College Life: Spring Break < two months ago > The man chuckled, tossed the folder that he had been looking at onto the left side of his desk and leaned back to put his feet up on the corner of the right side. The small, shabby office was dimly lit, but it was enough for him to be able to clearly see the photograph that just came out through a dusty and oft-used fax machine. He'd sold the original to the person he was talking to for a pretty penny around Thanksgiving. He and his kids had a good Christmas off of it, too. " Yes," he told the person on the other end of the cordless phone he had crammed between his ear and shoulder. " I know that the picture isn't very good, but what do you expect from an instant camera? I told you that it was a fluke that I got the picture in the first place. They weren't even the ones that were supposed to photographed." He stopped talking to listen to the person on the other end, and he nodded now and then in agreement to whatever was being said. The last cigarette was taken out of a crumpled pack from his shirt pocket along with a lighter. " I know that," he agreed and waved the lighter to emphasize his point. " I've checked up on your publication and I understand your desire to get some information on them as soon as possible. They are almost myths in Japan, but nobody over here has heard of them. That's why I approached you when I saw that picture. I agreed with you when you when you said that it was too much of a coincidence." " The hack wasn't my fault!" he exploded a few moments of listening later. " I am not a computer specialist, bud. I just play one on the radio," he grinned at getting to use the joke he heard on the radio, but then had to stop and explain it before being able to go on. This guy is dense, he muttered to himself. No wonder he and his henchies at his paper had never been able to track down their quarry. " I already explained what had happened. I don't know jack about computers. I know people, and I know this one particular guy who thinks he is God's gift to hackers. He happens to also be pathologically unable to resist a challenge. " When you were able to tell me that there were some unusual stuff in the computer system at that school, my approach fell into place. I tell him, he sends one of his cronies to look into it, and if they do get anything, I have the proof on some dirt in order to make him give me the info, which then would have been turned over to you." A brief pause to listen while he unsuccessfully tried to get the lighter to produce a flame. After the fifth attempt, he tossed both lighter and cigarette into the trash along with a reminder that he was supposed to be stopping anyway. " It didn't work, and you didn't have to pay," he reminded the caller. " If you would pay me up front for my time, you will also probably get some better results. Santa would have been much nicer to you just after Christmas was over than he was during it. " Look, I know you need something to run in your next issue," he began in an attempt to placate the caller. " This is a business for me, too. I have my costs as well, and if you don't want to give me the money up front, all I can do is to rely on a network of favors. " I got a photographer who has done some work with some PI's I know, and he owes me a few," he added. " I'll have him poke around a little bit and see if he can find something out on that campus since you can't crack the new protections any better than the old ones." He paused to take a sip of cold coffee and grimaced at the taste. A shot of Wild Turkey from the bottle on his bookshelf would make it go down a lot smoother. The next comment gave him the best belly laugh that he'd had in a month. " What do you think this is; some kind of movie or something?" he chortled. " You can't do it better. You don't have my contacts here, and it will take you years to develop them before you have a chance of doing this quietly. The police will be on you like a ton of bricks, and, unlike yours, ours carry guns. " It will take a while to get him at a free moment and get him to the school with a decent alibi. If he goes up there and starts taking pictures of everyone without a reason he'll get arrested even if it is a college. Everyone is paranoid about a recent string of sex crimes in that part of the state. " Look," he said in a sharper tone than he was using before. " If you don't want me to do this, you can try working with someone else. In that time, they will probably move on you again like you keep on complaining about, and you're back to square one. Put the agreed upon amount of money into the same account we used earlier by next Friday, or the deal is off and your best lead in years will dry up. Do we still have a deal?" He nodded and turned off the phone before putting a shot of bourbon into his cup and smiling broadly. They are such idiots, he grinned, and got out his address book in order to make a