in his mind.

The setting sun shone across her, the angle of light becoming
steadily more dramatic, driving deep Noah's infatuation. She
talked animatedly to Noah about school, weather, buses,
politicians, magazine articles, her eyes fixed on his.
That was just over the course of the afternoon. Tara stayed
the night.

Noah woke up the next morning, still entranced. He pressed his
face into the nape of Tara's neck. She sighed, stuck
an arm straight up into the air, and turned over toward him,
smiling with her eyes. She laid her forearm to rest
against his temple. Noah, scarcely believing his good
fortune, closed his eyes, just to test the reality--

"Shit!" Tara shot up out of the bed.
"What!?" Noah laughed.
"I'm not... I'm supposed to be at work. I've got to--"
"--Hey, it's six a.m."
Tara huffed.
"Who do you work for that makes you show up at 6am?"
"Consulting firm."
"Mean mothers. Lunch?"
"Can't. Special project. I'll call you."
"Umm."
"No, really!"
"Good."

			.	.	.


Noah followed Tara from San Francisco to Montreal to
Baltimore. She claimed, sarcastically, that her employer
promised each relocation would be the last.

Who was Noah to complain? All these cities, soot and clouds,
wet streets and stained granite, had their charm. *His*
employer didn't particularly care where he worked; the
documents he worked on wended their way across the Matrix
from one coast as easily as the next. They both regretted
leaving friends behind, but they met new ones -- although
the couple talked about how deeply entangled they were
getting with each other.

Tara never talked about her job in detail. It was medical
consulting work. She kept a septych of head CAT scans
of a datajacked subject, which she said she'd kept from
a research project her firm had taken for a law suit --
but that was as specific as she'd ever gotten about her work.

The scans were set in a row in a glass and aluminum frame,
five lateral views and two more from the top and bottom.
The datajack showed up as a bright spindle behind the left
ear, terminating in a net of crosshatched lines. A wide
area of the spindle had the legend "SENDAI 20" on it in tiny
letters, visible from the front.

Noah found himself looking at the pictures again and again
over two years. They had an eerie quality, the glowing white
of bone against a black void. He'd asked, once, "What happened
to this guy?" Tara had answered, "He died." Then she
changed the subject. Tara, after that, never even give a hint
of noticing the display.


			.	.	.


"Good morning, San Francisco."
"Bonjour, Montreal. What've ya got?"
"Head case, Sendai 20, postal examiner."
"And?"
"Dropped, 0400, at home, in bed. Gendarmerie called
 immediately, and our guy at the hospital informed us. One
 of our docs scored some CAT scans. Nothing obvious we can
 see, but they're headed your way."
"Whaddaya think?"
"Government beta-test."
"Jesus. ...Later."

			.	.	.


When Tara was growing up in Alameda, she'd heard about
voluntary medical experimentation on prisoners in San
Quentin. The research was all government sponsored, but
that got complicated once the government contracted out work --
including prisons.

The publicity surrounding the experiments program in
the local paper was made up of fluff pieces about how
new medicines could undergo final testing on human
subjects, and about how much the inmates and their
relatives could get for participating in such harmless
research. And, of course, how happy everyone from the
mayor to the local former mass murderers were with the
program.

Tara's older brother was going to medical school at UCSF
when Tara was in high school, and he used to mutter
frequently about what a load of crap the publicity was.

"Tara, lookit this."
"Yeah?"
"They're doing brain tissue resistivity tests on these guys at
 the prison."
"So?"
"They claim it's to find out more about brain diseases.
 Bullshit. It's weapons shit, or somethin'. If they
 wanted to know more about brain diseases, they'd look
 at dead *brains* for chrissake. No brain disease you
 can imitate by popping juiced trodes in those poor fuckers'
 skulls."
"You're such a conspiracy freak."
"*You're* such a fuckin' sheep!"
"Oh, Daniel, I love you, but you can be so difficult when
 you're strung out and sleep-deprived."
"Yeah, just wait 'til they start jamming frayed extension
 cords into *your* cranium."
"Ooh! That sounds like a turn-on!"
He sighed. "My kid sister."

By the time Tara graduated from high school, the fluff
pieces were gone, but there was no word from the prison
that the program had ended. There were new fluff pieces,
however, about how San Quentin was a much more orderly place
under its new management.

Tara went off to college. She expressed no interest
in medicine.


[ Administrative note: the use of the name Tara was wholly
  coincidence; as far as I know, this isn't the same one. ]

[ Your comments are sincerely appreciated. ]



---
# Daniel M. Rosenberg        Dan.Rosenberg@Corp.Sun.COM   +1 415 688 9580
# Opinions expressed above aren't Sun's.



