Subject: [OTL]: [OTL] Gunfire, A Quemarropa (W,D,X-Gang) 3/3
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 15:10:59 -0800
From: JumpTB@aol.com

Gunfire, A Quemarropa
by Omega
part 3

    "Yours?!" Damia almost shouted. "I thought you were just appointed as a
chief by some higher power."

    He gave a bit of a laugh. "I am the higher power. Well, except maybe for
Pryde, but . . ."

    "Kitty's in on this too?" I exclaimed.

    "Kitty . . . is she the one you call the Tech? In Chicago?" Damia said
incredulously.

    "She's here half of the time. Down on the second floor."

    "You're kidding me," Damia said. "She's right here in the building and
I've never met her face to face?"

    "Why do you need to meet her? She talks you through all the hard-drive
wipes and info scanning, what more you need?" Pete asked amiably.

    "Geez, this might as well be a reincarnation of the X-Men," I said,
astounded. "You, Logan, Kitty . . . who else?"

    "No one else. Kitty and I started Copper Horse jointly. It was mostly
her idea; I wouldn't've done government shit again if I was threatened with 
my life, but Kitty asked nicely. Very nicely." He grinned. "We did the dirty
work, and when we started looking for other people to take positions, she
suggested asking Logan to come in for training." He took a long drag from his
cigarette, seeming to savor the smoke. "He taught her most of what she knows.
It made sense."

    "How did you pick up Damia?"

    "Lacey was an acquaintance of mine. She didn't know what to do with her."

    Damia nodded. "I was eight when I met Wisdom. He came over for dinner,
brought some girlfriend, and asked me if I'd like to learn from him and a
friend of his. The friend turned out to be Logan."

    Pete said, "That 'some girlfriend' was Kitty."

    "I just remember someone with brown hair and a nice laugh. That's it."

    "So you had this place running a year after the X-Men dissipated? That's
pretty good," I said.

    "Well, if you remember, Kitty took off a year before that anyhow, and
came to London. She and I spent a year there, planning things and starting to
talk to people, and then came to the States, weaseled everything into place,
then started adding more people. End of that year, we found Damia." He
paused, finishing off his coffee. "So. You want a little bit of sabotage to
do tonight or not?"

    Damia's face lit up and she nodded excitedly, turning to me hopefully. I
gave a slight frown. "Legal sabotage?" I asked.

    "'Course not," Wisdom answered, snubbing his cigarette butt into the
trace of liquid in the bottom of his mug, where it fizzled.

    I remembered my childhood, thinking back to the almost-seven years I'd
spent growing up in a place where borderline legal and downright illegal
actions were taken matter-of-factly. I remembered Remy, breaking into
Tiffany's in New York to get Rogue's engagement ring. I chewed my bottom lip
for a moment and decided hell, you only live once, why not give it a try? If
you get into trouble, hopefully Damia or Wisdom could save your ass. "What's
the deal?" I asked, and Damia's face crinkled into a smile.

(Damia)
"Who's there?" I whispered into the tiny radio wire bent in front of my face.
The headset was incredibly light, weighing less than the average floppy disk,
made of thin wires and an earpiece hardly larger than a pencil eraser in my
good ear.

    "This is Tech," came the voice softly in my ear. "Are you in?"

    "Yes," I answered, barely more than a sigh of breath, and I reached into
a pocket on my pants, pulling out two pairs of glasses with slightly
reflective lenses, no frames, and handing one pair to Whit, who was crouched
next to me in the shadows. I motioned for him to put them on, and he did,
giving me a questioning look. I then put mine on, settling them on my nose.
Wonderful, I thought with an elated grin. Damn technology, damn science, it's
so freakin' advanced that every outing was like a trip through a toy store,
all fun and games. I had the size of nickels that could hold an entire hard
drive; glasses coated with a light-bending mercury isotope that allowed me
to see myself even when invisible; detonation devices so precise that I could
blow a fly off a man's face without burning him. "Okay," I told the Tech, on
the other end of the line. Kitty. Shadowcat. Whatever, whoever she was.
"Floor plan looks accurate. Have you gotten the laser readings yet?"

    "No, give me twenty seconds."

    I waited patiently, rubbing my hands together excitedly. The smooth black
silk shirt and gloves I wore were warm and light, and the pants had pockets
enough to make a pack-rat like me very happy. Whit wore the same outfit, and 
both of us wore light leather shoes fashioned after Indian moccasins, sturdy 
but silent suede and they wouldn't leave distinctive tread marks. I could see
Whit's eyes behind his glasses as he glanced around cautiously. No trace of
doubt or fear, I was glad to notice, but he would be careful. I allowed
myself another wide grin, wondering if I could wrangle him into joining me
as a partner. Wisdom had been nagging me to get one for the past year.

    "Got it," said Tech. I could imagine her sitting in a cubicle somewhere,
five or six computers surrounding her. One of them would be connected to the
building's security system. It had been a simple job of adding a wire to an
existing junction and adding a tiny radio-like device to the wire that would
allow Tech access to the system, all of its secrets being delivered to her by
radio waves. She could then hack it with her sophisticated viruses, designed
by her, for her, especially for this.

    "Okay. Look to your left. There's a hallway that dead-ends about twenty
meters down. There are offices on either side of the hallway, equal numbers
of them on each side - there should be five on each side, ten total." I
confirmed her information, and then she continued. "The first on either side
is a secretary's joint. Between the first and second are the lasers."

    Whit, who also had a headset and had yet to say anything, squinted,
looking down the dark hallway. I doubted he could see anything, but I could
see the doors plainly. Despite the security lights in the foyer, the building
was deserted. We'd already gotten past the only guards, three men who
patrolled the foyer and gave half-hearted looks down the halls but never
stepped off the ugly maroon carpet the foyer fostered. I wondered who they
hired for interior decorating.

    "What's the layout?" I asked.

    "Hundred five total."

    If I hadn't been breaking into a place and trying to keep silent, I would
have whistled in admiration. "Quite an array."

    "No kidding. Five in each row, twenty-one rows going up. The bottom ones
are approximately eight inches from the ground . . . they're spread equally
after that."

    I did some quick mental math . . . after the first laser, there was one
every five inches up. I cursed a bit louder than I should've, and Whit gave
me a sharp look that I returned with an apologetic glance. "Okay," I said.
"I'm gonna go clear. I'll keep in touch."

    "Right."

    I nodded, motioned for Whit to follow me, and disappeared, reaching down
to that weird little place in my brain I had to tap in to in order to make
myself invisible. I felt it rushing over me and started creeping my way down
the hall. To anyone who happened upon us, they would find only Whit. I could
see myself, however, through the lenses of the treated glasses, and Whit
could see me through his as well.

    The doors to the first offices were slightly recessed, and Whit and I
hunkered down in one while I scrutinized the wall. "I'm at the first office
door; Whit's with me. Are these lasers weird in any way."

    "Not that I can see," Tech said slowly, then said it a bit more
reassuringly. "No, they're definitely not. I just double-checked. You've got
your scrambler?"

    "Yup," I said, digging two magic marker-sized pieces of electronics out
of a pocket. "What should I set them for, to be safe?"

    "Ten up, ten across, just to be safe. Are the magnets still safe?"

    "Better be, I don't have a choice any more," I answered, setting the
dials on the rods and then finding a can of light aerosol powder-spray in my
small knapsack. It's been used for decades to detect laser beams, and it
still worked cheaply and efficiently. I inched out of the recess, leaving
Whit there, until I was in the center of the hallway, facing down the
hallway. Giving a silent spritz of the semi-liquefied powder, I found the
rigid grid of the lasers. Only two years ago I would've been called back, the
mission branded a failure, but now it was only a minor annoyance.

    "Watch and learn," I whispered into the radio. Whit was also on the same
channel, and I could see him grimace.

    "Right," he said. "Very funny. I can hardly see you, it's so dark."

    I smirked. "Try taking the glasses off."

    He did so and then couldn't see me; he hurriedly put them pack on,
sticking his tongue out to my dark image.

    Getting as close to the laser beams as I dared, I carefully slid the
first mechanism down under the beam. The second one I slid under the beam
about four feet from where the first one was. Palming a small activator, I
pressed a button, turning both of the small units on. A tiny red diode lit
up on each, indicating that they were functioning, and I rocked back on my
heels, grinning.

    "What did you do?" Whit asked, and I could hear awe in his face.

    "Lasers can be broken down easily with the right tools, but breaking the
beam sends off the alarm," I explained into the headset, almost silently.
"The first one breaks the beam up, scattering the waves but keeping them in
the same general area, and the second one puts them back together again. They
form a bubble in the beam, but there's no break because the lasers are still
going through, just scrambled. You can walk through the scrambled part," I
said, spraying some more powder and waving my hand around between the two
scramblers. The beams were invisible in the area I'd scattered, and it looked
as though a chunk of the red grid had been cut out as neatly as with a razor.
"Come on; let's go. Tech?"

    As we were walking through the space between the scrambling fields 
I could tell Whit found this seemingly-parting of the lasers almost as
impressive as if I'd parted the Red Sea for him. Tech said into our ears,
"The office is locked down with a keypad and a retinal scanner. Do you have
the model I gave you, Whit?"

    "Yes," he confirmed, pulling the silver ball bearing-looking item out of
a pocket with his black silk-sheathed hand and rolling it around in his palm.

    "I, er, obtained a copy of the retinal pattern from a database listing
all the people allowed to enter the system office. When the scroll bar says
'Confirmed: Awaiting Scan' you use the model and everything should go fine."

    I squirted the powder on the keypad, where it stuck to the numbers that
had been used throughout the day due to skin oil and grime. It was a
technique that I had watched Wisdom use an infinite number of times. 1-2-3.
"One, two, three," I said, frowning.

    "Really?" Tech asked, surprised. "Huh." She did some mumbling and finally
told me the order to push the numbers. 3-2-1. I shrugged, and the screen said
in green diodes "Confirmed: Awaiting Scan." Using the electronic model of
whoever's retina worked, and we were granted entry to our destination.

    "Nice," I said. "That ugly foyer was quite the false fatade."

    The plush carpeting and smoothly expensive wallpaper all looked new, 
as did the light Norwegian-styled furniture of slick blonde wood. The one
computer, wires and cables hanging out of it like intestines from some
eviscerated mechanical beast, looked very, very out of place on it's
honey-colored wooden desk. The only other odd feature to the room was the
glass tubing that ringed the entire room near the ceiling, swirling with 
a yellow gas, running down the wall and back behind the computer desk. I
wondered if it were some kind of neon light.

    "That's it?" Whit asked.

    "That be it," I answered, stalking across the carpet to it, feeling my
features crease into a slightly sly smile. "This'll be fun."

    Tech had briefed both of us beforehand on a speakerphone, Wisdom sitting
silently behind his desk, concentrating on his emotionless face of stone and
making smoke rings, which he was quite adept at. Quite remarkable. Just like
the information Tech gave us. The disks were permanently inside the computer,
accessed by a program that was actually quite easy if you could get into it.
Disks inside computers had become the new fad within the past five years or
so; up to ten could be implanted, but the cost was enough to pay the
President for several years. This little piece of computer heaven had five
within its beige plastic cover, buried deep within the guts of the computer
and wired for self-destruct in the form of wiping if tampered with
physically, so there was no way to hack the things out with a screwdriver.

    Whit had come more as an observer than a participant in this case. I had
a hunch he had spent his life staying well within the law, except maybe for
speeding tickets. He was quick to learn, however, and seemed to absorb
everything I did. Tech talked me into the computer start-ups, through the
security rigs, and into the programs to access the disks. I brought up the
first disk and laughed, hearing the slight maniacal ring to it. I was giddy
with the swelling feeling of achievement. "Ya got the disk?" I asked Whit,
and he produced one of our madtight nickel-sized disks with more memory space
than an entire herd of elephants.

    He handed it over, already inside a tiny exterior disk drive that I
connected to the computer. It didn't require an installment or formatting, so
I was able to start methodically copying the disks, one by one, onto mine. I
scanned the first series of documents I was copying while I waited. It was a
long list . . . time warping incidents? And locations? I frowned.

    "What is it?" Whit asked.

    "Looks like time-jump sequence data. Tech?"

    "Yes. You know that some mutants can generate rips or ripples in the
space-time continuum . . . they can allow access to other dimension and time
travel. This organization is an underground network trying to change history,
literally. They're gathering data on every space-time affecting mutant
possible to track them down and try to recruit them - or threaten them - into
providing access to the past in order to change the past. For example - they
plan on assassinating Hitler before he even begins politics."

    "Loco," Whit breathed.

    "No kidding," I agreed. "If anything changes, the entire world would be
set off course."

    "Exactly."

    For the first time, Wisdom spoke. I knew he sat in his office with a
headset on, smoking his fags and listening, but he had only spoken during a
mission twice. "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,"
he said, his voice low and a rough.

    "Newton's third law," Tech said.

