Die A Thousand Deaths
'Everyone has secret words that can save them. Everyone has secret words that can kill them.' (Unknown) "So they weren't slaves?" "Not technically," Fran's best friend had answered. "I'll be gosh-darned," the jackal had shaken her head....
Crosswinds
'Housewives should make $115,000 a year.' \*\*\* "'But there are no pixies!' the housewife protested. 'There's no such thing as pixies!'" Fran's mom had told her this story more times than she could remember when she'd been a child. "'It was...
Down The Stream
'You can't free a fish from water.' (217th Rule of Acquisition) "I told you that there'd be another Great Flood," Boko chided Klein, "but you didn't believe me, did you?" Descartes looked Boko up and down. He had no idea who this chameleon could...
Into The Abyss
'Let me hammer him today!' (Pink Floyd, The Trial) Mano's path led her back up out of the water and into a corridor that led her to a rowboat on a canal. Approaching the rowboat to sit down in it and pick up its oars, a chill went down her spine...
Fishers of Men
'How cheerfully he seems to grin...' (How Doth the Little Crocodile, Lewis Carroll) Ammut had been left on the doorstep of a Brazilian orphanage before he'd been old enough to have known how to talk. He'd been far too young to have even remembered...
Deep Blue
He finally noticed her from above the pier as he flew overhead. Scylla was tied up to a pole, plunged so deep into the earth under the shallows that went back and forth between high and low tide between the shore and ocean that there was no way that...
Ripple Effect
'There is evil there that does not sleep.' (Boromir, about Mordor) "So..." Klein asked Fugue nervously, "what have you been up to?" He remembered the blowfish fondly, but there was something 'off' about him somehow that the skunk couldn't quite...
Rising Tide
Time passed. Mano, working in her sub's lab and garden, came up with an empathy drug, the same one that would be used by Rakim and Ogun when they'd first meet. She hoped to do it as a tribute to Eli, to contribute to creating the more empathetic...
Uncarved Block
'Thou shalt not carve any graven image.' (Ten Commandments) Clients would come to Mandrake for help - he wouldn't seek them out. People would hear about the fact that he'd been someone who'd listened to people, so when they'd had problems that...
Dead Trees
She derived such a sense of peace from this place. Taking a look around, she saw nothing but shelves and shelves of books everywhere around her. Every table was covered in stacks and piles of books and pieces of paper, scattered all over the place as...
Common Ground
'I don't need God. All I need is an amoeba!' (Greater Than One) Mandrake had had a complex relationship with his father when he'd been growing up. His father had been both a prominent psychologist and a deeply pious Jewish man. It had therefore...
Fear to Tread
Life had been strange for Klein after he had moved back to North America. His trip back on the boat with Bridges had gone swimmingly. He'd known what to expect, and he'd had to deal with none of the stress of having started out as a stowaway the way...