[Sticks]

Prologue

Note contains Season Five spoilers

UK Inter Dimensional Entity Control Operations Data

Classified Ultra Secret

Begin Data Download

Alternate Dimension World 01 IDW01
This world is referred to by the occupants and certain civilians who have visited it as the Mystical Realms and exists in a parallel universe to Earth. It is believed that it’s rapid formation occurred sometime during the period when humans inhabited Earth because the population of IDW01 resemble creatures from human folk tales, fantasy fiction and other related entities. According to unconfirmed sources, the creation of IDW01 was due to the collective unconscious of humanity. This is to be confirmed as the mechanism by which this could have happened is unknown. It also seems to be the case that this link between Earth and IDW01 means that some entities in IDW01 are aware of Earth’s existance and our society.

Status of population of IDW01
The entities that populate this ADW at one time had an ordered society with various different types of entity co-existing. Intelligence reports suggested that in some parts of the IDW01 they had an embryo technological society. Latest reports indicate this is no longer the case due to some kind of internal conflict resembling a civil war and that technological levels have dropped to a pre-industrialisation state. However some entities exhibit certain abilities and powers not available to ordinary humans which might be considered by some to be “magic” and therefore these entities must be considered dangerous.

Inter Dimensional Entities (IDE)
There have been a number of reported incursions into our world by these while some of these incursions did not cause harm to Earth citizens, there have been documented cases where there have been fatalities. It is due to this possibility the all IDE’s must be identified and policed. IDE’s that cause no harm are considered a Friendly Inter Dimensional Entity FIDE Those IDE that have proved to be dangerous to humans are referred to as a Hostile Inter Dimensional Entity HIDE When encountering an IDE for the first time it is operational procedure to assume they are a HIDE until confirmed otherwise

Republic of Ireland and IDEs
It must be noted that some IDE’s resembling fabled “Leprechauns” and other Celtic styled humanoid creatures have made a pact to serve in the Military Intelligence Service and the diplomatic service of the Republic of Ireland. The Irish government has managed to establish a non aggression treaty with IDW01. This was done unilaterally and now forms the official basis of IDE control policy of those nation states on Earth involved in the IDE programme. Unless proved otherwise all IDE working for our Irish partners are classed as FIDEs

IDW01 and IDE incursions
Early intelligence reports that the legal authorities in IDW01 hold that interference with our affairs on Earth to be a serious criminal offence. This was brought to light with the arrest by a IDW01 law enforcement unit of a UK citizen, one Mr Graeme Andrews in 2001 for assisting what is called a Major Spirit of Virtue with a public relations assignment and his removal from Earth to IDW01. He was subsequently returned although the circumstance of his return caused the presence of IDW01 to be revealed to another civilian by the name, at that time of Miss Angela Roberts.

High level diplomatic contacts between the Irish government and governing forces on IDW01 are leading to a treaty of co-operation to avoid issues of interference from either world. (There was recent interference by a Colombian drug cartel with a major entity race known as trolls). Status of these talks is ongoing

Civilian contact with IDW01
As stated before a Mr Graeme Andrews, a civilian has had contact with IDE’s and has been allied with them on occasions. He has also visited IDW01 both on his own and accompanied by Angela Roberts These two civilians were reported to have got married on IDW01 in some kind of misunderstanding over a local ritual on, however on their subsequent return to Earth these two civilians decided to legalise their marriage under UK law.

During their time on ID01 the Andrews encountered another civilian, a citizen of New Zealand, Sarah Smith, at the time a child of five who had been abducted there by a HIDE, after her sole remaining parent and the rest of the passengers and crew of a chartered aircraft upon which she was travelling, were been killed by the HIDE.

The current status of these three civilians is that they are resident in the Republic of Ireland, near Shannon, on a farm owned by a Mr and Mrs O’Docherty who have parental responsibility of two former half FIDEs / half humans who are now classed as fully human.

These two former half FIDEs are now considered no threat to our society as reports from our Irish partners are that they both willingly gave up their powers and abilities to become fully human. Our Irish partners also inform us that one of the former half FIDEs was removed from IDW01 by other IDEs when she was an infant, and left at a police station in Dublin. This half FIDE showed no interest prior to her becoming human of exercising her powers so at that time was considered a low threat. The other Half FIDE spent more time in IDW01 until the outbreak of their civil war and ended up on Earth in the care of Mr Graeme Andrews. Under the previous administration the half FIDE was apprehended and brought to the Facility for IDE control, but due to pressure from the Irish government and our US partners was released, and repatriated to where she lives now on the O’Docherty farm

Returning to the subject of the civilian, Sarah Smith, although not a UK national she was granted a visa and indefinite leave to remain, partly out of compassionate grounds, but mostly on the grounds that she would be considered a security risk if removed from our jurisdiction. As the Andrews, who had the child in their care, already knew of the existence of IDW01 and had expressed a desire to give her a home with them, the termination of this child was not considered to be necessary. The human child was subsequently allowed to be adopted by Mr and Mrs Andrews, which has helped keep containment of knowledge of IDW01. Both the Andrews and the O’Dochertys have expressed a desire to not be involved any further with IDW01 and their security threat level as been downgraded accordingly.

The other known civilians involved with IDW01 were from an illegal drug cartel in Colombia. All of these civilians have now been liquidated.

Further civillians coming into contact with IDE’s must be picked up and interrogated and where necessary – Terminated

End Transmission

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Episode I – Assault


The door slammed shut to Jenny Green’s one bedroom council flat. On auto pilot she put the door chain on and slowly turned around and closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

She looked a complete wreck

Her right eye was swollen and her left eye was not much better, in a day or so she would have very severe black eyes, but at the moment she just had difficulty seeing.

Dried blood had run down the side of her head from a head wound, and she had had a severe nose bleed, but thankfully that had been cleaned up at the hospital.

She had a fat lip

She had needed four stitches to a severe gash over her right eye

Her arms felt bruised, in fact she hurt all over, but she was on auto pilot now and was almost numb, it was almost she was outside her own body.

Slowly she removed her scuffed knee length sheepskin coat; underneath she was only wearing a tight “trainee barista” T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts, as her button up shirt, she normally wore as part of her uniform as a coffee shop manager had been ripped off of her as well as her bra. Her skirt and panties were gone as well. Those shredded clothes were in the hands of the police.

She turned to the coat pegs and hung her coat up on a wooden coat hanger at the clothes pegs in the hall. A cold draft through the letter box blew on her, and she shivered.

Her knees were badly scraped and her right leg hurt a lot and she was limping

It was just around mid afternoon

Jenny the previous evening had spent a couple of hours at the casualty unit of the local hospital and then an amount of time, she did not recall how much, with a police scientific officer swabbing every part of her anatomy for any evidence he could find and photographing her injuries, and then worst of all in the aftermath, a disinterested and impatient male CID officer who was just taking her statement out of routine and eager to get home as he was due to go on holiday.

Jenny had so wanted a hospital gown to take to the police station, but had been refused, she was not told why.

She had wanted to be interviewed by a woman police officer, but none seemed to be available

Cutbacks?

Her protests at the hospital prior to coming to the police station, that she was naked fell on deaf ears, she was just asked if she knew any friends who could lend her some clothes, but it was too late at night by then and she did not have any credit on her mobile phone. Fortunately, someone had brought her coat along, so this and a thermal blanket, given to her by a police officer who had attended her at the scene of her attack, that was all she had to wear.

Even the police scientific officer had been male, and he was embarrassed about processing her and had asked for a female officer to do it, but again Jenny seemed to be out of luck and there was none available. He even asked for another female to be present, but he too was told none were available and was told he had to get on with it by the CID officer. The male PSO apologised and Jenny had to admit, he was professional in the way he did his job and did his best to make the best of a bad situation. He also told her that in the morning he would be putting in an official complaint that there should have been a female PSO on duty as well and about the attitude of the CID officer, but did not hold out much hope that anything would be resolved. When he had finished, she had discovered that someone else had reclaimed the thermal blanket. All she had now was her coat

Her degradation was continuing, even after her attack

The police had then wanted to take her coat away as evidence too, even though that would mean she would be totally naked. They only relented when Jenny told them that along with her handbag, she had dropped it on the floor when the assailant attacked her just as she was locking up the coffee shop where she was manager and that there was no evidence they could get from it. Even so it was a close run thing. It was even suggested that she spend the night locked in the police cells with a blanket wrapped around her, until someone came with clothes to collect her.

So she is attacked in the middle of the street, battered and stripped of her clothes and she is to be treated as the criminal?

So Jenny was now back home, shivering in the hallway of her flat, leaning against the wall; eyes closed thinking about how things had gone down hours earlier when the man attacked her

The man who attacked her came out of nowhere and was strong and brutal. He must have been, as he had hit her around the head and knocked her flying to the ground, ripped open her shirt, grabbed her bra cups and pulled the bra apart at the front! as if it were wet tissue paper.

He had hit her around the head again, probably her fault, because she was screaming for help, and it had hurt really badly, as if he had been using a mallet and not his fists.

His grip on her arms was like a vice, even for a man of his size, and that was what had caused the severe bruising.

He had even ripped off her skirt, and panties in one go, causing injuries to her lower abdomen.

He was ever so strong, for a man of his size

She was certain she was about to be raped and murdered outside her coffee shop, in a public street, when out of nowhere another man came and hit the attacker with a solid oak curtain rail. Her rescuer had used so much force that the curtain rail had broken in two over her attacker, but he had not flinched, as if the curtain rail was merely balsa wood. The attacker just looked up, blinked and then fled very rapidly into the twilight.

She must have been hallucinating because of the pain; but as she lay in agony on the ground, the attacker suddenly looked like some grey skinned and tall skinny creature



And then it seemed there was some other man running away.

Another man had also come up running behind the person who had beaten off her attacker; he was fat and over weight and looked familiar. He was wheezing and offered his mobile to the other guy, to ring the emergency number. The guy who beat off her attacker wanted to put his coat around Jenny, but some old woman who had come to the scene, blocked him say, “Don’t you ever watch those CSI programmes, you might contaminate evidence”

Jenny had been cold hurt, violated and exposed, and all this old lady cared about was some TV programme.

It had taken eight minutes to respond and Jenny was going into shock, with the woman even stopping Jenny reaching for her own coat, still insisting she wait until she was processed, just like they did on CSI. All Jenny had near her were the shredded remains of her clothes, but she was too afraid now of the old lady who just went on about not contaminating a crime scene.

When the police arrived, the old woman proudly exclaimed how she had been helping preserve the crime scene just like in her favourite CSI programme, but was speechless when she was rebuked by the senior police officer attending for making matters worse for Jenny. The police officer told the old woman that care of victims always came before gathering evidence and that she should not believe everything she saw on CSI.

As Jenny was making an effort to stand up, the police officer stopped her and another officer wrapped her in a thermal blanket and they made her stay there, sitting against the wall of the coffee shop, until the ambulance arrived. ”If only those kind police officers had been allowed to go with her to the hospital” Jenny had thought

Jenny thought she would be kept in overnight because of her head injury and possible concussion, but the CID officer who had come down to the casualty department was in a hurry had insisted that she be processed as soon as possible. The CID officer even threatened the junior doctor that if she did not discharge her there and then she would face charges of obstruction of justice. The junior doctor had not been in casualty before and because the X-ray did not show any fractures on first inspection, she caved in to the CID officers demand and Jenny was discharged to be taken to the police station.

After being made to remove the hospital gown, she was given her coat and the thermal blanket, and the CID man drove her back to the station, all the while complaining that a case like this, just before he went away was the last thing he wanted thank you very much.

Jenny tried to apologise, but she felt very weak and woozy from the attack

She was now going through the motions, even when she asked for a female officer, she felt out of it and meekly accepted the comment that none was available and she was stuck with the CID officer.

As she was going through processing by the police scientific officer’s processing, she had to be reminded that he did not mind her using her arms and hands to try and cover her private parts.

While she was trying to plead for her coat not to be removed, she felt weak and still woozy. At least she had been given a blanket from the cells to wrap around herself, when the custody sergeant realised all the remains of her other clothes had been collected as evidence

Then she had to sit in a cold interview room and made to feel like dirt as the CID officer belittled her as she found it hard to stay focused whilst giving her statement. He kept asking her had he known the attacker, did she know why he attacked her and what she was not telling the CID officer.

She just kept repeating “Sorry sir, I don’t know”. She may have been crying as well, as the CID officer made her feel small but she had trouble remembering.

She had been assaulted, sexually assaulted as well, and she was made to feel like it was all her fault

Thank G-d for the police surgeon; the PSO had called him because he was not happy at how Jenny had been dragged from the hospital and how she was when he had to process her. The police surgeon had come as soon as he could, and had had to get a more senior officer on duty to interrupt the interview with the CID officer, who was not best pleased. One cursory examination by the police surgeon and Jenny was re-admitted to hospital in spite of protests by the CID officer. The surgeon may have told her that he would be putting in a complaint about the CID officer, but she could not be sure.

It was a relief to have a hospital gown, even if her back was completely exposed, and a hospital issue cardigan and then they managed to find her a bed, although it was in another hospital, as the first one did not have any beds spare at that time.

In the morning, she was reassessed by a doctor, who was angry with the CID officer for throwing his weight around and at the other junior doctor for not putting the needs of the patient first and standing up to the CID officer.

The hospital chaplain came round, and Jenny apologised for not attending church as much as she would like, because of her job at the coffee shop meant she sometimes had to work on Sunday’s. Like many people in the UK, Jenny was a nominal Anglican. She mentioned her lack of clothes to the chaplain and that she had no way of contacting her friends for any fresh clothes. The chaplain told her he would see what he could do but could not promise anything. That was the last Jenny saw of him

At mid morning another police officer, a female one this time came to see her, in case there was anything else she could remember, which was not much. Jenny just kept apologising for not being as helpful as the CID officer had expected of her the night before and ended up breaking down and crying. The female police put her arm around her insisted that she had nothing to apologise for, the CID officer would find that when he got back from holiday that he was on report for exceeding his authority at the other hospital, and that her colleagues would find who ever attacked her.

Once again Jenny mentioned that the only clothing she had to wear was her coat, the female police officer told her that see would see if she could get a message through to another branch of the coffee shop chain Jenny worked at, because the shop where she worked was cordoned off by the police, maybe they would have a replacement uniform of some kind she could wear to go home in.

That afternoon, Stephanie, an assistant manager from another branch came at the beginning of visiting time with a spare trainee barista t-shirt, and a pair of boxer shorts. (There were no spare skirts or trousers so Stephanie had got them from a Primark store).

The T-shirt was one size too small tight, and when Jenny, in much pain put it on, it was obvious she was braless, but it was better than nothing. The boxers felt good even though they were really menswear, it was just wonderful to have something to wear down there.

Stephanie and Jenny were good friends, and had even served as assistant managers together in another branch, before their current assignments, and Stephanie spent ages, just gently hugging her friend Jenny.

Stephanie then stayed with Jenny while a doctor assessed her in the afternoon and told her she could go home. Stephanie then drove her back to her council flat. Stephanie had even offered to come in with Jenny, but Jenny just wanted some time to herself.

And so now she was back, standing in the hall.

Slowly Jenny moved through her flat, still in pain, in spite of the pain killers they had given her at the hospital, still on semi auto pilot. She went into her living room and noticed that her answer phone light was blinking so she hit the play back button

BEEP “First message” intoned the telephone, then played a call from a friend of Jenny’s at a night club “Jenny we’re having a great time, where are you?”

BEEP “Second Message” Again from the night club “Jenny we have found this great guy for you, you really need to start going out again”

Jenny put her face in her hands, sobbed briefly, breathed in deeply and continued to look at the telephone with tears in her eyes as it continued to play back her messages.

“BEEP “Third Message” this time from the father of her former boyfriend and fiance “Jenny, we have just got the date of the funeral, it is this Saturday, ten o’clock at St Stevens, as you were engaged to our son, we thought it was only right to let you know, if you felt up to coming. We would love to have you here”

Jenny picked up a picture of Darren, they were supposed to be discussing wedding plans next month when he came home on leave after a six month tour of duty with the army, but he had fallen prey to a road side bomb whilst serving in Afghanistan two weeks previously.

Jenny just felt blank

BEEP “Fourth Message” From one of the coffee shops at the chain where she worked “Jenny, Trevor here, are you ok, we just heard. Our branch is closed at the moment while the police process the area. I have just called head office and they don’t expect you to return to work this week and have granted you paid sick leave. They have agreed to turn over the CCTV footage and are offering a reward for a successful prosecution, maybe we can nail this B******d for you. Let us know if you need anything”

Trevor was a nice guy, he was gay as well which kind of made him special and he had been a rock and a great comfort when she had been told about Darren’s death.

BEEP “No More Messages”

Without thinking, or to be more accurate, whilst on auto-pilot, Jenny pressed the button on the telephone to erase the messages. After which the light on the phone stopped blinking and resumed a steady red glow.

All Jenny wanted to do now, was shower and get the smell of the hospital off of her. She slowly removed the T-shirt, although she was relieved not to have to go home naked, it was tight and it hurt. Even though it hurt to remove it, it was a blessed relief to take it off. She would wash it and return it to the store. She needed to contact head office for a new manger’s shirt, although she did have a spare. Harsh as it sounded, life had to go on.

Jenny moved into the bedroom and slowly removed the boxers, then made her way to the bath room and turned the shower on.

The quiet of the flat was unsettling, so she put on the radio to a music station as she got into the shower. The water stung at first, but she was determined to wash the hospital, the police station and that man off of her.

While she was showering, she noticed the cut over eye was starting to bleed a bit, possibly when she had put her head in her hands when she listened to the second telephone message, and she just stood there in the shower, watching it catch in the bottom and wash away. There was not much further bleeding and Jenny resumed showering,

Then on the radio came the song “How to save a life” by the Fray

Youtube video

Jenny listened to the song as it got under way, then it got to the lines,

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

At this, the events of the last twenty four hours hit home and she started shaking again, and her legs became like jelly as she sank down in the shower, sobbing uncontrollably.

Darren was not just her fiancé, the one she had wanted to spend her life together with, Darren was her Friend as well and she had lost him to a road side bomb in Afghanistan

If only Darren had been alive, he would have been at the shop when she was closing up and she would not have been attacked. Why did he have to die, Why did he have to leave her

Jenny so much wanted to feel his embrace, she always felt safe with him, now he was gone, and she was alone, scared, hurting and cold. (By the time the water from the shower head reached the bottom of the shower cubicle it had lost its heat, or so it felt )

BANG BANG BANG

Someone was banging on the front door
Quickly Jenny recovered from her sobbing fit, stood up, shut off the radio and the shower and grabbed a bath towel to wrap around her; all the while the banging on her door became more persistent.

Who was it?

The police, a concerned friend, the man who attacked her coming back to finish the job

Slowly, just wearing the bath towel she crept to the front door and called out “Who is it?”

No answer

“Hello, who is it?”

Suddenly the door was smashed in. Jenny jumped back just in time, it looked to be several men dressed in black, with balaclavas and riot helmets.


Jenny screamed and turned to run, but she suddenly felt two sharp objects hit her in the back through the bath towel, and then suddenly she could not stand as she felt some kind of electric shock run through her body.