    Whit and I exchanged a look. Heavy shit, I thought. If I had gone back
and convinced a Xavier from years ago not to let the X-Men dissipate, Wisdom,
Pryde, and Logan would never have started the Copper Horse and I would be in
high school right now, worrying about my Saturday night date. Changing even
something little would have consequences that would be far more serious than
a matter of life and death. The humans and mutants who were trying to
sabotage the past would just have to try again. All that stood between them
and their goal was me, but they wouldn't get past. I was too stubborn to let
them through; Damia the donkey was Wisdom's sarcastic nickname for me.

    "Got 'em," Whit said, nodding towards the disk drive. It had stopped
whirring, and he moved to disconnect it. I let him, still skimming the
document I had pulled up on my screen. When he had it stored in my knapsack,
I said, "Okay Tech, let's put these suckers into warp."

    I could hear her glee this time. "I've got a couple of tricks no one's
seen yet. Go back to the security program, and we'll see what we can screw
up."

    Tech had opted from the beginning to not let their disks destruct after
copying them. "Then they'll know someone was in there," she had pointed out.
"If you just change the security systems, make it look like one of them made
a mistake accidentally and made the security go crazy, then they wouldn't
suspect anyone besides authorized personnel." She had figured out that one
wrong letter in the fourth password would cause the security system to go on
guard, and if the wrong password were entered a second time it would go into
a freeze that only the original programmer could fix. If the second wrong
password were entered and then someone tried to get around it, the entire
hard drive secured itself down and encoded disks in its own language, a
binary derivative. At this third stage, the disks were pretty much done for.
There were four people in the entire world that had cracked the code and
would hack into disks again; their waiting lists were five years old.

    Tech told me the password to use, the one wrong letter being the key next
to the correct one so it looked as though someone's finger had just slipped.
Twice. And then panicked and tried to redo their work. And bingo, the disks
were encrypted. Whit and I now had the only accessible copies of the lists
and data.

    Whit and I had exchanged high-fives and had started packing up our
scanty tools when I remembered to turn off the surge protector that provided
electricity to the maze of technological stuff on the Norwegian desk. Just as
my finger flicked the rocker switch, there was a sharp, harsh hissing sound.
I looked up, startled, seeing the gas in the tubing rushing about in mad
swirls. The one light we had, from a flashlight, was suddenly extinguished,
both of us plunged into darkness. Alarmed, I quickly said, "Tech, we're
getting some harsh stuff here. Do you know anything about the tubing that's
in here?" There was no answer, and I felt myself becoming visible again as
slight panic rose in my throat. Through my glasses and night vision, I looked
over at Whit, who had frozen momentarily and then started groping for the
flashlight.

    "Tech? Tech! Wisdom? What the hell's goin' on here?" I hissed. I could
still hear the gas, and suddenly the lights of the entire room surged on,
the light lasting only a split second before the light bulb burst with an
explosive bang. I ducked, covering the back of my neck with my hands,
throwing myself down next to Whit from where I had been kneeling in front of
the computer. I could hear security sirens start to wail.

    "Holy shit," I said, looking up a bit tentatively. The lights were out,
and except for the glass shards buried in the carpet under the light fixture
and the gas swirlings starting to slow down, everything was normal. Except
that now we had four security guards and countless police coming. "Whit, we
gotta get outta here," I said, hefting my knapsack up. He looked up, gazing
in my direction, blind in the dark. " . . . de una bruja . . ." he was
saying. "What happened?"

    "Don't know, don't have time to figure it out," I answered, grabbing his
elbow and hauling him to his feet. He stumbled after me as I headed towards
the door, forcing my mind to stop racing around in circles and start
functioning normally. I summoned invisibility, making it spread through me
and into Whit. "Stay in the hallway and then go back out the front," I
directed. He nodded, and I wondered if he even noticed the cold rush that had
made him invisible. Both of us were still wearing our glasses; I wouldn't
have trusted him invisible if he were blind to his own body. "Get back to the
Horse. I'll meet you there."

    "But . . ."

    "Just do it!" I demanded tersely. He nodded submission as I pushed him
out in front of me into the dim hallway. I could hear voices directing other
voices, the volume increasing as people became more tense; I shoved a magnet
into Whit's hand, making it invisible first. "Use it to retrieve the laser
scramblers. Get on the far side then draw them out. Go!" I watched him dash
through the laser sets and then pull them out, leaving the grid intact. No
one had come down the hallway yet; instead, all the doors had probably been
locked down with a back-up system. "Tech, talk to me!" I said, watching Whit
disappear into the foyer. He should get out okay; when the police came in,
they would open the doors far enough to let him get out, especially since
they couldn't see him.

