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One Of These Days -*- Copyright 2005 by Ellen Hayes.

Any resemblance between the writings in this work, and any actual
persons or places, living or dead, are purely coincidental, except when
used for satirical purposes.

This work contains adult situations, adult language, adult concepts, and
possibly sex.  If you are legally not allowed to read materials
containing such things, then you will be breaking the law by reading
this.  I am not responsible.
Continuing to read this document, or storing it or reproducing it
in any format means that you explicitly affirm that you are legally
allowed to possess and read such materials in your city, county/parish,
state, and country.

All rights reserved.  See the bottom for distribution rights.


One Of These Days


***

     Mike sighed, "C'mon, Tuck; I know the food sucks, but you have to
eat something."
     <Not hungry.>
     "Tuck, if you don't eat anything, they're going to keep you here
longer.  You know they monitor your food intake."
     <Not that close.  Not hungry.  J-E-L-L-O,> he spelled out.
<Doesn't hurt my throat.>
     "What about some soup?" Mike asked, scanning the sheet.  "I think
they got some..."

***

     Debbie ran through her list of contacts, wondering who she could
use for this.  *Maybe Lisa has something...*

***

     Dana had come in after her office hours to see Eugene; she had to
keep checking on him.  *Definitely one of my weirder patients,* she
thought, not for the first time.  He looked a lot better than he had
Sunday, but he still looked ill and battered.  His best friend Michael
was there as well; Dana supposed that they were still keeping the 24-
hour guard on Eugene, just in case.  She still thought it was paranoia,
but after a little thought she couldn't say it wasn't justified.  And
getting into a hospital was no trick at all, she knew.
     Eugene signed something at her; she could recognize that it was sign
language, but she didn't understand it.  "What?"
     "Bwana say, 'More morphine now'," Mike translated.  "Well, tough
shit, Tuck," he said back.
     Tuck made another motion with his hands, one she had no trouble
translating.  "None of that," Dana warned.
     He signed some more, and Mike translated, "More... morphine."  He
paused as Eugene kept gesturing, then repeated, "'Chest on fire, need to
cough, hurts too much.'"
     "Eugene, you've already had-"
     He began signing furiously at that, but Mike only said, "Bwana not
happy with you."  Tuck tossed off another handsign that Dana could read,
at Mike.  "Well, don't piss off your pusher, dumbfuck," Mike shot back.
     Dana had to chuckle at that, though it was a bit irritating.
"Also, Eugene," she mentioned, "we're going to clamp the tube after this
time, and leave it that way for twenty-four hours, and if there's
nothing in there by that time, we can take it out."
     Mike said, "Alright!" while Eugene smiled wearily.  That bothered
her; he usually had more energy than that for anything that led to
getting out of a hospital.

***

     "C'mon, Tuck, HEAVE!" Mike coaxed.
     Tucker tried, but didn't manage anything for several seconds; he
just stared, fish-eyed, at the foot of the bed.  <Hurts.>
     "Yeah, I know, but it needs to come out."  Mike started slapping
his back rapidly, and while Tuck managed to return a few, it had the
desired effect as it started the coughing.
     The things that were coming up, Mike did not want to think about.

***

     "Why does my fucking life have to be so HARD?" Jody sobbed to
herself, her face muffled in the seat.  "It's not FAIR!"

***

     "It's okay, Tuck, it's okay," Mike kept repeating, as Tuck had a
case of the shivers.  He'd coughed up so much slime into the bedpan they
were using as a catch-basin that it scared him.  Maybe both of them;
Tuck didn't seem that aware or concerned, but he was shaking like a
badly-loaded washing machine.

***

     "Hello?"
     "Um, Mister Tucker?  It's Sabrina... you said to call before I came
over?"
     "Oh... yes, I did.  And you can come over.  You have a test this
week, right?"
     "That's not important, I mean, if you're busy or someth-"
     "No, we're not busy.  Mike's with Tuck right now, and Sarah is
sleeping upstairs."
     "How's he doing?"
     "Better, but not ready to get out of the hospital yet."

***

     "Who pulled him out of the closet?"
     "It was ASHLEE!" Jody shrieked.  "I already fucking-"
     "Jody!" her mother complained fearfully.
     "-told you that!"
     "Uh huh," said the cop, like he didn't care.  Jody was sure he
didn't, or that he hated Jody for what she'd done, like everyone else
did.

***

     "Sarah?  Wake up..."
     "Wha...  Oh, crap, what time is-"
     Bill said calmly, "Twenty-thirty, and you need to go change places
with Mike at the hospital."
     "Nuhhh," she protested as she sat up.  She hadn't even removed her
clothes, she noticed, when she'd lay down earlier.  "Glah."  He handed
her a diet soda.  "Thanks..."  She slurped noisily at it, trying to get
the awful taste of wakeup out of her mouth.
     "Susan checked in again, six P.M. via mail," he added.  "No
problems, and she didn't have any problems with professors after she
showed them that note you wrote."
     "Oh good," Sarah commented before swallowing some more soda.

***

     Sabrina sighed as she went to her car.  Math was starting to make
more sense than it ever had, but she hadn't realized how much of her
mind it took up when she was thinking about it.  She'd hardly thought
about Val while she was there.
     *Maybe that's a good thing, at least for a while...  I mean,
there's nothing we can do at the moment; the cops're doing their thing,
and we're not supposed to be doing anything else...  But why aren't the
cheerleaders being punished?*

***

     "Well, your friend Ashlee is telling us that YOU hit him, so-"
     "Oh my GOD!" Shannon screamed.  "NO!  NO NO NO!  SHE hit him, not
ME!"
     "Well, that's not what she said..."
     *How could Ashlee LIE like that?* Shannon gasped.

***

     "Why do you keep smiling?"
     Detective O'Connor shrugged.  "Just a good day, I guess.  Besides,
we haven't been shot at or spit on yet."
     "Aw, man," Officer Sanchez complained, "I just got this uniform
dry-cleaned."
     "You should see my bills...  Keep your fingers crossed," she
ordered, and the two of them split to either side of the front door,
against the walls.  O'Connor knocked.  "Open up, this is the police!" she
barked.
     "Stop smiling, man, it's bad luck," Sanchez pleaded quietly.