call. You just have to love the media. ************************************************************************ < the present > As I had expected, she did take the short route to her car. Of course, short for Haruka was shorter than for most of us mere mortals. People always seemed to get out of her way when she walked at them, and I was able to slip in behind her before the openings closed off again. " Late final, huh?" I asked as I caught up to her. " Yeah," she scowled for a moment, but it wasn't directed at me. A power outage on Wednesday had screwed up everyone's final schedules. No power means no lights and no air conditioning, and the classrooms routinely lacked windows since the architects were from an era that must have felt that the outside was a distraction to be avoided at all costs. We had both been stuck with taking the tests on Friday afternoon. " Haruka, did you happen to find out when your next flight is?" " Tomorrow night out of San Francisco," she replied and deftly wove between some people congregating on the middle of the stairs. I drafted along behind her like she might have done on the racetrack. A few classes together had me used to how she walked through the crowds. " It was the best we could do on short notice to change our flight." " Damn," I muttered. " That is going to make it tough." " What's up?" she asked as we left the building. She paused a moment since I was going one way to the dorms, and the parking lot was another. " The Second and Hopefully Annual Dorm Getaway Party," I announced while trying to make the words sound more important than they were. I also took the opportunity to press a flyer into her hand. " Some of us in the dorm are going to the beach tomorrow, and we wanted to invite you and Michiru along. The day and time was only finalized last night." " Don't you guys have families?" she asked me with a flash of her usual grin showing. " You were supposed to be going home yesterday, too." " Can't," I countered. " Not 'til Monday. My parents are fumigating the place for termites. A lot of us don't go home for spring break for various reasons that usually have to do with money. We're not rich like you are." She let that one slide by without any comment, but it did get me a reproving look from her sea-green eyes. " I can't make any promises, Beans. We still have to make arrangements for a flight down to San Francisco in order to catch the international flight in the evening. " Still, thank you for asking. It only looks to be about an hour's drive. I'll check with Michiru. Maybe we can drop by in the morning," she finished. " Have to check with Mommy?" I gently teased her and ducked under the playful jab she threw at me. " I hope you can make it, Haruka!" I called to her as I turned to run back to the dorms. Part of the fun of being a bit of a local was that I was stuck with the job of being at the beach early to stake out a good spot. ************************************************************************ " Haruka," she calmly said as she suddenly woke up in the early hours of the morning. The clock on the bed table told her it was just after three. The blonde woke quickly and thoroughly at the tone of her voice. " Something's not right," Michiru admitted as her voice grew more concerned. " Here or home?" the blonde asked and took one of Michiru's hands in hers. It took the woman with turquoise hair a few minutes to decipher what she was feeling. " Home." " Shimatta," Haruka whispered and pulled her communicator out of mid-air. She flipped it open, but didn't have the chance to touch a button on it before the display activated. " Good morning," Setsuna's image greeted her. " Michiru-" she started to say. " Felt what just happened at the airport," the voice over the speaker gently but firmly cut her off. " We're staying by the harbor right now, and I saw the explosion across the bay. The police are, of course, having a difficult time right now. A group of terrorists claiming to represent a fringe Korean group called in their demands to the media about twenty minutes ago." " What does that have to do with us?" she demanded, beginning to get a little irritated. If it had woken up Michiru, it affected them somehow. " Very little, probably," Setsuna admitted as a pajama-clad Hotaru sat down on the couch next to Setsuna and smiled at them without saying a word. She knew that if they were using their communicators that it was an important call. " They do claim to have brethren at all of the international airports with the means to start shooting down planes, so I gather that your flight is going to be cancelled." " Let's just hope that is the worst of it," Michiru added. " The jets used for overseas travel carry a lot of people. It would be sad if they were able to shoot one down." " We'll look into it on this end," Setsuna decided. " Why?" Haruka asked her. " What does it have to do with us?" " It happened right before