    Again, no answer. "Wisdom, if you can hear me, please say something," I
whispered, almost begging. I was trapped in the dead end of the hallway, the
lasers on one side, a solid wall on the other, only offices offered ways out.
I started reciting song lyrics to myself as I picked the lock on an office on
the opposite side of the wall, trying to keep my mind from contemplating what
may have happened to Tech and Wisdom. " 'I walk these streets, a loaded six
string on my back/ I play for keeps, 'cause I might not make it back/ I been
everywhere, still I'm standing tall/ I've seen a million faces/ And I've
rocked them all . . .'" I hummed a bit, but abruptly stopped when I got to
the line "I'm wanted dead or alive." I could feel the lock give, and suddenly
I was into the office.

    I shut the door quietly behind me, did a quick survey of the room.
Windows. Two, both about two feet by three feet. Solid glass panes, no way
to open them. The frame was one that was meant to detect heavy impact on the
glass and signal alarms if knocked too hard, but I wondered if I could break
it open without too much impact. I went to one, inspected it briefly, and
then made a fist. I tentatively scratched at the glass with my spurs, and
the window scratched but the alarms didn't go off. I went to work with both
hands, scratching out a square bit enough that I could fit through it. Once
it was deeply gouged by still in place, I rummaged for bonding material in my
knapsack. I found some liquid bonding material strong enough to glue a child
to the ceiling by the soles of his feet and pulled out a metal box the size
of a chalkboard eraser. Inside were several small explosives, but I wasn't
interested in those. I dumped them in my pocket and glued the box to the
square. Make-shift handle. With gently bumps from the heel of my hand and a
few more cuts in the glass, the square came off, me holding onto it by the
box. I lifted it inside and laid it on a desk and climbed through. Bingo,
baby.

    I was in a dark alleyway, and I could see steam gushing out of the
ground, making an eerie cloud. I could see two men not too far away from me,
could see that they had semi-automatics pointed at something, but my vision
was blocked by a dumpster. They were dressed a lot like me, and they had the
typical posture of hired mercenaries, cocky and grim at the same time. I
wondered why they were doing their killing right next to a building that was
beginning to be surrounded by cop cars. I had to get through them to get out
of the alleyway - it seemed I was being attacked by dead ends tonight, both
inside the building and outside. There was no way I could make my way through
the building blocking off the other end of the alley without causing a
ruckus. I pulled my Browning from my waistband and made myself visible. I'd
take my chances tonight; if I needed to, I could go clear again, but I needed
undivided attention on the situation ahead of me - namely, getting back to
the Copper Horse - and it still took too much concentration to stay
invisible. What I had done inside was a piece of cake; this had the immense
potential to go warp on me without warning.

    The two men looked up when they saw me coming out of the shadows, my gun
held down at my side in a guarded but non-aggressive manner. "Where the hell
have ya been?" the first asked in a Jersey accent even thicker than Wisdom's
determined British one. "We radioed for reinforcements two minutes ago."

    He was pissed and holding a massive gun, but he thought I was on his
side. I raised my eyebrow with an elaborate shrug, conjuring up the best
Brooklynese accent I could perform. "Whaddaya think, I can jus' teleport my
damn way ovah heyah? Shit, man, gimme a break. What's breakin'?"

    "We was given orders to kill this freak-thing, right?" he asked,
motioning with his gun. I stepped around by him, looking over the top of the
glasses. Four bullets were suspended in mid-air. My breath caught in my
throat as I pushed the mercury-coated lenses up my nose. I could see a man
with thick black hair and wide blue eyes looking up at me. It took me a
moment to process everything, but I realized that he was invisible and only
I could see them. A quick sideways glance confirmed that the two men had
infrared telescopic sights mounted on their weapons. Looking back down at the
man, I could see the four bullet wounds in his chest, each oozing hotly and
sending sticky blood cascading onto the dirty asphalt. He wasn't that close
to death, but his breath coming in jagged gasps, and he was slumped against
the building wall. I judged that if he got help within the next twenty
minutes, he'd survive. Four black spurs were on either hand, and his pupils
were dilated to the point of almost being round but still belying their
vertical shape. Kelly.

    His glare met mine, and he saw my hands, still holding the Browning.
Closing his eyes, he seemed to imperceptibly nod.

    "Well?"

