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Author's Note: Ok I know what some people might be thinking and no this is not a one shot. Its actually still the same story but just with a different narrator, that's why there's a new pic. I thought I'd shake things up a bit and try something new so close to the end. This is a one time thing though I have to admit I rather enjoyed writing from Lori's POV so there might be a one shot for her in the future, maybe telling how she became a Meta. I'd like to thank my beta readers (you know who you are) and djkauf for the editing. I'd also like to thank DC Comics for the characters.

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Chapter Thirteen:

The music pulsed and throbbed all around me. I closed my eyes and found myself getting lost in it. It was surreal for a moment, until something hit me. It tugged at the corners of my mind, pulling at my sanity like a tiny little gremlin. It was Rachel, or, rather, what was left of her. It was always like that after “copying” someone’s thing. The first time it happened, the event that caused my change, it was days before I got that guy out of my head. It freaked the hell out of me and almost sent me to a shrink. I finally got a handle on it, though. After the people at STAR Labs had me do it to the blonde girl, I had a little more control over things. I was able to block her out, for the most part. With Rachel, it was pretty much a dull whisper. But, it never lasted this long. Usually a few days, but never longer than a week. Well, that was the theory, anyway.

I rubbed my temples, trying to quiet the whispers, but no amount of rubbing seemed to help. I groaned loudly, opening my eyes. I lost Angelina in the crush of the crowd about twenty minutes ago. I relocated her after only a second. She was by the stairs, chatting up a rather cute cowboy. He was tall, blonde and handsome–they’d make wonderful blonde babies, someday. I tried to wipe that image out of my head as I pushed my way back to the refreshment stand, where I left Rachel. Some Dinosaur hit on me and a Dracula tried grabbing my ass. I stomped on his foot with one of my stilettos. His face twisted in agony and I pushed past him.

When I got to the table, there was a bored Fairy standing behind it, filing her nails. Sparkly pink dress and glittery cheap wings, the whole package. Rachel was nowhere in sight.

“Hey, Bimbo Bell, where’d my friend go?”

The Fairy didn’t take too kindly to the insult. “What the hell do I look like, the Party Police?”

Stuck up bitch. “Pale girl, black hooded cape, was standing here no more than ten minutes ago?”

She shrugged. “I’ve only been here, like… three, tops.”

I sighed heavily. How in the hell did this girl get into college? I gave her a nasty look as I poured myself a cup of punch and turned to look for my friend. Rach had been pretty apprehensive about coming, tonight. I couldn’t blame her. When I copied people’s powers, I also copied a bit of them, too. I knew her fears, her doubts, and her longings. She was being followed by these creepy monk bastards and it didn’t take a genius to figure out she was scared they might try to grab her tonight. I shouldn’t have forced her to come, but she was so on edge that I felt she needed a bit of time to unwind. I had a twinge of fear as I pushed my way through the crowd. There was no way they’d try to grab her tonight, was there?

That fearful thought propelled me. I pushed and prodded, spilling some of my drink on an unsuspecting clown. He swore, I gave him the finger and moved on. When I got into the center of the room, I had a better vantage point. But, of course, I was too short to see over most of the heads around me. I hated being short, now. When I was a guy, I was six-foot-two. Now, as a girl, I was barely five-five. It was one of the most annoying things in the world. I decided the best place to look might be the stairs. I pushed my way toward them, making sure that everyone got out of the way of the angry Goth witch. When I got there, Angelina and her Cowboy were giggling like two stupid school children.

She saw me and smiled big. “Hey Lori, this is Dave. He’s a football player.”

I nodded, already bored. “That’s nice. Have you seen Rach?”

She shrugged. “Have you tried her cell?”

I wanted to smack myself. She might have looked dumb, but I felt like the idiot, tonight. I left Angelina and her football cowboy to their childish flirting and pulled out my cell. I called Rach, but didn’t expect to get an answer. Nevertheless, I let it ring as I climbed the stairs. There was too much noise from the music, but maybe I could see her from a higher vantage point. Unfortunately, some asshole decided it might be a good idea to bring a fog machine, so I couldn’t see a fucking thing. I cursed. The phone still rang until it went to voice mail. I hung up and tried again. It was a good thing, too, because I heard her cell ringing upstairs. Rach had a distinctive tone, it was from some stupid musical she liked back when she was a theater geek–I’ll be damned if I could remember the name of it.