***

     "And you need to check your data collection," Mr. Tucker said.
     "I wh-  Oh, damnit," Mike cursed.
     "It's overflowing," Mr. Tucker confirmed, "and I don't want it on
my disks in case someone asks what it is.  You have some work to do
tonight."
     "Ohhhhhh," he sighed as he ran his hands through his hair.  "Yeah."
     "I cleared it with your folks," he continued.  "Stay as long as you
need to."  Implicit was the order that Mike WOULD stay until he was
finished.

***

     "So, I mean, have you heard anything?" Debbie asked Kim.
     "I..."  Kim thought about it.  "One of the band kids, uh, plays
trumpet, he got dumped in a trash can today, so-"
     "Do you know his name?"  Names were important.

***

     Mike was trying to take notes on who said what to whom and when on
what line, but it was more than he could manage to keep enough of it in
his head to write good notes.  He shook it, which probably dislodged
several more of the connections, and wondered what to DO with the wealth
of data.

***

     "Hello?"
     "Gina?!  Oh my God, you wouldn't believe what I just heard-"
     "What?  Calm down-"
     "ALL the cheerleaders just got BUSTED," Melody crowed gleefully,
"for beating up that kid in the locker room.  I HEARD it was for
attempted fucking MURDER!"
     "Holy SHIT!" Gina yelped.
     Melody continued confidently, "I am NOT kidding, either, I just
talked to..."

***

     Call Waiting beeped into Debbie's ear.  "Hold on a sec, 'nother
call.  Hello?"
     "Debbie, it's Mike.  I have a big favor to ask, and I can't do it
over the phone."  *Then why the hell did you call?* she wondered, a bit
irritated.  He continued, "Can I talk to you tomorrow sometime?"
     "Sure, yeah...  What's it about?"
     "I... need...  No, not over the phone," he said more decisively.
"After school?"
     "What is it?"
     "After school?" he repeated.
     "Okay, okay!"  She thought of Tuck's mother.  "Is, uh, anyone else
gonna be there?" she asked nervously.
     "No?"  Now he sounded puzzled.  "Just me."
     "Okay...  After school, um, by your locker?"
     "Yeah, that's good," he agreed.  "See ya then."  He hung up, the
quick noise that said he was probably using Tuck's phone equipment
instead of a regular phone.
     "What the hell was that about?" Debbie complained to herself.
Things were already complex enough that she was having to make notes to
keep track of everything she was doing; she didn't need another
complication.  She switched back to Pam.  "I'm back.  Anyway, you were
saying Bridgette heard something?"

***

     Dan looked at the posters he'd come up with since talking to Tuck's
mom, and wondered if he HAD to show them what he was doing, or if he
could just stick them in school without talking to them.  Tuck's mom
scared him, a little; he'd seen her enraged a few times, though never at
him, and he was never quite sure that he WOULDN'T be the target.
     But these were pretty good, he thought.
     Without quite deciding yet, he pulled on a pair of latex gloves and
started printing copies, grabbing each one as it finished and placing it
in a manila envelope.  He'd print out a 'scuff' copy at the end of the
print run that he could show around, to whoever it was gonna be.  He
was pretty sure they'd like it, though; this was the best of the bunch
he'd been working on.

***

     "Shit, I gotta get some sleep tomorrow...  Can you take the after-
school shift?" Mike asked Brian.
     "Maybe...  What's keeping you up so late?"
     "Stuff...  If it isn't school, it's this, and if it's not this,
it's... other stuff."
     "Like those posters?"
     "What posters?"
     "I've got ears, fuckwad," Brian complained.  "What're you doing,
putting 'em up at school?"
     "You never heard anyth-"
     "And I never saw anything and I really don't have any memory of the
last week either," Brian rushed.  "So?  Putting 'em up at school?"
     Since he already knew, and he was admitting the concept of
'See/Hear/Speak No Evil', Mike admitted, "Yeah.  Trying to get the
students to realize what a problem it is, the violence and stuff.
Debbie's idea."
     Brian whistled through his teeth.  "Devil Debbie?"
     "Where'd you hear that?"
     "Made it up.  She tied Mom up in knots a couple weeks ago, when
that shit about Tuck-  Hey, did YOU know about all that, what Tuck's
been doing at like babysitting and everywhere else?"
     Mike sighed, and tried to remember what Tuck had told him had been
released, and whether Brian was included.  "I don't really know anyth-"
     Brian protested, "Fuck, man, I KNOW I'm cleared for this; I was in
the room the second time they pulled Tuck in to interrogate him about
it."
     "Well, _I_ don't remember if you were or not," Mike said.  "Shit...
Ask me later or something, okay?  I'm fucking tired."  Which reminded
him, "So, uh-"
     "Yeah, I can take the shift tomorrow," Brian said.  "But what about
tonight?  You can't be putting those posters up during school..."  Mike
sighed again, tired and frustrated.

***

     "When can I get OUT OF HERE?!" Jody screamed.
     The only answer she got was, "Shut UP you little CUNT!" from
someone in another cell.

***

     "What?!"
     "He offered," Mike groaned, "and I am so fucking tired I'm not safe
to do it.  I almost tripped and went down the stairs here 'cause I
forgot which house I was in."
     "Is he trustworthy?"
     "For this, he is," Mike assured George.  "Meet over here about oh
six hundred."  Zulu time, which might confuse anyone listening.