    "Right," I said to the man, not taking my eyes off the man in front of
me. Isn't it ironic, I thought, the lyrics of the Alanis Morrisette song
coming to mind. His bastard daughter of science and dreams was supposed to
kill him. I remembered Jubilee telling me how she had hidden in the steam
from a vent and watched him being shot by three people, two men and a woman.
She had told me that the last shot, the one that killed him, was from the
woman. I realized that I was that woman. Somehow, I had traveled a year back
into the past. A little part of my head said oh, no wonder the radios
wouldn't work.

    I was the only one to be able to see him. "We can't be accurate about the
shootin' 'cause we can't see him or nothin'." I nodded in reply to what the
man said. I shifted by grip on the Browning a bit, wondering how quickly I
could kill both these men and get Kelly to a hospital. No . . . no one would
treat an invisible man. But . . . my mind swirled. I had to kill him. I felt
nauseous suddenly. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
If he didn't die, the entire world could be thrown off its axis. My wanting
to save him was no better than the fanatics trying to kill Hitler. You can't
change history. I drew in a shaky breath. "You guy go. I'll finish him off."

    Sirens started wailing, and I knew that a flurry of activity was
beginning to swamp the building Whit and I had broken into. The two men
looked at the mouth of the alley, hearing the sirens, and exchanged a glance.
"No," the speaker of the two said firmly. "How do we know you won't let him
go? Finish him off - fine. But do it with us here."

    Kelly and I regarded each other for another long moment. He knew. I knew.
I shut down my mind, letting only the ruthlessly rational side have any
freedom. I raised my Browning, pointing it at Kelly's head. He licked his
lips, looking from the muzzle back up to me, and I thought I saw a small,
sarcastic smile right before I pulled the trigger.

    I stumbled into the bathroom and hung on the sink, looking at myself in the
mirror. I could hear low voices outside, Whit and Wisdom conferring briefly,
and one walked away. I had a feeling that the other, whoever it was, would be
waiting for me when I walked out. I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands
and slowly washed my hands. When I was done I changed into a pair of holey
jeans and a sweatshirt and kept the moccasins, stuffing my working clothes
into the knapsack. The tight braid my hair I had been in was coming undone,
so I undid my hair and shook my head, letting it fly into disarray. A few
more shaky breaths and I opened the door, revealing Wisdom standing out there
in the hallway, waiting for me.

    "You knew," I said accusingly. "You somehow knew."

    He nodded, not trying to shift the blame. "I have my ways." He looked at
me, standing with my knapsack over one shoulder and my arms crossed in front
of my chest, and continued, "But you did what you were sent to do."

    "Which was . . . ?"

    "Save the world." He gave me a tight smile. "If tonight - all of it, not
just the whole Kelly ordeal - hadn't happened, who knows what might have
become of the world? I'm not kidding, either. Things must happen."

    "So . . ."

    He nodded. "It needed doing. And you did it. Well."

    I had walked away from Kelly's body knowing that Jubilee would come
rushing to him at any moment, also invisible, and wondered how I would face
her when I saw her next time. When I had gotten about twenty paces from him,
there had been a flash of light and all of the sudden the alley was empty
and there were no sirens and when I backtracked, there was no body and no
sabotaged window pane. I said, lowly, "What does Whit know?"

    Wisdom made a non-committal gesture. "I don't think he does. But he may."

    "How am I going to face him?" I wondered.

    "Like you always do. Are you having regrets? You're not going to jump out
a window on me, are you?"

    "No. But how did all the police suddenly disappear? What was that all
about?"

    He tread silently down the hall and into his office. I followed him, and
he opened his top desk drawer, handing me the newspaper clipping. I looked at
the date: one year ago. It was a brief paragraph stating that there had been
a breaking-and-entering downtown.

    "So we didn't break in a few hours ago?"

    "You did."

    "I don't get it."

    "You don't need to."

    I agreed with him on that. I now had my own problems to worry about now.
After gnawing on my bottom lip and staring blankly at the clipping in my
hands for a moment, I said, "I gave the world another chance. I kept it from
collapsing into chaos. Twice in one night." I gave a twisted grin to Wisdom.
"I guess I did pretty good."

    "Well," he corrected absently.

    "Right. I did well."

    "I doubt things could've gone any other way though."

    "Regardless. I gave humanity another crack at existence."

    He retrieved his whiskey bottle from a bottom drawer and unscrewed the
top. "To those of us who make the world go round." I laughed as he tipped it
back and took a long swallow, grinning and handing it to me.

    "To those of us who make the world go round," I echoed, taking my own
swallow of whiskey and reality.

The End