I called a few more times, following the annoying ring down the hall.

I finally found it behind door number three. I pushed it open quickly, half expecting to startle a couple in the throes of whatever. The room was empty. The single window had its curtains open and the moonlight cast its pale glow onto the bed. Rachel’s black clutch was sitting there, the annoying tone humming from inside of it. I cursed. I sighed for a moment, glad that I didn’t barge on my friend making out with some guy. My sigh of relief was short-lived, though. If I had taught Rachel anything, it was never to go anywhere without her purse. I cursed as I crossed the room quickly and snatched it up. I bit my lip. If her purse was here, that meant she was definitely in trouble. Okay, maybe not trouble, but definitely not in the best of moods.

I grabbed the purse and left the room. I decided on a different tactic. I called Jaslyn. When she answered, I could tell I wasn’t the only one missing someone. “Shay?” she asked, her voice carrying a hint of worry.

“No, it’s Lori.” I said and sighed. Shay was gone again; someone needed to nail that girl’s feet to the floor.

“You seen Shay?”

I sighed. “No, have you seen Rach?”

There was a moment of silence. “You don’t think they…”

I groaned. Paranoid bitch. “No, I don’t think they ran off together.”

Jas sighed in relief. Then there was another pause. “Isn’t Rach with Bart?”

“Bart?”

“Yeah, I saw the two of them go upstairs, like, ten minutes ago.”

Shit. Even though Rachel couldn’t see it, it was clear Bart had a thing for her. It kinda creeped me out a bit, actually. The two of them were best guy friends before, childhood buds, and former roommates. It made my skin crawl just thinking about it. I was so glad that when I changed I still liked girls. It’s too bad my girlfriend didn’t see it that way, fucking bitch that she was. I shook that from my mind. This was about Rachel, not me. Did she have feelings for Bart in that way, though? I knew she was still pretty upset about Katie. I think anyone would be. The way Rachel talked about her, it was clear that there was no other person in the world, except her. I can’t imagine someone that crushed would rush off to someone else so quickly.

I hung up with Jas and headed back for the stairs. At the top of them, I scanned the heads. There was too much fog to see clearly, but I thought I spotted Bart over with some bimbos. He was laughing and having a good time. I stormed down the stairs. Angelina and her Cowboy were making out, now, and didn’t even notice as I stormed past them. I pushed my way through the crowd and plowed toward Bart. He was leaning against the wall, dressed as Zorro. He didn’t see me coming until I punched him in the arm as hard as I could, which wasn’t as hard as I used to be able to hit.
It was hard enough for him to curse. “What the hell?” he snapped, rubbing his biceps.

The bimbos giggled and disappeared into the crowd.

“What the fuck did you do to Rachel?” I asked angrily, waving her purse in his face.

“Nothing!”

“Bullshit!” I snapped, hitting him in the arm with the purse. “Jas saw you take her upstairs and I found this in a room, without her!”

I hit him again, harder than before. He threw up his arms to defend himself.

“What the fuck are you guys smoking? I just got here! I haven’t seen Rachel since yesterday!”

“Jas saw you!”

“Well, she’s drunk, then, because I just got here, like, a minute ago. Ask Marco and Fred, I drove here with them.”

What the fuck, Jas? I narrowed my eyes at him, all the same. It didn’t make any sense, unless Jas was drunk… or Bart was just a damn good liar. I could probably ask his friends, but they were track buddies and I knew guys–having been one myself, not too long ago. Guys covered for one another all the time, especially in situations like this. I opened my mouth to insult him, but I saw the look on his face. He was genuinely concerned. Shit, he really did have a thing for her, didn’t he? But, it was more than that, too. I knew all about his “Knight in Shining Armor” routine, following her from class to class to make sure she was safe. As much as I didn’t like him, it was kinda sweet. That didn’t excuse him from being a creep, but it was worth some decent brownie points.

“You sure you haven’t seen her?”

He dropped his cup. “You lost her?”

I bit my lip. “I only left her alone for a…” I was going to say “minute”, but it was actually more like an hour. Shit, I’m a fucking idiot.