***

     "What do you mean?  The little shit-  He'd STOLEN my UNIFORM, and
he was sitting there WEARING it and peeping through the door at us!"
     "How did you know-"
     "That's where I found the little shit, hi-"
     "Ashlee!" her mother complained.
     "Well he is, Mom!" she turned and yelled.  "He was in there
WHACKING OFF or something, and in MY uniform!  I mean, I mean, what-
WHY?!  God it's DISGUSTING!" she said to the cop in the suit.  "I mean,
think about some little geek pervert stealing YOUR clothes an' jerking
off in 'em!"
     "So how do you know he was jerking off into-"
     "I don't think that's appropriate!" Mom bitched at the cop.
     "Mom that's what-"
     "QUIET!" Mom ordered.
     "Ma'am, that's the word your daughter us-"
     "And she'd better not use it again if she knows what's good for
her!"
     "Mom!"

***

     They were all looking at him, and Brian sighed.  "Look, assholes,
you trust TUCK to do this with you.  You can trust me like you do him."
     "You and him blackmail each other constantly," Dan mentioned.
     "That's just WITHIN the family, and about local stuff like chores
and things," Brian reminded them.  "When's the last time you heard me
talk about something outside that?"
     "You don't know anything."
     Brian laughed.  "Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho, wanna bet on that?"  They all
looked at each other, and he realized he might have made a mistake.
"Look, this is for TUCKER, right?  Hell, MIKE said to take me tonight
instead of him.  You trust Mike's judgement?"  Tucker did, over his own
most of the time.  Brian had to admit, he was probably right; Mike
almost never went wrong, if he acted.  Sometimes he didn't seem like he
would act at all... but it almost never went badly, and they never got
caught, either.
     Pause, as they all kept looking at each other.
     "Get in the van," George sighed finally.

***

     Sarah had awakened because her son's breathing had gotten rough,
and then she had to spend twenty minutes cajoling him into coughing it
all up.  He'd finally finished, and while Sarah couldn't bear to look at
the things he'd coughed up, he WAS breathing easier when he'd finished.
     "I'm sorry," she whispered to him, as she stroked his hair.  "I
know it hurts..."  His eyes opened halfway, and he gave her a look of
almost unbearable exhaustion.  "Want me to warm you up?" she asked,
and he nodded weakly.  She carefully put a sheet and a blanket atop
him, then slid into the bed and arranged herself so she was pressed
against him.  He was warm to the touch, but still acting like he was
cold.  *Fevered,* she recognized, and sighed as she gently hugged him
to her.

***

     Jody half-woke at the noise at the door, and when she looked up,
the woman guard said, "Come on, they're letting you go."  With relief,
she bounded up, and followed the woman guard down the hall.
     Until she found herself in a big room, and the door shut behind
her, and she realized suddenly that the woman guard was the same woman
that had been in the hospital's elevator, and she was smiling that
tight little smile as she pulled out a nightstick...
     "Shut UP you stupid CUNT!" someone yelled at her as she tried to
catch her breath and make sense out of what had just happened.

***

     They had Brian on lookout, which suited him fine.  Despite what
he'd said, he wasn't as good at this sort of thing as his brother was,
and he did NOT want to fuck up and get caught somehow.  These guys had
it all planned, from latex gloves so they wouldn't leave fingerprints,
to black baggies over their feet while outside so they wouldn't leave
wet footprints when they got inside, to faked plates on the van, to
where to park so the occasional cop passing by wouldn't see the vehicle,
to the alarm system codes...
     Brian wished he could use some of this himself, for his own
purposes, but he knew that he'd have to get Mike's agreement, and Mike
wasn't that lenient.  More so than Dad... or at least more willing to
talk about it; but not that much.
     He carefully bent down and angled his watch until he could read the
face in the dim light coming from the parking lot.  *Ninety minutes
down, another ninety to one-twenty to go...  Shit, no wonder Mike was so
tired.*  They'd said they would put them all OVER the school, and that
would take time...  Which they'd known and planned for.

***

     Kim had gotten dressed and ready for school and was halfway out
the door before she remembered what Tuck's father had said the day
before.  "Oh shit," she whispered as she stopped, and stared around at
her front yard.  "What do I do?"
     After a few minutes, the pressure of time passing was too much for
her, and she hadn't seen anything out of place anyway, so she slowly
walked over to her car, looked inside it - nothing - and opened it, her
heart pounding.
     Nothing happened, and no one was around.

***

     "Yo!" Jill called to Kim over the ringing of the bell.  "I
don't think she's going to make it today."  She pointed to Shannon's
usual seat, still empty.
     "Did you hear what happened?" Kim asked, in a very low and quiet
voice.  "Yesterday?"
     "Am I going to like this?" Jill asked, already grinning, and Kim
nodded back with a grin of her own.

***

     Bill smiled at Sarah as he came into Eugene's hospital room.
"How's he doing?"
     "Same same," she sighed.  "No real changes.  He's still coughing
up multicolored slime; he needs to do it again around breakfast."
     "Did you get any sleep?"
     "Some.  What're you doing today?"
     "Working out pairings for the kids at school," he said, waving his
laptop carrier.  "Ought to be interesting."
     "Interesting software problem?" she confirmed, and he nodded.
"Any actual work?"
     "Nope!"  *Not yet,* he amended.
     "I hate you, dear," she said with a tired smile.

***

     "I don't believe this," Paul moaned, unable to look away from the
poster glued to the office door.

***

     "What is..."  Sabrina moved closer to whatever stupid poster or
handout was attracting everyone's attention and blocking her way.
     What confronted her was a picture of a honest-to-God Nazi soldier,
arms-over-shoulders with a football player, both of them smiling, and
the caption, "TOGETHER WE CAN ELIMINATE THE WEAK AND UNFIT."
     "WHAT the FUCK?!" Sabrina raged.

***

     "No," Debbie corrected, "they got arrested for assault, yesterday
after school.  I bet some of 'em won't be in school today at all."
     "Arrested?  For WHAT?!" Krystal gasped.
     "Remember that kid that got helicoptered out Thursday?  He's
pressing charges, and I think his parents are talking lawsuit too.
They, I mean the whole cheerleading squad, are in some MAJOR deep stuff
right now."  Krystal had a BIG mouth; telling her anything was almost as
fast as putting it over the loudspeakers, but it SEEMED more authentic
since it was 'unofficial'.