Jenny Green had just been tasered.

While she lay on the ground, one of the men in black came over and held her down, while she felt the sting of a hypodermic needle being inserted into her arm. The last thing she felt before the darkness hit her, was someone removing her towel.

+ + + +

Jenny started to come round; she could feel she was on some kind of bed, under restraints. It also sounded like she was in some kind of helicopter. She also felt that there was some needle in her left hand; for some reason she could not open her eyes. She felt cold, it seemed like, she was being transported naked, obviously by the friends of the person who attacked her the previous day.

Jenny heard a voice, “These creatures can sure mimic fine detail, are you sure she is not human” Then she felt a hand on her right breast, and then felt as whoever was abusing her again move up and start squeezing the nipple.

Jenny wanted to scream, but was paralysed by fear – who ever attacked her had obviously tracked her down

Suddenly the hand was snatched away.

There was another voice, “Don’t do that, if she is human you could get into serious trouble and if it is an eye dee ee, it could get your DNA to mimic you. Remember we are not authorised for eye dee ee examination, leave that to the experts at the Facility”

The Facility? – Jenny remembered that place name sounded vaguely familiar, her former boss’s husband had mentioned it but she could not remember what it was, she was still feeling groggy

Jenny tried to speak, “Please, I’m sorry I spoke to the police, I won’t press charges if he was one of your lot, please don’t hurt me”

Suddenly she heard the first voice panic, she tried to open her eyes again, but she suddenly realised she was blindfolded, and she was even more terrified and just started screaming for help although it was quite weak, and came out as a murmer

“It’s woken up” she heard the first voice over
“Another 10 milligrams of propofol” came the second voice
Another voice, “I’m putting a blanket over it, it looks like it is cold or going into shock, we need to “

Darkness – she was out for the count.

+ + + +

Jenny was coming round again.

She was cold

She was shivering

She was afraid

She was still blindfolded, and it hurt, especially as she was severely bruised around the eyes by the first attack

She was naked and her arms were numb as her hands were tied behind her back with a cable tie. Her feet were restrained by cable ties as well, and it felt like the cable ties around her hands were tied by a cord to the cable ties around her feet. Jenny was lying on what felt like a tiled floor.

“Darren” she wailed “Darren, I miss you, why did you leave me” she whispered, then, started to sob uncontrollably.

Just then, Jenny heard a door open, and somebody came into the room.
“Please don’t hurt me” Jenny pleaded, “I won’t testify against him, please I promise” If the people who had taken her were her attacker’s friends, or even the attacker himself, it was the only thing she could think of. Even then she did not think that would be enough. They had left her in a prone position and vulnerable, they could do anything they liked. Maybe they had while she was unconscious the thought sickened her, she had been saving herself for Darren.

“So came” the voice of the man who had come into the room. It sounded like an American accent “How come you are still alive?”

“Still alive?” she thought, it sounded like he expected her to be dead, it was obvious now, their friend had assaulted her and now they were planning to kill her, using a government agency, to protect their friend.

To be continued

[Sticks]

Episode II – Home Truths

Many people have different nightmares, like being trapped in a pit of snakes. For the hero in 1984, his nightmare was rats. These nightmares are fuelled by phobias some irrational like the fear of alien abduction, some by conventional phobias like claustrophobia leading to the nightmare of being buried alive. For the most part these nightmares remain just in the back of the mind and mercifully never come to pass.

For Jenny Green, a manager of a coffee shop in a North Eastern city in England, however, the last twenty four hours has been a living nightmare, a violent sexual assault, an uncaring CID officer, and now a home invasion and captured and trussed up naked and blindfolded, possibly by friends of the person who has assaulted her

“Please, I won’t testify against your friend, honest” Jenny wailed and broke down in tears as she law trussed up on the floor. The cable ties were biting into her wrists and ankles, and she was in incredible pain, as well as being cold.

She had just heard the American express surprise that she was still alive; maybe he had been given the honour of silencing her for good. Maybe if she were lucky they would just ….

Her thoughts were scattered when she heard a switch go on, and what must be several fluorescent tubes come on. She had been left tied up naked in a darkened room, and only because of the painful blindfold she had not been able to tell.

“WHAT THE HECK?” She heard him exclaim, then she heard him turn away from facing her and speaking to someone else. “Do I look like Mr Blue, have you morons learned nothing from last year’s fiasco”

Another voice came over some intercom system, it was a London accent, “Colonel, this is standard operating procedure until we establish if the target is human or an eye dee ee”

So the American was a colonel, Jenny thought, but what in, the army or the marines, her fiancé Darren, killed in a roadside bomb in Afghanistan had taught her a lot about life in the armed forces. Jenny could tell, well it was obvious really that the colonel was angry about, something, was it something she had done wrong?

“Sorry, I’m sorry I did not mean to speak to the police, someone else called them, it wasn’t me” she whimpered.

The American colonel seemed to be ignoring her pleas and was talking back to the intercom voice “Your procedure not mine, what makes you think she is not human”

“Like you said sir, the target survived an attack by an aitch eye dee ee forty seven, no human ever has, so protocol insists the target is treated as an enemy aitch eye dee ee forty seven until they are proved to be human”

Jenny heard the colonel mutter some swear words under his breath, then he harangued the intercom voice again “You do this, and you Brits still can not understand why you are not allowed to run the show at your end”

Silence and then more swearing, then the colonel in a measured tone spoke to the intercom voice again, “Tell me, was she sedated in helo?”

The intercom voice replied “Yes the target was sedated in the Facility’s retrieval helicopter in accordance with official procedures, although the target did start to come round and had to be re-sedated”

“Tell me Mr Carvel, have you ever known an aitch eye dee ee forty seven to not resume it’s natural form while sedated, based on last year’s fiascos”

“Ah – not that I recall”

“So do ya think that you may, may have just picked up a human female?”

“It’s protocol”

“DON’T GIVE ME THAT PROTOCOL CRAP” the American colonel was really getting annoyed.

Jenny had shut up, he was not listening to her anyway, and was more interested in having an argument with the voice on the intercom while she was lying on the floor, shivering and in pain. But why were they doubting she was human, that just did not make sense, of course she was human. Jenny just sobbed quietly and wished they would hurry up and kill her if that was what they were going to do.

“Colonel, we still need to make sure the target is human, and we are still awaiting the test results from tissue samples to come back from the lab”

Jenny heard the colonel swear under his breath and then she could hear him approach her, she tried as best as she could to move away from him, but he was too fast. But instead of the kicking she thought she would get, or even further molestation like the man had briefly done to her in the helicopter, he just pulled off her blindfold, which still hurt because of the bruising around her battered face.

It took a while for her eyes to adjust, until then everything was fuzzy. She was in some kind of well lit interview room with a table and two chairs in it. The figure, presumably the colonel walked back to what seemed like a mirror.

The colonel was pressing some kind of button on what looked like a microphone that was on the metal table.

“Ok you morons, you may get your jollies from looking at naked women trussed up like this, but I don’t and as an interrogator I find it distracting”

“Alleged naked women” corrected the intercom voice, “we are still awaiting the lab results”

“Don’t give me that alleged crap; I want you to get her, it some clothes for a female, including underwear and footwear”

Jenny saw the colonel look at her naked body, “Please, I’m sorry” was all she could say

“It looks like her bra size is a 31 double Dee shoe size ten” The Colonel said into the microphone, then the colonel turned to Jenney and asked, “That’s your right size isn’t it”

“That’s wrong,” Jenny thought she was not big, for a 23 year old woman in fact she was quite small. Jenny was frightened to contradict colonel but if he was ordering clothes for her then at least she would like them to fit “No sir, I’m only a 30 C and shoe size eight” she nervously told the colonel in weak and tearful voice.

The colonel dropped his voice, “Yes of course you are” then he turned back to the microphone, “Correction, make that bra size a 30C and shoe size eight for this confirmed human female”

“Confirmed human?” quizzed the intercom voice, “We still have”

The colonel interrupted, “Confirmed because you morons, an aitch eye dee ee forty seven is a shape shifter who can make it’s body fit what ever clothing it is given, except it does not wear clothing it mimics it. This woman contradicted me when I deliberately overstated her bra and shoe size, that is proof positive to me she is human, now get you butts out of that booth there and get me those clothes and get me a Doctor Alison ASAP”

Jenny was confused, this American colonel, sent to interrogate her seemed to be sticking up for her. Suddenly as her eyes re adjusted to the light, she saw him more clearly, he was wearing a light military jacket, had silver hair and looked like he was in his early fifties, and suddenly he was coming across to her with a knife.

“Please no, I won’t testify against you friend” she pleaded, sobbing her eyes out in terror.

Jenny tried again to move, but it made the cable ties bite even more, she let out a scream of “Please no, I’m sorry”, as the colonel squatted over her and with the knife

But instead of stabbing her or slicing her open, he cut her hands free from the cable tie around her wrists and then as she lay stunned and shocked and sobbing, he cut her feet free from the cable tie holding them as well.

Jenny slowly sat up, as she did so the colonel spoke to her in a softer manner than he had been speaking to the voice on the intercom, “Don’t try to stand just yet, otherwise you may suffer a grey out” then he removed his jacket and held it for her to put on, first her left arm and then her right arm. She tried to button it up but her fingers were exploding with the sensation of pins and needles and her hands were shaking for some reason, so the colonel gently took over, the jacket was warm and a blessed relief, it even covered to half way down her thighs. It was now that Jenny realised she was shivering violently due to being cold and shock

“Flex your calf muscles” the colonel instructed her, “it will help your circulation.”

Jenny did not feel in a position to argue and meekly complied. The colonel looked at her lower legs as she flexed and whispered, “That’s a good girl”

“I’m sorry, I did not mean to talk to the police”, Jenny repeated, “I did not mean to get your friend into trouble”
“Believe me” the colonel started, “Jenny, can I call you Jenny?”
Jenny nodded and put her face in her hands, as she was now sobbing uncontrollably
“Jenny, what ever attacked you in the street was certainly no friend of ours”

”Whatever” Did he not mean “Whoever” Jenny thought, but he definitely said “whatever”

Then Jenny remembered the man in the helicopter who had touched her then bare breast, that had been just as bad a violation as the initial attack, but with everything being so confusing she could not help but raise it with this American who was finally showing her some humanity “What about the man, the man in the helicopter the man who touched me” asked through her tears, “he groped me here” she added pointing to where the man had indecently touched her.

The colonel seemed shocked, “I sorry Jenny, I did not know about that, we will have to get to the bottom of that one too. I promise you, that man will be removed from duty here if I have anything to do with it.”

Jenny just nodded and sobbed a thank you

After about three or four long minutes, a lady entered the room, also in similar combat fatigues, with a medical case and she and the colonel gently helped Jenny to her feet, and helped her to a chair. The lady medic shone a small penlight in Jenny’s eyes and Jenny winced at the light.

“Doctor Alison, I do not believe she is in a fit state to be interrogated right now, thanks to the so called retrieval team”
“Yes sir, Colonel Peters I concur”, the female medic replied, she was American too. “I need to get her to the infirmary.
At this Jenny tried to stand, but found she felt dizzy and was just too weak and collapsed on the chair, still crying, she was hungry now and did not know how long it was since she had last eaten. She had not been allowed to eat at the hospital before she had been cleared to by the doctor, and by that time the early lunch time was over.

Jenny tried again, but things were catching up and she started apologising

She went to try and get up again, but the colonel held her down, “Don’t worry Jenny” the colonel told her, “I will help you get there with Doctor Alison”

Together the two Americans helped Jenny to her feet and helped carry her out of the room into a long corridor. Then they went to the end where there was a lift. Once in the lift the colonel took out a key and the lift started to descend several levels. Jenny lost count, as now she was slipping in and out of consciousness. She could just make out that the female doctor was saying something into a walkie-talkie, but she could not make out what

The lift doors opened and Jenny was vaguely aware of being sat in a wheel chair, and a blanket being placed on her lap and being wheeled down another corridor and into some kind of medical room. Then she was helped some other medical persons, she could not make out who, onto a hospital style bed. A female nurse pulled a screen around the bed and started presented Jenny with a standard issue hospital gown.
“You need to be changed out of that jacket into this” the nurse told her, “I can help you if wish”
Jenny did not think there was any point in protesting, she was out numbered and so she tried to undo the buttons, but for some reason they seemed more difficult than usual, and the nurse had to assist. The nurse also had to hold Jenny’s arm up while the nurse slipped off the jacket.

The nurse helped Jenny put her arms through the sleeves of the hospital gown, and then the nurse tied her up at the back. She helped Jenny lift and swing her feet onto the bed and Jenny lay there while they tucked the blankets in around her. All the time tears were streaming from Jenny’s eyes as she kept repeating, “What did I do wrong?”

“Jenny” the American doctor told her, although by now it seemed as she was hearing her as if she was at the bottom of a well, “we are going to have to put you on an intravenous glucose and saline drip in your left hand”

Jenny felt the sting of the needle go into her left hand, but now she was feeling too weak to do anything, all she wanted to do was sleep, praying she would wake up from this nightmare, but she did not dare, in case that got her into more trouble. In the distance she could hear the Colonel asking the doctor to keep her in overnight and let him know when she was ready and that he would be having words with the retrieval team. Then she heard him leave

“Please, what did I do wrong” Jenny asked, then for good measure “What ever it is I’m sorry”

The female doctor came over and pulled up a chair by her bed and sat down, “You don’t need to upset yourself, I don’t think you have done any thing wrong, now get some rest and don’t worry, no one will touch you”

“But I need to call work, let them know where I am, I don’t want to loose my job” Jenny protested, forgetting for the moment that her employer had granted her sick leave.

The doctor could see that Jenny was still in a distressed state, and so through the drip, she administered a sedative so Jenny could get some much needed sleep.

+ + + +

Jenny slowly woke up, she noticed a few extra blankets had been placed on her bed, and the drip had been removed from her left hand. Jenny started to sit up.

“You awake Miss Green?” came an unfamiliar female voice.

Jenny looked around, it was a nurse, and she looked like she was of Afro Caribbean origin and in her late forties, “Yes mam” Jenny replied

“And how are we feeling this morning Miss Green” asked the nurse

“Not as weak as I was” Jenny replied, as she felt some of her strength had returned to her compared with when she was first released from the cable ties

“That would have been the Glucose IV Miss Green, you were severely suffering hypoglycaemia and you were dehydrated”

Jenny had only heard as far as the word hypoglycaemia, “But I’m not diabetic” Jenny queried
“You had not eaten or drunk anything for over a day and those stupid men did not give you a blanket until halfway during the helicopter flight here Miss Green, no wonder you were collapsing. The colonel went on the war path, especially after the way they left you trussed up in the interview room the way they did”
“Oh” was all that Jenny could say, then suddenly she realised she needed to answer the call of nature, “Where’s the bathroom?”

The nurse pointed to a door, “It is through there Miss Green, along with the shower, now you get washed and I will leave the clothes they sent over on the bed for you”

With the nurse’s help, Jenny slowly got off of the bed and went into the bathroom. After using the toilet, Jenny took of the hospital gown and stepped into the shower. The water was cold at first and Jenny jumped out instinctively, then it heated up and Jenny got back into the shower. The water still stung where it hit the cut above her eye that had been stitched at the hospital. She found the soap bar, it look like the kind you used to get on railway trains. She was more used to shower gel but this would have to do. There was a small sachet of shampoo which she used as well. Slowly she showered, slowly, because she was still in pain from the injuries caused by the man who had initially attacked her. She could see all the bruising now coming up and it looked awful. There was also bruising around her wrists and ankles from the cable ties she had been bound in. Jenny just wanted to cry, and kept wondering what she had done to deserve all this pain and hurt.

Eventually Jenny finished in the shower and grabbed a towel and started drying herself. It was not big enough to wrap around her, so she hung it back up after she had done her best to dry herself, and put the hospital gown back on, with out tying it at the back and left the bathroom. At the bed she had slept in, a pile of clothes had been left for her to change into.

The first item she put on was the panties, they were a perfect fit and that felt good . Next she removed the hospital gown and tried to put on the bra, it was a perfect fit, but when she tried to do it up, the pain in her arms was unbearable, and she yelped in pain. This drew the attention of the nurse, who came to investigate. Jenny started to remove it thinking she would just have to do without, but the nurse would not hear of it and helped Jenny by doing it up for her. That felt good as well . The nurse left her to continue dressing and so next was a grey sweatshirt and it felt really warm against her skin. There was a pair of trousers, of the same material, which Jenny put on. Jenny would have preferred a skirt, but she remembered the old adage, “beggars can’t be choosers”, but they felt good as well

Being dressed like this really made Jenny feel slightly better in herself, as she had not considered herself dressed properly since before she was attacked two nights previously. The last item to put on, was not so pleasant, not because of the material, but because of the colour and all that it signified, it was an orange jump suit, similar to the ones she had seen prisoners wear on television. It had been provided, so meekly Jenny put it on, and as she did the buttons up, she started to quietly sob. She looked for shoes and socks, but there were none.

“Are you decent love” the nurse asked.
“Yes Mam” Jenny replied, “but I can not find any shoes or socks”
“Sorry love, that is all they left”

The nurse then pulled back the screen revealing a small table and chair, with a bowel of something on the table with a carafe of water and an empty glass and a spoon. Jenny went across to it and slowly sat down and looked at it. It was porridge.

“I had it cooked this morning special for you love, and I added a big spoon of honey as well” the nurse told her.

Jenny could not remember when she last ate, and even though she did not normally eat porridge, she tucked in. It was just good to eat something, and Jenny found herself crying as she ate. When she finished, the nurse clear the bowel away and called someone on the intercom to collect her.

After five minutes, a man in his mid thirties, in a grey suit arrived with what looked like two MPs or military policeman; he was carrying a set of manacles, which composed of handcuffs linked by a long chain to leg irons.
“I am required to put these on you before escorting you to interrogation” the man said. Jenny recognised it as Mr Carvel the voice on the intercom the previous day

Jenny looked at the manacles in horror, but said nothing and just let herself be shackled, while tears continued to roll down her face, and she could not understand what law she had broken or why she was being treated as a criminal. Then to add to the humiliation, Mr Carvel placed an eye shield on her, similar to the ones given on long haul airlines as a blind fold

As she shuffled along, to the lift the leg irons chaffed on her ankles and hurt her. The handcuffs whilst better than the cable-ties still hurt her wrists. The MP’s on either side of her held her upper arms tightly, hurting them as they were still bruised from the initial attack. Jenny just hung her head down at the floor and wept. She could hear that Mr Carvel was in front.

“What ever I did I’m sorry” was all that Jenny could say,

“The prisoner will be quiet or they will be gagged” Mr Carvel replied, so Jenny shut up

They got into the lift and Mr Carvel put in a key and the lift started ascending, but being blindfolded Jenny could not tell how far.

The lift door opened, and Jenny felt her self shoved by the two MP’s to get her shuffling along some corridor. It was tiled and her bare feet were cold, as there was some kind of draft.

Suddenly the two MP’s pulled her backwards to stop her walking. Their iron grips cause her to yelp in pain.

