The Plan-B Bust: 2 / 5

An Altered Fates Story
by Iolanthe Portmanteaux

Before Andy became Caresse Desmesne, he and the other men had long discussions about whether Caresse’s torture of Henry was purposeful or unconscious. Joseph often tried to lay bets on when Henry would finally have his way with her. He should have bet that today would be the day, Caresse told herself.

Once they were both back at Harry’s and Bill had unloaded the Market Stall bits and pieces, he went in search of Harry.

He found him fast asleep in a chair by the range in the Kitchen. His snores told him that he was ok but he recalled his ashen face from earlier and realised that he was sicker than he was prepared to admit to Bill. Bill guessed that he didn’t have long to go but was willing to wait for Harry to tell him just how bad things were.

For the next few hours, Bill busied himself around the house.

Haunted

I remember the moment I became haunted.

Kindergarten, first day, they lined us up

Boys on one side, girls on the other

And as soon as they put me with the boys, the haunting began

The ghost being the girl I should have been

And as time went by

That haunting, that echo of what could have been

Only grew worse.

Until the day the doctor took me the first time

And my mind split

And the girl went deep inside

And I started being haunted by darker things

Part Five

They were walking in roughly a half acre of grass and young trees. There were picnic tables, permanently emplaced grills and even a small gazebo. This was on land which was part of the property belonging to the chemical storage and disposal project, but outside the walls of the compound. It also all looked very new. There were a few other people in the area, and almost uniformly they were smiling.

Part Three

As he rose invisible into the sky, Aaron was tempted to fly the slow way back to Haven. The weather was that nice. With a resigned sigh, he flew high enough to be above airliner traffic and applied his quick travel power to head west.

* * *

Melody was sitting, staring unseeing at the far wall of her office, when her boss stopped by later that afternoon.

"You look busy."

"I am, actually," she said, raising an eyebrow. "Deep in thought."

[4:30pm in a City of London Dealing room]

“Coming for a drink Bill?” asked one of the Dealers to another.
“It is Friday and we’ve had a very good week plus it is Henley finals weekend. A bunch of us have wangled passes into the Leander tent. Lots of lovely fillies on show. There’s one with your name on it if you want it.” He added.

“A filly or a pass?” asked a half interested Bill who was gazing out of the office window at the river Thames and Tower Bridge.

“Both if you have a mind…”

“Sorry Tony, I would love to but I’ve been summoned,” replied Bill with a sigh.

“Summoned? I guess it’s not to court as it is Friday. Parents?”

“Nah. My parents are probably somewhere in the Pacific on their boat. The summoner is my Godfather.”

Everything was going according to plan for a while. Then it all came unglued. Karen's lawyer located them in one of the interrogation rooms. Loran was furious. How could this guy be waiting for them before they got there? "I’m telling you counselor. Stay out of this. I will slap you with a federal suit for obstruction of justice."

Mare's Tales - Chapter 19 – by: Beverly Taff

We departed the next day amidst the good wishes and cautions of my
friends.

"Do take care and drive carefully," begged Veronica.

CHAPTER XI

It was less than ten minutes after Loran and Jeff made a visit to Comm Tech, Randy heard about the two agents and made a quick phone call to Washington. This was getting out of hand. These two bozos were about to screw everything up. He wanted to know who authorized this investigation. Randy didn't wait for a reply. He told his men every one of them were to be in the building by o six hundred and don't come naked.

Bryony Vincent was in the thick of it as usual. She was a true ‘BBBBBB’ which meant that there was never any shortage of men wanting to be with her. By ‘BBBBBB’ I mean, Beautiful, Buxom, Brainy, Bonkers, Blonde (a natural) and at times Brainless. As any truly genuine 6B person can testify, they could be all 6 at the same time.

The worst trait was the last, ‘Brainless’. Despite an I.Q. of 175 and several degrees including a PhD after her name, she would always fall for the oldest, most stupid chat-up lines in the business. All a man needed to do was flutter his eyelashes (why to the most drop dead gorgeous men always have lashes to die for?) in her direction and she was hooked.

The same accident that caused the loss of his leg at age six also stimulated the latent genetics that ran in his family to trigger a mutation. Although becoming one of the ‘exo-humans’ the government monitored would prove to be the least of his worries once he stumbled upon his family’s secret.

Suburbian Delights

“Exactly where have you heard that name before?” I said as I wiped the sleep from my eyes.

“Savernake Forest,” exclaimed Jemma.

The trouble with my partner was that when she was overly tired or woken up in the middle of the night, sometimes she spoke total gibberish. I’d learned to handle it but many people we had to work with couldn’t handle her without losing their patience pretty quickly.

My brain was slowly starting to work and as I tried to remember the last time I’d or rather we’d been to Savernake Forest. This is an area of ancient woodland to the South East of the town of Marlborough in Wiltshire. Then it came to me.

“Oh, you must mean Farthings home?”

“Yes, that’s it. He left his home very much in a hurry, didn’t he?” reasoned Jemma.

“Yeah, we stopped him as he left in his Porsche. If I recall you lit him up with your target light and his face turned to ash. But what else did you remember?”

On his wedding day Ted finds out who has the balls in his marriage.

As I lay fast asleep in my delightfully comfortable bed, a series of co-ordinated events sent the whole of the Police, Security Services and all parts of the Military into overdrive.

It all started with a successful attack on the head of MI5. His car was ambushed and he was assassinated in broad daylight very close to Tower Bridge. As his schedule was a carefully guarded secret, everyone went on Red Plus Alert. Red Plus means imminent threat of attack.

In other words, the UK went into total lockdown.

By Zapper

Synopsis:  Special Agent Scott Irons is a mutant with the Special Mutant Affairs Command and is on a mission to help infiltrate a gang with criminal ties to a terrorist group in the Philippines.  Things don’t go according to plan and Scott quickly finds himself over his head.  Bodies are swapped and identities are stolen in this tale of action and betrayal. 

In this chapter we gain more understandings of what the Curtain Fall may have done; and we learn more about Kadrapraba's thoughts and logic. From it we also receive a small insight into how and why the Tarneerans organize themselves and enforce their won hierarchy...