I was about to defend myself when a phone rang. At first, I thought it was mine until I felt Rachel’s purse vibrating. I cursed and reached inside, pulling out her cell. The annoying ring tone was drowned out by the loud music. I answered quickly. “Hello?”

“Rachel, thank God I got you finally,” said a male voice in a bit of a rush, it sounded like Professor Dee. “We have a problem. Those men that have been following you, the ones I’ve been tracking, have all disappeared.”

Shit. I took deep breath. “You don’t know the half of it.”

There was a long pause. “Who is this?”

“Not Rachel.”

There was another pause. “I was afraid of that.”

Bart grumbled from the passenger seat as I drove. He was acting like a child, his arms crossed, practically pouting. “I don’t see why we couldn’t have taken my car.”

I groaned. “There is no way I’m driving around in that screaming death trap.”

He fidgeted, looking around my front seat. “I feel underdressed driving in this one.”

“The word you’re looking for is under classed.”

He gave me a dirty look and went back to his stewing.

I did what I could to follow the directions the professor gave me. After only a minute or two of talking, it was clear that he wasn’t all that he appeared to be. He didn’t give me specifics but it was clear that he was hip deep in whatever was going on here. I found it strange that of all the things Rachel told me about that, this wasn’t one of them. When I “copied” her powers and some of her mind, the stuff about Dr. Dee was nowhere to be found. It made me wonder what kind of guy he was. He knew about the monks chasing after her and he seemed to know a bit about her “magic” too. It freaked me out when he called it that. Rachel never mentioned anything about magic but she had been pretty secretive as of late. I guess I couldn’t really blame her, I’m not sure I’d tell her about something as cool as all this.

Not that being kidnaped or whatever was cool.

Ok so kidnaping was the last resort. It was one of many possibilities. When I told the professor what happened, he was real quiet. Then he asked me a bunch of questions to which I didn’t have the answers. When I told him about Jas seeing Bart take her up to the room, he seemed distant. He was even more so when I told him that Bart had no memory of doing such a thing. Bart didn’t care for the fact that we were still blaming him though. Then he had tried to take the phone away from me to defend himself. We fought a bit which only seemed to annoy me and the professor more. In the end, it was decided that it might be better to have the conversation in person. So Dee gave me directions to his house. Bart insisted on tagging along which I was against but Dee wanted to talk to him in person, too.
Now twenty minutes---and a very quick costume change later---we were on our way.

In truth I would have loved to have ridden in Bart’s car, I loved corvettes. But after seeing the condition of it, I decided mine might be a bit safer. Not that Bart complained until I started driving. I think he thought I was actually going to let him drive it. What a fucking tool. Now he was giving me the silent treatment, pouting like a six year old. At least it was quiet, which gave me some time to think. I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was going on here? I was new to this whole craziness. I’m pretty certain Rachel and Bart were too. Back when the Change happened, I was scared out of my mind. It happened so quickly, one minute I was a guy, this shadow dude ran into me and then I was shadow girl. It took nearly three hours to come back to myself and when I did, I was missing a very important organ. Not that I was complaining, it just took me by surprise.

You’d think I was used to the strange and unusual.

After the change, I tried to get my life back in order but it didn’t work out so well. My girlfriend dumped me, my Dad practically disowned me and I was a freak. The DEO didn’t show up until a day or two later. Unlike most Metas, my change was actually caught on CCTV. They found out who I was and brought me in, ran a battery of tests. It only took a day or two to figure out what I could do. They tried to recruit me but I wanted nothing to do with. Another Meta my age---the blonde I copied---stuck up for me, telling them I wasn’t going to be a problem. The stuck up bitch in charge finally conceded and let me go.

Things were supposed to be normal and they were. For two whole months, things were slowly getting back to normal. Dad and I started talking again and I started getting used to the new me. I felt blessed. That’s when Dad decided a change in scenery might be in order. I was already accepted at Arizona so Dad decided we’d just pack up and leave Ohio altogether. I was all for it, there was nothing there but bad memories. When I started college in September things were supposed to be different, clean slate and all that. Things were good; things were real good for a long time. Then I met Rachel. Not that I regret any minute of it but things were far from ok now.

“Are you freaked out at all?”

“Huh” I asked, trying to concentrate on my driving.