“In here” She heard Mr Carvel say, and then the MP’s pushed her sideways through a door, then they manhandled her to what seemed like the centre of the room and forced her to sit down on a hard chair. Then she felt them force her arms onto the table and the chain between handcuffs was locked to the table
“Do we remove the blindfold” Jenny heard one of the MP’s ask
“No” Carvel replied, “That will be up to Colonel Peters, some believe it makes them more compliant to answer questions”

The Jenny heard them head back to the doorway, she was petrified, were they going to hit her around the head if they did not like her answers?
“Ah Colonel” Came Mr Carvel’s voice, “the prisoner is prepped and ready for your interrogation”
“Prisoner?” Jenny heard the colonel ask Mr Carvel
“Yes, the woman the retrieval unit collected yesterday” Carvel replied
“So your lab results finally came back” The colonel asked with a hint of sarcasm in his voice
“Yes sir, first thing this morning”
“And”
“They confirmed your assessment colonel”
“I told you she was” the colonel started, then suddenly stopped. Jenny heard someone being slapped
“GET THOSE DAMN THINGS OFF OF HER NOW” shouted the colonel
“Sorry sir, I do not have a key, it’s the security protocol”
“THEN GET IT NOW”
“But?”
“THAT WAS NOT A SUGGESTION”

Jenny heard the door close and some one walk up to her, suddenly the blindfold was removed. It was the colonel; he threw the blindfold into a waste bin in disgust and sat down on a chair on the opposite side of the table. Behind him was what appeared to be a large mirror.

“Jenny, first of all, my name is Colonel Samuel Peters on loan from the US Marines Special operations unit” the colonel opened with
Jenny flinched away from the colonel as much as she could, in the restraints she was in, “I’ll tell you what I know, please don’t hit me”
“I don’t use those techniques, I am not going to assault you or hit you” replied the colonel, “That was under the old management” he added.
“Sir” Jenny then asked, still quite tearful, “What am I being charged with?”
The colonel sighed and looked at the manacles on Jenny’s wrists.
“Sir” Jenny begged, “Do I need a lawyer?”
“Why do you think you need a lawyer?” The colonel asked, leaning forward at the table
“I just thought all those who were arrested got a lawyer” Jenny explained.
“Jenny, you were not arrested, you were retrieved” For some reason the colonel was emphasising the word retrieved
“I don’t understand sir, if I am not under arrest, why did that man say I was a prisoner and why am I in these” Jenny held her hands as far above the table as she could, which was three inches”
“Jenny, officially you are in protective custody in case your attacker decides to finish the job” The colonel replied, “unofficially you are being held on grounds of national security”
“But sir, I don’t know anyone who’s a terrorist, I am just a manager of a coffee shop, I’m not a threat to anyone, I would not hurt a ” then Jenny choked to a stop How could this be happening to her
“We know”
“But what have I done Sir, I don’t understand, what ever it was I’m sorry I did not mean to do it”

The colonel just stared at Jenny, as she racked her brain to try and work out how she could possibly fallen foul of some unknown patriot act, she even thought she might be shipped to Camp X-Ray in Guantánamo Bay.

“Sir, if it is about Darren Wright, I loved him, I would never have done anything to have harmed him. I did not even know where in Afghanistan he was when he was killed” Jenny whined, thinking it had to be something to do with her dead fiancé.

“This is nothing to do with the death of Lance Corporal Wright, Jenny. It is to do with how come you survived an attack by a dangerous entity, when all previous attacks were fatal”
“What?”

The colonel stared at her and then looked at his watch, then fished out a small radio and spoke into it, “Where are those damn keys?” Then he opened a folder he had on the table and pulled out a photograph, and showed it to Jenny. “Have you seen a creature like this one” then he added, it was taken of a captured one last year”

Jenny looked at the image of a tall and skinny grey skinned creature in some prison cell

[img=100x250]http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/MM35_gallery/MM35_PG67b.jpg[/img]

Jenny recognised the form, it looked exactly like the creature the man who assaulted her seemed to have turned into when she was lying on the ground. But she thought she had been hallucinating at the time.

The colonel saw that Jenny had recognised the creature “So you did see it”
“But I thought I was hallucinating sir” Jenny replied
“You weren’t, it is what we call an aitch eye dee ee forty seven, they are shape shifters, and in some circles they are called doppelgangers”
“What?, are you saying I was attacked by ET” Jenny asked, still confused at everything that was going on
“Not an ET, it is what we call an inter dimensional entity, an entity from a specific parallel universe, and in the case of these types we sub classify them as Hostile Inter Dimensional Entities. As this is the forty seventh one catalogued it is called an aitch eye dee ee forty seven”

Jenny shook her head in denial; shape shifting inter dimensional beings, parallel universes? This had to be a sick joke right? But still she could remember, her attacker had briefly changed into that grey figure in the photograph

Jenny’s tears were in full flow, “I did not mean to do anything wrong, I was just locking up and the thing attacked me” then she laid he head on the table and sobbed Why was she being punished for being attacked by a man that was really some creature they were now saying was not even from this universe

Then Jenny felt colonel Peters gently take hold of her left hand, “Jenny I don’t think you have done anything wrong, we are just curious as to why you survived when the all the previous attacks by these creatures has been fatal”
Jenny lifted her head slowly “Someone saved me. Someone came and beat him off with a curtain rail”
“Jenny, that creature could have ripped your head off in seconds and dealt with your rescuer in one go. I saw the CCTV in the street, what your rescuer did was nothing to what we know those creatures can withstand”
“Is that why he was so strong”
“Uh huh, but it was pulling it’s punches and we don’t know why”
“I don’t know sir that is what I told the police, I just don’t know why I was attacked, I just thought he wanted to rape me” Jenny sobbed.

KNOCK KNOCK

Colonel Peters got up and opened the door, there was another man, Jenny had not seen him before he had black hair and was dressed in casual clothes with a similar military style jacket, but unlike the colonel this was not done up. This new man was holding a bunch of keys, “Hey Sam” the man said, he was another American, Who was in charge, the British or the Americans , “Look what that grumpy Mr Carvel sent over”
“Mark, Go over and release our guest here, then find out why she has not got any the footwear I ordered” Colonel Peters told the man, then he turned to Jenny, “This is commander Mark Johnston, my right hand man, we served together in Iraq”

Commander Mark walked over to the table and unlocked the lock holding the handcuffs to the table, and then he released Jenny from the handcuffs as she just held them out submissively.
“I’m truly sorry they did this to you Miss Green” Mark told her as he released her feet from the shackles, and then took them away.

“Thank you” Jenny replied

Then Mark continued, “I just thought you would like to know that the man who indecently touched you in the helicopter has been returned to his parent branch of the armed services, SBS I believe, although if the colonel and I had our way he would have been court marshalled”

Jenny just sat there, too upset to speak, it seemed that all that happened was that the man who had violated her in the helicopter had just got a slap on the wrist.

Colonel Peters explained “I found out who it was from the flight surgeon on the helicopter. The pilot and co-pilot did not see anything. The man who at least put a blanket over you after it happened confirmed with the guy who touched you, they all for some reason had been told you might be an aitch eye dee ee forty seven, which is why we could not take any further action against him.”

“Sam, what about the team leader, any sign of him” asked Mark
Colonel Peters shook his head, “no one seems to have heard from him since they went off duty once they delivered Jenny. I can not see how dragging him back here will achieve anything, since we have got rid of the idiot who molested Jenny”

“First name terms now Sam” Queried Commander Mark
“Are you still here, I asked for footwear for this lady and they did not deliver. I want what I asked for”
“On it now Sam” replied Commander Mark, and left the interview room.

Jenny was now alone again with Colonel Peters and she was still crying, she was scared, but at least she was out of the shackles..
“Orange really does not suit you Jenny” The colonel re-opened with,
“Sorry sir” Jenny replied and assuming this was some kind of order, to Colonel Peters surprise, she stood up and in some pain, took off the jump suit, dropped it on the floor and sat down again “Sorry sir” Jenny repeated, I thought I was supposed to wear it as it was provided but it made me feel I was being charged with something because this is what criminals wear in” again Jenny could not finish her sentence as she broke down.

Colonel Peters waited for Jenny to recover, and then told her “It’s these Brits, they screwed up big time last year and we have been trying to get them back on an even keel. You should not have been chained up, you should not have been blind folded, in fact we should have been doing this interview in your native city up north. It looks like the Brits still seem to be working to an out of date manual”

“May I go home please” Jenny pleaded

“All in good time, I still need some answers from you”
“But I do not know why he – it attacked me, I don’t know why I am still alive, I don’t know anything sir”

Colonel Peters sighed and scratched the back of his head, “Ok Jenny, lets back up, did you ever hear the term Mystical Realms mentioned”

Jenny stared at the table then remembered she had heard the term, “Yes sir, once”
“Where?”
“It was some months ago, in the coffee shop where I work, before my former boss, Angela left”
“That would be Angela Andrews?” Asked the colonel
Jenny was surprised that he knew her name and a bit freaked out, “You know her too”
“We have a file on her, now about this mention of Mystical Realms”
“Are you going to pick her up as well”
“We have no plans to at this time, now where did you hear about the Mystical Realms”
“Oh sorry sir, it was Sarah who mentioned it, the poor child who’s father was murdered in New Zealand and the only relative she had was my former boss’s husband. She mentioned it one rainy afternoon in the coffee shop when she was drawing with er Mr Andrews, she said she had been there. He seemed to change the subject very quickly and asked her about her favourite zoo animal”
“That it?”
“Yes sir, I just assumed it was some fantasy land that children make up. Did you know that child was desperate for Angela and Mr Andrews to be her parents, she told me so when Angela and Mr Andrews got married, she kept going on about the law not allowing her to call them mummy and daddy, she…”
“Jenny” Colonel Peters cut in, “The Mystical Realms is not some child’s fantasy land. Remember that parallel alternate dimension I mentioned?”
“Yes sir”
“It is the dimension that the aitch eye dee ee forty seven, comes from. That is what the inhabitants of that place call it”
“What?”
“Jenny, it is where Graeme has been more than once and it was where Graeme and Angela found Sarah”
“I thought Sarah was a normal human girl” Jenny queried
“She is human, a rouge Eye Dee EE gated from that universe onto the plane she was on, slaughtered the other passengers and crew, including her farther, who was her last surviving parent and dragged her back to his world”
“They never told me this, and I thought I was Angela’s closest friend” Jenny replied, feeling slightly betrayed that she had been lied to about Sarah’s true origin.
“Jenny, and if she had told you would you have believed her? If the roles had been reversed, would you have not kept quiet about it and gone with the cover story you had been given”
“I guess you are right sir”
“Don’t be too hard on them Jenny, they thought they were doing the right thing and, indirectly they have been very helpful to us” Then the colonel turned to look at the mirror, “Oh and by the way just to let you jokers back there know, Shamus was very well aware of your scheme to manipulate him in getting the Andrews to move to the O’Docherty farm, in fact he showed me the file he has on your surveillance team. He only went along with it because he knew the O’Docherty’s would be able to help the Andrews through the process to adopt Sarah, and he knew that they would love it down there. It is stupid games like that, and the way you treated Miss Green here, that keep you from running the UK end on your own”

The Colonel turned back to face Jenny. Jenny was astonished at the kind of games these people were playing with people’s lives.
“You mean Graeme, Angela and Sarah fled to Ireland because they were manipulated to go there”
“Yes and no, but I don’t think I heard of them complaining about living there, According to Shamus McTuckle they actually love it down there and have no regrets about moving”
“Shamus, he’s the dwarf guy I met when I went to see the finalisation of Sarah’s adoption”
“Leprechaun actually, he is what we call a Friendly Inter Dimensional entity, he works for the Irish Special diplomatic service”
“You have got to be kidding”
“Nope, Shamus informed us how leprechauns working for G2, the Irish Military intelligence service, were keeping tabs on the Brits and would not allow the Brits to harm them in any way, which was why all the British listening devices never worked. They never informed the Andrews or the O’Dochertys because they had the matter under control”
“But my cousin told me he could have arranged for them to adopt Sarah here in the UK, although I did think when I visited that it was a nicer place for Sarah to grow up in”
“Exactly Jenny, which brings me back to your attack”
“But I don’t understand, what has that to do with the Andrews family” Jenny was now concerned.
“It is possible, that you were not the intended target, that they may have thought you were Angela” explained Colonel Peters
“What? But Angela has been gone for months, she is not even working now, in her last letter she told me she is enjoying the life of a stay at home mother looking after Sarah and Paul her baby son”
“Jenny, it is believed by some here that the creature or who ever hired it was working to out of date intel”
“Hired it?” Jenny was getting even more confused
“Jenny, these creatures are normally mercenaries, assassins working for the highest bidder. They don’t normally engage in actions on their own initiative”
“Why would some one want to hire one to attack me or Angela” Then it hit Jenny what all this could mean and she started to panic, “You’ve got to warn them, Angela and the Children”
“The G2 are aware of the situation and are keeping tabs on them just in case, but if we warn them, they may go on the run and we won’t be able to protect them” Colonel Peters explained then continued, “but getting back to your question, why would some one want to hire one to attack you or Angela, revenge possibly, someone trying to get at Graeme through attacking Angela. Do you recall any suspicious characters hanging around your coffee shop, anyone asking about Angela, Graeme or Sarah?”

Jenny wracked her memory; it had been nine to ten months since Angela had left. “Sir there were the odd regulars who asked after Angela after she left, but when they were told she had resigned they made no further comment, just like when any member of staff leaves, it did not seem out of the ordinary”
“Do you have their names?”
“Only first names sir, but I swear it was just the usual question that is asked when any member of the crew leaves”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I know them sir; they are regulars and they said no more about it and forgot about her”
“Now I won’t ask if anyone asked you if you knew where they had moved to, because the attack would have taken place in Ireland”
Then Jenny had an idea “Sir, could I just have been attacked for the same reason a man would attack, pure sexual gratification” Jenny asked As appalling this idea was it would at least make some kind of sense rather than some strained conspiracy theory the colonel was exploring

“Sorry Jenny, that is not how aitch eye dee ee forty sevens work, they are not sexually stimulated by humans or any other creatures. In terms of reproduction they only mate with their own kind and then split up, leaving one of the pair to bring the child up alone”
“Sounds like some toe rags I know of” Jenny replied, “I recall one guy who claimed to have fathered five children by five different women and that they would keep their mouths shut to the CSA if they knew what was good for them”
“Except with the aitch eye dee ee forty seven, gender is ambiguous as they tend to be hermaphrodites” Colonel Peters explained
“Oh, sorry sir”
“Jenny?”
“Yes sir?”
“You don’t need to keep calling me sir, Samuel or Sam will do. You make me feel old”
“Sorry ss err Samuel”
“Ok Jenny, since Angela left any suspicious characters full stop”
“No Samuel” Then Jenny started wracking her memory again, “Wait there was this one guy”
“Go on”
“He was some fat guy that started coming in, but this was well after Angela had left and he never mentioned her. He once asked me out, but I noticed he had a wedding ring on his finger and I did not want to do that to another woman so I pointed it out and he told me that she was in some nursing home and would not notice. I showed him the engagement ring Darren had given me, and he just said he would not tell if I did not, then dropped the matter. I really felt awkward around him as he gave me the creeps so I always made sure someone else served him”
“You could have banned him from the shop if he intimidated you” Colonel Peters suggested
“He had not technically done anything other than chat me up and creep me out, and as I had found a way to try and avoid him I didn’t think I could justify it. But he was a normal guy, I swear – er Samuel” Jenny found it really strange not calling the colonel sir, as this went against what she was brought up to do and the way she was taught to speak to customers
“Fat guy huh?” Colonel Peters commented, then the colonel looked through the folder on the table, he fished out another photo and handed it to Jenny.

To her shock and horror it was a CCTV image of her, just after the attack. There she was, lying on the ground outside the shop with her clothes ripped off, her rescuer taking off his jacket, there was the old woman coming up to stop him covering her with his jacket, and there was the fat man who had the mobile.

Suddenly Jenny suffered flashbacks to the attack, it was like she was back there, she found she had trouble breathing, she felt sick, she felt faint, she felt dizzy, her heart was racing, she wanted to scream. Jenny was having a full blown panic attack, she dropped the photograph and started gasping for breath as she began to hyperventilate.

Colonel Peters quickly retrieved the photograph then rushed around to Jenny’s chair and gently put his hands on Jenny’s upper arms and whispered into her ear, “Jenny you’re safe now, now take deep slow breaths, cup your hands and breath into them”
Jenny did her best to comply with what she had been asked to do, and yet again she found herself sobbing and shaking.
“Breathe slowly Jenny” repeated Colonel Peters, Jenny continued to try and comply against the urge to breath rapidly.
The intercom came on “Do you need the doctor, colonel” Another British voice
“No, she is just having a panic attack, I’m handling it” Colonel Peters replied

Jenny at last started to recover, “I sorry sir” Jenny wept, “I felt I was back there, when that man or thing attacked me”
“I’m sorry Jenny; I should not have shown you the full image” Colonel Peters apologised, “at least your reaction proves you were telling the truth”
“You mean you thought I was making this all up” Jenny asked with incredulity
“Well I never doubted you because these sons of bitches are devious and we don’t know why it didn’t kill you” Colonel Peters reassured her, “Now I need to show you a close up of one of the figures in the image, can you handle that”
Jenny nodded and wiped her eyes with a tissue Colonel Peters handed to her, they were still painful from the beating she had suffered.

Without leaving Jenny’s side, Colonel Peters reached for the folder and pulled out another photo and handed it to Jenny. It was a grey and fuzzy picture of the man who had leant out his mobile phone to call the police. As Jenny looked at it, it seemed very familiar. “That’s him” Jenny sobbed, “That’s the guy who tried to chat me up”

Colonel Peters took the photograph away and collected the others and placed them back in the folder, for the moment there was nothing further he could get from Jenny, she clearly did not know anything and was just as confused as they were at the Facility. Nothing was adding up here

KNOCK KNOCK

“WHAT?” Colonel Peters shouted

The door opened and it was the commander with a large carrier bag, Colonel Peters waved for him to come in.