***

     "You assaulted this boy Thursday, then you got drunk early Sunday
morning and assaulted a police offic-"
     "I didn't hit a cop!" Shannon protested.
     "One more outburst out of you and you can stay in jail until your
trial is finished," the judge snapped as her father told her in a
hissed whisper to shut up.
     The lawyer her parents had gotten said, "Your Honor, my client is
distraught-"
     "Your client is trying my patience," the judge said back.  "YOU,"
she pointed at Shannon, "be quiet unless I ask you a question."

***

     "Good thing I still got that map," Bill said to himself as he
plotted the most likely routing for Subject #4.  He'd had to have a
reasonably accurate floorplan for the network installation, and he'd
kept a data copy, of course, for when he had to go back.

***

     "Man, I just don't know," Anne Marie said to her friend Janice, "I
thought I was gonna try out for something like Spirit Squad or like
that, but..."
     "I don't think I'd want anything to do with any of that now.  Did
you hear they got arrested for what they did to some kid?" Janice told
her.
     Debbie, Jill's friend, had told her to listen for anything like
this, and pay careful attention, and tell her or her answering machine
later.  "Uh, no?  What did you hear?"

***

     The ride back home was silent, but no less horrible than if they'd
both been screaming at her at the top of their lungs.  Jody just stared
out the window from the back seat, unable to even cry any more.

***

     "So, like, did you hear what happened to the, I mean, some girls
in band yesterday?" Laisha asked Debbie.
     "No?  What?" Debbie urged the other girl; she didn't have a lot of
time to walk to her next class, but this sounded useful.

***

     "And you hit her?" Paul confirmed.
     "She called me a fuckhead!" Jason Remmele yelped.
     "That's no reason to escalate to violence," Paul said mildly.
Inwardly, he was seething.  Kelly Bergquist, Eugene Tucker's 'Little
Sister', looked like she was at least as angry and perturbed as he was.
Paul just had more experience keeping it in, and a bigger reason; Arlene
Raleigh, standing next to him and watching everything he did for an
excuse to fire him.

***

     The yelling had started, and it WAS worse than the silence.
     "Why didn't you go get your coach?!" her mom asked Jody for the
fourth time.  "She was RIGHT THERE!"
     "I don't know!" Jody shrieked, exhausted and terrified and feeling
completely abandoned.  "He was just there and then Ashlee hit him and
then he hit Ashlee and...  And...  I don't KNOW!"

***

     "This is important!" Coach Grigbsy bellowed.  "LISTEN UP!"
     They all looked like they were paying attention now.
     "Administration is getting TIRED of kids getting bullied and put
into the hospital, so-  HEY!  I MEAN IT!  KNOCK IT OFF!" he bellowed,
enraged at their laughter.  "If any of you get caught bullying or
picking on another student, you are CANNED!  Got that?!"
     They got it, finally; the worried looks and whining complaints
told him that.  "And that's not from the principal's office; that's
from ME.  I don't like bullies, and I don't want my team to get a rep
like that.  Do it and you WILL be gone.  I am NOT gonna put up with
this.  Did you see this poster?"  He held up the offending item, which
he'd managed to get off a wall.  "Don't you see?" he said in a quiet
voice, "This is how some of the other students think of us.  Do you
want them to think of you as a bunch of damned Nazis?"
     All he got in response was mumbles.
     "WELL, DAMNIT!  DO you?!"
     "No!" came from several of them.
     "Then you'd DAMN well better clean up your act!  Dobson's already
talking about dropping football ENTIRELY if this keeps up."
     "He can't do that!" Barry argued as he shot to his feet.
     "He can; he has the power to do it, just like he suspended the
cheerleaders during Homecoming.  He can do it to YOU just the same way.
And...  Damnit, if this is what you're going to turn into, I don't want
to be a part of it either."
     That stunned them.  He glared at them, all of them, while the room
remained deathly silent.
     "You guys better keep your noses COMPLETELY clean, or that's IT.
For ALL of you," he finished.
     Looking at them, he thought that he had finally gotten through.

***

     "Mike?"  He looked up, and Debbie was homing on him, with Kim
tagging along.
     "Hey.  No sweat," he told Kim.  "You'd better get going, too; you
don't need this on your conscience.  And-"
     "FUCK you!" Kim snarled.
     "Heyheyhey," Debbie insisted.  "Kim, chill.  You know, the less you
hear, the less you can tell, ri-"
     "Why don't you TRUST me?" Kim complained, apparently to both of
them.
     "We trust as few people as possible, including each other, Kim; you
should know that by now," Mike said.  "Loose lips sink ships."
     "Mike?" Debbie asked.  "You look like shit..."
     "I feel like shit," he admitted.  "Dealing with Tuck in the
hospital like this is like a full-time job, then school, then everything
else..."
     "I'm sorry," Kim said, and it took a few moments for Mike to
connect what she was saying with what she'd said just moments ago.  She
continued, "Maybe this whatever-it-is could wait until later?"
     Mike knew that he'd just have to go through more of it if he let
the disks fill up again.  "No...  But as soon as this is done, I'm gonna
go home and get some sleep.  Can I see you tomorrow, Kim?" he asked,
hoping she'd take the offering and hint and let him get this done so he
COULD go home and sleep.
     "I still have to babysit," she said with a sour face.
     Debbie nodded and said, "And believe me, I appreciate it.  I
couldn't find anyone else I could trust on such short notice.  Maybe
you two could go out to dinner tomorrow night, my treat?"
     Mike and Kim both stared at her.  "You catch Tuck's pneumonia?"
Mike asked first.
     "What?" Debbie asked back, and Kim turned on him too, both of them
with intense, questioning looks on their faces.
     *Oh shi- no, this is known,* he remembered with relief.  "Any time
he gets a bad asthma attack, he gets pneumonia too.  Then it gets
really bad, after that."

***

     "I WANT to apologize!  I tried Sunday!" Jody tried to explain.
"But, but..."  The horror of realizing she was trapped in the elevator
with that madwoman - she was sure she was going to be badly hurt, maybe
even killed -  and then trying to get out of the hospital and hearing
her EVERYWHERE...