“All this crap” said Bart with a wave of his hand. “I mean first my best bud turns into this chick and then he, I mean she gets all these cool powers. But Katie dies, the police are after both of us and then there’s those creepy bald guys. Shit like this isn’t supposed to happen, not to normal people anyway.”

I scoffed. “Who wants to be normal these days? Normal is way overrated.”

“I want to be normal,” he said, fear in his voice.

I couldn’t help but feel for him. I’d give anything to be normal again. I took a moment or two to collect my thoughts before responding. “We’ll figure this out. I’m not really sure what the fuck is going on but the professor sounded pretty confident. We’ll get Rach, bring her back in one piece and everything will be fine…back to normal just like before.”

What a load of shit.

Bart smiled uneasily. “I guess you’re partially right.”

Neither of us said anything more.

I tried to concentrate fully on my driving. Dr. Dee didn’t live too far from campus so it wasn’t too hard to find his house. What surprised me when we pulled up to it was how much it didn’t look like the rest of the houses. It didn’t have that Spanish look too it at all. There were no stucco walls, no terra cotta tile roof. It was a wicked looking Victorian with sinister looking gables and a widow’s walk. Who in the hell built houses like this in Arizona? I blinked more than once, even rubbed my eyes. Bart and I sat in the car for at least a minute staring at the house in front of us. It was out of place too, all the other houses on the block looked like they belonged.

“Umm are we at the right place?”

I reached into my pocket and took out the napkin I wrote Dee’s directions on. I looked at the street address; it matched the one on the house. “Yep” I said, unbuckling my seat belt. I got out of the car first; Bart seemed real reluctant to do so. Some big brave jock he turned out to be, letting the dainty girl get out first. I pulled my coat on and took a deep breath as I walked up the sidewalk. Bart moved to stand behind me, walking at my heels. In the nighttime darkness, the place looked like something out of a horror flick, not at all the kind of place that two college kids should be walking towards. I suppose it kinda fit with the holiday, it definitely had that Haunted House look to it. When we got to the porch, I pushed Bart forward and made him ring the bell. He looked pretty scared doing it. When the door opened a minute later, I looked up, half expecting Lurch to answer the door. But the man standing there was not a giant gray-skinned mute; it was the same professor from my Occult class. He smiled weakly at the two of us then ushered us quickly inside.

I was surprised at the inside. It had the same look as the homes around here, the walls were tan and the carpets looked like mud. What surprised me was the lack of décor. Dee led us through the sparsely decorated main room and into the kitchen. Bart sat at the table but I tried to play it cool by leaning up against the counter. I scooped the place out. It looked like a normal kitchen, there was nothing freaky or out of the ordinary about it.

Dr. Dee sat down at the table across from Bart and wasted no time. “Your name is Bart, correct?”

Bart nodded. “Well Bartholomew, but the only one who calls me that is my Mom and only when she’s pissed at me.”

Dee smiled. Then he did something with his hand. It was real quick, a flick of his wrist. Bart didn’t notice it at all but I did. As soon as he did so there was a small flash of light, coming from the yellow stoned ring on his finger. I’m not sure what the light was supposed to do but it had an immediate effect on Bart. The whole of his demeanor changed. Where before he was scared and nervous, now his body was straight, his shoulders back. There was this blank look on his face though, like he’d fallen asleep but his eyes were still open.

“What the fuck did you do to him?” I snapped.

“Nothing serious or life threatening Miss Zechlin, your friend is merely hypnotized.”

I scoffed. “You honestly think I believe that?”

“Mr. Allen, tell Miss Zechlin what you really think about her.”

When Bart spoke, his voice came out in a dull monotone: “I think she’s really hot but I’d never do her because she’s a major bitch.”

Fucking bastard. I snapped forward, ready to strangle him. Dee held up a hand and somehow it was enough to hold me back. He wasn’t even touching me but I felt power there. It was like there was this invisible pressure pushing on me, keeping me from throttling the bastard. I took a step back and gave the professor a wide berth. There was something about him, something not right. He turned to me and smiled. It was in his eyes, a golden sparkle. I looked down at the ring and when I did, I felt extremely uneasy.