Commander Mark walked up to the table and put some black ladies shoes on the table along side a pair of white socks.
“Sam, it seems that the Brits procedures were that prisoners are not allowed shoes so they can not kick and cause injuries to guards”
“So I am a prisoner” Jenny said weakly
“No you are not” Colonel Peters replied impatiently, “These stupid British rules and protocols again”
Commander Mark continued “And they even gave Jenny clothes they normally give to women serving jail sentences”
“What?” Jenny was starting to panic again, “What did I do?”
“Jenny” Colonel Peters told her, “You have done nothing wrong, those assholes have” he added pointing to the mirror”
Commander Mark pulled from the carrier what appeared to be a dark blue double breasted suit jacket in Jenny’s size and laid it on the table, and then he pulled a matching skirt and a white blouse. “Sam, I took the liberty of getting McCaskey to get Jenny here something more appropriate”
Jenny looked at the clothes, what she was wearing was comfortable, but that was tainted by the knowledge that they were prison issue, and the new clothes looked so good.
Commander Mark picked up the suit jacket, and speaking to his friend Colonel Peters he went on, “I remember I once had a girlfriend who wore one of these to a function with nothing on underneath. For a joke some of the lads got the doorman to demand she check the jacket in, and because it was an important function for me she did”
“That must have been embarrassing Mark” Colonel Peters remarked as he took his eyes off of Jenny for once and looked at the suit jacket.
“Well when she had removed it, she went in to the main reception topless, folding her arms to cover herself, and after ten minutes one of the lads produced a black golfing shirt for her to put on. I thought she looked good in it, but for some reason she split up with me after that”
“I wonder why” laughed Colonel Peters

This trip down memory lane was interrupted as they heard Jenny yelp in pain. Jenny had obviously misheard what the commander had said in his recollection, and in her over compliant state which she was in, had quietly removed the grey sweatshirt and in great pain, had just unsnapped the bra fastening at the back and was just in the process of pulling it off to what she thought the commander was telling her to wear. Her head was hanging forward in abject submission
“Whoa there Jenny” The Colonel interjected “he did not mean you to do that”
Jenny Froze, frightened and confused.
The commander also realised what had happened and that Jenny was still quite fragile what with the way the British members of the Facility had treated her, so he dropped the jacket . “Sorry Jenny” He apologised, “let me do that back up for you” and gently he pulled the bra straps back into place and refastened it
“Sorry sirs” Jenny whispered meekly

“You have nothing to apologise for Jenny” Commander Mark whispered into her ear
The commander picked up the blouse and got Jenny to put it on, this time Jenny was able to button it up. For some reason, because it was not prison issue it started to make her feel better in herself again. In her circle of friends the Americans were always billed as the bad guys, mainly due to the war in Iraq, but these were two who seemed like really nice people, even the interrogator.

“Once you change into that suit Jenny you will look absolutely a stunner” Mark told her
“Except for this sir” Jenny replied pointing to her facial injuries left by the creature.

“Mark, I think we should leave so Jenny can get changed” Colonel Peters told the commander, and then he went to the mirror and made a pointing gesture to the side. It must be one of those one way glasses Jenny thought and the Colonel was ordering the observers the to vacate the booth
“Ok Sam, anyway I wanted to let you know about the other matter McCaskey was handling” Commander Mark replied.

The two men left, leaving Jenny alone in the room. She changed into the skirt out of the trousers. She preferred skirts as they were more feminine, unlike her former boss Angela who in her earlier days was a bit of a Tom boy. Jenny reflected that motherhood, first with Sarah the daughter they adopted and then the baby had really suited Angela, and she had taken to being a stay at home mother quite readily. Who would have thought it.

Jenny put on the socks and then the shoes; they were quite comfortable compared to the ones she had lost when she was attacked. The Jacket was the last thing she put on, and she did it up and looked at herself in the mirror.

Commander Mark was right, she looked stunningly pretty and professional, well she would if it were not for the large black eyes, the gash over her eye, the fat lip and the other bruising.

Suddenly, there was some kind of rushing wind from the door. She felt some kind of air pressure pushing her away from it towards the wall at the other side of the room. Lightning sparks arced from the centre of the doorway to the ceiling and the ground, then there was a blue dot forming out of nowhere, which started to increase in side and then take on the appearance of a tunnel



As she felt herself pressed against the wall, Jenny watched in horror as a large humanoid creature, in armour approached through this magical tunnel that had opened up. Suddenly there was a sucking sound as the blue tunnel collapsed, leaving this large creature, about seven feet tall and almost as wide.



It looked mean
It looked scary
It was looking straight at Jenny. Jenny screamed in terror and sank to the floor. What the colonel had said about an alternate universe was true, and one of their creatures had just arrived to finish her off…

To be continued

[Sticks]

Episode III – A little Kindness

There is an old saying on Earth, “It never rains but it pours” Sometimes things can come at people and overwhelm them. The question then is asked, “Why me, what have I done”, the trouble is that question can be meaningless, to use another Earth expression “Stuff Happens” Sometimes people believe that if a lot of things go wrong for you, then you must have been a bad boy or girl, and they believe in Karma. According to the Bible, that does not always follow, just look at the Book of Job, also Jesus knocked this idea on the head as well.

So for Jenny Green, a lot of things have come at her, as things have been pouring in, Attacked and injured in what appeared to be a brutal sexual assault, grabbed naked from her flat as she stepped out of the shower by a shadowy government snatch squad, held at some facility and interrogated, where she found that her attacker was not human but some kind of shape shifter if that were not enough, not even from this universe. Jenny also discovered that a long term friend of hers, Angela the former manager of a coffee shop never confided in her that she had visited this parallel universe along with another friend, who is now her husband.

To cap that off, just as Jenny has been able to change out of prison clothes into something much smarter, she has now seen some kind of wormhole open and another creature come through it, and it looks like it is here to finish what the other creature started



Jenny started to move along the floor to wards the corner of the room, looking at the monster that had come through some kind of portal, all the time she was repeating the words “this can’t be happening” and shaking her head

Any traces of scepticism about talks of alternate dimensions and these shape shifting aitch eye dee ee forty sevens had been blown away, for the evidence was standing in front of her, all seven feet of it.

The creature eyed her as Jenny cowered on the floor, why was it not attacking her, a young woman like her could be dispatched in seconds.

Jenny wanted to scream for help, but the creature would be able to kill her before any help arrived, and even if anyone were here, they would not have a chance. Jenny had reached the corner of the room and then formed the foetal position, waiting for it’s massive claw like hands to smash her to oblivion.

“So this is how it ends” Jenny thought, “Why won’t he just get on with it and kill me”

Jenny heard the door open, and quickly wondered if she would be killed first or the person who had just come through the door.

Then she heard Colonel Peter’s voice, “Hey Strang, I thought you were told to gate into room 10”
The creature then turned round to face Colonel Peters and spoke, it was gruff and deep, as expected given it’s size, but it appeared to be speaking in perfect English, “Sorry Colonel Peters” it said, if Jenny heard it right, “I think I read the note upside down as oh one”
“Ya think? Now you have gone and scared this young woman”
“Sorry Colonel” apologised the creature, “I didn’t mean to”

Jenny was terrified and confused, this monster, this thing was talking with the man who had released her when she was dumped naked in an interrogation room bound with cable ties, who had got her medical attention, new clothes and unshackled, her when she had been escorted to this room that morning.

Slowly she lifted her head as Colonel Peters walked over to her and offered out his right hand
“Jenny, we don’t want that smart suit getting dirty do we” Colonel Peters told her
“No sir” she replied, her voice barely audible
He then helped her to stand up, all the time the creature stayed in the centre of the room, not moving, but now was looking at her. Jenny switched her gaze between Colonel Peter’s face and the creature. What was going on?

Colonel Peter let go of Jenny’s hand, as she was standing and went and stood next to the Creature
“Jenny” Said Colonel Peters, “This is Captain Strang from the Troll Clan of the Manjura. Captain Strang, This is Jenny Green, she was the victim of an attack by an aitch eye dee ee forty seven, which we are investigating”
“A what?” queried the creature
“Sorry Strang, you will know them as doppelgangers, this was probably a doppelganger assassin” Colonel Peters answered

“What is happening?” Jenny Nervously asked.
“Captain Strang and I worked in Colombia a few months back, he comes from the other dimension I mentioned and is going to be working with us for a while”
“I used to command Troll snatch squads from our Mystical Realms Miss Green” the troll explained, “We have experience of tracking down those from our world who seek to interfere in your world, and I helped your human forces track down some humans who had been using a device to interfere with our world”
“Your former boss’s husband supplied us with some information to track down a Colombian drug cartel” Colonel Peters continued, “Strang helped us further so we could take them out”

Jenny just shook her head in disbelief This was all too much “But I thought trolls were nasty and evil and ate babies”
“That’s just propaganda Miss Green” replied the troll, “We eat elk goats and fish”.
“Sorry sir, it was just what we were taught, I did not mean to offend you sir” Jenny hastily replied, she did not want to upset this creature that she was certain could kill her in a heartbeat.
Colonel Peters looked up at the troll, then back at Jenny, “Actually you need to be big and nasty with a mean reputation to help keep order in their Mystical Realms don’t ya”
Jenny was certain she saw the troll grin and nod

The troll approached Jenny, Jenny instinctively wanted to back away, but she was already backed against the wall. The troll seemed to sense her discomfort, “Sorry Miss Green, I will not hurt you, I am sworn to serve both the Colonel and my Clan chief to protect innocent mortals”
Jenny could just about nod an “ok”
“So Miss Green, you were attacked by a doppelganger assassin, you are indeed lucky to be alive”
“That’s why this is such a mystery Strang” Colonel Peters chipped in, “this is what we are investigating”
“Miss Green, do you know why you were targeted” the troll asked
Jenny just shook here head as she stood against the wall and just answered “No sir, I don’t know sir sorry”
“There is no need to apologise Miss Green” the troll replied then the troll fished in a pouch and produced a small green bottle



“Miss Green, it is we who should apologise to you, we are sorry that you were attacked by one from our world, this is a potion that will heal you of all the physical injuries that were caused by the attack” Captain Strang told her and handed her the bottle

“Are you sure that’s wise Strang” queried Colonel Peters, “after all if we release her people will expect to see her with the injuries for some time to come”

What did he mean “if we release her”, Jenny wondered, “So I am a prisoner then” Jenny asked Colonel Peters, “or are you going to kill me?”
“You’re not a prisoner Jenny” replied Colonel Peters, “and we have no plans to terminate you”
“But you said if we release her”
Colonel Peters slapped his forehead with his left hand, “Sorry Jenny, slip of the tongue”

Jenny looked at the bottle then she edged along the wall to get around the troll and looked at the mirror section of the one way glass at her bruised and battered face. “Colonel, the police took photographs of my injuries”
“I know, we obtained copies from them, we told them we believed the suspect to be an international terrorist”
Jenny turned round to face Colonel Peters and the troll, “Can’t they be used for evidence for any trial, here or in that other dimension?”
“That presupposes there will be a trial, I mean we can not really put a doppelganger on trial, as no one is supposed to know that they exist in this universe let alone in a parallel one”
“Colonel Peters” interrupted Captain Strang, “We have enough evidence to try the doppelganger back on the Mystical Realms, there is no need to make Miss Green continue to suffer. If you are worried about her appearance, your own film and television industry are excellent at reproducing such injuries”
“Yes I know Strang, but such make-up needs professionals to apply every day, I doubt Jenny knows how to do that, and make it look as if it was healing naturally” Colonel Peters countered.
“Colonel, could you not get your doctor to sign me off work for the time they would heal and I could just hide in my flat” Jenny asked, then Jenny looked back in the mirror at her face “because every time I look in the mirror I see him or it all over me” Then her voice cracked “I want him gone, please I want him gone”

Colonel Peters walked up to Jenny and placed his left hand on her right shoulder, and felt her flinch with pain. Her shoulder was still quite sore, a mixture of the initial attack and the results of the Facility’s retrieval team. “Sorry Jenny” he whispered.

Jenny felt it was no use arguing, “Here you are sir”, and she handed the bottle, unopened to the Colonel, she would just have to endure the pain like anyone else who had received such injuries.

“I was going to say, Sorry Jenny I was starting to think like that idiot Carvel” Colonel Peter’s responded and opened the bottle and passed it back, “You swig it down in one go if I remember correctly”

Slowly Jenny took the bottle, put it to her lips and then in some pain, tilted her head back and swallowed the contents of the bottle. The taste was lemony with a hint of cinnamon. Suddenly she could feel a warm feeling rush to every part of her body, and as she looked in the mirror she could see her black eyes start to fade away along with the bruising around her lip. The stitches in the cut above her eye popped out and fell on the floor as that miraculously healed as well. She could also feel the pain from the bruising in her shoulders; arms and legs subside to nothing. Jenny looked at her wrists, and saw the cuts and the bruises from the cable ties vanishing as well. Jenny could not guess how long it had taken, but it seemed in a very short space of time, all the injuries inflicted upon her were gone as if they had never happened.

Jenny was presentable again, being a brunette she always considered herself to be plain, not beautiful. Blondes and redheads were considered to be beautiful as far as she was concerned, but not her, but presentable would do at least.

KNOCK KNOCK

“Yeah?” Colonel Peter’s called out

The door opened, it was Commander Mark, “Sam, Corporal McCaskey has got our other guest in interview room five, now” he told the colonel, then Mark looked at Jenny, “Troll healing potions work wonders don’t they Jenny?”
“Specially produced for us by the finest elven apothecaries” Captain Strang commented.
Mark walked up to Jenny and put his hands on her shoulders, she almost expected them to hurt like moments before, but the healing potion’s work was complete. Mark looked into Jenny’s eyes and told her “Jenny I told you, you would be an absolute stunner in that suit, and I would love to take you to dinner sometime”
Jenny blushed and just whispered “thank you” and then remembered that the last man to compliment her was her dead fiancé, with whom she had grown up together since they were children, “but I thought blue eyed blondes or green eyed redheads were supposed to be the stunners, not plain old brown eyed brunettes like me”
“Jenny, I’m surprised you have bought into that lie about brunettes, you are absolutely gorgeous and a real head turner” Commander Mark responded
Colonel Peters interrupted “Mark, pardon me for breaking up this love-in, but we really need to get on”
“Sorry Sam” Commander Mark replied and then faced the Colonel
“So Mark, did Mr Carvel want to put her in manacles as well?” Colonel Peters then asked.
“You bet, McCaskey and I had to remind him who was now in charge of operations here now so he did not get the chance”

Colonel Peters shook his head. Jenny was confused again, had this aitch eye dee ee forty seven or Doppelganger struck someone else as well?

“You will need this Colonel” The troll told Colonel Peters, and Jenny saw the troll pass a small object across, but she did not see what it was.

“That’s what I needed Strang” Colonel Peters replied and put the object in his jacket pocket, then he turned to Jenny and the troll and told them “This might be of interest to you” and beckoned for them to leave the room. “Mark, can you show Strang and Jenny to the observation booth for interview room five”
“Will do Sam”

They all left the interview room and went down the corridor passed several rooms until Mark signalled for Jenny and Captain Strang to enter into a darkened room, which had various types of recording equipment and chairs. There were no chairs big enough for the troll so he stood behind Commander Mark and Jenny, while they sat facing the window looking out into another interview room.

In there Jenny saw another table similar to the one in the interview room she had been. At it sat a woman in a US army jacket and next to her on her left sat a young girl of between ten and twelve, in a grey hooded top. The child looked very worried and was swinging her legs back and forth on the chair,

“Was the child also attacked like me?” Jenny asked the commander
“No, she is what they call in the Mystical Realms a minor spirit of virtue” Mark answered
“A what?”
Mark went on to explain, “A spirit of virtue or a spirit of vice is the embodiment of that vice or virtue in human form. What ever formed the Mystical Realms borrowed heavily from our world hence the connection between the two dimensions, and it was not just trolls, elves and doppelgangers that were created, but these spirits as well. Some of them were even worshiped as gods by ancient civilisations”
“Like the ancient Greek gods?” Jenny asked
“Yeah, something like that, anyhow, sometimes what they call the major spirits of virtues or vice would come to our world, in human form and have children with humans, although mostly it tends to be the spirits of virtue.”
“And this is just such a child?”
“Yes Jenny and she is just eleven years old”
“But she is innocent; she can’t help who her parents are”
“Maybe not, but actually although she appears human and has human DNA, she is technically not human and what is classed as a minor spirit of virtue with low grade empathic abilities to promote that virtue in normal humans”
“But if she appears human and has human DNA, why is she not human?”
“Because Miss Green” interrupted the troll, “minor spirits of virtue or vice do not have a human soul and so are not fully human and are subject to the laws of the Mystical Realms”
“But she just looks like an innocent child?”
“Relax and watch Jenny” Commander Mark told her, “as a minor spirit of virtue as Strang says, she comes under the jurisdiction of both the Trolls from the Mystical Realms side and from our side the jurisdiction of Inter Dimensional Entity Control here at the Facility, the colonel is going to try and help her become fully human and no longer subject to those jurisdictions.”
“So if she is one of these minor spirits of virtue” Jenny asked, still finding all this hard to comprehend, “which one is she?”
“The Spirit of Kindness, her father was the late Spirit of Friendship” The troll answered.
“Late?” Jenny queried
This time it was the troll who answered “Yes Miss Green, he was murdered by the Spirit of Lust”, then the troll added “He was forced to leave his human female companion and daughter several cycles ago, when the tyrant who used to head my clan had another major spirit of virtue arrested and ordered all Major Spirits to leave the world of Mortals.”

Just then the door to the interview room opened and Colonel Peters entered the room. The woman in the US army uniform stood up, saluted and stood to attention; the young spirit of virtue nervously looked at her and stood up as well.
“At ease McCaskey and you Rebecca” Jenny heard Colonel Peters tell them through the intercom.
Colonel Peters sat down, but the woman and the girl stayed standing. The colonel looked up at them “Sorry, you can sit down as well”
The soldier and the Spirit of Kindness then sat down.
The Spirit of Kindness looked very nervous, almost terrified, and almost on the brink of tears. Jenny just wanted to be in that room and try and comfort the child


Then Jenny had a sinking feeling based on her own experience “Did those b******ds taser her as well?” Jenny asked the commander, her voice giving a hint of anger
“No Jenny, we collected her, just corporal McCaskey and myself and no tasers, she was living rough in London when we found her, we drove her here in a normal car We promised we would help her and give her food, a shower, clean clothes and a safe place to stay” Answered Mark


“Am I in trouble sir?” Asked the Spirit of Kindness, her voice touched with fear
“Why do you think that Rebecca?” asked Colonel Peters trying to be as kind as possible
“Because the lady her and the man said I had to come with them” the Spirit of Kindness replied, “and because I had run away from my mum’s boyfriend”
“Why did you run away Rebecca?”
“My mum got sick and died and he wanted me to do things that didn’t feel right. He tried to get me to do those things before my mum got sick, but I did not want to say anything because he was the only man she had since my dad deserted us, and we had nowhere else to stay” Then the Spirit of Kindness broke down and pleaded “Please don’t make me go back to him, please”


“The b*******d” Jenny muttered under her breath.
“He was picked up last week on child pornography charges last week Jenny” Mark whispered, “He is not going to hurt anymore children if we have anything to do with it”
“Why can’t you just string him up” Jenny replied


The corporal put her arm around the Spirit of Kindness and whispered something into her ear, Jenny could not hear as it was not picked up by the microphone, but she could just about lip read that the corporal was reassuring the child that she was not going to be sent back to him. She handed the young Spirit of Kindness a tissue to wipe her eyes.

