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Thanks very much to all those who replied to that ranma
fic I put out a week ago, I had wondered if I was going
to do something unneccessary. I wrote An Anime Fan Fiction
while doing the touch up work on this chapter and they're sort
in the same vein, though this actually comes at the proper
moment in the plot, and should make good sense for Screw
considering his recent demise. Replies are on their way,
have no fear. I always suggest reading big chunks instead 
of individual chapters if you have the patience, the mood
flows better that way. Previous chapters and even more can be
found at www.geocities.com/aescension 
A few Authors notes at the end.











"You're on to something good, but it can't be all that matters."
                           -Scott Lucas













    11

  The psychologist's diagnosis had been 'post-adolescent 
trauma mismanagement.' But try to think of one person who's 
never experienced *that.* Really, the problem was just extreme goal-
oriented thinking, which had grown like cancer to unacceptable 
and unhealthy In proportions. It was why I seemed no longer to 
have any internal concept of relaxation. If you are capable of 
sitting and enjoying the moment, you will be that much happier 
doing something similar which also had a definite point. Why limit 
yourself, right? I was finally beginning to understand the answer to 
that question. 

  As my frontal lobes went through stimulation withdrawal, I 
calmed down quite a bit. In the underground prison, there was no 
such thing as loneliness. You were crammed into mess halls,  
exercise rooms, and if you showered in the presence of less than a 
dozen of your mates you were lucky. I had shared my room with 
Chris for four of the six years I was in, and when you do absolutely 
everything with someone for that long, being alone for five fucking 
minutes would be worth a whole week in the hole. During such 
occurrences, I found myself pushing away my surroundings with 
slow witted constancy, and experiencing floating visions that only 
settled somewhere between dreams and hallucinations. My eyes 
would watch whatever they wanted because no one else in my 
head seemed to be picking up the slack. It was a neat trick but was 
not the same as real life, and could not take its place for long.

  I had though. As soon as I found myself valuing it, I had 
forced it to last.

  I had woken and slept three more times in the square box. 
No food had yet been delivered to me, and I had not felt the need 
in that time either. The thought that this might be the rest of my 
life entered my mind on more than a few occasions, but sounded 
very doubtful when I asked myself out loud. Someone had put me 
in here and taken great considerations to make this my private hell 
for whatever reason. The lack of air vents scared me at first, but as 
the time wore on, never did I find myself short of breath. This was 
more than a new underground prison cell; but beyond that 
knowledge I was at a loss.

  More of my memory had come marching back with my 
calmness. Just dispersed images and sensations, though. I knew 
that I had close friends; Zig, Chris, and others. They were out there 
right now, free and wondering where I was. I wanted to surprise 
them, my friends, and assuage their concerns. I wanted to fight 
alongside them, and win with them. Since I had been in here, I had 
adopted that witless romantic view of my outside world, as it was 
now so distant and removed. I just wanted things to be the way 
they were before, however that had happened to be.

  Except that I wasn't exactly lonely. Just as I had a desire to 
be with the people who knew me-perhaps better than I knew 
myself-there was another desire to stay as far away from them as 
I could. They knew my secrets and yet somehow it didn't matter to 
them. That is a very special situation in life. They knew the good 
and the bad and had internalized it without deeming me unworthy.

  Who knew if they were right or wrong, but they had done it 
anyway, and that gave them a great deal of credibility. Of course I 
feared that I would not be so merciful, that there may be more in 
those memories than I wanted to find out. There is a special string 
of neurons in your brain which are not used in any other capacity 
than to kill. I could feel mine clearly. I had killed before, in anger 
as well as self defense. I mean it was an empirical fact; there was a 
gate up there with a plain question that I remembered having 
crossed through and answered. Was I a murderer? A gangster? My 
brain told me that I was capable of living along such lines, and that 
my moral standing had taken a back seat to the frantic desire to be 
no slave to any person or idea. It was a road I had traveled too far 
down. Thanks, desire. Thanks, reality.

  In a big way, I was safer in here. 

