StV: Money-Back Guarantee, part one

Bernard Cresswell parked his car in the private lot beneath the building and took the elevator up to his office. The doors opened twice on the way up, but nobody stepped inside. He did his best to smile pleasantly and nod politely each time, but he was surprised to discover just how much it hurt when the people outside the elevator doors gaped or froze or flinched back. He'd known it could happen, that it would happen, but knowing it and experiencing it were two different things. 

He stepped out of the elevator alone, and crossed to the ornately etched glass doors of his office. Crista -- dark-haired, aerobics-and-yoga slim, professionally dressed in a blouse, skirt, and matching jacket -- glanced at him and smiled, then did a double-take. "Mr. Creswell?"

"It's still me, Crista," he said, nodding drily.

She shook off her reaction with a sudden movement of her head, almost like a dog shaking off water. "Sorry, sir," she said, and reached for the door. "After you."

"Thank you," he said, unexpectedly touched by her reaction. "I know this must be a shock." 

She shook her head in denial, then turned to look him over. He knew what she was seeing: the pale green skin, the vine-like tracery atop his skin, the leafy hair. She opened her mouth, closed it again, and finally said, "I had a cousin, Mr. Creswell."

"Did you?" he asked, and she motioned him through the door.

"Anton," she said softly as he passed. "Woke up three weeks before his thirteenth birthday without a bit of hair left on his body, and every piece of furniture in his room floating three feet in the air.  His parents thought he'd shaved his head and broken everything in some sort of tantrum."

"But he hadn't, of course," Bernie filled in. "I doubt he was any less surprised than I was."

Crista hesitated, visibly weighing her words. "You're older, Sir. I'll bet it was even more of a surprise for you." 

Bernie chuckled. "That may be. Still... have I ever asked you to call me 'Sir', Crista?"

She grimaced. "No, Mr. Creswell."

"Then let's not start now. You're a valued -- and valuable -- member of the team here. I won't try to sell you on the usual 'we're a family here' bullshit, but...  if your cousin's still around and looking for work, we may be hiring soon."

"Sir?"

"Depending on how the next few weeks go, we may have some openings soon, and there are going to be some very definite changes in our hiring policy."

Crista swallowed. "I see, S-- Mr. Creswell. I'll see if I can get in touch with him."

"It won't be preferential," Bernie said. "If he gets hired, he'll have to do the work. But if we have an opening and he can do the work, we won't turn him away."

Crista smiled. "You're planning to announce the New You, then?"

Bernie smiled back. "Absolutely. It's time to find out who our friends really are."

Challenge: Fictional Worlds

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I kind of fell off last year, so we'll see how I do with it this year.)

Prompt: Fictional Worlds I'd Rather Not Visit

I mean, that's a lot of them. Most of Stephen King's oeuvre, for example. A pretty fair chunk of Clive Barker, too. But if I had to pick one in particular, I'd have to go with Athas.

Athas is the homeworld for the Dungeons and Dragons Dark Sun campaign setting. It's a post-apocalyptic desert world -- sort of like Mad Max, but without the car chases and gun fights, and with elves and dragon-folk and insect people instead. Resources -- notably water and metal of any sort -- are scarce. Unlike most D&D settings, Athas is closed off from other planes of existence, so if I somehow wound up there, there would be no going back. 

And unless I was extremely fortunate, I'd last maybe a day or two before being robbed, sold into slavery, or murdered. If I was unlucky, well... it take a bit of time to die of dehydration, heatstroke, and hypothermia in the desert. 

So yeah, I would very prefer not to be isekai'ed to Athas.

StV: Opportunities

Cat didn't know the girl who sat down across from her. Her face was familiar, of course; Saint Vincent's was a small school, and everybody knew everybody, within limits. One of the white girls, though not so pale as some, with nut-brown hair and eyes. Amy? Something like that. The girl had one hand on the table and was absently tapping out a nervous rhythm with her fingers.

"Stop that," Cat said reflexively, and the errant hand went still. 

So did the other girl's face. "Sorry. Um. I don't mean to bother you, but..." 

So don't, Cat thought, but she managed to keep the thought to herself. "I don't..." She wondered if she sounded as awkward as she felt. "I'm sorry, I don't remember your name."

"Abby," the girl supplied immediately. "And, um, there's no reason you should. I mean, I'm a Second Year, we don't have any classes together, and I wouldn't know your name either if you weren't..."

"On Team Kraken?" Cat supplied. 

"Yeah. Sorry. I'm... I'm not sure how to ask this, but..." 

Cat braced herself. Shit like this was why she hated talked to people. The girl would ask to join the team, or for Cat to put in a good word with Tempest, or maybe just if they could hang out or help her develop her powers. If she was lucky, she could refer the girl to Tempest or even to Ms. Salvatore. More likely, she'd have to figure out how to let her down gently, which was exactly the sort of delicate social interaction that she hated, mainly because it stressed her right the fuck out. 

The girl glanced around to make sure that there was nobody near the table Cat had picked out on the back porch, then asked: "Did I see the new boy come out of your room the other morning?" 

No, absolutely not, why would you even think that? Cat's brain was shaping the words, but her traitor mouth was already replying: "Yes, but if you tell anybody else I'll deny it."