When the Spirit of Kindness had recovered Colonel Peters continued “Rebecca, that man will never hurt you again” the colonel reassured her, “In fact he is going to go to jail for a very long time with what we got on him”


“Why is he calling her Rebecca if she is this Spirit of Kindness” Jenny asked
“Because she has lived all of her life here in your world and does not realise she is not fully human” The Troll answered, “And she was given that name as it means kindness in one of your ancient tongues”
“Hebrew to be precise” Commander Mark interjected, “And for your information Strang, Hebrew is still spoken today”


“Thank you sir” The Spirit of Kindness responded. “What is going to happen to me now sir?”
“That depends on the answers you give me” Colonel Peters answered
“Sir?” the Spirit of Kindness replied, still sounding terrified
“Why did you not go to the police, if you were having to sleep rough?”
“I thought because I had run away, they might make me go back to my mum’s boyfriend sir”
“When you were on the streets, how did you find food to eat”
“I just sat on the pavement with a sign saying hungry and homeless and people just gave me money or they brought me food”
“Really Rebecca, was anyone ever mean to you, told you to get lost or accused you of being a thief”
“No sir?”


“If no one was being mean to her, why did they not offer to put her up somewhere or give her a home?” Jenny whispered to Commander Mark
“Jenny, They would have done, but as soon as they would give her anything, she would take it and move away because she was frightened of the police catching her and sending her back to the boyfriend, once she moved so the people who helped her were out of range of the field she was naturally putting out with out realising it, more likely than not the person who showed her kindness then forgot that she ever existed. That was why I worked with corporal McCaskey to collect her protected by this” At that Commander Mark pulled out a small sandstone disc, “It’s some kind of protection amulet from empathic emanations”


“So Rebecca everyone was naturally kind to you?”
“Yes sir”
“Does that not seem odd to you Rebecca, after all not everyone is kind”
“But sir they were. I never had any trouble sir”
“Rebecca, have you ever seen one of these before” Colonel Peters asked and produced what looked like a small silver hand held mirror with some kind of gothic design.
“No sir”
“It is what we call a mirror of detection” Colonel Peters explained and handed it to the Spirit of Kindness, and as she took it, the mirror suddenly glowed with an orange light, “Now hand it to the corporal”
As the corporal took the mirror and the Spirit of Kindness let go of it, the mirror returned to being silver. The corporal then handed it to Colonel Peters who put it down on the table in front of him.
“Rebecca, it was only when you touched it, that it reacted, do you know what that means”
“No sir, is it magic?”
“That’s one way of putting it Rebecca” Colonel Peters explained, “This device reacts if the person handling it is not really human”
“I don’t understand, I’m just a girl”
“Pick it up and examine the mirror, see if you can find any wires, hidden batteries or chemicals or anything else that will make it glow”

The Spirit of Kindness was getting distressed and so was Jenny as she watched what seemed like a child, being confronted, just had she had been with a truth that was hard to take in.

The Spirit of Kindness prodded the small mirror and as soon as she touched it , it instantly glowed with an orange light again. “What am I, I thought I was just a girl” she whined
“Rebecca, do you remember your father?” Colonel Peters asked
“Only vaguely sir, he deserted us when I was four. I always kept wondering if it was my fault”
“Rebecca it was not your fault, your father was not really human either, he was what we call a major spirit of virtue, he just appeared in human form when he met and fell in love with your mother and when she had you. Your father was made to return to where he originally came from and later was murdered. He did not desert you; he left because he had no choice”

Jenny watched through the one way glass as the Spirit of Kindness shake her head in bewilderment and then put her head in her hands and started to sob again. The female army officer again put her arm around her and the young spirit of virtue leaned against her. “I kept hoping I would find him again some day that was the other reason I ran away” the Spirit of Kindness sobbed.

Jenny so wanted to be in that room to help comfort what she saw was a young girl, who had just been told that she was an orphan and alone in the world, but Commander Mark told her just to sit tight as the corporal was specially trained to handle young people.

After about a minute Colonel Peters spoke to the Spirit of Kindness again as she was still leaning against the corporal “Rebecca, you asked what you were, if not a girl”
“Yes” the Spirit of Kindness tearfully replied
“Well as your farther was this major spirit of virtue and your mother was just a normal human woman like the corporal here, so you are what is called a minor spirit of virtue. The reason people were kind to you because you are the Spirit of Kindness, or to put it another way, the embodiment of kindness in human form. You were putting out a field that made people show kindness to you whether they wanted to or not. Do you think it’s right to control people’s minds like that Rebecca?”
“No sir, Sorry sir, I never meant to hurt anyone, I just want to be human I just want to be a normal girl” the Spirit of Kindness tearfully replied.


“Is that possible?” Jenny asked Commander Mark, “to become fully human?”
“Yes, that was one of the reasons Captain Strang came today” Mark Replied
“I brought the Colonel a talisman of permanence Miss Green, it has the power to make a minor spirit permanently a mortal human if that is their true heart’s desire”


The Colonel fished in his pocket for the item that captain Strang brought

From what Jenny could see through the one way glass it looked like a small disc of obsidian with markings



“Rebecca if you want to be human and just a normal girl, maybe we can help you with that, assuming, you really want that” Colonel Peters told the young spirit of virtue as he handed her the obsidian disc.
The Spirit of Kindness sat up straight and leaned forward and automatically took the talisman without thinking about it, in her left hand from the colonel, then she whined “But I do sir, I don’t want to be some kind of spirit thing, I don’t want to hurt anyone, I just want to be human, I just want to be a girl”

At that statement Jenny saw a ball of yellow light erupt from the talisman. As the ball of yellow light expanded to engulf the chid at the table, the corporal jumped off of her chair to keep clear, but Colonel Peters just sat there
“What’s happening” Jenny heard the child say, alarm in her voice
“It’s ok Rebecca, it’s perfectly safe” Jenny heard the colonel tell her.

Jenny could not take much more of this; she jumped out of her chair and now without thinking about him, rushed past the troll to the exit to the observation room door.
“She’s fine” Jenny heard the commander shout, but she did not think so.

Jenny rushed into the corridor and up to the door of the interview room and opened the door to see that the ball of yellow light was now a ring of yellow light near the ceiling. The child was looking up at it in fear and awe, her mouth wide open. For a moment Jenny was transfixed by the wondrous sight. Suddenly the ring shattered into many yellow stars fleeing away and then a white ball of light formed on the ceiling and slowly headed down towards the child.

Jenny wanted to get the child out of the way of this strange ball of energy, but she felt someone grip her arm, it was the commander. He was trying to stop her. Instantly Jenny remembered a move Angela and her former fiancé had taught her, and the commander to his surprised found himself on his back on the floor, and Jenny had broken free, but it was too late, the ball of light reached the child and sank into her. Jenny also noticed that the obsidian talisman in the child’s hand, was crumbling to dust and ash.

Jenny rushed to the child who suddenly feinted, and was starting to topple off of the chair, and caught her. Squatting beside the chair with the unconscious child held her in her arms Jenny looked angrily at the colonel “What have you done to her?” she screamed.

The corporal started to approach, but Colonel Peters motioned for her to stop, “Jenny, she’s ok; we just helped her to become fully human”
“But that ball of light”
“That was her human soul” answered Colonel Peters then he turned to the corporal “McCaskey you didn’t need to jump up like that, the yellow light would not have harmed you”
“Sorry sir” Corporal McCaskey replied.
“Sam, that was my fault, I forgot to tell her that” Commander Mark said as he entered the room, after recovering from Jenny’s manoeuvre that had landed him on the floor, then he asked Jenny “Where did you learn that move.

Jenny did not answer the commander but continued to hold the child in her arms to stop her falling on the floor and gently brushed the hair from the child’s eyes. “Why has she passed out?”
“They always do when they become human” Commander Mark explained, “That’s what Shamus told us when the twin Spirits of Fancying and Fidelity became human last year”

Once again, Jenny was shocked, she had known Fidelity as Faith, but suspected her real name was Fidelity as most of the time she had noticed her former boss Angela and the man who would become her husband call her by that name. “Is that the Fidelity that used to work in my coffee shop?”
“Er yeah” Admitted Colonel Peters
“And Caer is the Spirit of Fancying?”
“Was. They’re both fully human now like Rebecca here now is” Answered Colonel Peters
“So you lot are responsible for her false arrest last year” Jenny challenged them.
“No Jenny, that was when this place was fully under British control, and before you ask I am still not sure why they went to their bad old ways when they retrieved you” Colonel Peters responded.

“What happened” the child suddenly whimpered. Jenny felt the child regain consciousness and as she managed to sit upright, Jenny let go of her and then sat in the chair vacated by the corporal who was still standing and put her left arm across the child’s shoulders

“Rebecca, sorry I did not get a chance to warn you that would happen” Colonel Peters apologised, then he explained, “that talisman I passed you helped you become human and just a normal girl like you wanted, because it sensed that it was what you truly desired”
The child looked at her left hand, there was just ash, then at Colonel Peters, and in a terrified panic told Colonel Peters “Sorry sir, I did not mean to break it” she was on the brink of tears
“Rebecca, that ok, it’s meant to do that when it’s done its job, and you didn’t break it” Colonel Peters reassured her
The child then looked up at Jenny,
Jenny thought she should introduce herself to the child “hi Rebecca, my name is Jenny Green”
“Hello Miss Green” Rebecca replied nervously, she was now no longer the Spirit of Kindness but plain Rebecca, Jenny had to remind herself
Jenny told Rebecca “Please call me Jenny” Then Jenny turned to the Colonel, I know a few people who could take Rebecca in, please let me take her home back north.

Colonel Peters looked at Rebecca and then at Jenny, “That’s very kind of you Jenny, but we have something slightly better in mind for Rebecca” Then he turned to Rebecca, “Rebecca, did you know you had an uncle”
Rebecca nodded, “Mum told me about him, but my uncle lives with his wife and son in New Hampshire, when Mum was sick her boyfriend would not allow me to contact him, and he would not allow me to speak to him until after the funeral so my uncle never came across. I don’t know if he sent for me because I ran away to get away from mum’s boy friend as soon as I could after the funeral. I would liked to have gone and stayed with my uncle but there is no way I could get there now”
Colonel Peters leaned back in his chair, “I would not be too sure about that Rebecca, Mark have you got the other item”
“Sure Sam” Commander Mark replied and pulled from his jacket, a small book and handed it to Rebecca. Jenny looked at it, it was a US passport.
“Because your mother had dual British and US citizenship, and uncle has now applied to be your legal guardian, we managed to persuade certain branches of the US government to grant you full US citizenship as well”
“Thank you sir” Rebecca replied, “but I don’t have the money to get over there”
“Rebecca, Corporal McCaskey will be escorting you on a special US Air Force flight to the US today leaving from Luton airport” Colonel Peter told her, smiling as he did so, “Us marines do not leave our own behind”
“Thank you Colonel sir” Rebecca said to Colonel Peters, and then Rebecca turned to Jenny, “Thank you for thinking of me Miss Jenny”

The Corporal came round to Rebecca’s left and held out her hand, Rebecca took it and stood up to go with the corporal.
“Mark, could you drive McCaskey and Rebecca to the airport please I have other matters to attend to with Captain Strang” Colonel Peters asked, then added, “and take Jenny with you, maybe you can have that dinner you spoke of after you have made sure McCaskey and Rebecca have got away safely”
“It would be a pleasure Sam, but first of all I have something else for Jenny” Then the Commander handed Jenny a visitors badge, “just to annoy that Mr Carvel”
Jenny took it, thanked the commander and attached it to the top left pocket on the suit jacket she was wearing.

Commander Mark lead Corporal McCaskey, Rebecca and Jenny out of the room, down one corridor and then another until they reached a lift. Then after calling it, they got in and went down five levels and exited into the car park.

There to meet them was Mr Carvel, “I still think we should be treating these two” he opened with, pointing at Jenny and Rebecca, “as class A prisoners”
“I still think you are a jerk” Commander Mark responded, “Now give me the keys to the Galaxy, and there better not be any nasty surprises.
“Don’t worry Johnston” Mr Carvel sneered, “We know better than wreck one of our own vehicles, it messes up the budget” then Mr Carvel handed Commander Mark the car keys, “or upset our American overlords”. he added in a sarcastic tone.



The Ford Galaxy was black and non-descript, just the kind of thing for covert operations when you wanted to blend in. The corporal and Rebecca got in the back and Jenny got to ride up front with Commander Mark.

Jenny held her breath as the Commander started the car, she half expected it to blow up or something, given the way the British officials seemed to act, but the engine just purred into life and the Commander drove out of the subterranean car park into a fairly non descript street.

The drive to the airport was fairly uneventful, but even so Jenny could not help look in the mirror to see if they were being followed. She asked the commander if he thought they would do that, and he told her they probably would but would not be allowed to do anything to stop them, given how The Facility, That name again!, was, with agreement from the UK government, under US oversight at the moment.

As Rebecca only had the clothes she stood up in, and so did the corporal, checking in was pretty swift, and as it was a special US Air Force flight, Jenny and the Commander were allowed to accompany them to Air-side. Rebecca was a mixture of excited at going to start a new life in America with her uncle’s family but apprehensive about flying and whether she would fit in over there. The corporal reassured her that her uncle and his American wife and son were eager to meet her and take her in and they were so glad she had got away from her late mother’s boyfriend.

They waited for about three quarters of an hour before the corporal and Rebecca boarded the plane, just before that Jenny and Rebecca hugged each other and Jenny told her to take care of her self and that even though they had not known each other for that long Jenny would always have a special place in her heart for the ex Spirit of Kindness. Rebecca promised she would send her a post card as soon as she got to her uncle’s home.

The Commander and the corporal saluted one another and the commander told the corporal how much he would miss working with her, then those two embraced and so Rebecca and the corporal boarded the plane.

They then waited a further fifteen minutes for the plane to taxi out to the runway and a further ten minutes before take off, and then they were gone.

“That’s such a nice thing to do for her” Jenny commented, as a tear rolled down her cheek, and then she looked at the commander, “I mean a special flight just for her”
Commander Mark took a hanky and gently wiped Jenny’s face, “I suppose it is, officially this is a training exercise for those who will serve on Air-force One, but in reality it is to tell the Brits not to interfere with those we are releasing. They would not dare interfere with one of our flights, and although Rebecca doesn’t know it, there are a number of armed air marshals on that flight to make sure she gets to her uncle safely” Then he added, “after the Smith child incident we have a hard time trusting the Brits with their current attitudes”

“Smith child” Jenny repeated, something chillingly sounded familiar about that combination of the words Smith and child. Then she remembered, the child her former boss and her husband adopted was named Sarah Smith. “What do you mean Smith child incident”

Commander Mark closed his eyes and swore to himself, it was obvious that he should never have mentioned the “Smith child” incident, then asked Jenny to sit down somewhere quiet away from other people at the airport and then explained “Jenny while the Andrews were still on British soil before their wedding, an operative from the Facility, with no official sanction, on his own initiative went out to spy on them. This operative then got it into his head that getting adults to keep their mouths shut was easy, but not so with small children, and so one morning when Mr Andrews had taken the child to the beach, because nobody was around this operative trained his rifle on the child’s head”

Jenny shook her head in horror at what she was hearing, “So what happened? What stopped him from killing Sarah?”

“Well Jenny, because at that time, when sanctions, as these Brits put it, were to be carried out by those working for the Facility, they always had to get what they called finger-on-trigger-approval, so with the child in his site, he called what he thought was his controller, who usually rubber stamped everything he wanted to do, but instead got put through to the former director Mr Sepia, who ordered him to abort and stand down immediately and informed him there was already a plan that was in execution at that time”

“So that b*******d wanted to kill the most loving child I had ever met, just to keep a secret” Jenny replied angrily
“Jenny, believe me we were just as angry and upset as you are now when we heard, and that operative was put on administrative leave before being transferred out. It was because of that incident that Mr Sepia realised that there was still a mindset issue at the British end and so turned the Facility over to US oversight before he left to take up another defence post. Until we are convinced the Brits have changed we are sending all minor spirits of virtue we help make human out of Britain at this time, and even then Ireland has promised G2 leprechauns to keep an eye on them to make sure no harm comes to them, in fact, when Rebecca lands, she does not know this either, for the time being, she will have a leprechaun guard too”

“If they are supposed to be being changed by American oversight, Commander, why was I tasered and brought to that Facility of yours, like a common criminal” Jenny asked, still shaking with anger and now crying.
“Sam’s still trying to get to the bottom of that one Jenny. I’m sorry Jenny if we had not been assigned to collecting Rebecca, we would have visited you, and interviewed you in your own home”
“It’s just what they did Commander, that makes me so angry, I was frightened I thought it was the guy who attacked me or his friends come to. . .” Then Jenny dissolved in tears and Commander Mark put his arms around her and let her cry on his shoulder for several moments

After a while Jenny recovered her composure, “I’m sorry Commander” Jenny apologised, “I shouldn’t take things out on you I know you are trying to make things right”
“No problem Jenny, you have every right to be angry, now why don’t we go and eat somewhere classier than a fast food joint in an airport, and by the way, I prefer to be called Mark”
“Ok Mark” Jenny replied, and meekly followed him as he lead her by the hand out of the airport.

Jenny had thought about running, but without money or credit cards she reasoned she would not get far, plus they were some sort of top secret military organisation and they could easily track her down she thought, after all they had been able to dig up all that information about Rebecca the now former Spirit of Kindness, so her best interests lay in being compliant and hoping they would let her live with what she already knew and let her go back home.

They got to the car, and this time before Commander Mark allowed Jenny to get in, he checked the vehicle with some scanner device. It was clean.

They two of them got in and Commander Mark drove to a small Italian restaurant, where he ordered some pasta dish in Italian. It was a name Jenny could not pronounce. As they waited for the main course to come the commander complemented Jenny on how beautiful she looked and how he found brown eyed brunettes like her very attractive. Jenny blushed and told him about Darren, and how they had grown up together, and it was him and her former boss that taught her how to do basic self defence techniques and in particular the move she had done on Commander Mark, and apologised in case she had hurt him The commander then commented that he had not really been hurt and that they had taught her well, given that it was usually only Colonel Peters that could best him when they practiced unarmed combat.

The main course arrived and Jenny did her best not to drop any of the sauce on her white blouse, but a rouge piece of spaghetti did manage to make its mark with something like tomato sauce. Jenny was not used to this style of eating and Commander Mark remained spotless. Jenny looked at the mark on her white blouse, it was extremely visible, she then remembered what the commander had said earlier about how a former girl friend had gone to a party with such a suit jacket as she was wearing, with nothing on underneath it, so she excused herself and went to the ladies toilet in the restaurant.

In the toilet, after making sure no one else was coming in, Jenny removed the jacket and hung it up, then removed the blouse and folded it up, hopefully back at the Facility maybe they could wash the stain out. She then slowly went to unclip her bra, half expecting the pain she had earlier, but the pain was totally gone, thanks to the troll healing potion. Jenny removed the bra and rolled it up in the blouse and then put the Jacket on and did it up and looked at herself in the mirror. It looked daring, but it was not really her. It felt uncomfortable and odd against her skin and she felt that she would fall out of it, but if that was what the commander liked, that was what he liked and she thought she ought to do something for him as he made her feel really special, and besides she could not go around with a white blouse stained by some red Italian sauce.

Gingerly she left the toilet and went back to the table, carrying the blouse and the bra wrapped up in it and discretely dropped it on a chair next to her, then with great care, she sat down, trying to make sure she did not to fall out of the jacket. Jenny was blushing as she explained to the commander that she had changed so, because she had dropped sauce on the blouse, and this was how she thought commander would like to see her any way.