you were going to be on a plane coming into this airport, Haruka-papa," Hotaru chimed in. " And I hope that coincidence is the only way it is connected," Setsuna cut in before the blonde could say anything else. " We'll look into it from this side and see what is happening." " Yes, _we'll_ look into it," Haruka replied with a slight edge to her voice. " Bring us over first, and we all will look into it." " Haruka," the woman replied with a sigh of exasperation. " All we are doing is recon right now to find out if this is connected to us somehow. If we do need you, I'll come and get you," she said, pressed a button on her end and her eyes narrowed. " I've got Ami-chan and Mamoru-san on other lines. Go back to bed for now. We'll be careful, so if I do call you it means that we need you." " Setsuna!" Haruka called out, but the display on the communicator went dark anyway. " Shimatta!" she growled and flicked her wrist to forcefully snap closed the communicator. " Shimatta, indeed," Michiru softly said as she took hold of Haruka's hands. < note: shimatta can mean both 'damn' and 'closed.' you can probably figure out who is using it in which way. > " We should be there," the blonde growled. " They don't have our training in dealing with conventional threats." " And that is one of the reasons why we like Japan so much, Haruka," Michiru explained in an attempt to calm her down. She knew the real reasons behind Haruka's anger. " There is so little crime that we've never had to deal with something like this. " Setsuna knows it as well, and she will not take any foolish risks. You're worried about them, aren't you?" she asked, pulled Haruka to her feet and led her to a small sofa by the window. " Hai," the blonde admitted a few moments later and sighed. The tension seemed to drain out of her as she leaned against Michiru. " Usagi will probably freeze if someone points a gun at her. The only one with any experience at this-" " Baka," Michiru giggled, something she only did when they were alone. " Minako is far too young for any of this. Are we just supposed to push her stroller out into the middle of a firefight and let her deal with it? " They'll be all right, Haruka," she went on. " Setsuna will not let them get hurt by anything. I know that it's tough for you to stay away when they might need you, but there is nothing we can do until she calls." " That's twice in one day," Haruka grudgingly admitted after a few minutes. " You know me better than I know myself, it seems." " You can lie to yourself, Haruka, but you can't lie to me," Michiru smiled understandingly." You can't even do a good job of lying to your friends," she said and leaned back before drawing the blonde down next to her. " Go back to sleep." ************************************************************************ One of the advantages to being one of the first people at the beach, I decided proudly as I looked over my work crew, was not having to get my feet too wet. I got to give the orders since I was in charge. My car, my mission, and my orders. < Insert maniacal laughter here > John, by the virtue of liking them so much, was in charge of digging up clams since I had made sure to be here before low tide at eight. He was from a town that was pretty close to the beach, but a bit further north, so he knew what he was doing. After we set up some beach chairs and finished lugging in our cooler of sodas and food, Andy got to dig a pit for a fire and another for a genuine clam bake later on. I made a sand castle. I knew a bit about the subject from being a tomboy while I grew up and building forts for toy soldiers. Also, Michiru had once made me sit down and scrape away at a block of clay for a while to show me some things about sculpture for a humanities class I got stuck with taking as part of the conspiracy to make us more well-rounded students, so I had a good idea of what I was doing. Nothing too extravagant, but it was fun to waste some time once in a while. Some of the others showed up shortly after ten, and it didn't take too long for them to find us. The entrance to the beach area of this cove was about a hundred yards from our spot by the far end. There were some families down by the entrance since it was a Saturday, and a group of students from a frat at the big state university took up their position by the other end. They'd done the same thing last year and didn't even hassle us much. There was a natural progression in evolution on campus, and like homo sapiens supplanted the Neanderthals, we geeks were taking over from the jocks. Some of them were problems, but most of them weren't. It looked like we had some of the more docile ones today. One of the older students, another friend of several of my dorm crowd, had brought his wife and young daughter, so I grinned and turned over the job of destroying the castle to the three-year old and walked towards the entrance to rinse off the sand