Subject: The Castle [ part 3 ]



[ Okay, folks, writing in the present tense for happening events
  and the past tense for flashbacks ended up being too confusing...
  one tense it is. ]

Noah woke up lying flat on a work table in a room filled with
beige steel shelves, all around in long rows. His three abductors
sat around him, talking quietly among themselves.

Further away, in his peripheral vision, workers in uniform were
going about their business. Most of them wore headsets, and they
were filing envelopes into vertically divided slots in the shelves.
They didn't talk to each other or anyone else. They didn't seem
to notice anything odd about a man on his back in the middle
of the room. Noah felt too weak to sit up.

Rows of bright fluorescent lamps in decrepit louvered fixtures
lit up the space in yellow-white glare.

"Jesus," said Noah. "I'm being held hostage in the fucking post office."
"Oh, good afternoon, Mister, ahh," the shortest-haired man flipped
through a folder, "Mister Kaye. Yes, being held hostage in the
post office again, quite inconvenient."
Snide, Noah thought.
"Great, big shining birds. Ahh, swooping, clawing." This was the man
seated farthest away. He cocked his head back and forth. Noah recognized
him as the same guy who'd shot into the apartment during his abduction.
Crazy.
"Gregory, do shut up," said Snide.
"Quite," replied Gregory. "Quite lovely."
The third guy sat like an erect lump of granite. While he didn't look
particularly large, his bearing made Noah think that most of his
musclulature had been replaced by highly modified auto parts. Lunk.

Snide lit up a cigarette, and clasped his hands behind his head.
He sneezed, then began to talk.

"I suppose you're wondering why you're here. Well, frankly, it's none
 of your business, so please believe me when I tell you you'd
 really be better off not wondering about such things. They're
 really quite beyond your... purview.

"Now then. We're going to do what we want with you. And that's it.
 Please don't be rude and ask questions. You're quite lucky we've
 explained this much in any event. Gregory?"

Crazy stood up. "Oh, hmm. Oh, oh. Barry?"
Lunk pushed his chair back and stood, and in doing so, looked like
a very earnestly executed, overdone fascist statue. Lunk held him down
by the shoulders, and Crazy started kneading Noah's face with his
fingertips, exclaiming "Ooh!" and "Ahh!" in apparently random
bursts of pleasure.

Snide pulled out a clipboard from among his neatly arrayed effects.

"Now then, Mr. Kaye. Do you have any allergies?"
"Huh?"
"Gregory."
Crazy stopped kneading Noah's face, cocked his head, and pouted
up one corner of his mouth in an inquisitive gesture. Then he brought
the heel of his hand down on Noah's temple so hard Noah's vision turned
black with blue streaks for several seconds.
"Mr. Kaye, any allergies, specifically to anesthetics or medicines?"
"None that I know of."
"Funny. Your records here say you're allergic to milk."
"That's not a medicine, though!"
"Gregory."
The hand came down again and this time the black did not recede. When
Noah finally came to, most of the lights were off, and everyone was gone.
He found himself strapped down to the table with shipping tape. His left
eye wouldn't focus, his head felt like a world of pain, and there was
a Post-It stuck on his forehead, with only two words written on it
in black permanent pen.

After several painful minutes of cross-eyed, close-focus backwards
reading, Noah made out the letters:
"DON'T
  TOUCH."

			.	.	.

"Temple, Tara."
Tara rose from the green vinyl chair in the police station and
went up to the information window.
"Yes, that's me."
"Good morning ma'am. Are you the concerned's wife or relative?"
"No ma'am, but--"
"--Sorry. I can't do anything for you."
"You can't even tell me what he's in for? Or who arrested him?"
"Sorry, ma'am. None of that information's available."
"What could you tell me if I *was* his wife?"
"Nothing more, ma'am, but we do have standing orders to take any
 close relatives into protective custody."
Tara looked up and down the woman's face. The fleshy jowls looked worn,
but the eyes were kind. Not only was this woman in all likelihood
telling the truth, but she was probably letting off on more than she
had to. The woman broke in--
"I'm so sorry."
"I want to thank you."
"I wish you could!"

There was nothing more to say. Tara smiled sadly, looked down, and
walked away. By the time she was halfway across the room, the
tears were flowing quietly.

			.	.	.

"San Francisco?"
"Hello, Baltimore?"
"Gene, it's Tara! Where the fuck is he?"
"Dammit, don't use our names on this line! Oh, God. I'm sorry, but
 who knows who's listening?"
"Jesus, I'm sorry. I'm torn all to hell. This is my fault."
"Look, I'll see what I can do for you."
"Thanks. Oh my god I can't *believe* this." Tara was sobbing now.
"Oh, Christ -- I'll call you back."

			.	.	.