***

     "Made a deal with Mike," Brian said to Mom as he got into her car.
"I'm watching Tuck this evening.  He needs some extra sleep."
     "I think that's a good idea," Mom nodded.
     "Not while you're driving!" he teased in a pleading tone.  She DID
look tired.

***

     "I gotta take all you guys home and then get to work," Kathy
complained.  "Come on, move it."
     "Look, you don't-"
     "Yes I do," she snapped at Cory. "Debbie asked me to make sure you
guys got away from school safely.  So I'm gonna do that.  You don't like
it, take it up with her.  You'll lose if you argue with me."
     Kelly just kept her mouth shut and got into the cramped backseat
of Kathy's car.

***

     "Yo, dor-  Hey, what's up with him?" Brian asked, his tone of
voice changing from usual sibling-incitement to concerned.
     "He's fevered," Bill explained.  "Burning up, and still complaining
he's cold.  Plus he's not eating much."
     "Pneumonia again?" Brian half-asked and half-stated.  Bill nodded.
"How come he gets this EVERY time?"  Bill had to shrug.  "So, uh, what
do I do with him today?  Anything?"
     "We've got to keep his airways cleaned out, so around six or so,
he's got to have a Big Cough, an-"
     "Oh gross," Brian sighed.  "Makes ME sick seeing it."
     "Nobody likes it, but it's better out of 'im than in 'im," Bill
reminded.  "And see if you can get him to eat something," he pointed to
the cooler.  "Sarah put some Jello in the fridge-"
     "Saw it.  See if I can get him to eat it?"
     Bill nodded.  "And no pouring it in his ears."
     "Aw man," Brian mock-complained.  "If I pour it in his ears, he
doesn't get the chance to say 'no'."

***

     "Is Valerie still in the hospital?"
     Kim sighed to herself; the baby was to the point in her life where
she didn't want to stay still long enough to get diapered.  *So of
course he has to ask me this RIGHT now instead of in a few minutes.*
She finally got Stella to stand still long enough to wipe her bottom
clean.  "Uh, what?  Oh, yeah, she is."
     "Can you give her something?" Ricky asked.
     "Not now!"  She picked Stella up and put her on her back, which
delayed her long enough that Kim could stick the tabs in the right
places.  "Finally!  Uh, what?" she asked Ricky, who was holding an
envelope in his hands.
     "Could you give her something?" he asked.
     "Um... I guess I could get it to her," she said hesitantly.
"She's pretty sick, and her family doesn't want visitors there, but...
Yeah, I think I can," she agreed.  "What is it?"
     "It's private so don't open it," he asserted.  Kim just shrugged
to herself before she stuck the letter in her purse.

***

     "Holy shit!" Debbie gasped as she realized just what they'd been
doing, and how MUCH they'd been doing.  "HOW many?"
     "Four or five," Mike sighed as he rubbed his face, before handing
her the large manila envelope that held the tapes.  "They call each
other a lot."
     "Yeah..."  As did her friends.  *Oh, shit...*  Before she could get
very upset, though, she realized something else.  "Mike?  Since we know
who did, uh, who hurt Tuck, and they've arrested them, then, do you need
the taps on these people?  Tuck kind of indicated that the taps were
hard to put in, but they were reusable?"  Mike nodded.  "So, um, do you
think you could move 'em someplace else?"
     "Fuck n-  Wait.  You have an idea?" he asked.
     "Well duh," she sighed at him.  *Like I do this for fun, like you
guys?*  "Yes."
     "What is it?"

***

     Brian looked over at Tuck, who was currently buried under extra
blankets, with something wrapped around his head Arab-style.  He'd
complained, somewhat coherently, of being cold, and family standing
instructions for a fever were to keep the person as warm as they wanted
to be.
     "Man," he said quietly, half to himself and half to the absent-via-
unconsciousness Eugene, "how the hell are we gonna move you out of here
tomorrow?"  He had a hunch that, if they had to move him in an
ambulance because he couldn't sit up in a car, the hospital wouldn't
actually let him go.  "Maybe..."  Both his parents had station wagons,
so if they could fold the rear seats, Tuck could lie down in the
back...  But then, if the medicos caught them doing it, they'd pull him
back into the hospital instantly.  *Wonder if he could sit up long
enough to get out of sight, and then we could stick him in the back.
Can he walk?*
     Something else occurred to him at that point.  "If we have to bug
out, you are in some kinda deep shit..."  There was no way he could
walk, much less walk with a pack, when he was like this.  And there
weren't enough of them to carry him, not for any real distance.  "What
the hell could we do with you?"

***

     "Mom, I need to sleep," Mike whined, hating himself dully for doing
so.  "It's been hard the last week!  I need a nap or something!  Let me
get leftovers later, okay?"
     "Okay, Michael...  I just worry about you," Mom said gently to him,
and he hated her a little for being so nice at him.  "Go take a nap, and
we'll try to be quiet."
     "Thanks Mom," he said, mostly sincerely, and gave her a long hug.
     "Do you know what Eugene's mother is doing?  I thought, maybe-"
     "Aw, Mom!" he complained.  "Come on!"
     "She needs it, and she appreciates it too," she said firmly.
     Mike shut up and rubbed his neck, thinking.  "She might be
sleeping, is the problem.  Uh...  Call Tuck's dad; he'll know.  Do you
have his cell number?"  She nodded.  *Stupid question.*  "He'll know
what's going on."

***

     Dana looked at Eugene, who was trying to keep himself fevered,
and shook her head.  "Look, I know he feels cold; his thermostat is
overset to try and burn out the infection.  But he's around one-oh-
three and it's not good for it to be that high.  He needs to cool off
at least a degree, and I'd prefer two.  And soon."
     "He's not gonna like it," Brian predicted in a tired voice, as he
moved to unwrap the towel covering Eugene's head.
     "I don't think he likes any of this; this'll just be one more
thing," Dana predicted.