with one of the fresh-water showers set up by the entrance. " -and we'll have more coverage on the situation in Japan at halftime," I heard a portable TV blare out on the way back, but the station cut back to a basketball game before I could see anything about it. What was going on, I wondered, and my thoughts flashed to my friends from there. I trotted back to the others and grabbed a radio. " Just a sec," I told the owner and tuned it to a news station. It took me about ten minutes for them to get to the story after a couple of teasers saying something was going on there. Andy must have noticed the concern on my face, because he came over from his discussion with a few of his friends to see what was bothering me. " I'm sure that they will be all right," he told me after we listened to an update on the situation. " They haven't left yet," I told him and explained that Haruka had gotten her tests bumped back as well. " Still, that's going to mean another delay for them, and I know that they wanted to go home." " They got us, Beans," the owner of the radio told me, took back his radio and pointed towards the path leading to the clearing everyone parked at. Two familiar figures were walking around a bend and up towards the beach. " They're almost like one of us by now." I grinned at the acceptance of the unusual duo and put a hand over my eyes to shade them from the mild sunlight in order to get a better look at them. Michiru was as elegantly dressed as she always was in a demure white one-piece and a matching, translucent sarong wrapped around her waist and her hair was pulled back. I think I heard John's heart skip a beat somewhere behind me. He still harbored a soft spot for Michiru in his heart, even though he was smart enough to have listened to advice to give up on her. Haruka was the surprise. Usually she'd be wearing a suit under a shirt and shorts like I did; and she was, but I hadn't expected her to be looking so... feminine. She was in a black, string bikini top, and her unbuttoned shirt was more sheer than Michiru's sarong, and she probably made the hearts of the rest of the men on the beach stutter as well. She had a small, canvas sack slung over one shoulder. I started to wave when five prime examples of what I believed to be the defensive lineman subspecies of homo neanderthalis came around the bend right behind them. Both Michiru and Haruka were relatively tall, and Haruka had a presence and bearing that made her seem bigger than she really was, but the men topped her by at least half a foot and God knows how much weight. One of them took a few quick steps forward and started to reach out towards Michiru. " Ah, shit!" I muttered under my breath and started running forward. I knew a fight starting when I saw one, and Haruka's body language had suddenly changed to something I had only glimpsed on Halloween night. Michiru turned and grabbed the arm that almost had touched her. She ducked under it, spun, and savagely yanked it downward, sending him into an awkward, twisting somersault. He didn't get up. That was the gauntlet being thrown down. The others rushed forward, probably by instinct. Haruka seemed to float into the air as she lightly jumped up and through an outstretched set of hands. Her knee struck his chin and flung his head back, and as he began to reel backwards, she landed next to another. He swung wildly at her and she leaned back to let it pass before landing three short, sharp punches into his lower back. Michiru stepped between the two coming at her and twirled, hitting one of them with an elbow in the side of the head. She finished by kneeling and tripping the last one so he stumbled towards Haruka. The blonde grinned and landed a right cross that dropped the last man in his tracks. It had taken about a total of ten seconds. Loose sand isn't easy to run on, so it took me a little to get there. Several frat boys came running over to see what had happened but backed off at the challenging glare Haruka was giving them. I think she wanted them to try something. Michiru wasn't trying to get Haruka to back down, ironically enough. She merely watched the young men in a cool, detached manner. " Haruka!" I hissed at her and grabbed one of her arms after angling my approach so that I didn't come in from behind her. Five casualties were enough for one day and I didn't want to become the sixth. I could smell the alcohol on the guys on the ground. Probably cheap beer, I realized as several of my dorm mates came up behind us. One of the guys from the frat put up his hands slightly and warily kept his eye on the two women. " Peace," he said. " They deserved what they got," he added, stepped back a pace and extended his arms to keep the others from trying anything. Their attitudes changed like someone had thrown a switch. One moment I was holding onto a stranger who looked like Haruka and the next she was back to being the person I knew. She