Commander Mark looked at her and told her “You look absolutely fabulous Jenny just wearing the jacket like that, don’t get me wrong, you have a fantastic figure, but even though we have just met today, I can see you blushing and I can see it in your eyes that you do not really feel comfortable being dressed just like that. Jenny am I right”
“Yes Mark”. Jenny had to agree, she explained was not really an exhibitionist like some and she would never dare sunbathe topless unlike her girl friends. But because of the attention lavished on her by him, making her feel special, she thought she ought to do something that she thought would please him and besides had he not said he liked his girlfriend going like this

“Jenny” Mark started, “I’m very flattered, but you don’t have to do such things to please me, especially if it makes you uncomfortable like it clearly does, and Jenny, I just said I had a girlfriend who did that, she was like that, which is why my friends pulled that joke on her I never expected you to do that, To me you looked just as stunning and beautiful dressed as you were.”

Commander Mark was right, she really did not feel comfortable dressed like this, but the blouse had been stained so what could she do

Jenny unrolled the blouse, put the bra discretely to one side on the chair and found the stain and showed it to Commander Mark, “But Mark, but I can’t go around with that stain on the blouse so I guess I will just have grin and bear it”

Commander took the blouse with one hand and held it under the table while he fished in his pocket with the other and brought out something resembling a glue stick, removed the cap on it and pushed up some white solid and applied it to the stain which promptly vanished completely. Commander Mark told her it was some cleaning agent developed by the US military as a by-product when they were looking for something else, and he always carried one to deal with cuffs at formal receptions. Then the commander passed the cleaned blouse back to Jenny and told her she could go and put it and the bra back on.
“Thank you Mark” she replied, retrieved the bra as well and went back to the ladies toilet and put both of them back on. With all the clothes back on she felt a lot better and more relaxed.

Jenny liked this commander. This Commander Mark Johnston was very considerate and a real gentleman, just like her Darren had been. Darren had also made her feel special just like the commander had done, and if Mark were ten years younger then maybe they could hook up, but suddenly Jenny felt guilty that she was betraying Darren’s memory so soon after Darren’s death due to that roadside bomb in Afghanistan?
“Sorry Darren” She whispered as she rested her head against the mirror
In the wake of Darren’s death, Jenny had not even thought of seeking male attention and had almost become a recluse back home. Besides, they still had not had his funeral, so best not to go there. It would not be appropriate, would it not?

Jenny sighed as she remembered all the good times she and Darren had together, but life had to go on, Darren would have been the first person to tell her that, in fact before he went away on what turned out to be his last tour of duty, he had told if anything happened to him she was to try and get on with her life, maybe find someone new, get married have babies. Jenny had not wanted to think about it as these things always happened to “the other person” she just wanted to spend the rest of her life with him and have his children, but now he was gone.

She thought of the commander waiting for her back at the table, maybe Commander Mark was probably just doing his job to make up for how she had been mistreated by the British contingent at that Facility or what ever they called it. Maybe he thought she was just too young for him, and was just being “nice”

Jenny sighed again and left the ladies toilet and returned back to the table
“You look much happier now Jenny” Commander Mark commented, “and that is what makes you truly beautiful”
“Thank you Mark, I’m sorry about that I”
“Jenny, don’t worry about it” Mark interrupted, then he reassured her “I won’t mention this to anyone. Changing the subject, Jenny, are you ready for some genuine Italian ice cream?”
Jenny was just about to answer when …

BEEP BEEP BEEP

It was Commander Mark’s cell phone with a text and picture message. Mark retrieved his cell phone and looked at the text. His expression was more serious.
“What’s wrong?” Jenny asked
“Jenny, it seems that the person who hired the aitch eye dee ee forty seven that attacked you has been picked up and they are bringing him to the Facility for questioning. They want us to return ASAP” Mark answered, and then he showed her the photo of the person that was sent.

It was the CCTV image of the “fat” guy who had leant the guy, who beaten the creature off of her with a curtain rod, his mobile, it was the same fat guy who had once given Jenny the creeps when he had tried to chat her up

To be continued

[Sticks]

Episode IV – Who are the patsies

Do you like surprises? Depends on the surprise, some are nice some are not so nice.

How about a surprise birthday party, or surprising an armed burglar in your home. Surprises can be very precarious things.

For Jenny Green, she has had large amount of nasty surprises, starting when she was attacked, right through being surprised by some quasi government snatch squad to the surprise of the existence of another world, inhabited by all sorts of wondrous and deadly creatures. There was also the surprise that people she knew, were aware of these things as well, and kept it from her.

The only few good surprises have been that the American military officers, currently in charge of the base of this quasi government snatch squads did have a humane side, when they rescued a minor spirit of virtue, who was in the form of an 11 year old girl, from living on the streets of London, then assisted her to become fully human and then helped her to go and live with her uncle in the US.

However another nasty surprise has come her way, her attacker, a super strong shape-shifter from this other world appears to have been hired by a person who made a pass at her and who helped out, when she was attacked.

Jenny shook her head, and just kept repeating the word “No”, and “What did I do to him”.

Commander Mark closed the picture message on his cell phone and got up and sat beside Jenny and put an arm around her and hugged her, as Jenny dissolved into tears. Then he heard her start to hyperventilate, Jenny was having another panic attack in the Italian restaurant where they had been having a meal. It was now getting towards the early evening.

“Is there anything wrong sir?” asked a curious waiter
“My friend has just had a shock” Commander Mark replied to the waiter, then as Jenny continued to hyperventilate he told her “Jenny deep breaths” and then “Jenny, I am not going to let anyone hurt you”

Jenny closed her eyes and started the deep breathing like she was told, would this nightmare ever end? Perhaps it was her fault after all, she should never have given the creep, who they said hired the doppelganger, the brush off; she should have let him have his way.
“Jenny it was not your fault, you were right to give the dirt bag the cold shoulder” Commander Mark told her. It was then Jenny realised she had been mumbling the self-recriminations against herself and the commander had heard them.

Commander Mark held Jenny for a few minutes while her feeling of panic subsided then told her “Jenny, we need to go now” and gently helped her to her feet. He took out several large banknotes and handed it to the waiter, and lead Jenny out of the restaurant, holding her hand

The evening air was cool and Jenny noticed it was getting dark, as she continued to let the commander lead her by the hand back to the car.
“It’s going to be a long day” Jenny observed
“Can’t be helped Jenny” The commander replied as he opened the door, “When you were getting dressed in the interview room earlier, Sam got Mr Carvel to contact your local police force to say we had identified the person who had attacked you as an international terrorist and send us the details of he witnesses on scene.”
Jenny opened her car door and got in and did her seat belt up, “So how did they know he hired the man, I mean the aitch eye dee ee forty seven, or doppelganger”

Commander Mark put the key in the ignition and started the car, once again Jenny momentarily held her breath, fearing some kind of explosive device, but no the engine just purred into life.

“Mark?”
“Sorry Jenny, they sent some plain clothes police out to the witnesses and the fat guy kind of fessed up because he thought they were onto him”
“So do I need to go back north”
“No Jenny, they are driving him down to a police station near Brent Cross and then someone from the Facility will be collecting him”
“What time will he be arriving tonight?”
Commander Mark looked at his watch, “It will most likely be sometime round about one in the morning, so the interview may be done tomorrow.
“Why not use the retrieval squad like you used on me, I would happily taser that B******d myself”

The commander shook his head slightly as the car pulled into traffic, we are one person down on the team, and we still have not tracked down the flight leader since he went off duty yesterday. Sam’s decided he need to see him to find out why they retrieved you in the way they did. I mean, after last year’s fiasco with Fidelity, they were indefinitely suspended. The pilot and the co pilot only know they were told to fly and that you were to be treated as a suspected aitch eye dee ee forty seven”

Then something occurred to Jenny, “why do we need to get down there so quickly”
“That’s just Sam, he likes to have all the troops together I suspect”
“But I told him everything I know Mark that creep tried to chat me up, I was engaged to Darren and I noticed he had a wedding ring and he suggested we cheat on our partners. He kept coming to the coffee shop and I always got someone else to serve him”
“We know Jenny, what ever is going on with these aitch eye dee ee forty sevens, we both suspect you were used as some kind of patsy, as a means to an end, but we don’t know what”
“Oh” Jenny replied and gazed out of the window.

The commander turned the car radio to a commercial music station, but neither of them seemed to be listening to the music, it was more a kind of audio wallpaper to fill awkward silences.

Jenny would occasionally glance at the commander, who seemed quite attractive to her, especially the way he was with her, but then she began to feel guilty about betraying her dead fiancé. She could not tell what he was thinking.

Halfway back Jenny had another thought “I’ll need a change of clothes for tomorrow”
“I think that can be arranged” Mark replied as if he was on auto pilot
“So where am I staying tonight, in that hospital ward again?”
“You mean the infirmary?”
“Yes Mark”
“I wouldn’t have thought so”
“Where do you stay?”
“The US embassy rents out a number of private properties, when US personnel are stationed at the Facility, we stay in them”
Jenny thought for a moment about asking if she could stay with Commander Mark, but before she could ask, the phone rang.
Commander Mark switched on the hands free phone; it was Mr Carvel on the line.
“Carvel here, the Colonel wants to know where you are” Mr Carvel asked over the phone
“Carvel, tell Sam we are about forty minutes away” Commander Mark replied, “Carvel we had to skip desert, so what’s the hurry any way, the suspect is not due till much later.” he added.
“Suspect? What suspect?”
Jenny noticed Commander Mark frown and then motion for Jenny to keep quiet. “Come on Carvel, you know the guy who has been funding that insurgent attack on our troops in Tehran”
“Oh that” started Mr Carvel, then suddenly “what are you talking about troops in Tehran”
“Sorry Carvel, I meant Helmand”
“Ok, will you be interrogating him or will that be the colonel?”
“I will Carvel” Mark responded, then added, “we are coming into busy traffic so I am going to have to go now”
“Very well, see you when you get here” Mr Carvel replied and then hung up

Jenny looked at the road, it was relatively clear on their way into North London, the heavy traffic was on its way out. Jenny looked puzzled.

Commander noticed Jenny’s confusion, “Jenny that was not Mr Carvel, Mr Carvel would know about that guy from your town”
“City” Jenny corrected him, “it’s a city”
“Whatever, Jenny, anyway, we do not interview terrorists who are fund raising, that is done at your Paddington Green Police station in West London, something is not right”

Suddenly, Commander Mark stepped his foot on the accelerator and Jenny felt pushed against her seat as the car sped up.

“Also Jenny, everyone knows” The commander went on, “Carvel, included, that only Sam does the interrogations, and he’s kind of territorial like that.”

Commander Mark pressed a button on the hands free phone and uttered “Samuel P Secure”

The car phone, started to dial, and then got a message telling that the number was not available and could they leave a message. Commander Mark killed the phone, “Now I know something is wrong, Sam never has voice mail on that phone.

The commander continued to speed up the car, as he weaved in and out of the traffic at high speed.

Commander Mark then hit the same button again on the phone and uttered “Facility escort service”

The phone rang and then picked up; it was the local metropolitan police. Commander Mark gave an authorisation code and then told them where they were. The voice on the phone told them that someone would be with them in five minutes. About ten minutes later as the commander looked agitated; two police motorbikes came along side, to help make way for the ford Galaxy. Jenny felt scared but decided not to say anything, the commander needed to concentrate on his driving.

It was twenty long minutes before the motorcade reached the non-descript streets in North London, and the police riders broke off. From here they were on their own.

“Jenny, when we get in to the parking lot, lock yourself in” Commander Mark ordered her.
“And be a sitting duck?” Jenny questioned
“Jenny, you’ll be safe, this is a bullet proof car, something is very wrong at the Facility” Commander Mark replied, then pulled from a pocket in the driver side car door a nine millimetre automatic.

Just as they were about to turn into the entrance for the underground car-park, the Commander brought the car to a screeching stop. Then he reversed and stopped. There on the left walking along the pavement was Colonel Peters, with a newspaper in his hand. Jenny noticed it was the London Evening Standard. Mark triggered the electronic window to wind down on Jenny’s side.
“Sam, what’s up with your mobile?” Commander Mark asked

The Colonel stopped, took out his mobile looked at it and came over to the passenger side door, “That’s odd, no signal” then added, “is that why you decided to wear out those tyres”
“Sam, something’s up with Carvel” Mark informed him
“Something’s always up with him”
“Seriously Sam, Mr Carvel rang up and did not know about the guy who hired the aitch eye dee ee forty seven coming down here”
“Mark, that’s his job, to look after all those brought in to the Facility” Colonel Peters replied, and then got in to the car behind Jenny.
“What do you want to do Sam” Commander Mark asked
“Get to the bottom of this” was the colonel’s curt reply
“Mark wants me to be a sitting duck in this car” Jenny piped up
“Jenny, I told you, you will be” Commander Mark started
“I’m not leaving her in this car” Colonel Peters interrupted, “The bullet proof one is in the shop”
“I thought this was the bullet proof one Sam”
“Nah, that’s the other people carrier Mark”
“Oh”

Commander Mark restarted the car and drove into the underground car park and located the space where the car was meant to park, but then drove passed it to another empty space and parked it. Jenny was told to wait while the two marines exited the car, and made sure the area was safe, and then the colonel opened her door for her to get out.

Nervously Jenny got out of the vehicle and kept between the two marines as they approached the entrance to the lift. The marines both by now had drawn their handguns. Commander Mark called the lift, and got Jenny to stand back just in case. The lift arrived, and out stepped a man Jenny had not seen, both the marines pointed their side arms at him. He saw the guns pointed at him and put his hands up “OK I admit it, it was me, professor plum in the kitchen with the rope”

Commander Mark holstered his gun, “Guthrie, what are you doing here”
“I work here?” the man said
“Ha, Ha, very funny” Commander Mark responded, “Where’s Carvel?”
“Sorry commander, you just missed him, he had to go home, he suddenly got one of his migraines” The man explained, “I thought I would fill in for him”
“Not your usual job” Colonel Peters added, “You’re normally stuck in the R and D section if I remember”
“Well Colonel, in these enlightened times under your wise leadership, we all pitch in when one of our own goes sick, and he was all over the place. I believe that migraine was so severe he was not really with it at all”
Colonel Peter’s holstered his gun as well, “I was not aware he suffered migraines”
“Oh colonel, it’s common knowledge amongst all those who have been serving here since before Mr Sepia passed oversight to you colonials. Oh and I assume by your drawn weapons, Carvel must have said something odd, well as I said, when he gets like that he can be let us say, less than his usual compos mentis”
“Well no one mentioned it to me Guthrie” Colonel Peters countered.
“You’ll find it on the HR file if you want to look sir”
“Never mind Guthrie” Colonel Peters replied

Jenny looked at this Guthrie person; he was about fifty, almost like the colonel, had black hair and dressed in a grey charcoal suit. There was something about him that Jenny did not trust, but at least unlike Mr Carvel he was not trying to clap her in irons.

Guthrie looked at her and took her left hand, lifted it and kissed it, “Ah Miss Green, so pleased to meet you at last” Jenny felt her skin crawl, but she could not quite put her finger on it.

Jenny and the two marines got in the lift with Guthrie and the Colonel requested that they be taken to the director’s level. Guthrie put in a key card and the lift started to ascend.
“Sorry Sam, I really thought something was up with Carvel” Mark apologised
“Well at least you got back here in one piece, by the way, did they get away ok”
“Yes Sam”
Jenny just kept silent and eyed Guthrie, Guthrie did not seem to notice, or he did not seem to care.

The lift doors opened after ascending about seven floors, onto a corridor with a number of offices behind glass walls, Colonel Peters left the lift quite fast and headed for a large office at the end of the corridor, leaving the Commander to take Jenny by the hand and follow after him. Jenny looked back and saw Guthrie smiling smugly as the doors closed.

As Jenny and the commander entered the office, the colonel closed the door behind them. In the corner of the room was Captain Strang, the troll from the Mystical Realms.

[img=300x400]http://uk.games-workshop.com/mordor/modelling-trolls/images/d_F_side_p.jpg[/img]

“Any calls Strang?” Colonel Peters asked him
“No Colonel, not a single one” replied the troll

Jenny was still unhappy about Guthrie, “Sam” she broached
“Yes Jenny”
“Do you buy that about the migraine?”

Colonel Peters put his right index finger to his lips to tell Jenny to keep quiet and pulled out of his coat pocket at small black box, with an LED on it, a switch and a small telescopic aerial.

“How could we forget Sam” Commander Mark suddenly said, “I remember hearing about them”

During this, Colonel Peters pulled out the aerial and switched on the device. The LED turned green.

“Mark, were clear of bugs” Colonel Peters told him, “Jenny, it sounds like a load of B S to me, but that seems to be par for the course for this place
“Sam, it really sounded like Carvel on the phone to me, didn’t it Jenny”

Jenny nodded, it had indeed sounded like him.

“Well Mark, maybe he went home early and got Guthrie to run the voice synthesiser” Colonel Peters suggested
“Yeah but I told him that the suspect was a terrorist raising funds for insurgents in Helmand, and he did not seem to realise we don’t interview them here” Mark countered
“Well Guthrie is such a lab worm, he hardly knows what day it is”
“I suppose Sam, but it did seem odd”

“I don’t trust him” Jenny chipped in, “and this is the first time I have ever met him”
“Yeah, he kind of gives that impression” Colonel Peters replied and then pulled from under his desk a small overnight bag and handed it to Jenny. Then he turned to the troll and asked “Captain, would you like to escort Myself, Jenny and Mark to the accommodation for this evening”
“It will be a pleasure” the troll said in his gruff voice, and held out a small spherical device.

Suddenly another tunnel opened up, like the one Jenny had seen earlier, and the troll started walking through it.



Commander Mark took Jenny by the hand, “Come on Jenny, it’s quite safe” he told her and took her hand and led her through. The Colonel followed on after them through this strange blue wormhole.

Suddenly they were outside in some kind of ancient stone city or fortified citadel.

“Welcome to Karam Tag Chou” Captain Strang told Jenny

“Where are we?” Jenny asked the troll
“This is the royal citadel of the troll emperors” Captain Strang replied “This is where we guard the orbs that allow us to go between your world and ours”
“That you know of Strang” Colonel Peters chipped in

The troll’s face appeared to drop from what Jenny could tell, “Yes I suppose so Colonel”

To Jenny this seemed amazing; this was her first time on an alien world. In the sky there were two suns, sinking in the sky as their night was falling also. Then she noticed she was shivering as a cold persistent breeze blew in from what seemed to be a mountain range.

“It’s cold here” Jenny observed, then added “So why are we here”

“Jenny if you think this is cold, wait until it’s winter” Commander Mark added
“We are here Jenny” Colonel Peters added, “Because this place is impossible to bug, is totally secure from our end and doesn’t cost the UK tax payer anything”
“Sam” Jenny asked, “I thought you swept your office for bugs”
The colonel brought out the electronic device, “well I did not detect conventional listening devices, but you don’t think that a government agency would be unable to fool one of these do you”
“No sir, I guess not”
“Say Strang” The commander asked the troll, “are our usual quarters ready”
“Yes Commander” replied the troll and beckoned for them to follow.
“Usual Quarters?” Jenny asked incredulously, “Have you been here before?”
Commander Mark turned to Jenny and explained that when a few months back, the US and Colombian authorities had co-operated with trolls from the Mystical Realms, with the help of the Republic of Ireland, they had negotiated some kind of deal, and that the Colonel and the Commander, along with some un-named operatives had visited the citadel to acclimatise should they need to and have experience of this dimension and to meet with troll authorities from time to time. It seemed that those running the Facility back on Earth and the Trolls wanted the same thing; preventing interference from either side in the other side’s affairs, and the best way to achieve this was for both of them to work together.