"Baltimore."
"Hi." Tara snuffled.
"Well, I got the official arrest record." Gene's voice was low and somber.
"What does it say?"
"Postal Inspector."
"He's been kidnapped by the god damn *Postal* Inspector? You've got to
 be kidding."
"In a fair world I would be. These bastards have a screwy sense of
 humor."

[ Your comments help, as always. ]


---
# Daniel M. Rosenberg        Dan.Rosenberg@Corp.Sun.COM   +1 415 688 9580
# Opinions expressed above aren't Sun's.

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Article: 961 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
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From: dmr@medicated.Corp.Sun.COM (Daniel M. Rosenberg)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: The Castle [ part 4 ]
Message-ID: <ldk5npINNj3c@jethro.Corp.Sun.COM>
Date: 13 Oct 92 00:23:21 GMT
Reply-To: dmr@medicated.Corp.Sun.COM
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Lines: 98
NNTP-Posting-Host: medicated.corp.sun.com


The pressure in Noah's head ebbed and flowed. He found himself
in the wheat field again. It was growing dark. There was a matte
sheen of dew on the yellow toy truck, which he rocked back
and forth in a small ditch.

A shadow moved over him, and skirted over the tops of the stalks
down the field. Noah looked up, and there was a helicopter there,
with a searchlight shining crazily around the field. Noah got up
and ran back toward the house, but instead of coming out onto
the roughly kept lawn, he found himself in the shallow parking
lot of a trip mall, lit up in the waning with harsh orange lights.

The broken glass and bits of aluminum on the scored pavement
glowed in the monochrome light. The stores were closed. The lights
were off in the post office in the center, but behind the
counter, Noah could see light coming from the back room.

Hanging in the front window was an advertisement for stamps, seven
of them. It was Tara's CAT scan septych, but with scalloped
edges around each frame, with the details partially obscured by
glare off of the window.


			.	.	.


It was a bright blue morning. The brick face of the building on
the other side of the street glowed warm red in the sunlight.
Tara sat at the desk, staring out the window, consciously
setting her face into a stone mask. Her short, straight hair looked
unkept, and her gray shirt was wrinkled. The hollows under her eyes
were dark. The apartment door opened.

"I've been expecting you shits."
"So unladylike, Tara, for such a lovely woman."
"Eat me."
"Really now. Aren't you curious why we came back?"
"Maybe you're incompetent and forgot to kill me off? You
 work for the Post Office, after all."
"Oh, we know you've been doing your research, my Tara. But really, I think
 that's a bit low, about us working for the Post Office. We're just
 contracting."

Snide paused and looked admiringly around the room, letting
his eyes settle on the brown stains on the wall above the dog's bed. Tara
followed his gaze.

"You wankers always make sure to gun down the household pets of your abductees?"
Snide rolled his eyes.
"Really, Tara. First of all, I didn't shoot your dog.
 Although my colleague Gregory is a bit unpredictable at times, I must admit.
 Secondly, Noah is hardly our 'abductee.' He is our guest. He volunteered
 for this operation."
Tara wheeled around in her chair, her eyes ablaze--
"Oh, *please*! What did I ever do to you? Why are you doing this?"
"Now don't cry, please, Tara." Snide sounded like he very much would
have enjoyed hearing Tara cry. "And please don't try anything. I can
assure you that would be quite unpleasant for everyone involved, except,
perhaps, Barry. He's rather inured to violence, poor chap."
Snide nodded his head toward the apartment's door, where a rigid monolith
stood in the vestibule.

"What do you want?" Tara was no longer screaming; her voice was a low rasp.
Snide turned his gaze to the septych. "That's a lovely montage."
Tara screwed up her eyebrows, then shuddered.
"You've got to be kidding."
"Well, Tara, we thought we'd return your little favor of those few
 years ago. Seeing as we had so much trouble with the previous assembly,
 we were overwhelmed with Noah's kindness in offering to test out
 this new model." Snide opened up his briefcase. "Now I have Noah's
 signed release forms here, and I thought I'd give you your copy
 of the non-disclosure agreement."
"I didn't sign anything."
"Oh, I rather think you did." The pink slice of paper floated gently
into Tara's lap from Snide's hand.
"I'm going to find you guys, and kill each and every one of you
 in the most painful way I can think of."
"Best of luck, my dear. I'd rather like to see you try. But please remember:
 we know everything about you, and everytime you make inquiries about us,
 we know that too. And we're not very nice. Terrible what government work
 does to you. Really uncharacteristic, the way you voted in the last
 election, you know."

Tara swung at Snide's face. The man in the door raised his gun and evened
it with Tara's head.
"No, not there, Barry. I'd rather she live."

There was a sharp report. Tara's right palm blossomed in red and pain.



