The above is due to the fact I received an email from a buddy of mine who was talking about stuff he'd read about the Large Hadron Collider creating a world-destroying black hole. He kept misspelling "hadron" over and over and over again. I gave him some contesting views, and it seemed to calm his fears, but his lack of proofreading was too good not to use.

_________________
DocSaluki - @jchinds

Yes, I'm the madman behind the 575 pounds of awesome that is Hephaestus 1. (He's not gone, as long as you keep him in your heart!) I'm not responsible for your nightmares or broken minds, though.

So long, Providence, Hello, Detroit.

July 3, 1984

The Gallery Place Metro Station wasn't full on its last train of the night out to Silver Spring. An older black woman stood waiting for the train to ease out onto the rail. Her old transistor radio crackled with the sound of a news report about the weather.

"Mother Nature apparently didn't want to be outdone by tomorrow night's fireworks display as the city was struck by a lightning storm out of nowhere. No weather-manipulating superhumans admitted to creating the lightning storm, and no evidence showed any kind of manipulation. As temperatures reach the 100-degree mark here in downtown Washington, people have been staying up later to enjoy the cooler temperatures. This led to multiple calls to emergency services to report people struck by lightning. Dozens of workers from the Soviet Embassy have been admitted to area hospitals after being found struck by lightning in various parts of the city. The fire and emergency commissioner has warned citizens to stay indoors until the lightning storm passes, just keep the windows open and fans running. In sports, the Redskins defensive coordinator..."

The train car finally opened its doors to let passengers in, despite the fact that she was the only one on this specific platform. She boarded the car and sat down with a tired sigh. She set her packages on the ground and in the seat next to her. She turned off the radio and heard the sound of footsteps.

"Hold the door, please!" a boy shouted as he leapt through the closing door. A chime sounded through a speaker and the train began to roll.

The woman looked at the boy in the car with her. He was a white boy, probably not much older than one of her grandsons. He was ten, maybe eleven, and carrying with him a guitar case almost as big as he was. The boy was covered in dirt, bleeding from scratches he received and breathing heavily from exertion. His eyeglasses were fogging up from sweat as he slumped into a seat, setting the guitar case next to him with a thump.

"Rough... weather... we're having, aren't we?" Nemo Iasan said between breaths.

The older woman looked at this white boy and knew he was up to something. "What the dickens happened to you, boy?"

"To me? Noth-nothing," he said as he regained his breath. "Just fell down a flight of steps getting here."

"There's dirt in your hair, you got a cut goin' right across your good shirt an' bleedin' and you want to tell me nothing happened?"

Nemo gave a fugitive smile. "Uh, yes? Those are some rough conrcete steps back there."

"Is that your guitar?"

"Yes ma'am. My mom gave it to me. She says it used to be Dad's. I was supposed to give it to him when I saw him."

"And who's your father?"

Nemo's expression darkened. "I can't say out loud."

"I think you're lying," the woman said.

"No, I'm just not supposed to say is all, ma'am! Dad wouldn't like his name mentioned at all," Nemo said.

The woman walked over and grabbed the guitar case. "Then I'm gonna see who this really belongs to and then I'm taking you right to the next police station!"

Nemo grabbed the woman's fleshy wrist and gripped tightly. "Please don't open that."

"Get your hand off me!" the woman shouted as she slapped Nemo's hand away. She popped open the guitar case to find a beautifully-maintained Gibson electric guitar. She flipped open the guitar to look for any name on it.

"Lord have mercy on your lying, stealing soul!" the woman exclaimed. "You stole from a congressman!"

Written on the back of the guitar was one name: John Culler.

"No, I'm trying to take it back to him! Mom doesn't want it and doesn't want me to have it, so I have to take it back to him," Nemo said, trying to catch the woman's eye so she wouldn't notice the blood oozing out of the accessory sections of the case. His ninja-to and a few used kunai were in there. Those Soviets were pretty well-trained for a bunch of supposed pencil-pushers. "I got attacked by a bunch of guys who wanted to take the guitar away from me."

Nemo didn't really lie, there; the agents he'd been fighting from one side of the city to the other were trying to get the guitar out of his hands so he'd stop calling lightning down on them.

The woman reached into her purse for a kleenex and wet it with her spit to rub some of the dirt off of the boy's face. "Hmm. Now you mention it, you do look a little like him. Same hair and cheeks. We still got to get you to a police station so they can take a report."

"Yes, ma'am. I just don't want to embarrass my Dad is all. He and my mom never got married, so it'd be a big scandal. I don't want that to happen," Nemo said, forcing himself to well up some tears in his eyes. "He's a good man, lady, you have to believe me."

"That's all right, boy. We'll get you taken care of."

On the red line platform, a quartet of battered and bloodied men arrived far too late to catch their quarry. The leader of the group ran a bloodied hand through his black hair.

"One boy, that's all we had to catch. Sasha's head is exploded, Yevgeny's head is lying in a stinking sewer while his body decomposes in a garbage truck, and Maxim is covered head-to-toe in third-degree burns! How can we not catch the one boy who did all that?" the leader said.

"Who cares how it happened? We'll have to call the entire assassination off for now. The President and the dissident are off-limits unless our next mission calls for it. We'll have to set up another time and place to make it look like the dissident did it." another agent said.

"You talk far too much, Ivan," a third agent said. "If anyone here but us knew Russian we'd be in trouble."

"Yeah, that'd be a fucking shame, wouldn't it?" John Culler said as he appeared out of a shadow.

Three of the four agents drew knives, with the leader drawing a suppressed pistol.

"Who the fuck are you?" Ivan said.

"I'm just a father who's very proud of his little boy today," the congressman said as he opened his briefcase and removed the hinged-blade weapon he called Kubikiri.

No further mention of the lightning strikes appeared in the city's newspapers, nor did any mention of a bloody fight in a Metro station appear linked to a sitting Congressman on radio or television.

_________________
DocSaluki - @jchinds

Yes, I'm the madman behind the 575 pounds of awesome that is Hephaestus 1. (He's not gone, as long as you keep him in your heart!) I'm not responsible for your nightmares or broken minds, though.

So long, Providence, Hello, Detroit.

The Paperwork Ninja's phone rang one day during his usual guitar-playing session. He set it to speaker phone and continued playing.

"Hey, Dad," the Paperwork Ninja said as he plucked a string like a banjo player to check the sound. He leaned back in his studio chair a bit. "What crisis are you having now?"

"Nemo! Thanks for picking up," John Culler said. "Well, it's not a crisis now, per se, but it's... well, it will be a crisis for at least a year or two."

"The baby?" the Paperwork Ninja asked.

"Well, see, I don't have what you'd call... experience... changing diapers and stuff, and I'm pretty sure that all modern dads have to do this stuff. So, uhm... how did you get your wife to do it while you went and hung out with your friends?" John asked.

"I didn't. I took the responsibility of cleaning up my kids alongside my wife. We're partners, after all. Teammates," the Paperwork Ninja said.

"Wait, you mean you did that? Changing diapers?"

"Well, yeah. Wendy had to work and sleep, too, and didn't always have the luxury of being there with the kids."

"But, I mean, it's poop. It smells awful. Makes you gag," John said.

The Paperwork Ninja strummed a chord. "When it's your kid, you accept it and clean up the mess. It doesn't matter if you gag. Besides, it's hardwired to keep your kids clean, that way they don't attract predators or stink up your house."

The silence on the phone signified that John hadn't considered those reasons. "Oh. Interesting."

"In fact, Dad, I can help you remember this stuff with a song. Want to hear it? Well, here it goes!"

The Paperwork Ninja launched into a now-classic opening guitar riff and sang.

"Holey diaper
By a flood of nasty stuff besieged
Oh, don't let any get on me

Find the Wipes and
You can scrub that butt but it won't seem clean
It's an inhuman shade of greeeeeen

Gotta get away
Whoooooooaaaaa
Cannot get away
Whoooooooaaaaa

Holey Diaper
What evil lurks behind your plastic sheen
I'm sure it could scare off the Marines"

John interrupted the Paperwork Ninja before he could finish. "Okay, okay, I get it, all right?"

"Good. Seriously, though, baby wipes are your friends, so are the disinfectant wipes made with bleach for when you need to clean the changing table. Do NOT mix the two up. Your baby will hate you, your wife will hate you, you will hate yourself, and you will ultimately pay for your misdeed." The Paperwork Ninja sat his guitar down. "I'm surprised you're asking me about this, Dad. Wouldn't you have learned this before now, even if only to look the part of a suburban family?"

"I... well, no, because I was too busy getting high. Besides, I was always campaigning and being a Congressman and had staff for stuff like that if it ever came up."

The Paperwork Ninja rolled his eyes behind his glasses. "Excuses, excuses."

"Well, I guess I should have stuck around you and your mother longer. Maybe I would have learned it and not gotten into this mess."

"Sorry, Dad, but you're not getting any sympathy from me about that. That ship sailed long ago."

"Oh, right, sorry," John said sheepishly. His plan to garner sympathy failed. "Uhm, anyway, are there classes or anything on this?"

"Check the hospital in town. I'm sure there's a new parent class. Try the church in town," the Paperwork Ninja said. "Forgiveness is their business, so I'm sure they won't hold anything against you for the last time you went there and made an ass of yourself."

"Stop reading my mind, Nemo," John said.

"They'll help you or at least find someone who can help you," the Paperwork Ninja said. "Go with the hospital first, though. They've usually got a larger class size."

"All right. And how did you think up that song so fast?"

"I worked with Hephaestus 1. You have to think on your feet around him." the Paperwork Ninja said. "If you don't, you're going to get gobsmacked by whatever he says."

_________________
DocSaluki - @jchinds

Yes, I'm the madman behind the 575 pounds of awesome that is Hephaestus 1. (He's not gone, as long as you keep him in your heart!) I'm not responsible for your nightmares or broken minds, though.

So long, Providence, Hello, Detroit.

July 9, 1984

"I'm glad you did this during summer break, so a short trip to my home town won't look out of place, Nemo," John Culler said to his son. "Now, let's go over this again for the Head Administrator."

The Head Administrator sat back from her desk, staring at Nemo as he began. The boy squirmed a bit in the chair provided to him. It was probably a chair from the high school; solid and uncomfortable were its two defining traits.

"Okay. I was at the White House doing a bug sweep of the main tourist areas. Our clients remembered chatting about their computer plans during a tour, and the Soviets suddenly announced a new plan using the exact same verbage a week and a half later. Six devices were found and looped to provide nothing but crosstalk during tour hours. Two more devices were traced and destroyed."

"Good work," the Head Administrator said. "Did you hear about the assassination attempt at the White House itself?"

"No, I heard that at the Comedy Grill during lunch. Apparently a dissident comedian was going to play there on the fourth, and I heard the plan being discussed to frame him for an assassination. The target would be the President, who would be killed with a remotely-detonated bomb placed into the dissident's briefcase."

"Why would a standup comedian have a briefcase?" the Head Administrator asked.

"It's part of his repertoire. He does half stand-up, half character-based comedy. In his case he plays Ivan Aleksandrovich, a surly bureaucrat who secretly wishes to be Sasha, Drag Queen Extraordinaire."

"Well, that's certainly avant-garde for a dissident," the Head Administrator said.

"According to research it's also based exactly on Ivan Ivanovich Yuryenko, a member of the Politburo's Congress of Deputies, middle manager in their version of the Patent Office and a former staff officer of the Soviet Rocket Corps. He's been accused of being a cross-dresser for a very long time. I don't really want to look at the pictures to see if it's true, either," Nemo said.

John Culler snickered a bit. Nemo shot his father a look.

"So you speak Russian, then?" the Head Administrator asked.

"No, I just know some key words thanks to D-- er, Culler-sensei as a way to understand if I'm in the presence of armed personnel."

John interrupted. "I confirmed it. I had taken him to lunch as part of my Congressional duties as a coordinator for the Youth in Arts Program. In this case he was bringing his guitar along as part of the program."

Nemo continued. "At that point, I took my leave when the men discussing the assassination left. I shadowed them to the Soviet Embassy, then followed the group's leader on his daily routine around the city. When they got back together, the leader's second-in-command carried the bomb. I waited until the twilight hours to take advantage of the heat lightning phenomenon as a cover and began to eliminate the agents one by one. I had hoped to take them out with one shot, but my control of lightning isn't so good yet."

"How old are you, Nemo?" the Head Administrator asked.

"I turned eleven exactly eleven days ago," Nemo said.

"You know that you're not even to start Lightning Caller training until you're thirteen."

"I know."

"So how did you learn how to call lightning?" the Head Administrator asked.

"I really can't say," Nemo said.

"You know how dangerous calling lightning can be for an untrained user, but you won't tell me how you learned the technique? You're at a high level of skill," the Head Administrator said.

"I... may have taught him a few things," John said. "I'm trying to be a good father."

"You know that teaching advanced techniques to untrained students is in violation of village ordinances and administrative rules," the Head Administrator said, leaning forward on her desk with a stern glare meeting John's eyes. "Your son could have caused a very damaging series of lightning strikes. Thousands of people could have been killed!"

"I killed two of the agents, including the bomb-carrier, no one else. One agent suffered intense burns and is in a coma." Nemo said. "I was very precise!"

"You could have turned into a living bomb if you lost concentration and control, Nemo, did your father tell you that?" the Head Administrator asked.

Nemo looked at his father in the other chair. "Dad?"

"Well, I may have left that out of the lessons," John said. "What can I say? It slipped my mind."

John saw his son's face change from curiosity to shock. "You could have killed me?"

"A little, yeah," John said with a shrug. "Whoops! My fault there, kiddo."

"So you didn't care if you've changed your son's chi pathways too early for his body to respond?" the Head Administrator said.

"What?" Nemo asked with a note of alarm in his voice.

"There's a good chance some of your abilities will be weakened or damaged because you didn't go through the proper training."

"But that's boring! I wanted to show my boy how to do something neat without all the boring training first," John said.

"I could've died!" Nemo said.

"Well, you didn't. You've got that going for you, right?" John said. "Besides, if you did, well, chalk it up to a kid who couldn't handle the power."

"You don't care, do you?" Nemo asked.

"I do, but in all seriousness it's not a big deal. You passed the test to be a Lightning Caller."

The Head Administrator began to write. "As a result of this action, Nemo, you will be going to the hospital for examination and observation. I can't let you be a danger to others. As for you, John, go back to California. There's a reason why you weren't selected to be a teacher besides having an infiltration mission."

"It's not my fault my kid's a time bomb."

"It most certainly is!" the Head Administrator said. "Your desire to be 'the cool Dad' may have caused irreparable harm to your son!"

"Hey, he chose to use it."

"You encouraged me to do it when I found them in a cluster like that!" Nemo shouted at his father.

"It's still your fault for using it. You could have said no!" John shot back. "It's all your fault!"

Nemo's eyes welled with tears. "You just go to Hell, old man!" he sobbed.

John smiled. "I win. I made you cry. Ha. Ha."

"Get out of my office, Culler, before I leave you dead on the floor."

"Fine. You deal with the wimp here." John said as he teleported out.

Nemo spent the next few minutes trying to compose himself before he went to the village's hospital.

_________________
DocSaluki - @jchinds

Yes, I'm the madman behind the 575 pounds of awesome that is Hephaestus 1. (He's not gone, as long as you keep him in your heart!) I'm not responsible for your nightmares or broken minds, though.

So long, Providence, Hello, Detroit.

(( No matter whether he's sincerely trying to do right by the new kid or not, I really, really, strongly despise that guy. And I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him. Which is to say, not at all. ))

_________________
"Do your best and let the rest work itself out."
Doctor Void - Dr. Wretched - Impact Tower - Jackie Bones - MerryGoRound - Bella Facade - Dark Anima - Choose - many others.

July 10, 1984

Nemo sat on the examination table, his feet kicking back and forth nervously. Based on what the Head Administrator said he might not be able to be a Lightning Caller because of his father's training. What was worse for the boy was that his father began acting callously towards him. It wasn't a gentle teasing like it was when he was in kindergarten, one that would usually be followed by encouragement to do better. This time his father seemed to mean that he didn't care. The butcher paper under the boy crackled a bit as he shifted nervously on the table.

If he couldn't be a Lightning Caller, then what could he do? He still had baseball, but it's not like it was his favorite hobby. He loved playing the guitar more than anything. It's what he did to get his mom off his back and act like he wanted to hang out with the other kids. They teased him regularly, talking about how John Culler wasn't his real Dad; after all, Nemo's last name was Iasan, and everyone knew that the Iasans died fighting the Nazis during World War 2 and Communists in Korea and Vietnam. That's what they did. Of course, everyone was wrong. The family was created to give cover to the fact that Nemo and his mother had been abandoned by John Culler. It was so the kids wouldn't tease him too much, but one thing that adults forget is that children enjoy cruelty like that. John saw that and took his son under his wing and taught him some of the Lightning Caller techniques. Now those same techniques might just kill him.

The door to the examination room opened and Nemo's doctor came in with his mother. Linda Cuthbert, Nemo's mother, had the puffy red eyes of a woman who's just been crying recently. Nemo knew it couldn't be good.

The doctor sat down in front of Nemo. "Well, young man, my tests are complete. You've got a lot of nerve blockage in your fingers and hands. The chi pathways that flow along them are shut down and if it stays like that for long, you'll lose the complete use of your hands. I can unblock them, though."

Nemo stuck his hands out towards the doctor. "Do what you have to do. I want to go practice some power chords."

"That's what I wanted to tell you, Nemo. You'll have to give up any dreams of being a Lightning Caller. Any attempt to use those techniques again will cause a massive electrical buildup in your hands and arms."

"What?"

The doctor continued. "Whatever natural grounding you had is now so weak that you'll probably explode before you call lightning through your guitar playing. If you keep playing, I suggest you pick up an acoustic guitar and play calmly."

"But I want to lose myself in the music like normal."

"That's what will kill you, Nemo. You have to be patient when you play. You have to be calm. If you lose it, you'll risk your own death. Much of the protective sheathing around your nerves is damaged beyond what I can repair."

Linda added her authority to the doctor's. "Nemo, sweetie, listen to the doctor. You have to be patient."

"But I like playing the guitar with passion," Nemo said. "My music teacher says you have to play it with passion. If you don't lose yourself in the music you won't play it well."

"I don't want you to die, Nemo," Linda said.

"I want to play like Dad does!" Nemo said. "Even if he got me into this mess, I can beat it!"

"What your father did was unconscionable, Nemo," the doctor said. "Do you know what that word means? It means he did something that a normal person wouldn't do because it would affect his conscience."

"Dad says a conscience is something you get rid of so you can have fun," Nemo shot back.

"His lack of one put you in the danger of dying," Linda said. "That's his fault, not yours."

Nemo folded his arms. "I'll get better."

"No, Nemo, you won't," the doctor said as he opened up the boy's medical file. "Your nerves are shot at the age of eleven. If you ramp up your intensity, your only reward is going to be death or permanent crippling."

"I will get better because if Dad put me in a bad situation, I'll get myself out of it!" the boy said. "I don't need any help on this!"

Nemo's heart rate shot up, and with it a tingling and itching began in his arms. He began to scratch. "What the hell?" he said, not remembering his mother was right in front of him.

The doctor gave the boy a grave look. "That's a warning sign. You have to keep your heart rate down. That's why you can't lose yourself in the music. Your heart rate goes up and down with the music, and you're likely to build up damaging amounts of electricity there. We have to fix that now."

"Now?" Nemo asked.

The doctor wordlessly jabbed Nemo's arms with a pair of acupuncture needles, each one trailing a copper-sheathed silk thread. The burning in Nemo's arms subsided as the electricity drained from each arm to ground. The boy's arms began to twitch.