looked at the men on the ground, disdainfully sniffed and walked away with Michiru. " That's your spot down there, Beans?" Haruka lightly asked as I broke into a quick walk to keep up with them. " Yes it is, and just what the hell is going on here?" I demanded hotly. I was angry and worried about how they had reacted. I also knew that anyone who could have gone toe to toe with a lake god could have badly hurt if not killed a couple of stupid idiots who probably just wanted to tease them a bit or make a pass at them. " I'm sure that you must be worried about your friends, but that doesn't give you the right-" " Stop it!" Michiru's voice softly called out. It wasn't loud, but it cut through our respective angers. A moment later, Michiru led us away from the others and I waved them off so we could have a little bit of privacy. It was only when we sat down that I realized Haruka's right fist was still clenched. " I'm sorry, Beans," the tall blonde admitted even before we spread out their blankets to sit on or Michiru could tell her to. I was surprised that she was so quick in apologizing. " I didn't have a good night." " Is it because of the airport?" I asked. " Hai," she admitted. " I'm not there for them like I should be." " We both feel that way," Michiru gently explained. I cut her off with a wave of my hand. " They are your friends, and I think I can understand how you feel. I'm sorry for getting angry with you." " Mame-chan," Michiru lightly chuckled. Actually, she almost giggled and hid her smile behind her hand for a moment. " You don't need to apologize. We were the ones who lost control back there." " You lost control, Michiru?" I asked her and almost smiled. " Yes, we did," she openly admitted. " If we were more in control of ourselves, that fight would never have happened. We both don't like being spectators." == Spectators or spectacles? == I nodded and decided to take a chance. They had never told me much about their friends, but knew that they did value them very much. " Are you worried that they might try and do something to end this terrorist thing?" Haruka looked me in the eye, nodded and glanced around to make sure nobody else could hear us. I had expected her to be more angry with me when I broached the subject. " How do you know about them, Beans? We know that you didn't look at the files you set up the new firewalls for," she asked. " Bah," I lightly snorted. " I'm not going to get caught by an access counter. I never looked at any of those files. I know that there are more of you than just Setsuna, Hotaru, yourselves and your computer specialist from the sheer number of records." " And is that it?" she added a moment later. " No," I shrugged and decided to come clean. " You're awfully popular with a few newspapers in Japan, you know." Haruka slapped her hand to her forehead as I laughed and Michiru said volumes with a single soft, exasperated sigh. " That damn tabloid!" the blonde growled. " You looked us up in their back issue library, didn't you?" " I just hope she didn't turn us in for the reward," Michiru teased. " Yes and no," I said and held up my hand to stop any questions before I could explain something. " In part it was because I needed to know something of how well known you were in Japan to give me a better idea of how you were perceived and how popular you are. " I recognized you here, and if I did it means that somebody else may be able to do it as well. That would mean that you might have a lot of people asking questions about you, and that would have made me set things up differently," I explained. " Nobody has in Japan," Haruka volunteered. Michiru lightly nudged her in the ribs, making Haruka blush. " Okay, one person may have." " There was one other thing, though," I went on and blushed a little bit as well. I was never any good at this stuff. " We've known each other for what, seven months now or so? I consider you my friends, and part of having friends is wanting to know more about your friends. == maybe, 'more about them' it's kinda repetitive with 'friends' in there twice == " Maybe I shouldn't have done it, but I figured that there was going to be so little truth in that paper if it was like one of our tabloids that it wouldn't be a problem. It hurt a little bit to know about that part of you and to be shut off from it because you didn't want to talk about it." " I never knew, Beans," Haruka sighed and put one of her hands over mine while Michiru moved to my side and placed an arm around my shoulders. To my surprise, she noticed and brushed away a hint of a tear that was threatening to roll down my face. The tear itself didn't surprise me, however. Being honest like this with another person had never been easy for me to do. " We're sorry, Mame-chan," Michiru added and paused a moment to carefully choose her words. " There are some things about us that we can't talk about, like the others, because we can't rightly