  What I did know was that I felt I knew something about 
mechanics and maybe the arts. A little form, mostly function. This 
did not seem to place me in any one vocation, but was significant 
none the less. I was an agree-er, I firmly chose to do any task 
intelligently offered. Maybe even a little less sly than most. This, 
combined with my ideal view of where I was currently supposed to 
be, is what made my imprisonment so unbearable. I had spent six 
years of my life without seeing sunlight; I believed I could take 
anything. But when you don't have those memories and past lives 
to dwell in and feel your own security, the solitude conflagrates 
everything. 

  I had a dream where I was playing Twister To The Death, 
and I asked a friend why he kept spinning the clock-like dial, the 
moves making everything worse. He told me to move my head 
before it snapped and replied 'Hey, for the seconds in-between 
where the instructions stop, do you really think anything becomes 
static?'

  So I sat with lowered eyelids in the ambient light, and tried 
to rest. The floor was hard and uncomfortable and I had been 
feeling increasingly drained over the span of time I had been in the 
room. Soon I would endure one more night of lost time, 
incongruent reason, and desperate craving for some sign of a new 
organization, mine or otherwise. 

  1. It had been almost a week since I had awoken in here the 
first time.

  2. My calculation of time was completely arbitrary. 

  3. I wanted desperately to catch hold of that very 
inconsistency, but couldn't.







----------







  The somber whirlpool of images disappeared with a hiss 
and a sigh, and my eyes opened slowly. Something was different. 
Sitting up, it was not that I couldn't see my reflections in the 
mirrors; they followed where ever I turned my head like I 
remembered from the days before. But still, there had been a 
change I could not place, either in sleep or in some lapse of 
memory I had experienced while technically conscious.

  But then another sub-audible trembled and I felt the floor 
faintly shake. Somewhere not too far away from the building I was 
in, something heavy was either falling to the floor or crashing into 
something else. More distant rumbles came, and I could not 
distinguish a pattern in them. Regardless, the cell was definitely 
moving. 

  I stood up, and tried to peer into the blackness that lay 
behind my prison walls. I still saw nothing, but I felt the shaking 
more clearly on my feet. If this kept up, there was a possibility that 
the glass might crack. As there was not really anything I could do 
to expedite the process, I stood still and waited, not leaning against 
the walls so that I would not dampen the vibration. (Of course the 
destruction of the cell meant I would probably meet my fearful 
captors immediately, but I overcame this.) To my dismay, after a 
few minutes the rumbling stopped, and so did the motion of the 
glass cube. I waited patiently straining my senses, hoping it would 
start up again, but after a few minutes or so I became dismayed. 

  Another hour, and I was sure it would not return. Another hour, 
and I forgot the sensation and could not be sure whether I had not 
just dreamed the whole thing. Another hour answered the question. 

  When I was ready to lie down and sleep again, one of my 
reflections moved without the others doing so, and this time I just 
sat still and watched. The entire opposite wall slowly shifted to the 
left, and opened a foot-wide crack in my cell. Outside: undiluted 
darkness and empty space. Not quite believing it, I did not move.

  A few seconds later, two men stepped through and entered 
my cell. They stood before me with their eyes on the ground while 
the wall slid in the other direction silently, and the hole in my cell 
closed under its own power. I heard no more sounds except the 
slight breathing of the pair who now shared my cell.

  They were monstrosities, dressed entirely in white, and 
much taller than I. Because of their gloves, the only real skin I 
could see of them was on their faces, and it was white, dead flesh. 
Neither moved, but I could somehow tell their attention was on 
me. It was intimidating, to say the least, and such a departure from 
my previous situation that I did not know what to do. I had the 
very strange thought that they might be completely normal and I 
was wrong, either about them or normality in general. 

  My eyes laid on their claw-like nails, and I realized that 
they were not wearing gloves, but had genuinely metallic looking 
skin. I did not want to have to find out what the real case was. I 
waited for one of them to speak, and after a hundred or so breaths, 
the shorter one-who was still a foot taller than me-did.

  "Do you...know who I am?" 

  As one whole being, I recoiled away from that voice.

  It wasn't a voice. This was not a man.