As they reached large building in the wall of the city Jenny looked at some of the mountains in the distance and gazed at some kind of large flying creature in the distance, they looked familiar to descriptions she had heard as a child and asked Captain Strang, “Are those dragons?”
“Yes Miss Green” Strang answered, “But fear not, they prefer to stay in the mountains and hunt their prey, they will not come to here at Karam TagChou”
“I remember this place well” Commander Mark mused as the looked at the building, by now night had fallen and Jenny noticed they seemed to have three or was it four moons.
Jenny looked at the building, “Is this where we are staying the night”

“Yup” answered Colonel Peters, then added “Carvel wanted me to detain you in one of the old holding cells so we could keep tabs on you , I told him we would use this place instead as it was much nicer than a holding cell”
“That must have annoyed him Sam” Mark chipped in
“And I should care because?”

“So, am I a prisoner or not?” Jenny wondered, They obviously did not want her out of their control, which would have been the case if she had been put up in a hotel

“I will be back at suns rise” Captain Strang told them and then left.

Colonel Peters went in the front door, and then Commander Mark, took hold of Jenny’s hand and led her in, as she still seemed to be awestruck at being on another world.

They explained the details of how the amenities in the building worked to Jenny and although they seemed basic, the place was relatively comfortable. Apparently it used to be a block assigned to a clan chief that had been disgraced and no longer resided at the troll citadel.

Jenny was feeling tired as it had been another long day and let the colonel and the commander talk into the night while she went to her assigned room, changed into the night clothes provided, and got into the bed. It was quite comfortable and warm, and soon Jenny drifted off to sleep

+-+-+-+-+

Jenny woke up with a jolt. Someone had banged on her door. It was the colonel telling her it was time to get up. Jenny used the amenities, got washed in a large stone bath, which seemed to be heated underneath like Roman baths used to be, put on the change of clothes. They were similar to what she had been given the previous day, but they definitely looked good on her.

Jenny went into the main room of the troll billet, but only found the colonel waiting for her.

“Do they serve breakfast?” Jenny asked
“I don’t do breakfast” Colonel Peters replied in a brusque manner.
“Oh – ok” Jenny whimpered, she would have to make do without
Then, to pre-empt Jenny’s next question Colonel Peters told her, “Mark has gone back to Earth ahead of us, I want to make sure that dirt bag that hired that aitch eye dee ee forty seven to attack you, actually makes it to interrogation in one piece”

There was a thump on the main front door, the colonel got up to open it, it was Captain Strang.
“Ready to return Colonel?” the troll asked
“Yes Strang, and this time interview room ten please”
“Yes Colonel”
Then Jenny noticed the troll then move some switch on the orb, and again the blue wormhole started to form, and the three of them walked through it.

They landed in another interview room. This one was much bigger but was not as well lit as the other one, and was lit by conventional bulbs, or they would be if they had not been switched for energy saving light bulbs. Colonel Peters directed Jenny and the troll to go into the observation room, which they duly did. Colonel Peters sat a table in the interview room

In this observation room, there was a very large seat, which was obviously for the troll captain, which was probably why they landed here. Jenny just sat and watched through the one way glass at the Colonel sitting there. She tried to make conversation with the troll by asking about the shape shifting creatures, and the troll merely told her that they normally lived in coastal places and ate fish and some of them would sometimes leave their costal home to seek their fortune. Their ability to change shape, the original reason for this feature was never adequately explained, proved useful for other races who hired them out to be assassins. Their incredible strength was also much prized, which was why it was such a mystery that Jenny had survived the attack. Their ability to take what ever humanoid form they liked did have a price, as it meant people were very suspicious of them, and so they would end up on the margins of the societies of different races.

Suddenly the door opened, and the commander entered pushing the fat man, that used to harass Jenny at the coffee shop, in handcuffs over to the table,. The commander seated the man on the chair and left the interview room. Thirty seconds later Commander Mark entered the observation room and sat down.

“Morning Jenny, did you sleep well” Commander Mark opened with
“Yes thank you Mark”
“Did Sam skip breakfast again?”
“Yes Mark how could you tell?”
“I know the Colonel, sorry about that”
“Did this guy see that creature as well” Jenny asked
“No, so we are not going to mention the Mystical Realms to this..”

They were interrupted as the fat man started to protest, “I gave my statement to the police, why am I here?”
“We want to know what kind of dirt-bag hires an international terrorist assassin to indecently assault a young woman and put her in the hospital” Colonel Peter’s replied
“What? I told the police everything, I don’t have to answer to some jumped up American military kangaroo court”

Colonel Peters banged both of his hands on the table, “You did not hear me, did you, hiring a terrorist like the one you hired puts you in our jurisdiction. You can answer questions here or in Guantanamo bay, it’s your choice”
“I want my lawyer” The Fat man responded.
Colonel Peters picked up a microphone and talked to the observation room. “Commander, when is the next Special Rendition flight scheduled”
Commander Mark keyed a microphone to speak back to the Colonel, “We have one leaving in two or three hours, I can call them to expect one more passenger if you want”
“You can’t do that, I’m a British citizen” the fat man protested
“You want to take that chance?” The Colonel Retorted
“I never knew that guy was a terrorist, he was just an ordinary guy in the pub who I never met before who said he would help me out”
“Help you out?, you mean you were too cowardly to do your own dirty work, this woman must have really p****d you off”
“It wasn’t like that” The fat man whined

“So, Mr Tompkins, what was it like” The Colonel asked
“You must believe me, I did not want her hurt, it was not meant to go that far”
“From the beginning Mr Tompkins”

The fat man put his bald head in his hands then looked up, “It started some months ago, I was at another coffee house altogether, when she walked in, with what I thought was her kid. I thought who ever gave her that kid must have been a really lucky fella if you know what I mean”
“No, I don’t, what do you mean”
“I mean the guy who had managed to do her, you know get her pregnant, so she had that kid. She is so hot; she was the best thing I had seen with a skirt”


“Thing, Thing, I hate that, does that b*******d think we are all sex objects” Jenny muttered.


The fat man continued, “Then I heard her speak to the kid, and it was not hers but some child of a couple getting married and she was taking the kid to the toilet. I thought this was great and I wanted to ask if she was free, but I bottled it”
“So you stalked her, to her place of employment”
“No, I just asked the waitress who she was and she said she was an assistant manager at a rival coffee house”
“So you went there and propositioned her”
“I asked her out”
“But she turned you down and pointed out you were married”
The fat man started to get flustered, “My wife is in a care home, she has pre-senile dementia, she hardly knows who I am, the woman showed me an engagement ring, I asked who he was and she said he was some soldier on active service, I merely suggested that as we were two lonely souls we should hook up and I would not tell if she didn’t and no one need ever be any the wiser”
“But she still turned you down” The Colonel pressed
“It was frustrating, when ever I went in to that place, I wanted her to serve me, but it was always someone else, and she was always busy, and when she got promoted to manager it was worse, she was always cooped up in that office when I came round”
“Did you not get a hint that she might not be interested?”
“Come one, you’re a red hot blooded male like me, she was just doing what many women do, playing hard to get, you got to know that when a woman says no she doesn’t always mean it”


“WHAT!!!” Jenny was almost screaming at him, “That’s a lie, I was not playing hard to get, I wanted nothing to do with him”
“Jenny, calm down” Commander Mark told her, “he’s just trying to wriggle off the hook, these guys never take the hint”
“And you always do?” Jenny snapped at the commander
“Always Jenny, I have always respected the women I have worked with and dated, and it’s not me you should be angry with it’s that jerk in there” Commander Mark responded pointing at the fat man through the one way glass
“I’m sorry Mark, it’s just” then Jenny choked up and Commander Mark handed her a tissue so she could wipe her eyes.


“I was always taught that no means no” Colonel Peters told the fat man coldly, then asked him “So why did you speak to the terrorist”
“I did not know he was a terrorist, he was a normal guy, he was white, he was not one of those Middle Eastern Muslim guys”
“Mr Tompkins, the men who blew up the London underground and that bus in 2005 were home grown Brits”
“I did not know he was a terrorist, he engaged me in conversation and mentioned how he had seen that I was interested in the coffee house manager”
“So what did you tell him?”
“That she did not even notice I was there”
“And what did he say to that”
“I bet she would, if you were a hero and saved her” the fat man replied
“So, Mr Tompkins, let me get this straight, you hired this terrorist, to indecently assault this woman and cause these injuries” At this Colonel Peters took out some photographs from a folder and slammed them down in front of the man.


“Are those the shots the police took of me?” Jenny asked
“Yes Jenny”
Jenny looked at what reflection she could see in the glass at here healed face, but she could still remember the dreadful state she had been in when she had been released from the hospital.


“Just so you could play the hero” Colonel Peters continued
The fat guy looked at the photographs and just shook his head in disbelief
“But he told me for a fee he would just go up and give her a scare, and I would come and give him a light tap and he would run away, she would then be grateful for me saving her and perhaps she might look at me again, I never realised he would go this far, that was not part of the deal”
“Deal?” queried Colonel Peters, “What deal was this? did you pay him for this?”
“Yes and it seemed like a real bargain at the time, he said he would do it for me for only thirty quid, but that moron with a curtain rail came out of nowhere and beat me to him”

Jenny’s face went white as a sheet when she heard this “Thirty quid” Jenny uttered, then repeated louder “Thirty quid” She stood up to try and pound on the glass, but Commander Mark managed to restrain her just before she could strike it. She turned around and for some reason wanted to strike at the commander, but he held her firmly “Thirty pounds, is that all I’m worth, is that why I was battered and violated, for just thirty pounds” Jenny then started to collapse as she started to shake and gave over to sobbing and repeating the words “thirty pounds”, while the commander, brought her arms safely down, held her in his arms and kissed her on the top of her head

Captain Strang just looked at the floor and remained silent.

“Jenny, your worth a lot more than that” Commander Mark told her, “your many times better than that dirt bag. I think you’re the most decent, warm hearted and honest woman I have ever met, and have met a lot of people Jenny. Your fiancé was a lucky man to have met you”
Jenny was unable to speak and just nodded
“Jenny if you want, I can take you somewhere else away from this guy, and you will never have to see him at all ever again” Commander Mark told her.
Jenny glanced back at the fat man through the glass then back at the commander, “But what about the trial”
“I think we can leave that to Sam, we have a way of fixing things, now you come with me and Captain Strang can keep an eye on the interrogation”

Commander Mark lead Jenny out of the observation room and in to the hall way to a lift and then took it down a number of floors to a cafeteria. He got Jenny to sit down at a table and went and poured two large coffees from a jug. He asked if Jenny had cream and she nodded, so he put cream in both cups and collected some sugar sachets and then collected two Danish pastries from the counter and brought them across to where Jenny was sitting.

Jenny took the Danish and started to nibble through it, she seemed a mixture of hungry and not hungry at the same time. Hungry because the Colonel had decided they were skipping breakfast and not hungry because she still seemed shell shocked at what she had heard the fat man say about her. She put two sugars in her coffee, she did not do this normally, but for some reason felt she needed it.
The commander sat opposite her and let her eat before asking what was on her mind.
“So this is nothing to do with Angela and her husband, it was all to do with me” Jenny murmured just staring at the table, “It’s all my fault” she added then looked at the commander with tears streaming down her face.

It was clear that Jenny was irrationally blaming herself for the attack and Commander Mark was going to have none of this, “Jenny, this was not your fault at all, he had no right to treat you as a piece of meat and he definitely had no right to hire the aitch eye dee ee forty seven to help him play hero”
“But if I had not been so standoffish” Jenny countered, but the commander jumped in “No Jenny, you had every right to keep away from that dirt bag, he is one of the worst forms of low life I have ever met, and you are one of the most loveliest individuals I have ever met. I wish some of my former girlfriends had been like you”
“Thank you“Jenny sniffed
“Now Jenny, let’s have one of your full English breakfasts, it’s one of the few things this place does get right”
“Ok” Jenny said weakly and just sat there and quietly sobbed with her right elbow on the table and resting her head on her right hand whilst the commander went to the serving counter and piled the items for the breakfasts on two plates, as the kitchen staff were not around. They were most likely on a cigarette break outside.

The commander put her plate in front of her and sat down with his, Jenny stared at it blankly for a moment, her thoughts running round her head about the attack, what she had learned about these creatures from this other world and this place called the Facility.
“It’s getting cold” Commander Mark told her and so Jenny picked up her cutlery and slowly started to eat.

They finished the breakfasts in silence and took their plates to a rack for used crockery and cutlery. Jenny looked at her and then told the commander, “I used to clear dishes away like this, at where I work”
“I know, and you made manager at only twenty three, quite impressive” Mark told her
“But look at me, I’m a wreck, I’m falling to pieces because of that b******d” she replied, still very angry and very teary.
“Jenny, you were attacked only three days ago, you need to give yourself time” Commander Mark reassured her, “You still have your inner strength, I saw it, in fact I felt it when you landed me on the floor yesterday”
Jenny remembered how just outside the interrogation room where the Spirit of Kindness was about to become a normal human girl of eleven she had managed to drop a commander in the US marines onto the floor, and a small smile cracked across her face, “Sorry about that Mark, did I hurt you much”
“Only my pride, and the fact Sam is never going to let me forget it, but you had spirit, if you pardon the expression, you wanted, albeit un-necessarily, to save what you thought was a child and you went into action.”

“I thought I would find you here” came Colonel Peter’s voice

The colonel pulled up a chair to the end of the table and sat down, “I just made sure that dirt bag got picked up by your Scotland Yard safely”
“So Sam, is this case closed, an aitch eye dee ee forty seven soliciting business because they are stuck here and no one is hiring them for assassination work”
“Far from it Mark, remember it was the aitch eye dee ee forty seven that gave him the idea to do what it did to Jenny here. They never tout for business like that according to Captain Strang, Mr Tompkins was manipulated to hire it, he was just a patsy, someone to admit to this so the Leos get to close the case before they have thoroughly investigated this”
“Leos?” Jenny asked
“Local enforcement officers” Mark explained
“Remember Mark, these son of a bitches are devious, someone else was pulling the strings”

Jenny stared at the table, her rage was building, then quietly she said “He could have said no” then again “That b*******d could have said no, he still went along with it, he could have said no” Jenny’s voice was getting louder now, “I want that b*******d to rot in hell”, then she broke down in tears repeating the words “Thirty pounds”

Mark went and sat next to her and put his arm around her. Had it been any other man, with the exception of the colonel, Jenny felt she would have panicked, but with these two people, she kind of felt safe, especially as they had been protecting her from some of the excesses of people here at the Facility, her people, British people.

“So what happens with him now Sam” Mark asked
“I gave him a choice, either plead guilty to conspiracy to commit sexual assault and attempted murder, so Jenny does not have to appear in court or testify or he would be extradited under our patriot act for funding terrorism” Colonel Peters replied.

“All we have to do now Sam is find out who gave the order to re-activate the retrieval team”
“That Mark, is proving more difficult, I have not been able to trace the flight leader since they retrieved Jenny. He is not answering his cell or his land line”

Suddenly Jenny heard a mobile phone go off

“Have you got your signal back then Sam” Commander Mark asked.
“Must have” Colonel Peters replied and flipped open the lid and started speaking into it.

Jenny looked at him, as his face went to ashen. He hung up, then dialled another number. As soon as it was answered he yelled into it, “WE HAVE A CODE RED ALPHA LOCKDOWN”

“What!” The commander exclaimed.

Suddenly a klaxon started sounding and a number of doors started to close by them selves and there was the sound of locking.

The Colonel put the cell phone away, “They just found the body of our flight leader about a mile from where the helicopter left from up north, and according to the coroner up there his time of death was about the same time as when Jenny was attacked”

“But Sam, the pilot said he accounted for everyone” Mark objected
“I know Mark” The Colonel replied as he pulled out his side arm, “It’s not just that Mr Tompkins who is a patsy, we are, someone has been playing us all along. I need to get to a terminal to see when the retrieval team was actually sent and who by”

Jenny was confused again, “What’s going on, what is a code red alpha lockdown”
“Jenny it was an alert code from when this place was under British oversight, it means a hostile inter-dimensional entity has escaped somewhere in the Facility”
“Yes Jenny, it seems you were attacked so that one of those sons of bitches could gain access to this placed by mimicking someone in the retrieval team that was sent to get you”

Jenny was almost lost for words, did this mean that they would suspect she was in on this all along, “I, I it wasn’t me I had no idea”

“We know that Jenny” Colonel Peters replied, “They needed someone to be genuinely attacked to cover up what they were really up to”
“Sam, these creatures are mercenaries, they would not have thought this up by themselves”
“I know that Mark, that is why we need to get to a terminal”

The colonel went up to one of the locked doors, pressed a button on an intercom beside it and said “Recognise Colonel Samuel Peters I D E C”
“Voice Print unrecognised” came an electronic voice, “Access Denied”
“What?” Colonel Peter exclaimed
The commander went up to the door and tried the intercom button, “Recognise Commander Mark Johnston I D E C”
“Voice Print unrecognised - Access Denied”
“Sam, we should be both on this system”
“Mark tell me something I don’t know, someone has wiped our voice prints from the security system”

Jenny felt really scared now, they were trapped in the cafeteria, and one of the creatures that had attacked her was on the loose. The only door that seemed to be accessible was from the sitting area into the kitchen; Jenny went through it into the kitchen and noticed in the corner a fire escape door to the outside that had been jammed open with a brick. She saw one of the cooks, a man coming in, attracted by the noise.
“Keep that door open” she yelled at the cook, then stuck her head round the door into the seating area and yelled “Colonel, Commander over here”

The two marines rushed over to where Jenny was and she pointed to the open kitchen door where the kitchen staff were standing confused.
“Good work Jenny” commented the colonel as he rushed past her, then he commanded the two kitchen employees not to close the door to the outside and to stay where they were.

The commander ushered Jenny out through the door into the open air, in an alley where the bins were.
“Ironic Sam” Commander Mark commented, “state of the art security compromised by two smokers”

The two kitchen workers, both men, looked down at their feet and seemed apologetic.
“What was the brick for” the colonel asked them
“That door kept snapping shut, so we used it so we did not have to go round the front if we got locked out” explained one of the cooks. The colonel gave him a look of contempt then asked if they had any more cigarettes. Both the cooks produced their respective packs.
“Light up” he ordered them
“Sir?”
“DO IT”
The two cooks then lit the fresh cigarettes and started puffing away, while the colonel scrutinised them intensely.
“What gives” Commander Mark asked the colonel. Jenny just stood there mystified as she listened to the klaxon through the open fire door.