[ Your comments are appreciated. ]


---
# Daniel M. Rosenberg        Dan.Rosenberg@Corp.Sun.COM   +1 415 688 9580
# Opinions expressed above aren't Sun's.


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Article: 988 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
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From: dmr@medicated.Corp.Sun.COM (Daniel M. Rosenberg)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: The Castle, part 4, repost with edits
Message-ID: <leb7qdINNdib@jethro.Corp.Sun.COM>
Date: 21 Oct 92 18:19:57 GMT
Reply-To: dmr@medicated.Corp.Sun.COM
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Lines: 103
NNTP-Posting-Host: medicated.corp.sun.com


[ This needed additional editing, so here it is again, only
  better. It's sequel was written, but got blown away in a
  window server crash, and is gone forever. It's replacement,
  though, is on the way. ]


The pressure in Noah's head ebbed and flowed. He found himself
in the wheat field again. It was growing dark. There was a matte
sheen of dew on the yellow toy truck, which he rocked back
and forth in a small ditch.

A shadow moved over him, and skirted over the tops of the stalks
down the field. Noah looked up, and there was a helicopter there,
with a searchlight shining crazily around the field. Noah got up
and ran back toward the house, but instead of coming out onto
the roughly kept lawn, he found himself in the shallow parking
lot of a strip mall, lit up in the waning twilight with harsh
orange streetlamps.

The broken glass and bits of aluminum on the scored pavement
glowed in the monochrome illumination. The stores were closed.
The lights were off in the post office in the center, but behind the
counter, Noah could see a glow coming from the back room.

Hanging in the front window was an advertisement for stamps, seven
of them. It was Tara's CAT scan septych, but with scalloped
edges around each frame, with the details partially obscured by
glare off of the window.


			.	.	.

It was a bright blue morning. The brick face of the building on
the other side of the street glowed warm red in the sunlight.
Tara sat at the desk, staring out the window, consciously
setting her face into a stone mask. Her short, straight hair looked
unkept, and her gray shirt was wrinkled. The hollows under her eyes
were dark. The apartment door opened.

"I've been expecting you shits."
"So unladylike, Tara, for such a lovely woman."
"Eat me."
"Really now. Aren't you curious why we came back?"
"Maybe you're incompetent and forgot to kill me off? Remember, you *do*
 work for the Post Office."
"Oh, we know you've been doing your research, my Tara. But really, I think
 that's a bit low, about us working for the Post Office. We're just
 contracting."

Snide paused and looked admiringly around the room, letting
his eyes settle on the brown stains on the wall above the dog's bed. Tara
followed his gaze.

"You wankers always make sure to gun down the household pets of your abductees?"
Snide rolled his eyes.
"My, Tara. First of all, I didn't shoot your dog.
 Although my colleague Gregory is a bit unpredictable at times, I must admit.
 Secondly, Noah is hardly our 'abductee.' He is our guest. He volunteered
 for this operation."
Tara wheeled around in her chair, her eyes ablaze--
"Fucking Christ! What did I ever do to you? Why are you *doing* this?"
"Now don't cry, please, Tara." Snide sounded like he very much would
have enjoyed hearing Tara cry. "And please don't try anything. I can
assure you that would be quite unpleasant for everyone involved, except,
perhaps, Barry. He's rather inured to violence, poor chap."
Snide nodded his head toward the apartment's door, where a rigid monolith
stood in the vestibule.

"What do you want?" Tara was no longer screaming; her voice was a low rasp.
Snide turned his gaze to the septych. "That's a lovely montage."
Tara screwed up her eyebrows, then shuddered.
"You've got to be kidding."
"Well, Tara, we thought we'd return your little favor of those few
 years ago. Seeing as we had so much trouble with the previous assembly,
 we were overwhelmed with Noah's kindness in offering to test out
 this new model." Snide opened up his briefcase. "Now I have Noah's
 signed release forms here, and I thought I'd give you your copy
 of the non-disclosure agreement."
"I didn't sign anything."
"Oh, I rather think you did." The pink slice of paper floated gently
into Tara's lap from Snide's hand.
"I'm going to find you guys, and kill each and every one of you
 in the most painful way I can think of."
"Best of luck, my dear. I'd rather like to see you try. But please remember:
 we know everything about you, and everytime you make inquiries about us,
 we know that too. And we're not very nice. Terrible what government work
 does to you. Really uncharacteristic, the way you voted in the last
 election, you know."

Tara swung at Snide's face. The man in the door raised his gun and evened
it with Tara's head.
"No, not there, Barry. I'd rather she live."

There was a sharp report. Tara's right palm blossomed in red and pain.


[ Comments would be cool. ]


---
# Daniel M. Rosenberg        Dan.Rosenberg@Corp.Sun.COM   +1 415 688 9580
# Opinions expressed above aren't Sun's.