***

     *Oh hell.*  Kim thought frantically for a moment, and then said,
"Uh, Miz Parker, you really DON'T want to do that right now.  They're
having to stay with her, in the hospital, all the time, and they are
like really stressed out with this.  I'm staying away from them as much
as possible.  And they don't want any visitors either; she's already
caught something infectious from being in the hospital, and they're
afraid she'd get something else."
     "But I'm not sick; I haven't been for months!"
     "You can pick stuff up and not get the disease, just carry it.
Look, it's not MY deal," she told Miz Parker, "it's her family.  If you
want, you can call them or something and talk to them about it.  They
won't let me go visit," she shrugged.  Kim hadn't actually asked; she'd
just assumed, from the way they'd been acting paranoid, that they
wouldn't like it if she tried.

***

     Brian watched with interest as Doc Treble prepared to loosen the
clamp on the tube that went into Tucker's chest.  *Man, I wonder how
much that thing hurts,* he thought idly.  It was hard to tell with his
brother; he could be weird about pain, sometimes crying over the
littlest thing and sometimes not even noticing the glaringly obvious.
Plus, he was on a serious amount of heavy drugs, and Dana said they
wouldn't wear off completely in between chest-clearing sessions either.
     She opened it, and nothing bubbled in the water trap, as they all
stared intently.  "Looks good, then," Doc Treble said, sounding
satisfied.
     "Means nothing's leaking, right?" Brian confirmed.  "Air or blood?"
     "Right," Doc Treble agreed with a smile.  Even Tucker managed to
smile a bit, Brian guessed; it was hard to tell through the oxygen mask
over his face.

***

     *Oh no...*  Bill answered the phone, holding it a half-inch away
from his ear, since it was his sister-in-law.  "Hello?"
     The voice he heard - barely - was not that of his sister-in-law.
"What?" he said as he brought the speaker closer.
     "It's Amy?" the girl said petulantly.  "And Mom won't tell me
what's going on over there with Tuck!  She's having one of her snits
about some stupid thing.  What's going on?"

***

     "Hey, I just remembered something," Lisa said when Debbie ran out
of things to say momentarily and decided to eat some of her supper.
"Uh, you know Travis was, uh..."
     When Debbie could swallow, she supplied, "Dating Valerie?" keeping
her face calm.  "Yes, I knew that."
     "He's been asking about her.  I don't know what to tell him."
     "Awwwwww, shit," Debbie cursed.  "I don't know what to tell him
either.  Tuck's family has REALLY clamped down on everyone; they don't
want any information getting out to anyone.  And I don't think the
little shit has TOLD them yet.  About Travis."
     "From a little questioning," Lisa said as she forked her salad
around, "_I_ don't think the little shit has mentioned to Travis that
he's, uh, not quite one thing or the other."
     Debbie knew that she wasn't talking about Valerie's sexual
preferences.  "Oh no."
     "Oh yeah.  I think.  I'm trying not to give it away if he doesn't
know..."  Lisa gave her a look, which Debbie ignored; she didn't want
Valerie getting pissed off at her and/or Lisa for fucking up the
relationship she had with Travis.  Whatever it was.  "But," Lisa
sighed, "he asked me if Valerie had been having any problems at school
lately, and he asked because of the news thing about 'some kid' being
Starflighted out."
     "That sounds like he DOESN'T know..."
     "But the story didn't give names, and I didn't give names either.
What do I do?" she implored Debbie.
     "Has he been calling Valerie?"
     "Yeah; no answer, and he's been paging her too."
     "Shit...  I hadn't heard anything about the pager," she explained.
"And I'm still paying for it, and I don't know WHERE it is, or if they-
if Mike got it, with his pack.  Mike got his backpack, without the
laptop, out of the garbage, where they dumped it along with his
clothes," she explained.
     "They should've left the laptop in the garbage," Lisa mentioned,
and Debbie nodded.  "That's traceable."
     "So's the pager, but not as easy...  And I don't need the DEA or
Vice nosing around because some pusher's been using it."  She sighed.
     "Eat," Lisa pointed.
     "You should talk!"
     "Because I know better!" she shot back, and the two of them
grinned at each other before Debbie deliberately turned her attention
to her food for a few bites.

***

     "Oh, man, I only slept for three hours!" Mike complained, staring
at his answering machine.  It still claimed that he'd had SIX calls.

***

     "He's got the scheduling worked out, he said-"
     "What scheduling?" Sabrina asked, interrupting Mike.
     "Remember we were gonna fix it so that we all had some kind of
partner or something to go between classes?  He's been futzing with it
all day, somehow-"
     "You're kidding."
     "Swear ta Buddha, that's what he said he did today," Mike claimed.
"Can you get everyone over there, he asks, after your tutoring session,
about nine?  The girls, anyway."
     "Even the Little Sisters?" she asked, wondering if she could
possibly get all of them.
     "Either that, or we talk to them in the morning.  I think it's a
good idea.  James got smacked a couple of times already this week, and
Kelly almost got into a fight today.  Stuff is starting to happen,
man..."
     "I know," Sabrina agreed.  She'd noticed that almost everyone was
more tense and irritable than normal this week, and more touchy.
     "It may be overkill, but, you know, it really couldn't hurt, not
just making sure that there's someone around, someone friendly around I
mean, in between classes or whatever."
     "Yeah...  Okay, I'll see who I can call, okay?  Tuck's place at
nine?" she confirmed.  "What do we tell everyone, though?" she
realized.  "Some of the Littles' parents aren't gonna want their kids
out that late."
     "Uhhhh."  Sabrina waited.  "I have no clue."
     "That's not helpf-"
     "Neither is telling me that," Mike snapped.  "Do you have any
ideas?"
     "Ummmm..."  She thought hard.  "Maybe different ones for our
Littles and yours.  We could say ours... for Halloween, coordinating
the costumes," she guessed.
     "That'd work," Mike said, sounding surprised.
     "Maybe we should do this earlier, like eight thirty?  That'd be
easier to get past the parents; it doesn't SOUND as late."
     "You'd be willing to give up half a tutoring session?"
     "Hell yeah!" Sabrina bitched.  "I mean, I don't want to see anyone
else hurt, you know!"
     "Okay," he tried to be soothing.  "I know.  I just, I didn't want
to assume."
     *Dork,* she thought but didn't say.

***

     "Aw man!  This is COOL!" George complained.  "And it's WORKING."
     "We can't do anything tonight, even if he has something," Mike
asserted.  "I'm still fucked up, everyone else is bone tired, it's
Tuesday night and we STILL have school and shit tomorrow morning...  So
we stand down until tomorrow night at least."
     "All..."  He couldn't stop the immense yawn that took over his
entire body.
     "See?" Mike said smugly.
     "Shut UP," George suggested.

***

     "Can I speak to Paul Dobson please?"
     "Um, who may I say is calling?"
     "This is Miz Carstairs," Debbie said.  "It's about the... incident
yesterday at McAllen."
     Pause.
     "Alright," the woman said, sounding a bit doubtful, "I'll see if
he's home."
     Debbie waited, sure that he was home tonight; where else would he
be on a weekday night, with his wife home and answering the phone?

***

     "So it's okay?"
     "That's what she said, Dad," Brian sighed.  "She said, if there
wasn't any stuff in the drain after twenty-four hours, that they could
probably slide it out tomorrow, stitch it up, and send him home.  She
wants to get him out of here before he picks up one of those superbug
infections."
     "Right," Dad agreed.  "I'll start setting up the house."
     "When do _I_ get to come home?" Brian pressed.
     "Ahhhh..."  Brian did NOT like the sound of that.  "I think we can
switch everyone sometime after nine."
     *Nine o'clock... shit!*

***

     "It's not going to stop otherwise, and there's nothing you CAN do
to stop it.  I heard that what they did to Tuck, they did it with their
hands.  Unless you can manage to cut their hands off or someth-"
     "You don't have to be sarcastic, Deborah."
     Her lip curled at the name he used, but she got control of it and
continued.  "The point is, unless you get the students involved in
policing the school, there's nothing you can do," she said as sharply
as she could.
     "And you think this-"
     "I know it'll work," Debbie asserted, feeling at least half as
confident as she sounded.  "And if you help, you'll get most of the
credit for it."
     Pause.  *Come on, grab it...* Debbie urged silently.
     He finally said, sounding very tired, "What do you want me to do?"
and she had to clamp down on a squeal of excited joy.

***

     "Hello?"
     "Mister Tucker?  This is Sheila, Eugene's therapist."
     *What?  Why-  Oh damnit, I forgot...*

***

     A knock at the door alerted Brian, but when he looked up, it
wasn't a nurse coming in.  He almost went for the crisis bag before he
realized that she looked vaguely familiar-
     "Excuse me," the woman said, and Brian remembered she was Tuck's
therapist.
     "Yeah?" he said as he stood up.  "What?"
     "I just talked to Eugene's father," she explained, "and he said
that I could spend some time with Eugene?"
     "Do what?"
     Before she answered, the computer started beeping urgently.
     "I-"
     "Go outside and wait," he ordered as he went back to see what Dad
wanted.  "Please," he added belatedly.
     "Um, I'll be outside the door," she said as she hesitantly left.
     The computer had popped up a window and was showing one of Dad's
telegraph-style messages, this one saying that Tuck's therapist Sheila
had limited visitation clearance, subject to Tuck's wishes.  "Yeah,
right," Brian commented as he acknowledged the message and killed the
window.  "He likes going to her about as much as he likes being in
here...  Hey, Tuck?  Wake up a minute."  He had to shake his brother's
shoulder a few times before the eyes opened.  "Tuck, your therapist is
here, says she wants to see you?"
     Tuck made some sign language with his hands, which Brian didn't
get.  "Dad said," Brian continued, ignoring the incomprehensible
fingerings, "that you could see her or not.  She's outside, but I can
tell her to go away."
     Tuck breathed for a while, then screwed up for some effort and
croaked, "What... she want?"
     "I dunno," Brian shrugged.  "Talk, I guess."
     "Can't."
     "Yeah, I can tell that.  Should I tell her that?"  Tuck nodded.
"Don't go away," Brian smirked as he walked to the door.
     She was standing outside, looking at a small Daytimer, and she
glanced up as he came out.  "He can't talk; it hurts him too much."
     "How badly is he hurt?" she asked, sounding surprised.
     "I dunno," Brian lied; Dad hadn't said anything about giving her
any information.
     "Well, um..."  She looked away for a moment.  "It's really not
necessary for him to talk.  Is, is he conscious?"
     "I'm not sure.  Wait here please," Brian said, and went back in
without waiting for an answer.  "Tuck?  She said she doesn't need you
to talk?"
     Tuck looked back at him with the same kind of 'whattafuck?' face
he knew he had.
     "I dunno.  Maybe she's gonna give you healing positive energy
waves or something," he said dismissively.  "I'll tell her to take
off," he said as he turned back towards the door.
     Tuck rapped on the bedframe, which made him stop and turn around.
"Let pass," he rasped.
     "What?  Are you SURE?" Brian asked, incredulous.  "'Cause I, she
doesn't have to be here, an' Dad said it was your call..."
     Tuck's glare finally made him stop talking.  "In," Tuck repeated.
     "Oh... alright.  You want me in here?"  Tuck shook his head.
"Right outside okay?"  He nodded.  "Alright..."  Brian grabbed a chair
with one hand and opened the door with the other.  "He said you can
come in and do whatever.  If he wants you to leave, though, you leave."
     "Of course," she nodded, and Brian went past her and put the chair
down outside, letting her go in past him.
     "Man... these people are strange," Brian decided.  "Been lickin'
too many crystals or something."

***

     Bill had just placed the two filled oxygen cylinders in Eugene's
room when his watch alarm went off.  *1955,* he read.  *What the hell
am I doing at 1955?*  He stared at his watch until he remembered,
*Sabrina.  Right.  And then the pairings... which Mike was supposed to
call around about.  Right.*  He unslung the bag containing the rest of
the oxygen equipment, placed it on the lower bunk, and went downstairs.
*Did I eat something today?* he wondered.

***

     "So your throat hurts too much to talk?" Sheila confirmed.  Eugene
nodded.  "That's all right.  I just wanted to come visit for a while.
Sometimes, people... people who have survived a crime like this, need
special support afterwards.  It's very hard to deal with..."  Eugene
closed his eyes, giving the impression that he was totally weary.
     "You don't have to say anything, or do anything," she continued
softly.  "I'm just here, to be here with you, and give you... whatever
help I can.  Alright?"
     She wondered if he had truly gone to sleep, but several seconds
later he faintly nodded at her.

***

     "Is he gonna be okay?" Sabrina asked.
     "We think so," Mr. Tucker said, but he didn't add anything else.
"You ready?  And would you mind if I ate while we did this?  I didn't
eat today."
     "Oh, uh, sure-"
     "I could get you some if-"
     "No, no, I ate at home before I came over here," Sabrina said.
"We eat early at my house."

***

     "Remember that deal, about us having partners or something in
between classes?" Amanda asked, and Jill nodded.  "Sabrina said Mister
Tucker said, or, uh, he called Mike who called Sabrina, who said, um,"
Jill fought to keep from smacking her.  "Anyway, he's having a deal at
his house, I mean Tuck's house, an' we can see who has classes close to
who, or something like that."
     Jill sighed.  "Alright... I'll be off in about twenty minutes.
No, wait OUTSIDE," she insisted as Amanda wandered back into the store.
     "I wanna look at something!" she protested.

***

     Sarah pulled onto their street, and the larger than usual number
of cars parked in the street immediately caught her attention.  *What
the hell?*
     As she got closer, she thought she recognized one or two of them.
*What is-  Oh, that buddies thing Bill was working on,* she remembered.
*I hope he isn't waiting for me to get there before he starts, 'cause I
don't want to deal with them right now.  All I want's a shower and to
go get Brian... and stay with Eugene...*

***

     Kelly looked at the printout Mr. Tucker had handed her, and looked
around.  *This is so weird,* she thought.  *I dunno... Is this really-*
The asshole who had almost started a fight with her today came to mind.
She argued, *Yeah, but he wouldn't have-*
     *They did it to Tuck.*
     *Damnit.*  She looked at the printout again.  "James?" she asked
out loud.
     "Are you Kelly?" asked the dork in the Star Trek T shirt.
     *Oh no, not him...*  She finally admitted, "Uh... yeah."  They had
five classes either together (she'd known about two) or near each
other.

***

     "I can't tell if this is going overboard or not," Amanda admitted.
     "At least we know who's where," Jill pointed out.  "I mean, it's
not like we HAVE to base our lives on this or anything, but it's nice
to know, I guess.  Besides, now we know who we've been missing between
classes," she smirked.

***

     Debbie put her earphones on, and pressed play, wondering... but
there it was, a dial tone, some phone dialing noises, and ringing,
before someone picked up.  "Hello?"  "Ashlee, this is Jordan..."
     *Damn...  They really did it.*  She hadn't quite believed Mike, or
maybe she just didn't want to believe Mike, but there they were,
chatting away like they were on a private line...
     Debbie paused the tape, opened a word processor on her computer,
and started to take notes.

***

     "Travis," Lisa sighed, "she'll call when she's ready to talk."
     "Well, damnit!" he snapped, sounding frustrated, "it's been almost
two weeks!"
     "I know... but I think she lost her pager, and things over at her
school have been really, really complex and confusing," she said,
trying to avoid mentioning that she was in the hospital.  She knew he'd
demand to go if that were true, and at this point Valerie's family
might just kill him, from what Debbie had mentioned.
     "How do you know all-"
     "I still talk to Debbie, remember?  And-"
     "Debbie?" he asked, sounding very suspicious.
     *I DON'T need this.*  "They do have a lot of friends in common, and
Debbie goes to school there too, remember?  I asked her to talk to one
of Valerie's friends, and have Valerie call you; it just might be a
while before she feels comfortable-"
     "What does she have to..."  He slowed to a stop.
     "I don't know," Lisa finally said into the slightly static-ridden
silence.  "From what I heard, it's really kind of a scary time over
there, like the freaks and the jocks-"
     "She's NOT a freak, Lisa!"
     *Why am I doing this?* she asked herself, but it was a rhetorical
question.  "I didn't say she was, Travis," she said patiently.  "But
that's the sort of social group she's in, with her computers and role
playing games and everything else.  Point is," she emphasized, "that
things there are really upset and confused, and she's probably been too
busy or worried about her friends to call.  You should keep calling
her, or leave a message on her machine or something."
     "All I have is her pager number," he whined.
     *You pathetic asshole,* she thought.  "I'm sure she'll call you
when she has some time, Travis.  Right now..."  *Oh, hey...* she
thought as an idea struck her.  "Right now, she probably doesn't have a
lot of spare time, and if you two had a fight the last time you were
together, she probably needs to find a few hours to deal with you, all
at once without interruptions.  Wasn't that part of what made her upset
last week?" she reminded him.  It was what he'd said, anyway; which
might or might not be true, of course.
     He finally admitted, "Yeah..."

***


"25 States allow anyone to buy a gun, strap it on, and walk down the street
with no permit of any kind: some say it's crazy.  However, 4 out of 5 US
murders are committed in the other half of the country: so who is crazy?"
                -- Andrew Ford, forda at agcs dot com


Distribution:
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Permission is given to redistribute this by electronic means, as long as
the entirety of the work (from the BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE header to
the END PGP SIGNATURE footer) is distributed, and credit is given to the
original author, me.  And no fee may be charged.
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+ @>--,--'-----   Ellen Hayes   o===[--------      __      vicki .sig  +
                  -=[1990]=-                       \/      virus 12.2
+      http://www.barkingduck.net/ehayes     PGP key: EFC9 5D55 (1996) +


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