“Like I said before, I don’t mean to harm him or yourself. But I need to establish if he was being mind controlled or if he’s a very good liar.”

“Mind controlled?” I asked, pulling up a chair and sitting down, suddenly intrigued. “You think someone made him lure Rachel to that room so they could take her.”

Dee nodded. “It’s a possibility.”

I watched as Dee asked the mesmerized Bart a series of questions, not unlike the ones he asked on the phone. But for some reason they seemed to have more potency now. There were a lot of them, most of them concerning his whereabouts during Rachel’s disappearance. No matter how differently he worded the question, Bart always answered the same though. He hadn’t seen Rachel since the day before and arrived at the party a minute or two before I accosted him. After a few minutes, Dee nodded and turned to me.

“He’s not lying or at least he believes he’s telling the truth” He rubbed his chin. “I’ve fully scanned his brain and his memories, there’s no evidence of his mind being tampered with though. It might be very strong magic but it would have to be phenomenal to fool my powers.” He sighed, sliding his chair back. Then he pushed himself to his feet.

“Are you going to leave him like that?” I asked, pointing to the still comatose Bart.

Dee nodded. “For the time being” He started pacing a bit. “Tampering with the mind is a very tricky thing and not something that comes to people easily. That’s why I was taking it slow with Rachel, making sure she had complete and total control over her powers before teaching her the heavy stuff.”

I nodded even though I had no idea what he was talking about. Instead, I just watched as he rubbed his chin and passed. After about five minutes of it, I got annoyed. “What about Rach, we’re wasting our time while you wear a fucking hole in the floor.”

He stopped pacing and smiled. “Can I see her purse?”

I was smart enough to bring it into the house with me. I set it on the table. He sat back in his chair and pulled it over, gently rifling through it. One by one, he took each and every item out of it. He held the item for a second or two before gently setting it on the table. I almost punched him when he freakishly fondled Rachel’s tampon. When he got to her phone, he opened it up and scrolled through her call list. I wanted to punch him there too. What kind of freak was he? When he got to her hairbrush, he seemed to ignore everything else. He pulled a few strands from it and set the other stuff aside.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“I can use her hair to help pinpoint her exact location.”

My eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Are you some kind of freaky tracking Meta or something?”

“Or something” he said as he got up from the chair again.

He left the room, leaving me with the robot. I turned to Bart, snapping my fingers in front of his face. But he didn’t flinch. I blew in his ear, smacked him across the head and stabbed him with a fork. But he never once budged. It was by far the creepiest and the coolest thing I’d ever seen. Whatever the professor did to him, I couldn’t help but be a little impressed. I’d been trying to get Bart to shut up for weeks and he did it in only mere seconds. Ok so he froze him or something but it was still better than listening to the moron try to hit on poor unsuspecting bimbos over and over again.

Dee came back into the room about five minutes later, carrying a rolled up piece of paper. He came back to the table and pushed everything aside. I grabbed her purse and quickly started stuffing things back into it. While I did that, he spread the paper wide. It was a map, one of the city and the region beyond it. I knew it fairly well because my Dad had a similar one in his car. He was still getting lost even though he’d been in the city for a few months now. Just like Dad, Dee was pouring over the map, staring transfixed at different locations. Finally, after a minute or two of staring, he set a small silver bowl on the table.

“What’s that?” I asked as he placed Rachel’s hair into the bowl.

“Old Magic” he said as he took a lighter and lit the hair on fire.

I watched as the hair burnt to a small pile of black ash. Then he grabbed the little bowl and poured the ash on the map. For a second nothing happened but then the pile slowly started to move. It freaked the hell out of me. I jumped back, afraid that the ash might try to attack me or something. Dee laughed. I gave him a dirty look and continued to watch the ash. It moved slowly, inching its way across the map like a tiny worm. It was the freakiest thing I’d ever seen. Old Magic he called it. I never really was one to believe in such crap. But after seeing what he did to Bart and witnessing this crazy moving hair dust, I was a believer now.

It was one thing to believe in Metas and superpowers. Now magic was real too. It made you wonder what else might be out there.

“What the hell is it doing exactly?” I asked as I got my nose pretty close to the map.

“It’s searching for the rest of her. The hair is a part of her, it’s attached to her. In essence, it should be able to point out her location on this map.”