"Um." The girl swallowed. "So are you two, like, together?" She flushed, then added hurriedly: "I'm not asking for gossip. I have a reason, really."

Do I really want to know? Cat wasn't at all sure that she did. "Okay," she said finally. "How is this any of your business?"

"I mean, it's not. It's just that... if I were to... proposition him -- hypothetically -- I'd want to make sure that I wasn't cutting in on somebody else's relationship."

Cat hesitated. "All right. If I had slept with him -- hypothetically -- I'd reassure you that it was just a temporary thing, and you wouldn't be cutting in."

The girl paused, and for a couple of heartbeats  Cat thought the conversation was over. Then Abby asked, "Was it good? I don't want my first time to be a disaster."

"Yes," said Cat, "Yeah, it was good. But... look, you're a Second Year. You're young. I mean, I'm young too--" Oh, God, she was getting this all knotted up. "--but..." She stopped, shook her head, drew a breath, and then asked: "Why him? Why now? It's not a race, you know?"

Abby folded her hands together, then put them in her lap. She remained silent for the better part of a minute. Then she said, "Because I'd like to see what it's like while I'm still... me. And you know how it is -- a lot of people talk, but I never know if they're actually doing anything or if it's just talk. So when I saw him coming out of your room, well... I thought, Here's someone who's actually having sex, and it seemed like maybe this was my opportunity."

Cat absolutely did not know how it is. She avoided that kind of talk; she avoided a lot of different kinds of talk. She'd made her own private decisions, and it had never even occurred to her to consult anybody else about them. Still... "Okay, but... what do you mean, 'while I'm still me'?"

Abby looked at her for a moment, then unbuttoned the right sleeve of her uniform shirt and shoved it up past her elbow. She extended her arm, showing off the mass of pale, milky-- 

That wasn't scar tissue. That was armor. There were spikes, small but distinct, growing out of it. "What...?" Has Tempest seen this? Gods, she would love to examine this. The thought was out of place here, so she pushed it away.

 "I'm changing," Abby told her. "That's where I fell off my bike and scraped my arm, so you can see it there. It healed different. But it isn't just when I'm injured. My whole body's doing this, just... more slowly. Probably since I was twelve or thirteen." She pushed her sleeve back down. "And even that isn't done," she continued. "Those little spikes? They weren't there a month ago. I noticed them when I tore the shit out of my pillow one night."

"Hostia puta." Cat swallowed, trying to imagine. "That... that must be terrifying."

Abby looked like she was about to burst into tears. "You... you really have no idea."

"No chingues." The situation had, it seemed, finally gotten so uncomfortable that Cat had relaxed into it. She stood up, came around the table, and squatted down beside Abby so she could put an arm across the younger girl's shoulders. "Do you have any idea where it's heading?"

Abby shook her head. "No. The doctors didn't know. The faculty don't know. I don' t know. I have monthly checkups with Ms. Campbell, but I can't really talk to her about what it's like."

"All right," she said. "Yeah. That's pretty fucked, but I can see where you're coming from on this. So... yeah, Lyceus and I were just a fling. You wouldn't be cutting in." She hesitated. "And if you need somebody to talk to, well... I'm kind of shit at that, actually. But I'll try, if that's what you need."

Music: Seven Year Ache

Roseanne Cash:

Music: End of the Road

Noga Erez:

StV: The Prophet and the Acolyte

"Escaped, you say?" The Prophet's voice was mild, but then the Prophet's voice was always mild. The cares of this world did not touch him, and his divinity had placed him beyond all human pettiness and spite.

"I believe so, Holiest." Janet Hendrix kept her voice even, because none of that meant that she was not in danger. The Prophet cared about the Work, and attempting to transfigure a Deviant interfered with the Work. Having a deviant then escape...? That could be a disaster. "He was helped by other Deviants."

She didn't know that that was true, but she was not about to explain to The Prophet that she and Jefferson and Michael had gotten their assess handed to them by a bunch of teenagers. And since both Creswell and the teenagers had vanished into thin air, it seemed very likely that they'd done it together. 

 "That is troubling," The Prophet observed. "I had hoped you could handle this alone, but even I had not expected outside interference. Are they known to you, these Deviants?"

"No, I'd never seen them before." Janet swallowed. "I have one of their names: Emily Hubbard. Emil is running a search already. And Bernard Creswell is likely to cause chatter if he reappears."

"Very well." The Prophet nodded thoughtfully, then looked towards the heavens. "Find them -- all of them -- and see that they do not interfere further. Protect our reputation through whatever means you deem effective. I trust to your discretion in this. Should you need additional resources or assistance, pray to me and I will provide."

"Yes, your Holiness." Janet bowed her head. "It will be as you say."

"In all things," The Prophet agreed, and left the call.

Janet heaved a sigh of relief. She wasn't honestly sure whether or not the Holiest could strike her down over a video call, but one way or another she would be removed if she threatened the Work. They were remaking the world, after all; remaking humanity. Mistakes could not be tolerated. 

As for Mr. Creswell and those damnable teenage Deviants, well... perhaps they would see reason. Or perhaps they could be influenced. Or, if all else failed, they could always be removed the hard way. Blessed Savior, she hoped they could be removed the hard way.

All she had to do was find them.

Oh no!

The Decemberists: