Maggie: Waking up surrounded by friends Maggie, nine years old, was sitting on the family couch, between her mum and dad. "Which movie would you like to watch?" asked her dad. "I know! Beauty and the Beast!" "Ah, an ancient Disney favourite." said mum. This is so warm and cosy, being here... But, but, mum is dead. I killed her. And dad is also dead... And, and, didn't I fall off the roof? She opened her blearily eyes, only to be assaulted by the bright lights of somebody's room. Ugh. Where the hell am I? She opened them again, carefully, and looked around in confusion. Sarawatch had her arms around her. "It's all right my dear, take your time to wake up." Teylon was on the other side. "Yeah, there's no longer any hurry." There was a murmur of voices from four other people. Oh, they're all here. And Leroy's wearing his hero flight suit... what? Did he catch me? "W- What? You saved me? But..." Maggie started crying again. "It's no good, I still killed my mum. Why did you save me?" Erasyl, who was kneeling in front of Maggie, with Sarsaparilla and Leroy to his sides, was the first to react. "Because the green tree frog admirer would have been too sad if he didn't see you again." A sad little giggle from Maggie. "That's what I was thinking just before I fell, wasn't it? So, so, I guess Teylon must have been reading my mind?" "Well, Esmeralda was reading your mind and passing on what she thought was the best thoughts to scare me silly and make me act." said Teylon. "Oh." At this point Sarsaparilla got just a teensy bit impatient. "Maggie, of course we saved you! Now could you please tell us why you took such drastic action?" "Oh, right." I'm so ashamed to have to tell this. And what will they do when they find out the truth? Throw me out? "Ok. It's because my mum... well I killed her." Small silence. "How?" said Sarawatch. Gently. "My mum, she was really ill. Had been for some time. She had her ups and downs, and, that time, I thought she was on an up. Before she got sick, we would go outside, that is outside of our rooms into the small dome we lived in. Dad would bring a music player and mum and I would dance to the music as the sun went down." Maggie smiled with her sad memories. "Not that we were all that great at dancing, I'm sure. But, I was twelve or so, it was great for me." Maggie stared into the distance for a while. "But that time, the last time, she really was sick. She didn't want to dance, but I pestered her to do so. And the exertion was too much for her. She died later that night." Tears were running down Maggie's cheek. "She really didn't want to dance; she only did so because I forced her to do so. She could have lived much longer. She resented how her remaining life was cut short because of her demanding daughter. And dad was aggrieved also. No wonder dad was so distant in the last few years; he was blaming me for killing mum." "This is all too much for me. I wish you hadn't saved me." A vast, enveloping silence as everyone contemplated this. Eventually broken by Teylon. "Say, Maggie, why did you suddenly decide just last night to do this?" "Oh, sorry, I forgot to add, I have just received the news that my father has died. He had been ill for a month or so, ah, he was pretty old when he met mum, so I suppose he had a good run. Well, apart from the last few years." Teylon was looking puzzled. "Well, I gathered that, but, but, I still don't quite see why that would push you over the edge..." Maggie started to cry even more. "Because when the hospital sent me the news, they also sent me a parcel that my father had made up. As in a physical, actual, parcel, with various documents in it. And one of them was a report about my mum's death from the medical staff that had been looking after her." Both Teylon and Sarawatch were frowning slightly at this. "Perhaps I can look at it?" said Sarawatch, "Is the parcel in your room?" "No, I brought it with me." Maggie struggled a bit and managed to extract a thick envelope from her inside jacket pocket. "I don't suppose it makes any difference now, you can look at it." Sarawatch opened the flap, rifled through some folded papers, then took out and read the one that seemed to be the report in question. With a perfectly bank face, she thought about it for a moment, then silently handed it to Teylon. He also read it in silence. Teylon and Sarawatch exchanged glances. "This doesn't seem quite correct..." he said. He looked up, to find the eyes of four teenagers boring into him. "OK, I'll read it to you." He glanced at Maggie, but she did not appear to object. He cleared his throat. "I'll skip the boilerplate and go straight for the substance." "Dr Madeleine announced patient Tasmin dead at 1:04am on..." "I'll also skip the date and the actual cause of death; I don't even know what those medical phrases mean, let alone how to pronounce them." "It continues: Although the prognosis for this patient indicated a probable survival extent for several months, her immediate cause of death was from exhaustion from unnecessary exertion and from her body temperature falling due to exposure to the outside air. The patient reported that her daughter had induced her, against her better judgement, to go outside and dance. Patient appeared to be angry at having done this, and appeared to regret her choice. This information was conveyed to the patient's husband. He expressed disappointment at the circumstances, although hospital staff was able to convince him not to blame his daughter for her actions." Another long silence. "See, I killed my mum, and dad blamed me." I could have been dead and gone by now, but instead I have to keep on suffering. Err, would that mean I would have met Esmeralda? I, err, hadn't given that any thought... She lowered her head and looked at her lap, avoiding the eyes of anyone else. Teylon gave a little jump and looked momentarily startled. "Ah, sorry, Esmeralda has just dropped another of her little one tonne anvils onto my head - say Adalace?" "Yes?" "I don't suppose you can check the Martian Web for backup copies for the audio transcript of a particular doctors' meeting the day after Tasmin's death?" "Well, there are a lot of public backup archival websites, plus archives of the hospitals, plus, hmm, I suppose I can probably access a lot of private computers, people will use such ridiculously short passwords, and, hmm, I'll be searching for voice phrases, I suppose any audio that includes the words Tasmin, Madeline, Maggie, could be a sufficient search criterion, hmm. And I can write programs to automate the search, and so search everything in parallel..." "Ah, you also realise that this is all so illegal?" "Esmeralda has given me a solid hint, so... And, of course, at the resulting trial I shall accept full responsibility; obviously I led on an innocent Adalace, etc etc." "Not so innocent Adalace, but never mind." Adalace looked at her monitor screens, which were soon filled with the images of pages of code, lists of databases, pages appearing and then disappearing under new pages, her hands held slightly off her desk as she twitched all ten fingers in blurringly fast patterns. "This could take some time." she said. She paused to take out some headphones, and put them on. She resumed her searching. What on Mars is Teylon trying to do? Maggie sat there, still looking at her lap. And what am I going to do? I don't think I can do that again. Not the least, because it would be so dismissive of all of their actions to save me. And, even now, they are trying so hard. But I can't live with such a burden! It took only half an hour. All the while, Adalace concentrated on carrying out the search, playing over her headphones likely candidates that her search found, and totally ignoring everything else. Sarsaparilla stood to her side, watching her, but saying nothing. Teylon, Maggie, and Sarawatch stayed on the sofa, while the boys moved around listlessly. Although at one stage Leroy and Erasyl went out and arranged coffee for everyone. "Right. Found it." said Adalace. She swivelled in her chair to face everyone. She had a grim look on her face. "I won't go into how many millions of audio files my program has searched, nor how many passwords my little program has cracked, I'll just replay the audio." A series of thumps and bangs, then a voice of a female. "I think this thing is working... Ah, sorry everyone, my secretary is home sick today, so I'll just record this on my pocket recorder and give it to him when he's next in. Right. This is Dr Madeline, and, " The sound of shuffling papers and grating of chairs on the floor. "Here we are, case files for Tasmin, right." "As you know, Tasmin died early this morning. Let's skip the official stuff, my secretary can fill it in from my notes. The immediate cause of death was exhaustion from dancing in the evening with her daughter, but she knew what she was doing. She had a talk with me before hand and said she would much rather go out on a high, and give her daughter a good memory, rather than eking out another miserable month or two and letting Maggie see her slowly fade away. Oh, her husband was there at the meeting also, and agreed with her. She even wrote a little letter to her daughter, to be given to her when she was older. Here, I'll read it out, it's really touching." More sounds of rustling paper. "My dear Maggie. I love you very much, and so does your father. I know I am being selfish, but I just wanted to dance with you one last time. Even if the doctors have warned me that the exertion will be bad for me. I wanted to hold my darling daughter in my arms, have this memory as my last. I know that you would have wanted me to last a few months longer, but the thought of lying in bed, just fading away, was so painful. So forgive me for going like this. I hope that the memory of our last dance will also be treasured by you. Love, Mum" Adalace turned off the play back at this stage. "The rest of it is just medical jargon and hospital business; you can listen to it later if you wish." There was silence, broken only by the sounds of Maggie crying. "But, what does that mean? The two letters directly contradict each other." said Erasyl. He looked totally confused. "Precisely. They do contradict." said Adalace, “Because the one that was given to Maggie was a complete and utter fabrication.” Sarsaparilla nodded her head. “Yeah, somebody was out to get Maggie, and didn’t care how much she was hurt.” “But, why? Why be so mean?” said Maggie. “Ah, that, I wouldn’t know...” said Adalace. She stopped, looked thoughtful for a moment, and then turned back to her computer. “Wait a moment...” She spent a minute doing incomprehensible things (at least to the others) on her computer, before stopping and turning back to her audience. "I thought it a bit strange, but at the time I had other things on my mind..." "Anyway, see this picture?" She pointed to one of the screens, now showing a image of a man, dressed in black, hovering in the air with the dome's ground forming a distant backdrop. "He was flying at the two kilometre mark, and was accidently caught in my search area. Since my programs were logging everything they saw, I can give a plot of his flying with respect to Leroy’s and Maggie's." On the next screen appeared a schematic of the dome floor, with a confusing network of white lines. "Oops, wait a moment..." She made adjustments. Now there were coloured lines, one green, one black and one blue. "The blue line represents our hero Leroy, as he hovers in midair, and then he races to intercept Maggie. Those ticks along his line represent times. The green line is Maggie, as she flies through the dome's ceiling space. It ends at this point here, which is where she starts falling." Maggie gave a shudder at this, and both Teylon and Sarawatch turned to her, offering their unspoken support. "And this black line is the flight path of our man in black. If I set up the display to show a dot representing each person, and move them in time with each other, then..." They watched. The blue dot for Leroy remained at the same location, while the other two dots moved slowly towards the location that Maggie started to fall. "Notice how the man in black is tracking Maggie's position. And when she starts to fall, he is right under her..." Adalace changed the viewpoint of the plot, to show vertical height. "He starts to accelerate upwards, then brakes and slows down, in exactly the pattern required if he wanted to intercept Maggie. And we see Leroy coming in from the side, doing his own interception manoeuvre. And right about here..." The black dot changed direction and smoothly accelerated away and out of the picture. "He must have realised that he had competition, and gave up on the chase." Some got the idea immediately. For example, Sarsaparilla and Sarawatch. Others took a few moments to work it out. Everybody looked at Maggie, who was the last to painfully work through the implications and come to an unpleasant conclusion. She clenched her fists and started to shake in anger. Two nails whooshed out of her jacket pocket, went straight up, bounced off the ceiling, and then started spinning rapidly. "Why the bastards!" Maggie stood up and started screaming. "The bastards! They did this deliberately to catch me when I'm at my lowest! They were going to turn me into some sort of slave! To be used as target practice by Shane! Or something! You fucking arseholes! I'm going to smash you to the ground! I'm going to drag you through the dirt and bring you to justice! I'm going to, ah, going to..." At this she collapsed backward, falling back down onto the sofa, bouncing off Sarawatch and ending up leaning against Teylon’s arm. She sagged and closed her eyes. "I'm going to have a rest." she managed to say. Two nails dropped down and hit the floor. They were sufficiently hot from the magnetic forces they had been subject to that they singed the floor covering slightly. Fortunately Maggie had exerted enough control to avoid hitting anyone with them. There was dead silence. Teylon: Entertaining house guests again Teylon was sitting at his table. Sarawatch had just returned from one of the spare bedrooms. "Yep, Maggie appears to be sound asleep." She slumped into a spare chair. "Bloody hell." Teylon gave her a cup of coffee. "What do we do now?" "I don't know. If previous behaviour is any indication, whoever are the powers that be in this case will just ignore us. Apparently that is their default option for situations they don't like. Since we don't have any clue as to who they are, we can't do anything in retaliation. And, if we try to publicise anything, it will be suppressed. There's no need to ask me how I know that." Her voice was bitter, filled with frustration. Teylon pulled at his hair. "I'm supposed to be doing something about the evilness at the heart of this society. So I've certainly found it, but what the hell do I do about it? And how come I'm involved with no less than five teenagers? Especially since two of who have been subject to extreme danger already. I mean, I've spent most of my time saving all of those teenagers in various ways, and just about none of my time saving Mars." "Don't know. And what about the name of that teenage girl I saw die?" "Ah, sorry, I have asked a few times, but all I have gotten back is the sounds of my own brain, spinning its wheels." "Humph" said Sarawatch, clearly not impressed, "Well, in that case I'm going to bed also." She went to the spare bedroom that she was using, and closed the door. Teylon contemplated his own cup of coffee, which had gone cold. I used to be a complete loner. The Teflon Rat, proud to scurry through the cracks of society, robbing the corrupt and giving to the deserved. A force for good, doing my bit to right wrongs. Yeah, sure. That's what I thought, until a bunch of immature snotty nosed teenagers took me down a few pegs and rubbed my nose into the fact that I wasn't as good as I thought I was. And now, how is it that I'm so involved in their lives? Face it; I'm fond of them all. Geez, after their attacks on my character, I should be running away as fast as possible. In fact, I would have, if it wasn't for the continual electric shock prods from my allegedly friendly Angel of Death. And now, it's the second time I've been almost scared to death about their well being. He looked up at the ceiling. Esmeralda, what are you doing to me? There was no reply. Not a glimmer of one. Angels of Death play some pretty brutally hard games, that's for sure. He went to his own bed and took a long time to get to sleep.

Deep Underground "Well, there goes our chance for a clean recruitment of Maggie. Remember, our conditioning processes work best if the subject is already in a state of extreme emotional shock." said Prakash. "Cut with the obvious! We all know that!" said Terrence. "Not that we had any attention on turning her into some sort of sex slave, anyway!" said Teresa. "Of course! She's far too valuable for that!" said Arnold. He got a glare from Teresa. "Enough, enough." said Lenny. He looked tired. In fact they all looked tired. They had been up half the night preparing Maggie's 'recruitment', then spent most of the day dealing with the unpleasant after effects of its failure. "We have to face the extremely disagreeable fact that this Teylon bloke-" "More likely this Esmeralda chick." said Terrence. "OK, OK, this Esmeralda lady." continued Lenny, "Is running rings around us." "Why don't we just take them all out once and for all, for God's sake?" said Arnold. "Oh yeah? Let's see, we've attempted three confrontations against them, and have failed each time. Perhaps you would like to personally direct the next one? It should be interesting seeing you give a sudden scream and then collapse dead before our feet." said Terrence. Arnold could not think of saying anything to that. "Will you all just shut up." said Lenny. After some more acrimonious discussion they decided that, since they didn't have any idea of what Esmeralda's ultimate aim was, but so far she didn't seem to be taking any direct action against themselves, nor did she seem to be harming their society in any way, they would just keep watch and gather intelligence. "After all, we still have to run a whole planet with millions of people, you know." concluded Lenny. "Yeah. And we might eventually think of some way of neutralising them." said Prakash. "Let's hope they don't get us first." said Arnold. Maggie: Living in fear Maggie, ready in her school uniform and her backpack filled with today's essentials, waited just inside her front door. I'm scared. Shit, I'm really scared. She kept on having disturbing images of being turned into some sort blank minded clone, of being sent off to duel to the death with Shane. She shook her head as if to cast off such thoughts. Or even, maybe worse? After all, what would evil men do with a blanked out amnesiac teenage girl who thought she was a clone? She shuddered in horror. Get a hold of yourself! But, I can't even walk to high school by myself now. I'm a hopeless wreck. The doorbell rang. Maggie jumped, then made an effort to collect herself. "H-hello?" she said. "It's me. Erasyl." Five minutes later, they were walking towards her school. Fortunately, it was not all that far from Erasyl's. Erasyl could momentarily turn his back on me, and they could grab me and drag me away and tie me down and fill me with drugs and empty my mind of all constructive thoughts and send me off to be used by some sleazy horrible man... "Ah, Maggie, I think you're freaking out again..." "Huh?" Erasyl put one hand on her arm. "It's all right. Well, I think it is. Ah, take a deep breath?" Yeah. Deep breath. And another. To think I'm depending on Erasyl the hopeless to look after me... Well, actually I suppose, now that he has the message about making crude passes, he's actually reasonably decent. Hmm, if I'm beginning to think that Erasyl of all boys is OK, then my mental state must really be in a bad way. What the hell. "OK, I'm OK now. You realise, this is all so difficult for me. And, and, why are you taking so much effort to look after me, anyway?" "Because - you need it? And, in our little group, we're all friends? I've never had a friendship group before, you know." "Is that so? Actually, neither have I." "And because I like you," said Erasyl, "Ah, I like all of the others, also!" Do I like him? Or, actually, how much do I like him? At least this is taking my mind off other things. "Thanks."