I nodded. “That’s so fucking cool.”

“Yes but its very time consuming.”

“How long?”

“An hour, maybe two at most.”

I cursed. “We don’t have that long. Hell, Rachel doesn’t have that long.”

He nodded then rubbed his chin. “Are you familiar with all of Rachel’s friends?”

I nodded. “She doesn’t have many actually.”

He nodded. “Have any of them been acting strangely. Disappearing for long blocks of time or maybe doing things out of the ordinary.”

I wracked my brain but everyone seemed pretty normal. I shook my head.

“How about any new friends?”

I shrugged. “We’re all kind of new to her actually.”

He smiled. “I mean any new ones in the last day or two?”

I shook my head. “She doesn’t have the time. When she’s not in class, she’s here with you.”

He didn’t say anything for a few minutes. Then he finally told me to sit on the couch. I reluctantly did so. But I couldn’t help but sit and turn my head to stare at the kitchen. My friend was out there and I wanted to know the moment that that thing found her. Sitting got boring though. As time ticked away, I got more and more bored. I don’t like sitting still for long. I was one of those kids who always had to do something. When I was younger, it was Intramural Sports, ANJO Baseball and Inner Soccer mostly. As long as I did something, I never drove my parents nuts. But sitting here now, fidgeting like a freak on the couch wasn’t helping. Finally, I pushed myself up and went back into the kitchen.

“I need to do something, anything.”

Dee had Rachel’s phone in his hand. He held it up, showing a number. “Did you meet the Allens while Rachel was staying with them?”

I shook my head. “That was before she met me.”

He nodded then dialed the number. A second later, he was talking to someone. “Its me, that time we talked about has come. She’s going to need your help.”

No more than two seconds later the doorbell rang. Dee closed the phone and walked slowly through the room. He went to the front door and opened it. Into the house walked a rather pretty blonde in blue jeans and red jacket. She made my face flush a bit. God she was kinda hot. She smiled as me as she stuck her hands into her pockets and followed Dee into the kitchen.

“When did they take her?” asked the girl, only mildly glancing at the map.

“A little more than an hour ago go now,” said Dee, looking at his watch.

The blonde turned to me, giving me the once over. “Is this the friend?”

Dee nodded. “The friend has a name,” I snapped. “It’s Lori and you are?”

The girl looked past me and over at Bart. She turned to Dee.

“Occult, why the hell is my nephew a statue?”

Dee smiled. “I forgot about him actually.”

Wait, what nephew? This girl was my age at the most, maybe a few years older. There was no way she was old enough to be Bart’s aunt. Unless she was one of those later in life children. It hurt my brain thinking about it. Instead, I watched as Dee walked over and waved his hand in front of Bart’s face. Movement came back to Bart. He blinked then stretched. He looked around confused for a moment then his eyes drifted on the girl. He smiled like a big dumb idiot. The girl and I rolled our eyes at the exact same time.

“Hey Barbara” he said sleepily. “Where did you come from?”

She ignored him. Instead, she turned back to Dee. “How long until we have an exact location?”

“About another hour.”

She cursed. “I can canvas the whole city if you want; it will take me ten, fifteen minutes tops.”

What the hell was going on here? Who was this girl anyway?

Dee nodded. “Not without her you’re not,” he said, pointing to me.

The girl---Barbara turned to me and frowned. “She’ll just slow me down.”

Dee smirked. “No she won’t. Lori is special just like you but unlike you, all it takes is a simple touch and she’s just like any of you.”

Barbara’s eyes widened. I was confused as all hell.

“Lori” said Dee as he put his hand on Barbara’s shoulder. “Miss Allen here is very fast and I was wondering if you’d like to shake her hand?”

Shake her hand? It took me a second, maybe two to grasp what he meant. I gave the girl a quick once over, I clicked right there. No shit. Barbara winked at me and I think I finally understood what Dee meant. I was about to shake hands with the Flash and become the second fastest woman alive, at least for a few hours anyway. I looked at Dee and nodded, he smiled.

“I’ll give you a call when the scrying locks onto her exact location.”

Barbara nodded and held out her hand to me. I didn’t hesitant in the least when I reached forward and gently took it. There was a surge of energy that sparked through my body and then I felt powerful.

Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF