‘I never imagined that I’d be attending my own funeral.’ Rhonda thought looking down at the closed casket.  The funeral home was mostly empty with only a few of Rhonda’s friends from the Agency attending.  Director Cox had acted quickly once news of the events at the prison was public. 

CHAPTER X

The prosecuting attorney told Karen he didn't believe they would get a conviction against the three men who allegedly raped her. It was her word against three men who had an alibi collaborated by the bartender. He told her to forget about it and let it drop. She should consider herself fortunate to be alive.

CHAPTER IX

David knew he was skating on thin ice with Comm Tech. He let his lab go while he went down to Karen's lab every night and back to the hospital to be with Karen through the day. This way he hoped no one would get suspicious about the duplicates coming out of Karen's lab. The only reason the board didn't fire him was they thought he was able to do what all the computer engineers couldn't. That was make models almost as good if not as good as Karen made.

That there was a total look of disbelief on Randy's face would be an understatement. "Mother of Mary, that thing really thinks better than we do?"

He stooped over to see if he could find any answers under or behind the desk. Picking up the keypad he felt along the top of the desk.

"Please Mr. Shells, if you must call me something, I would prefer you call me the same thing Karen does. My name is Henry. Although 'thing' may be appropriate in your mind when you refer to the unknown, it does not endear you with me. I understand the nature of humans to do name calling when they’re mad, frustrated, and scared. It serves no useful purpose to do so at an inanimate object."

It had been several weeks since the initial attempt and now their plans were in place. "She usually leaves the building almost the same time everyday. Normally it is close to eight or there abouts when she walks out to the parking lot. She gets in that damn rocket of hers and drives home followed by the tail she picks up when she passes the gate."

Karen knew she needed to have another talk with Henry. If he was playing like her agent now, he was in deep trouble. Taking care of her finances was one thing, but this was something entirely different. Maybe it wasn't Henry? Bob Kincaid would gain a lot if he could pull off this trick. Someone always seemed to be manipulating her life lately and she wasn't being consulted. It use to be so simple before the accident. All she had to do was go to work and do her job, nothing more, nothing less.

Ms Jennings came into my room with a smile on her face.

That made me very fearful given her reputation.

She worked for a Government ‘Special Services’ Department somewhere in Whitehall. A sense of foreboding came over me. Their normal function was to provide HR services to a number of departments but their real function was known to very few people. Everyone in her section had ‘Top Secret’ security clearance so if something a bit out of the ordinary was needed doing that wasn’t assigned to us, they did it.

The HR function meant that you generally only saw her or people from her Office when it was bad news and for us, that bad news invariably meant ‘we have no further use for your services’.

The revelation from my Doctor that I no longer had any ‘dangly bits’ as he called them was not altogether a shock but the realisation that I would have to ‘pee’ sitting down for the rest of my life was the real downer.

“There is an alternative to life as a eunuch you know?” he offered.

“Gee, thanks doc,” I replied slightly sarcastically.

“We could make… a vagina.”

“What to do you mean make a vagina?”

“We didn’t cut the remains of your penis off. All we did was repair the damage and re-route your waterworks. Your Penis was pretty badly damaged from a function point of view but the fleshy bits are not that bad. There is plenty of bits that still have a decent blood flow that can be used to make a very passable vagina. From my POV as a surgeon, it would be that different from a run of the mill sex change operation.”

I sank back onto the bed and started to weep.
“I’d end up looking like some poor tranny then, but for real?”

[At a second floor flat in Chelsea around 21:00 on a Monday evening.]

“Hello?”

“I’m sorry, there is no Roy Meier on this number. I’ve only just moved here so he might be a previous occupant.”

“Yes, I am sure that he does not live here.”

“No, I won’t give you my name. I don’t know who the hell you are. You could be a serial rapist for all I know.”

“Goodbye.”

I put the phone down. I was shaking like a leaf. I had been named this Roy Meier but in a previous life. If the caller really had put 2 and 2 together then I was well and truly up shit creek big time.

David must have caught her happiness. He whispered in her ear, "Ten thousand dollars was too cheap a bet. I should have bet a hundred thousand we would get in tonight."

The weeks were passing and Karen and Henry kept improving the chamber in order to speed up the manufacturing duplication process. Henry was the one to suggest a major change in the way they made the models.

The phone was ringing and Henry put it on speaker as he answered it. "Department Fifty Four, Karen Long speaking, may I help you?"

Boy, was he good. Karen thought he sounded just like her.

"Karen, this is Bill Chambers secretary. Mr. Chambers wants you in his office immediately. Do you understand?"

Henry hesitated as he contemplated telling her, no, he didn't understand. For a fact, he was tempted, except he was sure it would cause trouble for Karen.

Karen picked up the phone. "Yes Betty, I understand."

I am terribly sorry guys, but I had my preparations wrong so what I put here first was chapter ten. I have changed it now and apologise. Please if you read chapter nine before read this and then return to chapter ten, sorry sorry sorry. :( Monique.

An attractive brunette was standing in front of Bob's looking at the model Karen and Henry made that fateful night. Hanging back behind and looking everywhere was a teenage girl. She began tugging on her mother's purse.

"Mama, she's alive."

Her mother reached back and slapped her hand. "Would you stop that? She only looks real. She’s a dummy."

Zodiac Coin: Scorpio
By Ellie Dauber (c) 2006

Unprincipled legal gun for hire, Sam Ralston, is forced/brined to take on a charity case, a woman accused of threatening an urban drug lord who is one of Sam’s regular clients. The bribe is the Scorpio Coin, and Sam uses it in ways he never would have imagined. The result… read for yourself. The tale also contains the conclusion of the background tale of how the coins came to be.

Zodiac Coin: Scorpio
By Ellie Dauber (c) 2006

As chief executive officer for Commercial Technologies, Bill Chambers usually spent his day making internal memos and playing golf with executives from other companies. Every time an article made the news Bill always made sure he was mentioned as the driving force behind Commercial Technologies. He would pose for pictures with various dignitaries or company personnel when the public relations department was promoting the company or one of the departments. The day to day workings of Commercial Technologies, Bill left to the lesser personnel of the company. Karl Adder was one of those lesser personnel.

The Game
by
Michele Nylons


Chapter One – The Quizmaster

Twenty years ago six University students invented a game of dare. David Cashmore's dare required him to be feminised and humiliated. It was a joke that got out of hand for him and another of the Gamers. Something happened that night, a secret between the two of them. Now twenty years later David is being blackmailed by the Quizmaster and forced to undertake another dare which he has no choice but undertake while he tries to find out who is the mysterious Quizmaster and why he is being dragged into the past.

This is the second of three stories about Magee’s, a neighborhood bar with a most unusual owner. When Jim and Don decide to steal a valuable display item, they find out just how unusual.

This story is a .pdf file -- which has been attached, sorry -- to allow for the experimental formatting. Story #3 gets posted after I see at least three comments.

And, in response to someone's question, Magee's is not an open universe. Sorry.

Galen was sitting in his office, going over preparations to take Bug into custody. He felt like a wannabe inventor trying to become an actual inventor. It was one idea after another. He just couldn’t figure out a way militarily that would even work out successfully for them. It was getting to the point that he would be forced to enlist the help of military strategists and historians to aid in this endeavor. But Bug might simply be too powerful for Galen, the Agency, and the best the military had to offer.

Halloween costume parties are pretty fun things, Debbie Delaney, professional photographer, thought. Of course, the costumes need to be good, and as close to being realistic as possible. But this is taking realism too far!

Being known in one’s professional circles helps to get gigs and assignments, but this kind of gig wasn’t what Debbie Delaney, professional photographer and reluctant ghost chaser, was hoping for. That’s because this assignment involved visiting a cemetery…