"Doctor Hammond, I can't feel my fingers," Nemo said with a wavering voice. "What's happening?"

The doctor removed the needles. "The feeling will come back. I had to drain the electrical buildup in your arms and some of the natural bioelectric energy in your nerves went with it. If you'd been playing the guitar like you want to, you'd probably have lost a finger or two."

The boy sat on the table shaking his hands and wiggling his fingers through sheer force of will until the feeling came back. The burning was gone, replaced by a dull, throbbing pain.

"That's going to happen every time you get mad, every time you cry, every time you have any kind of emotional swing. You will have to learn to keep calm no matter what."

Nemo fumed, feeling the itching return. "I'm gonna need one of those needles for when I sleep."

The doctor jabbed the boy again with a grounding needle. "We'll find something better, but until you can control your heart rate and your emotions, you won't be able to do much at all. I'm sorry, Nemo, but your Dad's really ruined your body. So you'll have to rest and start attending meditation lessons. No guitar until such time as you can stay calm. What do you normally do to calm down when you can't play the guitar?"

"I go out and throw baseballs. That way I can practice for little league."

"What position do you play?" the doctor asked, trying to take Nemo's mind off of his current problems.

"Catcher," Nemo said.

"Maybe you should try pitching. So what you might want to do is aim for a spot on your target over and over. Just visualize yourself getting calmer and calmer as you hit that target."

"Okay. But you need to tell Coach about that. He won't believe me."

"I'll talk to him for you. Which team are you on?"

"Dingle Hardware," Nemo said.

"No problem," the doctor said. "Is there anything else that helps you calm down?"

Nemo looked at his hands. The first signs of build-up injuries were showing as red streaks under his skin. "Well, I help Mom with the books in her physical therapy business. That calms me down sometimes. I like watching where the money goes."

The doctor got a quizzical look on his face. "Well, that's a unique way to calm down, I'm sure."

"I calm down, and Mom always knows what she's got in profits. That's what they call a win-win situation, right?" Nemo asked.

"I suppose so," the doctor said. "Now, head out. You've got a lot of work to do, but slowly and calmly. Think you can do it?"

"I'm an Iasan," Nemo said as he slid off the table. "I can do anything I set my mind to doing."

_________________
DocSaluki - @jchinds

Yes, I'm the madman behind the 575 pounds of awesome that is Hephaestus 1. (He's not gone, as long as you keep him in your heart!) I'm not responsible for your nightmares or broken minds, though.

So long, Providence, Hello, Detroit.

(( Very, very interesting! ))

_________________
"Do your best and let the rest work itself out."
Doctor Void - Dr. Wretched - Impact Tower - Jackie Bones - MerryGoRound - Bella Facade - Dark Anima - Choose - many others.

July 18, 1984

Nemo sat on the hospital bed with a grounding strap on each wrist and a series of EKG probes on his chest. He winced a little as the probes' monitoring caused his heart to race, generating more painful electrical charges that needed to be siphoned off. He'd finished his mother's bookkeeping from her previous day's work and was currently bored out of his mind. While he was attached to the machines he couldn't go out and pitch and there were still four hours left on his heart test. His electric guitar was at home, and there wasn't anyone he could call to go get it. He lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

There was a knock at the door and a black-haired girl with light brown eyes poked her head through the doorway after opening it. "Nemo?"

Nemo kept staring at the ceiling. "Hello, Cecily. Your mom send you to check on me?"

"No, my mom didn't send me. I'm not the Head Administrator's representative, just her daughter. Will you give me a break?" Cecily said as she sat down in the chair next to Nemo's bed. "I came in to see how you're doing."

"I'm hooked up to a machine, my guitar's locked up, I can't play baseball, and Mom's books are done," Nemo said. "I'm really bored, and I have to keep my heart rate down or I generate more electricity. I guess I'm doing okay."

Cecily sat there with Nemo for a few minutes, gently kicking her feet on the floor. "So there's nothing to do here?"

"I got bored watching TV a while ago, and there's nothing on until Bugs Bunny at 2:30. I guess it's okay if you like watching the educational shows on PBS. Everybody's dressed from the 70s, though. Long hair, bellbottoms and ethnic kids who are smarter than everyone else. They teach... something. I think it's conflict resolution or problem solving." Nemo fidgeted a bit as he tried to get comfortable.

"Oh, it's that summer camp show, isn't it?" Cecily asked. "We saw that in class one day. Thurman-sensei brought in the TV and VCR to show it."

"He's like one of the counselors on that show," Nemo said. "I swear I heard him say 'groovy' and 'far out' during math class."

Cecily smiled a bit. "I know! He always says stuff that way. 'Three plus, like, two, is, like, five,' or 'That's, like, how not to divide fractions, man.' He sounds like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo."

"Well, he was part of a dog team before he became a teacher," Nemo said. "Maybe the people at Hanna-Barbera knew him?"

"I think he probably watched it a lot as a kid," Cecily said.

Nemo fidgeted some more, scratching a bit at one of the probes. He grumbled something and scratched some more.

"Does that hurt?" Cecily asked.

"No, it just itches under the contact pad is all. They shaved some of the hair on my chest and I think they scraped some skin off, too. It sucks."

"Can I see?" Cecily said.

"What, the probes?" Nemo asked in reply.

"Yeah."

Nemo pulled the examination gown up to show the array of sensors attached to his skin. "At least they let me keep my sweats on. I told them I was going to wear jeans or sweatpants. I wasn't going to be here with my butt hanging out."

Cecily's eyes bugged out. "Nemo, what's wrong with your chest and back? There's red marks everywhere, and... are those scars?"

"Yeah," Nemo said. "The red marks are from electrical build-up under my skin. They're like getting sunburn on the inside. The scars are from missions. The one across my chest is my souvenir of my Washington, DC trip.

"Can I... touch that?" Cecily asked. "I never touched a scar before."

"Not even on your mom or dad?" Nemo asked. "Your dad has a lot of them."

"It's different, Nemo. They're grown-ups. I've never seen anyone our age with a scar like that."

"It's just a scar, Cess. No big deal."

Cecily reached out her hand and gingerly placed her fingers on Nemo's scar. "Wow. It's kind of spongy."

"It's fresh, so it hasn't dried out yet. It's weird. I could feel you touching it, but like you were trying to touch me through a shirt or something. I think it's 'cause there aren't any nerves in it," Nemo explained. "I should ask the doctor if that's true."

"Yeah. That's kind of cool. Thanks!" Cecily said. "The guys in my team don't have any scars at all."

"Really? Not even from their fights and all?"

"Nope! Their parents always get any scars removed."

Nemo put his head back down on the pillow. "That's weird."

"Yeah," Cecily murmured.

"Hey, Cess? You want to stay a little longer?" Nemo asked. "Uhm, no one else has visited me except Mom and the medical staff."

"Sure," Cecily said as she leaned forward in her chair and laid her arm and head on the bed next to Nemo, lazily tracing the scar back and forth with her finger.

"Thanks. I get bored watching cartoons by myself," the young ninja said. "The guys from the baseball team haven't shown up and neither have the two girls I got stuck with during ninja team selection."

"I can't believe your ninja teammates haven't come by," the girl said.

"They don't like me. You walk in on them changing in the bathroom one time and all of a sudden you're a perv," Nemo said. "I knocked and they didn't say anything, so I knocked again and went in after a few seconds."

"I think they wanted you to see them."

"That doesn't make any sense," Nemo said. "They don't like me."

"Maybe they do and they just don't want to tell you."

"Maybe. Hey, want to see if anything is on ESPN? I bet it's rodeo or aerobics or something."

"Sure," Cecily said, paying no mind to the screen, just to Nemo's scar. "I can watch TV with you."

The two kids spent the day together watching TV and talking. The only time Nemo got a painful build-up was when he laughed too hard at one of the cartoons. He managed to keep calmer than expected.

"So, uhm, Cecily, you wanna come back tomorrow? I have another monitoring session."

Cecily nodded. "Yeah, that'd be fun. I can bring a game or something."

"Have you got Scrabble? I always wanted to play that," Nemo said.

"Sure, I can do that, Nemo."

"Thanks. You really made my day today, Cecily. You're all right."

Cecily's eyes brightened a bit and she smiled. She was all right.

_________________
DocSaluki - @jchinds

Yes, I'm the madman behind the 575 pounds of awesome that is Hephaestus 1. (He's not gone, as long as you keep him in your heart!) I'm not responsible for your nightmares or broken minds, though.

So long, Providence, Hello, Detroit.

August 15, 1984

Cecily sat next to Nemo while he lay in the hospital bed for monitoring his electrical build-up. He was making progress, not getting worked up over much and generally keeping calm. He still had to keep his grounding straps on, and that didn't allow him to move too much. He could move around a bit, but was confined to an area no more than three feet away from the bed. The grounding straps didn't go very far, so he usually just sat on the bed during his monitoring sessions. Cecily set up the Scrabble board between them earlier, a huge explosion of words across the board.

"Want to play again?" Cecily asked.

"Yeah. This time only words from the English dictionary, though," Nemo said. "Otherwise I'm gonna use Russian or German and play all my letters at once."

Cecily smiled a bit. "Okay. I can't believe you're freaking out over one little Spanish word."

"It's an imperative verb, Cecily," Nemo said.

"So?" the girl asked, looking up at the ceiling as if nothing was wrong, trying not to smile. "It's still just a word. You're not mad that I won with that word, are you?"

"No, I can deal with losing, but who in their right mind plays 'besame' as a word in Scrabble?" Nemo said as he scooped up the letter tiles and stuffed them back into the cloth bag.

"What was that word again, Nemo?"

"Besame," Nemo said.

Before he could ask why she was asking him to repeat the word, Nemo found himself being kissed by the Head Administrator's daughter. The EKG's pens scrambled to write down the data of his heart rate and the grounding straps did their job. Cecily's hair crackled a bit and some of it stood on end as she kissed Nemo. She pulled back and Nemo's heart rate returned to normal. The young ninjas sat back, breathing harder than either of them expected.

"I can't believe you did that, Cecily! Jesus Christ," Nemo said. "You want me to blow up or something?"

Cecily smiled. "Sorry. I wanted to see if kissing you was like licking a battery."

"Was it?"

"A little. My lips are still tingling."

"You could have just asked me," Nemo said.

"You would have said no, so I figured I'd do that if I got the chance," Cecily said. "We shouldn't do it again, though. It looks like it could be dangerous."

"Hmm," Nemo said.

Nemo and Cecily quieted down and watched as Sylvester the Cat was unable to tell a mouse from a baby kangaroo.

"You know," Nemo said, "The only way I can learn to keep my heart rate down when someone kisses me is if you keep kissing me until I get used to it."

"Hmm," Cecily said.

"Wanna kiss again?" the boy asked.

"Say the magic word," the girl answered.

"Besame," Nemo said.

Cecily leaned over again and kissed Nemo on the lips. This time Nemo's heart rate stayed lower, but still raced a bit. The two ninjas were so busy working on keeping Nemo's heart rate down they didn't notice two adults standing just inside the doorway.

"Nemo G. Iasan, what in Heaven's name are you doing to my daughter?"

Nemo looked out the corner of his eye. Cecily's dad was staring at him, his arms folded over each other. Right next to him stood his wife, the Head Administrator. Nemo couldn't read her face. Annoyance? Disgust? Fury? He wasn't sure. Nemo tapped Cecily's shoulder to get her attention and they broke off the kiss.

"What, Nemo?" Cecily asked.

Nemo just pointed.

"We are so busted," Cecily said.

_________________
DocSaluki - @jchinds

Yes, I'm the madman behind the 575 pounds of awesome that is Hephaestus 1. (He's not gone, as long as you keep him in your heart!) I'm not responsible for your nightmares or broken minds, though.

So long, Providence, Hello, Detroit.

August 15, 1984

The Head Administrator of the Village Hidden in Bureaucracy sat at her desk. Her daughter was infatuated with John Culler's son. She knew her daughter wouldn't give up so easily, but the boy might be similar to his father. Nemo might easily fall sway to the attentions of another girl. She summoned Linda and Hana, Nemo's two female teammates, to her office. Together they might be able to figure out how to break Nemo and Cecily's budding relationship.

"I want you both to know you're here because of your teammate, Nemo," the Head Administrator said, watching the girls' reactions. Instead of looks of surprise or readiness to defend their teammate, the girls faces had angry and conspiratorial looks.

"What did he do now, ma'am?" Hana asked.

"We had nothing to do with it," Linda said.

"I caught him kissing my daughter during one of his monitoring sessions at the hospital this afternoon. Can either of you tell me why you weren't there to watch over him?" the Head Administrator asked.

Linda leaned forward a bit. "We don't really like him, ma'am," she said, brushing her blonde braid over her shoulder. "He's annoying, he likes picking missions above our skill level and performing them alone, he tries to peek at us when we're undressing, and frankly, he's a know-it-all jerk."

"He tries to peek at you?"

Hana continued where Linda left off. "Well, one time we were getting ready at this hotel to go out on our surveillance mission and we were changing into our mission clothes in the bathroom. He knocked on the door. We didn't say anything in hopes that he'd leave, so he knocked again. Again, we were trying to let him know we weren't talking to him, and then after about five seconds he walks in on us wearing nothing but a towel! What a perv!"

The Head Administrator scowled. "Did you ever think he might need to take a shower?"

"But he's a boy," Hana said. "I mean, my little brother never takes a shower or bath. Why would Nemo?"

"Well, what was the mission profile?"

"We were posing as nominees for a youth award, and had to go to the banquet to gather information about the president of the foundation who sponsored the award," Hana continued.

"So it was a formal dinner?" the Head Administrator asked.

"Well, suit and tie. Nemo thought he was so grown up with a real tie instead of a clip-on," Linda snipped.

"He's such a nerd," Hana said. "I knew he had a crush on Cecily, but he kissed her? I'm sorry for your daughter."

The Head Administrator sighed. "Well, you can help Cecily by finding a new girlfriend for Nemo. Perhaps one of you?"

"Eww," both girls said in unison.

"Oh, God, no," Hana said, her brown hair shaking as she rejected the idea.

"Not in a million years!" Linda said.

"Very well," the older woman said. "I could order you to go out with him, but it would make your already tenuous relationship worse."

"Can't you just give him to another team? Or at least kick him out on his own and give us a better teammate?" Hana asked.

"No. That's not allowed in the rules."

"It's totally unfair that he's on our team!" Linda said. "He stopped one of the Maeharas' item acquisition teams on his own, never gave us a chance to fight them."

"He always says it's because it's too dangerous for all three of us, but the money is worth the risk to himself," Hana added. "He's such a glory-hog! Don't make us have to like him, too!"

"All right, all right. I won't ask you anything further. I'll say this much to you: it sounds like he wants to show you both how good of a teammate he is, but can't do it by working in a team. Have you ever gone to any of his baseball games, or tried comparing your group to a baseball team?"

"No," Linda said.

"I thought it was more like a Girl Scout troop," Hana said.

"So you have no idea what he does with his friends outside of your team?" the Head Administrator asked.

"He doesn't have any friends. He's a nerd," Linda said.

"For such a know-it-all, you'd think he'd have better grades and more team academic exploits in his public file," Hana added.

"I see. I won't ask you to be his friend, either. He won't listen to you regarding Cecily, either, from the way it sounds. Well, she won't listen to me. Perhaps you girls can convince her?" the Head Administrator offered to the girls.

"She's got such a crush on him already, it wouldn't work," Hana said. "They both really like each other."

"I see. Well, I'll have to find something else, then. You may go. Don't tell anyone anything of what we've discussed." the Head Administrator concluded. She watched as the girls left her office.

Considering how good Nemo's father was at seduction, it might stand that his son had a natural talent for such things and perhaps also a resistance to attempts by inexpert girls such as his teammates. She went through her Rolodex and looked up a number. The Head Administrator might have to call in a specialist for advice on this problem.

_________________
DocSaluki - @jchinds

Yes, I'm the madman behind the 575 pounds of awesome that is Hephaestus 1. (He's not gone, as long as you keep him in your heart!) I'm not responsible for your nightmares or broken minds, though.

So long, Providence, Hello, Detroit.

August 17, 1984

The bar phone rang at the Village Hidden in a Strip Club. An older man whose bald scalp gleamed even in the dim light of the closed bar, picked up the receiver.

"Village Hidden in a Strip Club, this's Roy."

"Roy, tell Lynnette to get off of her pole and get over here. I have a mission for her," the Head Administrator said.

"Yes, Head Administrator," the bartender said. He held the phone to his chest. "Lynnette! Your sister-in-law's on the phone!"

The Head Administrator hated the fact she was related to an exotic dancer, but such things happened in small farm towns and it wasn't like Lynnette was a bad person. The Village Hidden in Bureaucracy was a small farm town, after all, and at least she could use her skills to gather more information. Lynnette picked up the phone.

"Good morning, Head Administrator," Lynnette said from around the cigarette she was lighting up. "What can I do for my darling brother's wife?"

"Good morning, Lynnette. I'm sure you've heard about the Iasan boy and his little run through Washington DC."

"Mm-hmm! Too bad he's the spitting image of John Culler at that age. He might turn out to be a nice boy otherwise."

"Well, that boy is also trying to take Cecily as his girlfriend. Just so you know," the Head Administrator said.

Lynnette gasped in an exaggerated manner. "Why, does this mean your little Cecily is finally entering the world of love?"

"It does, and she deserves so much better than the Iasan boy."

"Oh, she does, Head Administrator. She does indeed. He reminds me far too much of Culler and I owe that son of a bitch more payback than he'll ever know."

"Well, a little bird told me that there's a reason why the Iasan boy looks so much like John," the Head Administrator said conspiratorially. "Rumor has it that Culler is both the boy's father and that he's rather proud of his son's achievements."

"What should we do, then?" Lynnette asked.

"Well, I have a plan. It will involve some consulting on your part, as well as some action on your part as well. The money's good, too. Interested?" the Head Administrator asked.

"Go on, tell me more," Lynette said as the two women continued their phone conversation.

_________________
DocSaluki - @jchinds

Yes, I'm the madman behind the 575 pounds of awesome that is Hephaestus 1. (He's not gone, as long as you keep him in your heart!) I'm not responsible for your nightmares or broken minds, though.

So long, Providence, Hello, Detroit.

August 18, 1984

It wasn't supposed to rain today. Nemo was supposed to go to baseball practice in the morning and get ready for that day's afternoon game. Rain on a Saturday sucked whether it was during summer vacation or the school year. To make things worse it was a cold rain, like autumn was trying to get an early start. Thankfully for Nemo he didn't have to walk too far in the rain to get home. His mom's apartment was just on the other side of town, and it wasn't like the town was very big to begin with. He lugged his gear bag back down the street and figured that if practice was cancelled, so was the game.

Rain still puddled up along the curbs of the street where the storm drains were either at overcapacity or blocked by garbage. Nemo just happened to walk past one as a late-model Ford LTD splashed him with the puddle's contents of water and mud. Nemo swore under his breath and shrugged his shoulders and began to walk toward his home again. The LTD stopped its travels then reversed back to him and honked. Nemo looked as a big-haired blonde rolled down the passenger-side window and waved over to him.

"Hi! Sorry about that! I didn't notice you there," Lynnette said.

"It's okay. It means my stealth skills are working, I guess," Nemo said, trying not to look down the woman's top. "Hi, Ms. Hendrick."

"You're a total mess. That's so my fault. Tell you what: get in the car with me and I'll get you dried off and take you home. My house is on the way!" the blonde said to the young boy.

"No, I'm fine. Accidents happen," Nemo said.

The Ford's door opened up. Nemo saw more of the black and white striped top that was doing a horrible job at keeping Lynette's breasts at bay. "No, I insist. You get in here right now, young man. I have to make things right."

Nemo's innate sense of distrust was out in full force. "I can't. You know what the commercials say about accepting rides from strangers."

"But you know me, Nemo. I'm Ms. Hendrick, the Head Administrator's sister-in-law. You know, if the Head Administrator heard you weren't willing to accept my help, I bet she'd stop allowing you to take those higher-level missions that make you so much money," Lynnette threatened.

"Are you trying to coerce me, Ms. Hendrick?" Nemo asked as he was still getting soaked by the rain.

"It's not coercion. I'm just trying to help you. You're probably soaked to the skin. You don't want to catch a cold do you? You'd miss baseball games, then."

"You have a point. Fine, I'll get in," Nemo said. "I don't like it when people try to help me out or surprise me with something. It ruins my routine and makes me think they've got ulterior motives."

"Well, that's just being paranoid, sweetie," Lynnette said. "You've got nothing to fear from a fellow ninja in your own village do you?"

"I guess not," Nemo said as he approached the car.

"Oh, hold on," Lynette said as she reached into the back seat of the LTD. "I'd better get a towel out for you so you don't get any mud on the seat." She unfurled a large beach towel with a beer logo printed down the length of it and covered the passenger side of the seat with it. Nemo dropped his gear bag in the foot well of the back seat and climbed into the car.

"This is the one you normally use when you lay out at the pool, isn't it?" Nemo asked as the car sped into town.

"You noticed the towel but not me?" Lynnette said with a coquettish tone.

"I didn't mean it like that," Nemo said.

"So you noticed me first, then the towel?" she asked with a grin.

"That's not what I meant, either!" Nemo sputtered.

"So what exactly did you mean, then?" Lynnette said, her grin turning more and more predatory by the moment.

"I, uh, don't know, really," Nemo said.

"Well, we'll figure it out once I get you home. You can clean up and have some hot tea. Won't that be nice?"

"I guess," Nemo said. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

"I'm trying to make up for making your day worse, of course," Lynnette said. "That's just awful what happened, isn't it?"

"People aren't nice to me unless they want something."

"Even, oh, say, Cecily?" the blonde asked.

"That's different," Nemo said.

"I heard you two got caught kissing by her parents," Lynnette said, her grin coming back. "Is she your girlfriend?"

"Well, she's a girl, and she's... well, I guess she's my friend since she visits me when I'm at the hospital for testing. But she's not my girlfriend."

"She isn't? Even though you kissed her?"

"She kissed me first!" Nemo sputtered again. "I was just checking to see if I could keep my heart rate down by kissing her again."

"I see," Lynnette said. This boy might be a little tough to crack, but she'd dealt with worse. Lynnette Hendrick had a bad reputation to maintain after all. It was what made her so good at her interrogation specialty.

_________________
DocSaluki - @jchinds

Yes, I'm the madman behind the 575 pounds of awesome that is Hephaestus 1. (He's not gone, as long as you keep him in your heart!) I'm not responsible for your nightmares or broken minds, though.

So long, Providence, Hello, Detroit.

((You ever have one of those days where you know you have to write something but you dread writing it because it's not a subject you enjoy at all? This is one of those days.))

_________________
DocSaluki - @jchinds

Yes, I'm the madman behind the 575 pounds of awesome that is Hephaestus 1. (He's not gone, as long as you keep him in your heart!) I'm not responsible for your nightmares or broken minds, though.

So long, Providence, Hello, Detroit.

((This story takes things to a very bad place. Read at your own risk. Bad things ahead.))

August 18, 1984

Sometimes standing in an air-conditioned foyer when you're soaking wet is even worse than standing out in the rain. This was one of those times. Nemo shivered as he stood on a welcome mat in his soaked and muddy clothes in the front of Lynnette's house. The older woman looked the boy up and down.

"Soaked through, huh?" Lynnette asked.

"Yeah," Nemo said, looking down at the floor.

"Well, you better take those clothes off before you catch your death. Hang on a minute." Lynnette walked into the kitchen and returned with an empty laundry basket. "Take 'em off. I have to wash the mud out and everything."

"Fine," Nemo said as he picked up the basket and headed to the bathroom. Lynnette shot up a hand in front of his face.

"Oh, no," she said. "You are not tracking all that shit through my house. You strip right here."

"But someone's gonna see me," Nemo said. "You're gonna see me."

"So? What do you think I do down at the club?" Lynnette asked. "The only difference is that I get paid to take my clothes off. Now take 'em off. You want your mother to yell at you? Ground you? You know she will."

Nemo blinked. "What?"

"Oh yeah, parents go crazy when they see a kid come home all covered in mud. Some kids get beat. You want to get beat? No. So take your clothes off now so I can wash them."

"But Mom wouldn't-" Nemo protested, but he was cut off mid-sentence by Lynnette.

"Oh, she might be fine with a little dust and dirt, but that will just drive her crazy. Here, I guess I have to help you," the older woman said, grabbing for Nemo's shirt.

"Huh?" the young ninja said as his shirt and hat were removed and thrown into the basket. Lynnette looked the boy up and down.

"You're filling out nicely," she said as she memorized his scars and began unbuckling the belt on his jeans.

"Quit it!" Nemo yelled as he slapped her hand away.

"Then do it yourself."

"Just clean my shirt, okay? That's enough."

"No. Everything has to be clean. I know how mothers are. I have one of my own."

"I don't want to. This is wrong," Nemo said.

"Wrong? Maybe you really don't want to make any more money on the high-risk missions. I guess detasseling corn is good enough? I'll be sure to let the Head Administrator know."

"Fine," Nemo said as he undid his jeans and threw them into the basket and then folded his arms over his chest. "Happy?"

Lynnette grinned ferally. "All of it. I don't want you getting sick."

"But-" Nemo protested again.

"All. Of. It," Lynnette said with emphasis. "You can't go make money or play baseball if you're sick. You also can't do that without the permission of your mother or the Head Administrator. Do as I say or you can kiss anything that you want to do goodbye forever."

Nemo complied, removing his underwear and socks, glaring all the while at the grinning blonde in front of him. "Stop looking at me like that."

Lynnette locked eyes with Nemo. "Good boy. Now there's a- oh, my!" she said, casting her eyes downward a bit.

Nemo flushed red almost all over, trying to cover himself as best he could. "Stop- stop looking."

Lynnette flashed her teeth at the boy. "There's a spare bathrobe in the upstairs bathroom. Go get it."

"Fine," Nemo grumbled as he walked up the stairs, feeling every second of Lynnette's gaze on him. His skin kept crawling until he was out of the older woman's line of sight. Lynnette took his clothes into the laundry room and threw them into the washer with some soap and set the machine chugging on its merry way.

"Where's your upstairs bathroom?" Nemo shouted.

"Quiet down!" Lynnette shouted back. "It's up there, just keep looking!"

Nemo stumbled around a little more, looking for the bathroom. He finally found the proper door and walked into the upstairs bathroom. There were a lot of guest rooms here, he noticed. He looked around the bathroom and couldn't find it.

"It's not here, Ms. Kendrick," he shouted.

"I told you to quiet down!" Lynnette shouted back. "It's probably in the master bathroom, then. Go into my bedroom and go into the bathroom there!"

"Okay," he said. Nemo stepped cautiously into the woman's room, dodging randomly-strewn high heels, discarded clothing, and things he'd never seen before in his life. He was pretty sure there was a dog collar and leash hanging from the hamper, but he didn't see any signs of a dog in her home. The bed was unmade, sheets and comforter flung apart. He found an orange robe with "Kenosha Flyers" embroidered on the chest once he walked into the bathroom. The robe was huge on him, dragged everywhere and he had to fight the sleeves every so often to keep his hands free. He walked out of the bathroom to see Lynnette taking off her skirt. Nemo blushed furiously.

"Sorry," Nemo said as he turned away.

"Don't you dare stop looking at me until I tell you to, boy," Lynnette said. She pointed over to a tea service with a large mug on it. "Go over there and pour yourself a mug of tea. Don't stop looking at me until you get there."

Nemo complied, making sure he kept both eyes on Lynnette's body as she removed her blouse and bra. He turned around quickly and picked up the teapot, only to be grabbed painfully by the ear.

"No, boy, you ask me for permission to touch my things before you touch them," Lynnette hissed into his ear. Nemo tried to protest, but Lynnette twisted his ear further.

"Ms. Hendrick, may I please pour myself a cup of tea?" Nemo said through clenched teeth.

Lynnette let go of his ear. "Good boy. You may."

Nemo poured the tea into the mug halfway and set the teapot down.

"No, no, all the way up," Lynnette said. "You need a full mug of tea to warm up."

"Okay," the boy said.

"Yes, Ms. Hendrick," Lynnette said.

"Yes, Ms. Hendrick," Nemo repeated.

"Good boy. Now take a nice big drink there."

Nemo took a long sip and wasn't at all ready for the burning sensation down his throat. He coughed a little.

"Aww, is the little baby not tough enough to handle a little whiskey in his tea?" Lynnette said mockingly. "You know everyone would laugh at you for that."

Nemo's eyes narrowed. "I don't like it."

"I don't care. Finish your tea, and we'll talk a little while your clothes are being washed. Go sit down on the bed, why don't you?" Lynnette said with a hint of a threat.

"Yes, Ms. Hendrick." Nemo planted himself firmly on the bed. It was softer than his bed at home. Then again, his mother only spent enough money for a worn-out mattress on his bed. Lynnette sat down next to him as he drank.

"So, a little bird told me your dad is really John Culler," Lynnette said. The flash in Nemo's eyes confirmed her rumor.

"No he's not. Robert Iasan is my dad. He died five months before I was born. That's what Mom told me."

"It's a cute cover story, but it's obvious. You look so much like him at your age," Lynnette said. I know that he's not very popular here now, but when I was your age-- not so long ago, mind you-- Johnny Culler was the cutest boy in school. I was so mad that another girl was on his team. Of course, that girl was your mother. But every girl had a crush on him. I bet lots of girls get crushes on you."

"No one talks to me at school. How would I know?" Nemo said.

Lynnette wrapped an arm around the boy's waist. "Cecily talks to you," she said, grinning as Nemo tensed up. "I bet she'd be really upset if she knew you'd seen me naked."

"What?" Nemo said as he finished his tea. "No, if I told her the truth, she'd be mad at you."

"No, you know she only talks to you because her Mom is monitoring you with her. That's why you got in trouble," Lynnette said, keeping the boy off-balance with one contradicting statement after another. "You touched the wrong girl." She unwrapped her arm from around the boy and walked over to the tea service, letting the boy take in the view of all of her body as she removed the rest of her clothes. She returned with more tea and refilled his mug. "Finish it."

"Yes, Ms. Hendrick," Nemo said as he tried to avert his eyes to the floor and drink.

"Eyes up here, boy," Lynnette said.

Nemo finished the tea and got up to put the mug away. The heat and alcohol gave him a great head rush, causing him to stumble. No, wait. He'd had regular head rushes happen before, but there wasn't any tingling sensation in his fingers. Lynnette smiled as he tried to keep his footing.

"You're even dumber than you look, boy," the older blonde said. "You didn't even think there might be more than just booze in there."

With a flip and flash, the boy was whirled around and laid flat on his back on the bed with a kunai at his throat. Lynnette's feral grin stayed the same. "You know," she said, "I don't think I'm going to bother going the easy route with a piece of filth like you. Now, be a good boy and I might let you out of here intact."

_________________
DocSaluki - @jchinds

Yes, I'm the madman behind the 575 pounds of awesome that is Hephaestus 1. (He's not gone, as long as you keep him in your heart!) I'm not responsible for your nightmares or broken minds, though.

So long, Providence, Hello, Detroit.

((Okay, it's slightly safer to read from this point forward. Not first, though.))

August 18, 1984

Lynnette Hendrick pulled the car up to the apartment complex where Nemo lived with his mother. A boy with glassy eyes pulled himself out of the car and gathered up his baseball gear and set foot into the rain once more.

"Remember," Lynnette said. "I'll see you tomorrow at 2pm at my house. Be there or else everyone's going to know what kind of crybaby you really are. Nobody hires a crybaby."

Nemo didn't say anything, didn't even fix his gaze on the woman.

"Two o'clock in the afternoon. Don't tell anyone else, or else everyone will find out what I know. Got it?"

Nemo nodded a bit, not looking at the woman. "Yes, Ms. Hendrick."

"Now get out of here and clean yourself up in your own damn bathroom."

Nemo dragged his baseball gear up the steps to the second floor of the complex and opened the door. He found a note on the kitchen table.

Had to substitute for one of the trainers at the judo contest. Dinner is in the freezer. Just microwave it. - Mom

Nemo dumped his gear in his room, got undressed and climbed into the shower, turning the water to its hottest. At least the scalding would give him a reason to cry that he could explain to his mother once she got home.

_________________
DocSaluki - @jchinds

Yes, I'm the madman behind the 575 pounds of awesome that is Hephaestus 1. (He's not gone, as long as you keep him in your heart!) I'm not responsible for your nightmares or broken minds, though.

So long, Providence, Hello, Detroit.