  His voice appeared to be a forced expulsion of air through 
his mouth. Like taking the time to consider how he sounded was 
beneath him. It gave him the effect of seeming even more 'present' 
in the room, and I reflexively shrunk back into a corner of my cell.

  "I don't think so," I said.

  "Do you know where you...are?"

  "No."

  "What...do you...remember?" This was not a question you 
asked people who were in full possession of their faculties. He was 
behind my amnesiated state, and knew it.

  "Who are you?" I asked without answering his question. 

  "Why am I here?"

  "Do you know who *you* are?"

  "Of course," I lied, suddenly emboldened.

  "Good...The rest will...come back to you later. I...am 
White, the Director of the Institute of Mental...Health Research, 
though it is a meaningless position. Your are in a 
government...facility underground. No one knows you are here. 
This...chamber is necessary for restoring your proper...memory; it 
was reprogrammed in haste..." He paused constantly to take those 
deep, seemingly unnecessary breaths. One, two, one, two, one, 
two. I kept waiting for this breathing cycle to end, but it continued 
like a metaphorical second heartbeat feeding his volition.

  I wanted to point my finger at him. He had a secret. The 
other, well, he did not seem so bad.

  "How long have I been here?!" I blurted out impatiently.

  "About 48 hours."

  "What?! It's been like a week!"

  "It may have seemed...that way, but you body is on a 
different clock...since the merusion. Your mind must have 
suffered more...than we originally estimated. We will 
return...when you are ready." He turned.

  "Ready for what?"

  "Ready...to help us with some machines. Help us...understand them."

  "What machines?"

  "You will think of them soon."

  "But wait!" As I spoke, the mirror behind them slid on it's 
track to the left, and so opened a crack. The taller man who had not 
said a word the whole time left first, and then White followed him 
out. I stood up, and got ready to rush after them, but White 
whispered something to me over his bony shoulder, and my body 
froze. 

  "You can't leave me-" I tried.

  He left, the walls closed behind him, and finally I could 
move again. But as I crawled over to test the trick wall, I was very 
tired again and ready to fall over. Deciding to leave it until 
tomorrow, or whenever I would wake up, I curled up in the fetal 
position and closed my eyes.







-----------






  When I finally stirred and sat up, they were there. Again 
standing side by side in front of me, they were still looking at the 
floor, and not moving. I cried out in surprise at seeing them there, 
and wondered whether I had been watched all night. White looked 
at me and parted his lips.

  "Rufius is...not happy."

  Rufius. That name rung a bell. An image of a young man 
from when I was another young man flashed through my head, 
though I was unable to nail down any features. But if White's taller 
twin was him, then I was probably wrong about it completely.

  "I am sorry to hear that," I said, not sounding sorry.

  "There is disorder in the city...Earlier today there was 
mass...rioting...and terrorists set off bombs in government 
buildings...The capitol building was leveled. Many...Mandate 
Directors were killed and taken...hostage by the terrorists. 
Murderers and Terrorists... Lanz Island was also attacked...and 
there is a siege. The Special Forces...have subdued the rioters, but 
there is still much public unrest. Millions of dollars have been lost 
into nothing...

  "...Rufius thinks you know about it."

  This shocked me to say the least. Chris had finally gotten 
his war. The war-that idea was very familiar too. Thoughts like 
this kept popping into my head, and if I thought about them 
enough, usually I was able to remember more. The whole terrorism 
thing sounded familiar too and I was certain that I had been 
somehow involved. If I was involved, and the effort had been 
contrary to the wishes of these two, then my earlier gut feeling 
about them had been right. They hadn't put me in here for my 
welfare, it had been to contain me against further acts of violence 
against them. 

  "Is this guy Rufius?" I asked.

  White started, and then said, "Yes...Yes he is."

  I stood up, approached him, and said, "Then listen up. If 
you want me to cooperate, I want out of this box. Now. I want 
some clothes, and I want assurance that I'll be allowed to leave. Or 
you can burn with everything else." 