make that decision for them. There are other things that we just cannot let you know, and we can't even tell you why." " And we don't like having to do it this way," Haruka added with a reassuring squeeze of my hand. " But we don't have a choice about some of it, Beans. I guess we thought that if you didn't know, you couldn't be hurt by it." " Thanks," I mumbled. " Thanks for not being mad at me." " Why should we be mad at you?" Haruka asked and smiled. She stood and pulled me to my feet, and before I could do anything about it, she had picked me up and slung me over one of her shoulders. " This is supposed to be a day for fun, Beans. You like swimming from what I remember. Why don't we go swimming?" " Haruka!" I shrieked while I knew she was trading grins with Michiru. They both knew that I couldn't swim and absolutely did not like the water, but that didn't keep her from carrying me towards the waterline. ************************************************************************ I stopped yelling at Haruka when I realized it wasn't doing me any good. Neither was the squirming. My eyes went wide as she took the first few steps into the surf. She waded out to her waist level with my feet trailing in the pleasantly cool waters. I would have sat on her shoulders like a cat if I could have gotten myself in the position to do so. "What's there to fear?" Michiru asked. A few cold drops were dripped onto my neck. The shock of the water on my neck caused me to bolt. I fell into the water with a loud splash. Quickly, I brought myself to the surface. "Dammit!" I yelled in startled anger. "She looks like a drawn cat," Haruka noted to Michiru. "Neko-chan," she chuckled and gracefully glided out into the waters. She swam several yards out before turning to wave us out to her. "C'mon, Beans, Michiru is the best swimming instructor you will ever find." "I don't think so," I replied hesitantly. "It's pretty deep out that far. I don't need to swim -- ACK!" I spun around before falling face first into the water again. I came up sputtering, "Who tickled me!" Both Haruka and Michiru were standing there laughing. Michiru had snuck up on me while Haruka kept me distracted. "That's it," I waded my way back to the shore. "Mame-chan, wait!" Michiru caught my arm. "Gomen, that was cruel of me. We really do want to teach you how to swim. We won't play anymore pranks on you until you are comfortable in the water, okay?" I looked out to the ocean. There was so *much* of it. How did one not become lost or overwhelmed by it's enormity? My fear reasserted itself. I gulped down the growing lump in my throat. "I dunno Michiru," I said slowly. She pulled me close to her. In my ear she whispered. "I am one with the seas. As long as I am here, nothing will happen to you." Her words dissolved my fear even though they were irrational. No one was 'one with the seas'. But I did trust her. I felt it, on a gut level, that she must be speaking the truth. I swallowed again. "Okay, where do we start?" == Insert description of learning to swim if you wish :) == An hour later I was slowly making my way back to the shore. I was worn out by the exercise of keeping myself from drowning or swallowing too much sea water. I wonder if all the salt in it would meet my daily dietary requirements... Michiru was such a graceful swimmer. I could almost believe that she *was* one with the sea. The waters parted before her as she swam, they encased her, then seemingly yielded to her will... "I would have never expected the waters to be calmer the further out you went," I commented as I walked to a fresh water shower. "Funny how that happens," Haruka noted from the next shower over. "It was almost as though someone had created a wave break around us so that I could learn in calm waters," I continued to rinse. [Haruka face faults, but recovers nicely] "It's just a calm day. Nothing like that is possible." "You're probably right." == This is my attempt as saying Michiru calmed the waters... I'm not sure if it works. If it doesn't catch your fancy, feel free to edit to your hearts content. == ***** " So, did you have fun today?" I asked Haruka as I plopped down next to her on Michiru's towel. She was still swimming and had been out there for what seemed like hours. " Yes," she admitted and gave me an easy smile. " I would have preferred to be on my way home right now, of course," she shrugged. " Thanks for inviting us today." I almost said that she was welcome, but the cellular phone in her bag rang and I stopped to let her answer it. She listened for a few moments and nodded once. " Sorry," she said as she turned it off. " It looks like the situation at the airport in Tokyo is going to resolve itself, so we had better get to the airport for our flight." " That's okay," I told her. Haruka turned and waved to Michiru, who responded, and for a moment I thought I saw a flash of gold around her wrist. " You mind telling me something, Beans?" Haruka suddenly asked in a more tentative, hesitant voice. " I guess," I shrugged. " When we were looking for our mystery hacker, you were one of the people who we suspected of doing it, but we were never able to find anything other than your handle no matter what we did." " And you want to know my name?" " Well, like you said," she smiled. " It is natural, after all." " I don't want it getting around," I said. " Won't tell a soul," she promised and drew her fingers over her heart in a cross pattern. That made us both chuckle together for a moment. With a smile on my face, I leaned towards her. Friendship was about more than just common interests, I knew. There was a level of trust that it implied, and I knew that the words I whispered into her ear wouldn't be repeated. " Thank you," she simply said and began to collect their things. I helped her stuff them into the bag and she stood up to go meet Michiru with a towel. Haruka turned back to me after a few steps, though, and her eyes had a mischievous twinkle in them. " Yes, you can tell her!" I called out and grinned. " I already knew that everyone else doesn't include her where you are concerned." == that third sentence is kinda confusing. I take it to mean 'what one knows, the other will soon' but it doesn't come out quite right == She just smiled and turned back towards the ocean. ************************************************************************ "Hey, Frank," I greeted easily as a came up to the counter of the 1 hour film developer. == gotta remember to write Frank in here somewhere ;) == "Hay is for horses --" " and cows like you," I finished the jibe. He always teased me when I greeted people like that. "The pictures from the beach been developed yet?" He sniffed indignantly. "This is a 1 hour developer you know." "Then why weren't they ready yesterday?" "'Cause I wanted to look at them," he chuckled and went to the back to look for the right envelope. "I had them right back here somewhere," he called out to me. A man came into the small shop... == insert description of photographer here == He tapped on the bell for service repeatedly, even though you could clearly see Frank in the back. His lack of manners annoyed me. Frank stuck his head out. His expression changed slightly. "I'll be right with you sir." He returned to the back. The man glared around the shop. We were the only two in the store currently. His gaze fell on me, but was quickly averted when I met his stare with a cold one of my own. Haruka had been useful in teaching me how to do that. "Ah, here you are," Frank came back out front. He handed me two envelopes of pictures. I looked at him confused. "I only dropped off one roll," I began to open the envelope to see which picture were mine. Frank put his hand on mine and squeezed to briefly. "I know," he said lightly. He was putting on a face for the man next to me. I glanced over at him again. "Remember that you dropped off that roll of you grandmothers birthday a few weeks ago. You never came by and picked it up." "Oh!" I exclaimed. All my grandparents had passed away years ago. "You're right. How much do I owe you?" "Don't worry about it now, I'll put it on your account." He smiled charmingly. He wanted me out of the store now. I picked up the two envelopes off the counter. "Thank you kindly." I waved as a walked out the door. I drove to the college. Not until I was in my room alone did I open up the envelopes to see what Frank had given me. The first was as I expected. The second was far more interesting. A note slipped out from between two pictures. 'Thought you would find this interesting. Aren't reprints a wonderful thing?' I looked at the negatives. They were the right ones with the pictures. Then what did he give to that man? *********** The photographer == is s/he gonna get a name? == opened up the envelope from that quickie 1 hour shop. Out came pictures of some old lady with a party hat on and a party favor hanging out of her mouth. He quickly scanned the rest of the pictures. *All* of them were of the same ugly old lady. Dammit! The pictures got switched. He called up the shop, but it was too late. They had already handed them out to the wrong person. == scene switch to the agent in the US == He cursed his bad luck. It's a blasted conspiracy, it has to be for them to have slipped through their fingers as many times as they have. That or there were to luckiest people walking this planet. In many ways, it was both. == that's how I purpose this lil tale ends. Any thoughts, disagreements, polishing up ^_^; == *** somebody screws up photographer's pics - one of the geeks works in the store that develops film, and he saw the pics that the photographer took that includes several of h&m. switched film and records on the guy. - or he gives film to beans after the break is over as a little gift to h&m and he saw the pics that the photographer took that includes