Fine print: all characters belong to Marvel, except Lady Sad Eyes. Don't sue me. This is purely for entertainment. Again, don't sue me. If you E-mail me please use the heading "Links". Links in a Chain A story by kaz (ckazmierc@aol.com) *************************************************** "Ruddy heck... Shag that! Bloody Hell..." He looked up again. He was always surprised how his image -- mirrored back to him by the computer screen -- looked like some ghost. How the tiny lines that had started to form around his eyes looked so much larger. How his unruly black hair made his skin look that much paler. He hadn't really cared that much about his hair. He had kept up 'a look' when he was at Black Air. 'A look' that was polished but easily changed. One where he could either slip into or stand out of a crowd. At this moment he couldn't help thinking he looked like a scared little boy ghost. _____ Smoker: What? All your attention isn't on me? LSE: I am listening to music in the background... it is an Oasis song. Smoker: I knew you liked us Englishmen. (Leer) LSE: shush. Here's my favorite part... Give me a minute. I want to hear this again. It's from a song titled Cast No Shadow. Off of ... (What's the story) Morning Glory? Smoker: Whatever. I am grabbing a Marlboro so take your time. LSE: i am on Djarum tonight... I would like to have one of each type of cigarette in existence before I leave this earth. Smoker: Probably of lung cancer LSE: you took the words right out of my mouth. Speaking, er, writing of words... how do you like these: "Here's a thought for everyman Who tries to understand what is in his hand He walks along the open road of love and life Surviving if he can Bound with all the weight of all the words he tried to say Chained to all the places that he never wished to stay Bound with all the weight of the words he tried to say As he faced the sun he cast no shadow As they took his soul they stole his pryde As they took his soul they stole his pryde As they took his soul they stole his pryde As he faced the sun he cast no shadow As he faced the sun he cast no shadow As he faced the sun he cast no shadow" (Times 2) Smoker: It's great. I am sure.... LSE: sorry that was "pride" and not "pryde" . I repeated the error through cut and paste -- sending it before I realized the error. I was reading an old case today and the original reporter misspelled the word... Had it on the brain ever since :P _____ "I can't move me bloody fingers. Maybe if I just rammed my fist into the screen?" A testament to the fact that he couldn't move his fingers (or his lower arm for that matter) was his cigarette. The thing was, what is commonly referred to as, 'hot boxed'. In other words, the glowing red tip was way too long to support itself on the end of his cigarette. Which meant the glowing red ember was about to drop. And it did. On his trousers. He didn't notice it until he felt it burn through the black fabric. "Shit~ @#$%@." An extremely cool cup of coffee was dumped on the smoking fabric. The coffee was from a few days before. Green things still floated in the aftermath of the cup, where the debris landed on the floor. He was lucky. The cup of brown liquid he picked up wasn't the one he used as an ashtray. The ashtray had black things growing in it. ***************** "I can't...huff... believe... she said...puff...that..." Katherine Pryde was in the danger room at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. She was beating the living daylights out of one of those martial arts dummies people use to learn blocking. The dummy consisted of a log with wooden poles for arms. Arms which sprouted from random spots along the log's body. As she hit one arm, another would come flying up toward her. "That mangy ... groan... flatscan." "Dis' can't be good." In the Control Room, two men were watching Ms. Pride. One was short and stocky. The other was slightly taller than average and appeared to have the grace of a ballet dancer. Or a contortionist. Both men had cigarettes in their respective mouths. Neither cigarette was 'hot boxed'. "Nope. But she doesn't want to talk about this." The shorter man sounded like smoothed over sand paper scraping gravel. "An' what is dis?" A sliver of sweat started to drip down Ms. Pryde's back. The drops ran right down the emblem on her leotard which said "BYTE me". The liquid reached the second 'e' as she realized what she just said. Ms. Pryde fought harder. ****************** __________________ LSE: smoker? Smoker: I dropped me fag... LSE: he couldn't have liked that... oh, right. You mean cigarette. Smoker: yeah, right... you cheeky git. LSE: cheesy grit? Cheesy. Huh, I'll show you cheesy. I am Cheeze Wizz. (A cheese food product -- too cheesy to be cheese) :P Smoker: Bloody... why am I doing this? LSE: writing in dialect to amuse me? I ask myself that every night. ;) Don't know. MAYBE BECAUSE YOU ARE TRYING TO GIVE YOURSELF AN EXCUSE TO CALL HAER, oops, HER AND I AM TRYING TO GIVE YOU AN EXCUSE TO, TOO. (uh, also? whatever...) It is pretty apparent. This is the second time we 'talked'. And I can already tell you have her on the brain. :P Smoker: Only when we talk... the only time I allow myself that luxury. LSE: let your fingers do the walking... Have the luxury all the time... The luxury of time doesn't exist... Oh, sorry. You didn't have MA BELL growing up as a youngster. So you were saved from all those cheesy commercials _________________ He could feel the phone off to his right. The phone had a personality. The phone just sat there. Cheap and black, like any good phone in any good hotel room in Las Vegas, Nevada. For company, the phone had a bottle of single malt scotch next to it. Both were untouched. A black coating of dust being the only thing that had caressed either of them since the man got here four days ago. He felt them. The phone and the bottle. So far away from him, they were... across a chasm bigger then the one bridged by the Hoover Dam. (Yes, he had noticed the thing while driving here. Even with his chest bound up from another broken rib, he could still notice the scenery.) He lifted his hand to lay the appendage on the receiver. The phone had only been two feet away. ************** Katherine Pryde moved from the dummy to the replicas. Replicas of all the baddies she had ever met. The ones that haunted her nightmares. The ones she didn't admit to fearing, although no one would blame her. Sabretooth, Sleazoids, Warwolves, and a giant pink dandelion from Excalibur's cross time caper. A dandelion that could only be described as some B. Breathed authored Bloom County nightmare. A dandelion that chanted. "Eat me and I will show you your true self/ Eat me and I will show you that you are spam." The men in the control room were equally fearful. Well... at least equally fearful of the pink dandelion. The thing was just ... there. "Whatever this is bub, it ain't good. Looks like someone had hard words." ************** His hand held the receiver. Lovingly, tenderly, like he had held the hand of his... Pryde... a long time ago. A night in a tavern in Scotland where he and she -- they -- had admitted to her friends that they cared about one another. It might have been the first time they had admitted having those feelings to each other. The modem gave off the sounds of a high pitched cat fight. He calmly tore the modem line out of the computer. The phone was now, comfortingly, silent. After what seemed like an eternity (five seconds), he dialed the number Sam had given him to Xavier's. ************** Katherine Pryde was in a cat fight of her own. She was wrestling with her own ego. The phone rung. Automatically, the Danger Room sequence turned itself off. Ms. Pryde pounced on the phone. "Xavier's." "Pryde." Ms. Pryde was too mad at herself to consciously recognize the voice. She registered it subconsciously. The voice belonged to someone who she could talk to when she was mad at herself. Someone she could admit she was wrong to... "Oh golly! What the hell do you want?!?!" If she would have been conscious of who it was, she would have hung up the phone. "Listen here you bleedin' yank I could have talked to you but I had to leave before I said something that was carefully calculated to tear your heart from your chest and shove it down your stupid throat! I am not a nice person and I'll call you again when I can talk to you like a friggin' normal sensible human being. I love you! (Click!)" "...pete?" An electronic voice answered her. " If you would like to make a call please hang up and dial again."