 It came out the way I wanted it, and sounded cool with a 
coating of mild threat. But to my disappointment White did not 
react the way he was supposed to. He thrust his arm out and 
slapped an open palm against my breastbone. He found no 
difficulty following through with the strike and I flew backward, 
flopping against the wall. My head bounced off something hard 
and I couldn't help a similar intimate encounter with the floor. 

  White stepped forward, and said with thick disgust, "You 
aren't going to be part of any deals, ant. One in your position can 
only hope to agree...at every opportunity or Rufius will dissolve 
you... Like salt." At this moment, I saw through squinted eyes and 
pain that the crack had opened in the other wall, and Rufius 
stepped out. White continued, "You have had enough time to 
revive, Screwtape. Come now."

  He stepped forward and my body froze again. It happened 
in the same way I imagined he had done to his own body one day 
in the past. You see, he was hiding the fact that he was choosing 
his actions one at a time, in a similar yet different way that Wells 
had done, every second coming to a brand new and unrelated 
conclusion about himself. (Like he must have been reading the 
constantly changing display off of a digital thermometer 
somewhere.) He was a thirty frame animation put together by 
thirty different artists, if that image comes across. For me it was 
plain to see and he must have known it. 

  Still, the point was that I was frozen and he was carrying 
me.

  White took me by my one arm, and lifted me into the air, 
my frame still hunched over from my landing. His strength must 
have been unimaginable. He carried me out the crack in the wall, 
and into the darkness I had tried so many times to peer through. I 
never saw the mirrored room again.

  It took a few minutes for my eyes to adjust to the lower 
light in the hall White carried me down. It had stark walls of 
concrete, and small pipes running overhead. We passed through a 
small room which had computers sitting on tables, but there were 
no people working them. The whole place was raw. We took an 
elevator down several floors, and when we exited it, the warehouse 
d�cor had not changed. We traversed great distances of rooms and 
hallways, all void of other people. I began to get the idea that 
Rufius and White ran a two man show, but then briefly saw a 
stooped old man cleaning a floor with a mop and bucket. It was all 
very strange.

  Still unable to move, I could not twist my head around to 
see what was on my right, and White's grip was like steel. I tried to 
recall if I had ever seen a building like this, but did not come up 
with much. I remembered that I had recently been in a similarly 
constructed house on the north side, and that it had been similarly 
vacant. Wells' mansion. Was this the same place? I doubted it, 
because I did not think I knew of any houses that were this big. We 
had walked in a straight line for almost five minutes, and at a quick 
pace. The structure had to be at least three city blocks wide in this 
direction, which was a large distance. I also never noticed a single 
window, nor felt the draft of an air vent. Maybe I did not need to 
breathe anymore either, in addition to this living at high speeds. 
What was all it about anyway? More questions to ask when my jaw 
was able to move again.

  White and I followed Rufius down more steps, and the 
three of us found ourselves in the largest room I had seen yet. It 
also contained several rows of computers on tables and panel 
screens in the walls. But it was not the same machinery that I had 
seen in the laboratory in Ventiss. It was much larger, and seemed 
to be centered around another room which was blocked off by 
metal doors. There were no people present. White put me down on 
the only chair in the room and I suddenly un-froze.

  "What the hell did you do to me now?!" I yelled when I 
could.

  "I held...you in thrall. Your atp's are 
psionically...exploitable."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means I can do ... it again any time I want."

  Despite White's halting English and frequent pauses, I got 
the picture. Rufius, who had escaped my view earlier, walked 
slowly toward me, and held a red brick in his hand. He showed it 
to me, and then threw it across the room. It landed perfectly on its 
end, on a table in one corner. It did not break or tumble. I was 
starting to remember that a lot of this sort of thing had gone on in 
my life. For a period, I may have been able to mimic the action. 
White motioned his thin clawed hand at the brick. I shifted 
my attention between him and it, and then put out my palms in 
question.

  "Do it," he said.

  "Do what?"

  "Crush...the brick."

  I stood up, and walked toward it.

  "No," he said. "Do it from the...chair. Do you not 
remember this...simple exercise?"

  More stuff I was supposed to remember. Not wanting to 
piss either one of them off again, stupidly I said, "I do."

  "Then do it."

  I sat back in my chair and looked at the brick. I 
concentrated on its shape, and tried to visualize it breaking. I could 
see what a feat like this would take; just a little physical contact 
between my will and my vision. Of course, nothing happened. 
Merely wishing the brick to break wouldn't accomplish a thing. 
And both of them waiting expectantly. God what a waste of time 
this was. Even in the uncertain situation, my attention drifted, and I 
tried to remember more. I had figured that I was some sort of 
criminal, formerly involved with the terrorists who were right now 
fighting cops in the streets. I had friends who were there too, and I 
had friends who were as trapped as I was. They were alone 
because I was not there to help them, and instead I sat in an 
aluminum chair in this basement, trying to break bricks with my 
mind.

  I almost had to stifle a laugh. This was exactly 
the kind of ridiculous, absurd scenario my mind was always 
coming up with to purposely aggravate me.

  "I can't do it," I said at last. 

  "...Why?" said White, turning toward me and frowning.

  "Ha! Because I don't remember a fucking thing! Why am I 
trying to break a brick?! What do you two want with me? How 
the hell did I get down here?"

  Spit came out of my mouth and the brick, across the room, 
exploded. Bits of fire-clay shot all over the room, and I had to 
cover my eyes. When the dust settled, there was little left of the 
brick and the table it had been resting on. I looked at White. He 
glanced at Rufius. The taller man smiled.

  "Screwtape...you have not lost your touch." Then, to 
Rufius, he said, "The Sexton will come in and clean. Should I put 
him... back in the cell?"

  Rufius, who had not moved or said a word the whole time, 
shook his head very slightly. "No. Call your daughter in as well. 
Have her restore his mind fully." His voice was much more 
normal, yet deeper and louder without sounding like a yell. It 
reminded me of the sound aluminum siding makes when you 
forcefully draw your palm across it.

  "...Is that wise? He might-"

  Rufius' eyes rolled up. White shut up instantly, and even I 
stopped moving. I actually couldn't breathe. There was no question 
of authority here. We sat there in an uncomfortable silence for half 
a minute, and then Rufius lowered his stare. Turning with relaxed 
movements, he left the room and shut the door behind him. 

  White slowly lost his overwhelmed expression and 
grimaced. He walked over to a computer console, and typed for a 
few seconds on the keyboard. Then he followed Rufius out the 
door, and shut it behind him. Finally, left alone in the room, I 
exhaled deeply and wiped my forehead.

  "Some shit goes on in *here*." I said out loud to myself. I 
had gotten in the habit after being in the cell. But by god, I was 
free! For the moment.

  I got out of the chair, and stretched sore muscles. I trotted 
over to the door and checked it, but it was locked. I searched 
around the room for other doors, but saw only the steel ones 
guarding the far wall. I walked though the rows of monitors and 
dials to the first of them, and saw that the word 'Yuma' had been 
printed on it in red capital letters. I tried the handle. It was very 
locked, and so were the other two.

  It surprised me that they trusted me with all their hardware 
after I made it very clear that we were not on good terms. I walked 
around for a few minutes looking at it all, but saw nothing familiar. 
At least there were no coffin shaped slabs of black rock here. What 
an odd thought, but I had bad memories of those things.

  I knew a little about civilian computers, though I had never 
owned one. Government computers like these, however, ran a 
different operating system, exclusive to the upper branches of 
office. I had no idea what to do with the blinking letters and 
numbers that faced me on the screen. I started pressing buttons 
until the monitors beeped at me. Well fuck you too, I thought.

  "Get away from there!"

  I whirled around and saw an old man who actually looked 
contiguous with his age. He had gray coveralls, a mop and a 
bucket, and I recognized him from earlier. He walked up to me, 
and held his mop out like a sword.

  "I get in trouble if anything breaks in here."

  "I'm sorry," I said hastily, holding out my palms in front of 
me. "Who are you?"

  "Who are *you?*" he countered.

  "Rufius, that gangly fuck, had me locked up for a few days, 
and then he finally let me out," I blurted. "I don't know what else 
to tell you."

  "How about your name?"

  I tried to figure how to put it so that it would seem 
believable, and came up with, "It's a long story. What about you?"

  He put down his mopped and started walking back toward 
his bucket. "I'm the Sexton," he said over his shoulder. "I clean up 
all the crap that gets left around in here."

  He was dressed in attire that suggested his title involved the 
custodial arts. He put the mop in his bucket, and started wiping up 
bits of the brick I had been charged with breaking. I went over to 
the table myself, and scanned the mess. There weren't any burn 
marks like you might expect after an explosion. It appeared to me 
more like the brick had been a gunshot victim.

  "What the hell were you three doin in here?" the Sexton 
asked.

  "To tell you the truth, I am not too sure myself. Listen, I 
don't know about you, but I have no idea where the hell here is."

  "You're in the basement."

  "No, I meant in terms of what building we're in. In the 
city."

  "You think they tell me either?" he snapped. "I have been 
working here for forty-seven years, and I still don't know where 
the hell I am."

  I laughed. "Seriously. Do you live here too?"

  "Nah. A car with no windows picks me up every morning, 
and drops me off at my home every night. The car doesn't even 
have a god damn driver. It just speeds around on its own, and takes 
me here, where I work my ass off cleaning things which are 
already clean. I don't know any more about this place than you."

  I was shocked. "So why do you stay? How did you get the 
job in the first place?"

  "An old friend introduced me to White a long time ago, and 
said that if I could keep secrets, I could make twice as much dough 
as I was making working for the union. So I said what the hell, told 
him to set me up, and the next morning an empty car drove up to 
my door."

  "And so you just got in?"

  "Hell yes, I got in. And have been getting in every day ever 
since. I get an envelope in the mail each month, and it's filled with 
tax-free cash. So I keep their secrets, and keep my wife happy."

  "God. So what kind of shit are they into down here?"

  "All manner of business goes on here during every hour of 
the night. I couldn't describe it to you if I wanted to. There used to 
be more of us, Sextons I mean. Though for the past half decade, 
the population of the Apothecary dwindled down to the three of us. 
Mr. White, Rufius and myself. But as I said before, their secrets 
are my secrets." He sounded sure of himself on that last sentence 
and he returned to mopping the floor.

  I got off the table I had been sitting on and said, "Well at 
least tell me this. Are they going to off me or experiment on me or 
what? I mean, I don't have a clue how I got here. I must have been 
kidnapped or something, and hit on the head, because my memory 
is shot. The only things that surface are bits and pieces; scenes of 
my life prior to the mirrored cell. Then White comes in one day 
and tells me to break that brick with my mind. From across the 
room for god's sake. And then when it actually happens, they leave 
me alone."

  "I don't know what to tell you, friend. But I will give you 
some advice." He stopped mopping, and walked over to me. "Do 
not piss off either one of them. I have seen White get angry with 
his patients and that's usually the last thing they remember. And 
he's afraid of Rufius! I've never seen anyone do anything to the 
tall guy except piss in their pants. So watch it."

  "I will, I will" I said. I watched the old man stoop over 
again and start wringing water out of the mop like I wasn't in the 
room. This was all so stupid, it kept making me want to laugh. 

  This just couldn't be my life. It wasn't anything like my 
life. I mean sure it was my life, but it was wrong. It was hiding a 
big secret too.

  The new information gave me more to work with, but it did 
not change the fact that I still would probably not be able to 
escape. Obviously the two zombie basket-ball players had me in 
their secret government lab, and were running tests on me. White 
had said he was a Mandate Director, after all. But I remembered 
having seen the IMHR building before, and it was not as big as 
this. In fact, I remembered seeing the building blown up. 

  I knew nothing really. I was working with a broken 
machine. What I did know was that the door to this room was now 
open, and calling my name. With a look over both shoulders, I 
walked around the Sexton's slippery-when-wet floor, and peered 
out the door into the long, long hallway we had come down earlier. 
It was dimly lit, and the pipes running under the ceiling were 
letting off steam. But I distinctly saw the tiny form of a woman 
walking toward me, at the far other end. I could tell it was a 
woman by the way she swung her hips a little with each step.
I stepped back and asked, "Hey. I thought you said it was 
just the three of you in here."

  The Sexton leaned over and peeked out the door as well. 
He shrugged and said, "Well that would be White's daughter."
I looked down the hall again. "Wouldn't that make her like 
ninety? She moves pretty well for her age."

  "Oh, she isn't old at all. In fact she's very nice looking."

  Trying to imagine White being a father was not working for 
me, so I just watched the woman walk in our direction. As she got 
closer, I could tell that the Sexton had been right; she was a woman 
who defied description. Tall and lean, the way her hips swayed in 
an uncontrolled yet graceful motion reminded me of something a 
little raw, animalistic. When her eyes came into view there was no 
mistaking it. So blue they almost glowed in the dark. Why didn't I 
ever see women like that coming down a sidewalk in daylight? 
I was taken back by it and retreated away from the door. 
Then I felt a slight breeze.

  "Uh, Sexton? I'm still naked."

  "How vogue."

  (What was with the snotty old-people lately?) "Well, when 
that woman walks into this room, my lower body is going to put all 
three of us in an awkward situation."

  He thought about that for a second and then said, "Check 
the closets over there."

  I did so, and on my third try found a box of pressed lab 
coats. I hurriedly wrapped two of them around my waist since they 
felt thin and flimsy. Clearly the best I could do, I shut the locker 
and made sure none of my clandestine anatomy was showing. 
As soon as I turned around, there she was, in the doorway 
with a shadow across her face. For lack of a better plan, I remained 
silent and stood up straight.

  She was wearing a black long-sleeved shirt with straight 
leather pants. High cheekbones, full lips, and a look of intelligence. 
Her beautiful brown hair was let loose over her shoulders, and the 
whole effect was enough to make me gasp. She walked forward 
casually, and as she passed the Sexton; he grabbed his mop and 
bucket and pushed them out of the room. The door shut with a 
click, and now it was just her and me.

  There was that breeze again.

  "Come here," she said in a light, feminine voice that 
sounded familiar.

  "Don't I know you from somewhere?" I said as I got up.

  "Would you have forgotten?"

  Cue stupid grin. "I guess not."

  She turned toward a computer and started typing. Then, 
glancing at another monitor, she pulled out a clipboard from her 
bag and checked off a few lines. I tried to see over her shoulder 
what she was writing, but she gave me a look, and I backed off. 
After putting down the pen and pausing to brush a fine strand of 
hair which had crept its way toward her lip, she nodded to herself. 
I seemed to be still grinning. Why.

  "Screw?"

  "Yes?"

  "Are you sure you want my help?"

  I didn't know what to say. She looked like she knew me. If 
she knew me than I probably knew her. I really hoped so. I 
resolved myself to ask as soon as I felt the right moment.
She stepped forward and said, "Then if my calculations are 
correct," and socked me in the jaw with strength inconsistent with 
her distinctly feminine appearance. Maybe she was the man's 
daughter. I flashed a look of surprise and went down for the count. 
Colors swirled. Funny that no one had tried it before.







-----------
-----------









Notes:
Okay, so you had to give this one a little. Departing widely from
the way I normally write this to express a different set of people
acting differently after Screw suffers head trauma was difficult
and I couldn't (I guess out of basic writing inability) do everything
I wanted to with it, because I really bit off more than I could chew.
An Anime Fan Fiction helped vent some of these pent up observations, 
but I hope you got enough from this to follow Screw's very self-
centered, snide, self-victimizing train of thoughts through a place
he may be making sure he doesn't remember the details of. We all
do this. I don't really know. Like I said, you get as much out of 
dialogues like this as you are willing to identify yourself with,
and I think I touched on all the points I wanted to, the behavioral
differences between screw and his captors, the inaccessibility
of the one-man supporting cast, and the varying clarity of his connection to his urges. You have to just feel it out, not 
rationalize it. Please let me know what you think.




Peace.
Aes


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