“They’re human” Colonel Peters replied, “Shape shifters would not be able to tolerate tobacco and they don’t smoke” then he turned to the kitchen staff and told them in future they were not to take shortcuts like they had done otherwise there would be hell to pay but for now they were to get as far away from the Facility as they could, then he signalled for the commander to follow him. Jenny just tagged along.

As Jenny passed one of the large wheelie bins she noticed something looking like a foot sticking out from one of the bin covers. She went to investigate and was only just able to lift the lid enough to see it was attached to a body, but she could not see much more.
“SAM, MARK” she yelled, dropping the bin cover again and standing back in shock
Commander Mark came back for her and the Colonel just stopped in his tracks.

Jenny just leant against the wall, eyeing the foot in horror and pointing to it as Commander Mark came up to her. He went up to the wheelie bin and opened the lid fully in one go, to expose the body.
“Oh no” he murmured
Jenny started to creep towards the bin, but the commander turned round and suddenly held her in his arms and made sure her head was pressed into his chest. “You do not want to see that Jenny, for G_d’s sake you don’t want to see that”

The Colonel ran up and looked into the bin, and swore, then stood on tip toes fishing for something on the body in the wheelie bin, retrieved an object and then pushed the foot in, so it would not show when he closed the lid.

“What’s the matter, who is that in there” Jenny asked as she was still held tightly by the commander.
“It was Carvel, Jenny, he’s been murdered”
The colonel came up to the pair, “Mark’s right Jenny, you don’t want to see that sight”

Jenny walked into the centre of the alleyway and looked at the wheelie bin, now with it’s lid closed to hide it’s gruesome secret. “Is that because he was killed by one of those creatures that attacked me?” Jenny ventured.
The colonel and the commander glanced at each other.
“It is, isn’t it” Jenny pressed
“I’m afraid so Jenny” admitted the colonel then he turned to the commander “This has to mean this has been an inside job”
“Sam, Carvel as well as being in charge of those retrieved, was also carrying out an internal audit, on my instruction”
“I know Mark, it looks like this was arranged by whoever”

Suddenly they heard a retching and choking sound, it was Jenny, she was partially collapsed against the wall, as a wave of nausea had hit her. She could only imagine what had happened to Carvel, and the same kind of creature had attacked her and it made her feel sick.

“Slow breaths Jenny, Slow breaths” Mark instructed her as he came up and put his arm around her back. Jenny tried to comply but the smell from the alley way was not helping.

Suddenly there was a familiar sound of a rushing of air, it was another wormhole opening up. In it was Captain Strang, beckoning them to come.



“How did he find us?” Jenny shouted above the noise of the wormhole
“Sam and I both have amulets of location on us” The Commander shouted back and took Jenny through the worm hole following the colonel and Captain Strang.

Once again Jenny found herself breathing the clear cold air of the Mystical Realms in the troll citadel

“Thanks Strang” The colonel told the troll
“When the alarms went off and the doors did not recognise my name, I knew we were in trouble Colonel” the troll replied
“Can you get us in to the director’s level?” Commander Mark asked the troll captain
“I believe so Commander, I have become quite expert at controlling the dimension jump orbs”
“Ok Strang take us there” The colonel asked.

Jenny watched as the troll once again manipulated the orb and created another wormhole, she could even here the klaxon alarm through it. The troll entered first, followed by the commander then the colonel. Jenny was just about to follow when the colonel put up his hand and shouted “No Jenny, you’ll be safer here” then he shouted back to the troll, “Kill it now”

Suddenly Jenny saw the wormhole collapse to nothing, as she stood there, left alone in the cold air of Karam Tag Chou, in the Mystical Realms.

To be continued

[Sticks]

Episode V – Doubles Dilema

Have you ever been in a situation when all your friends have been invited to a party and you have not? Or when everyone has the latest fashion and your mom has decided you will be wearing hand-me-downs which are “just as good thank you very much”

You feel:

• Excluded
• left out
• Isolated
• Abandoned?

Well that is how Jenny Green must feel, as she has been left at the troll citadel of the emperors for her own safety while the two American Marines from the Facility, a place that deals with those crossing from the Mystical Realms into our world, return there to deal with a doppelganger assassin that used the retrieval snatch squad that took her, to gain access to this ultra secret base in North London

Jenny stood there, in shock, staring at empty courtyard where the wormhole back to Earth had been. The colonel had got the troll to close it before she could enter, trapping her on an alien world in a different universe. She realised the colonel had meant well, he wanted to keep her safe, he had seen that she had been an innocent pawn so a vicious and brutal shape-shifting killer from this alien world, a doppelganger assassin, could gain entry to some secret base, just known as The Facility.

Maybe this was no longer her fight, they had found the guy who had paid a measly thirty pounds for one of these creatures to attack and injure her, just so he could play at being a hero. Maybe it was justice that some other guy was fit enough to beat the creature off of her before he got to it, so he never got that satisfaction. But the colonel had indicated, this guy had been manipulated as well, although that did not excuse his culpability in the pain and the humiliation that had been inflicted upon her that night. The answers to the truth lay on Earth, at the Facility so she needed to get back there.

Jenny looked up at the buildings; everything from the doors to the buildings themselves seemed to be on the large scale and were quite robust, mainly because the trolls who ran the show in this world were huge creatures.



The air was cold and clear and thin, as the citadel was built in the mountains, possibly because it could be neutral territory or possible because this was where there was adequate stone and a fast and flowing river that flowed through the mountain range, who knew the real reason?.

The whole place also seemed to be built on a slope, and it seemed like she was at the top end. All the courtyards from what she could tell and the boulevards linking them were open to the sky, there were no covered walkways. Where she was in the complex, she could not tell as it was not the part she had spent the night before. There was some kind of stone fountain in the centre of the court yard and



to one side there looked like a large white building which was very ornate and not like the other buildings. From the grandeur of the courtyard, the fountain and the construction, Jenny could only conclude that this was the royal palace. By the side of the main entrance, were two smaller, one troll structures which looked like they might be sentry posts. This definitely had to be the royal palace, so Jenny ran over to see if anyone was there.

As she reached the palace door, she could see that a large lock had been put on it and the sentry posts were unoccupied. Jenny called out, yelling to see if anyone was in, but answer came there none. There was no emperor in residence, so no need for the palace to be occupied, so it had been locked up and left.

Could Jenny really be the only living being here?

There was no time to spare and so there was nothing else for it, she had to try and find someone or something to help her get back to Earth and the Facility. She remembered that Captain Strang had said that the orbs to travel between her world and this were kept somewhere at this Karam Tag Chou citadel, and she needed one to get back, she also might need some kind of weapon she thought, especially if she was going into a complex where one of those doppelganger assassins was on the loose.

Jenny started to head down the hill, maybe towards the bottom of the complex she might find someone at least, so she tried to run as fast as she could, but the heels on her shoes were not conducive to running. She came to a stop and looked at the ground, it appeared to be mostly flagstones and no sharp gravel, so she removed her socks and shoes and held a shoe and sock in each hand and ran in bare feet on the cold stone.

Jenny continued running down hill until she caught in her eye, a side road going off to the right, which lead to where she had stayed the night with the colonel and the commander, so she headed in that direction. The truth was, she did not know where to run, and for all she knew back on Earth it might be too late with the colonel and the commander ripped to pieces by that doppelganger assassin.

Jenny had to stop thinking like that

She ran up to the accommodation they had been in and called out for anyone.

No answer

She turned around so her back was to the door and thumped it with both hands in frustration. Was this whole citadel totally deserted? Where were the guards? Where were the maid servants? This looked like some medieval establishment; someone had to be around, somewhere. What kind of place was this?

Jenny looked across the square from where they had stayed, there was what looked like a main hall, and so she rushed over to it, again the door was firmly shut. She banged on the door and shouted.

Nothing! She could only hear the sound of her dying echoes and the sound of the cold wind that incessantly blew through the citadel.

Jenny continued to look for any sign of life in the distance. The place was dead. Jenny was getting very frustrated. She could not help imagine those shape shifting creatures ripping the colonel and the commander apart. Would that troll, Captain Strang be a match for them even? Both the commander and the colonel had not wanted her to see Caravel’s body in the wheelie bin in the alleyway outside the Facility, so they way they gilled must have been fairly grotesque.

Why was no one answering, where was everybody?

Jenny wondered, should she go back to the junction and continue down, or walk around the outside of the main hall? She decided to go around the outside of the main hall and then return to the junction. This hall was huge and was almost on the scale of an aircraft hanger, so it must be important some how and it took a good three minutes running in bare feet on the painfully cold stone slabs to get to a corner at least.

Then she saw someone.

No

It was something

Jenny peered into the distance; it looked like another troll, just like Captain Strang, but taller, dressed in a red robe similar to a cassock that the remembered the Anglican priests wore when she last attended a church service. The troll in red seemed to be carrying a large staff.

It looked like it had not seen her so Jenny shouted “HELLO” and ran towards the troll. It had to be friendly right? They had sent one of their own to work with the colonel and the commander back on Earth right?

If Jenny was to get back, and somehow help out, and possibly find why she was so severely beaten up by a shape-shifter who had manipulated a real piece of low life scum to hire it so the guy could play hero and win her affections, she needed to make contact with the other trolls that could help her get back to Earth.

“HELLO” she shouted again as she finally caught up to the large troll

The troll looked down at Jenny, “And who are you?” it asked in a gruff voice
“Please sir, my name is Jenny Green, I’m from” was all Jenny could get out before the troll interrupted her
“Why are you here in the sacred citadel of the emperors” the troll boomed
“I was left here sir, by Captain Strang and two”
“So” interrupted the troll again, “are you from the world of mortals then?”

The question threw Jenny for a moment, then she realised he must be talking about Earth, “Yes sir”
“So why are you intruding on our sacred citadel, Mortal”
“Captain”
“I HEARD, NOW WHY ARE YOU HERE” The troll shouted, the force of the sound made Jenny flinch, unlike Strang who had a softer voice in comparison.
“They thought I would be safe from an escaped doppelganger sir, they” Jenny tried to answer
The troll would not let her finish “Is this to do with the place you mortals call the Facility”
“Yes sir”
“So why, Mortal known as Jenny Green, are you coming to me”
“I wanted to get back to Earth, sir, I was informed that”
The troll continued its habit of interrupting, “I am the Troll chamberlain, I do not deal with the orbs of dimension jumping. That is the province of the Chief of the Manjura clan, who resides here”
“Please sir”, Jenny nervously asked, “Can you take me to him”

The troll chamberlain eyed Jenny up and down then asked, “Are you a married female?”
“No sir” Jenny answered Why was he asking this?
“What, dressed indecently like that, I don’t think so” The troll sneered

Jenny looked at what she was wearing, it seemed respectable enough and good for even the most conservative of offices. Maybe it was because she was in bare feet, “I could put my shoes and socks back” she tried to say
“I am not talking about your footwear, although you must wear sandals alone on your feet if you must wear anything on your feet” The troll chamberlain told her with irritation
“Sir?” Jenny asked, still confused.
“Single females, may not be covered above the waist, unless they are royal princesses” The Troll explained
“Huh?” Was Jenny’s response
“And they are permitted only to wear a skirt shorter than that abomination you are wearing”

Suddenly the troll muttered some incantation and banged his staff on the ground. Jenny noticed her jacket starting to dissolve into nothingness, then her blouse went and her bra. She could also feel her panties go, her socks and shoes vanished from her hands. Her skirt seemed to be halved, so it was now like a mini-skirt and ended halfway up her upper leg.

Instinctively, Jenny held her arms in front of her to cover her modesty, but that did not shut out the cold she now felt even keener than before with all but one item of clothing now gone.

“SINGLE FEMALES MUST NOT HIDE THEMSELVES” The troll shouted at her
“Huh?” Jenny asked, again confused.
“You must put your arms by your side, mortal known as Jenny Green, or you will be punished” The troll explained in an angry voice

The troll was big, and definitely unfriendly, so Jenny uncovered herself and let her arms hang by her side as she was ordered to, she felt her face going red with embarrassment, after all when she had gone on holiday with female friends, they would always comment that she never ever went topless like they did. Jenny was not brought up to do such things, but now, just like when she was first attacked and when she was first brought to The Facility, she had been stripped, and she hated it. She was also almost turning blue from the cold wind, now she had no protection from it.

“Now you are more in keeping with troll tradition for females, I will escort you to the quarters of the Manjura clan” The troll told Jenny, “At whose door you must remove the skirt to show you have nothing to hide”

”Keeping with troll tradition for females” Jenny thought as she followed the troll back along the route he had come from, were all females treated like this as second class citizens, forced to strip virtually naked so the males could get their thrills from them, why were the US and the Brits dealing with such a misogynist culture, but Jenny remembered even on Earth America and the UK would deal with countries with appalling human rights records, if it suited their interests.

It took about ten minutes or maybe fifteen, before they came to what the Troll chamberlain said was the quarters of the Manjura clan of trolls. She could not be sure, as in the state of undress the troll had put her in and the strong cold wind blowing in from the mountains, she was almost passing out.

The Troll Chamberlain pointed to Jenny’s skirt making a gesture she could only interpret as now was the time to remove it. Jenny did not have the inclination to argue with the troll chamberlain and so obediently removed what was left of the skirt which was then taken by the troll, leaving her totally naked. Jenny made no attempt to cover any part of herself up, since that was the law that operated here, and she had to obey.

The Troll Chamberlain then struck the door with his staff, and waited, Because of the cold now, Jenny was doing her best to just keep conscious, and just tried to focus on trying to listen for footsteps coming to open the door. Jenny just hoped it would be warmer inside. If it was not for the cold, she would have felt humiliated by the forced nakedness she had to endure.

After what seemed to Jenny like an eternity, shivering in the cold air, a smaller troll came and opened the door. This troll was wearing a dark green tunic and a grey cloak



The troll at the door looked up at the Troll chamberlain and gruffly said to him “What do you want”, then it looked straight at Jenny, and did what Jenny could just about work out was a double take.
“WHATE ARE YOU DOING CHAMBERLAIN?”, The troll at the door shouted at the troll chamberlain, “Are you insane?” then quickly this smaller troll removed his grey cloak, and walked up to Jenny and gently put it around her slender body. “Thank you” was all she could say before everything went black.

+-+-+-+-+

“Miss Green” Jenny heard a voice that sounded like it was in a distant tunnel.

“Miss Green” came the voice again, to Jenny it sounded like it was the troll who had answered the door before she finally succumbed to the cold.

“I am so sorry for this mix up, Miss Green” came the voice again, “Our chamberlain exceeded his authority”

Jenny flicked her eyes open, as she started to come around. She was lying on some couch like piece of furniture that was in front of a roaring fire. She was also wrapped in a large warm blanket, and at her side was the troll who had opened the door. By the fire stood the Troll Chamberlain, looking at the floor and looking sheepish, if indeed trolls could look sheepish.

Jenny pulled her arms out of the blanket so she could keep it wrapped around herself as she slowly sat up.

“Drink this” The troll told her and handed a metal goblet that was steaming. It was a hot milk of some kind, which Jenny duly did

“Allow me to introduce myself” The troll who had opened the door said, “I am the Clan Chief of the Manjura, I am the keeper of the dimension jump orbs. The idiot of a troll chamberlain you have already met”

“Idiot” objected the troll chamberlain
“Yes Idiot” repeated the Clan Chief, “Did you not learn anything from your predecessor, humans are not trolls, and they can not tolerate the cold like we can”
“But sire” continued the Troll Chamberlain, “I was merely enforcing the ancient law of trolls governing females and of audience protocols”
“Chamberlain, those laws applied only to trolls and were abolished; it was Emperor Graeme’s last wish before he departed”

Emperor Graeme? – Was this the same person who had married Jenny’s former boss

“Emperor Graeme?” Jenny asked, “Graeme Andrews”

The Clan chief of the Manjura looked quizzically at Jenny, “Yes Miss Green, do you know him”
“Yes sir” Jenny replied, “Back on Earth, he married my former supervisor, Angela Roberts and they moved to a place called Ireland so they could legally adopt a little girl called Sarah they had with them”
“Ireland ay” beamed the Manjura troll, “That part of the Mortal Realms with which we first had treaty with. Say Miss Green, what was the last you heard of our former royal couple?”
“er,” Jenny started, “They have two children now, Sarah who they adopted and a baby son that Angela had”
“A son ay” beamed the Manjura troll, “I thought that pair were close, which was why I brought her here too. But Miss Green why are you here”

Jenny suddenly remembered, the colonel and the commander trying to go back into the Facility where the doppelganger assassin was. “I need to get back to The Facility, Sir, to the Director’s level, Colonel Samuel Peters and Commander Mark Johnston went back there with your captain because a doppelganger assassin has got in there”

The Clan chief’s face scrunched up, “That bonehead Strang, he is so hung up on honour, he should know better how dangerous those creatures are”
“But I need to go back and help” Jenny protested
“And how can you do that? The Troll Chamberlain says you were left here, maybe because they did not want you hurt”

Jenny looked on the floor around her, she saw the skirt remnant folded up on the floor by the couch like object and reached for it, still clutching at the blanket, then she managed to pull it on underneath the blanket. She then looked at the walls of what seemed like a drawing room at the various weapons that adorned it until she saw something she recognised, what looked to be a small bow with a quiver of arrows. She tried to stand up with the blanket, but it was heavy, as time was of the essence and even though it went against every fibre of her being, she dropped the blanket and headed for the small bow and arrow set up on the wall, covering her self with her arms as she went. At least this room was warmer than outside

The bow was held to the wall on simple hooks, so Jenny took the bow, then an arrow, saw what looked like a plate of some kind of joint of meat, took aim and fired the arrow in to the meat. The force of the arrow moved the joint back by about a foot.

The Manjura troll took out what seemed to be some kind of mirror and pointed it at Jenny. “Are you Athena the hunter” he asked
“No sir, Junior champion in 2000 Northumberland Archery finals” Jenny explained as she slung the quiver of about seven arrows across her shoulder.

The Manjura clan chief looked at the arrow embedded in the meat joint, then back at Jenny, standing there, doing her best to cover her modesty with her arms. “Maybe we can make a difference” he muttered
“I just hope we are not too late sir” Jenny chipped in

The Manjura troll turned round to the Troll chamberlain, “Where did you send Miss Green’s clothes?”
“Sire?” The Troll Chamberlain looked perplexed, “I disintegrated them”
The Manjura troll exploded at the Troll Chamberlain, “When your predecessor removed the clothes of the emperor and his queen at the coronation he used a teleport spell, not a disintegrate spell”
“Sorry Sire”

The clan chief then turned back to Jenny, “Sorry Miss Green, the former Troll chamberlain passed away two cycles of the moons after your friends left us, and this idiot was his assistant. Unfortunately, all my clothes are way to big for you, the only thing I can think of is this” at this the Clan Chief went up to the Troll Chamberlain, and took from him the long red sash he used to tie his cloak around his middle and handed it to Jenny. “It will at least allow you to cover you up top at least”

Jenny looked at it, it seemed to be pure silk, then she took it and wrapped it around her chest twice so it was like some kind of strapless bikini top and tied it up in front. In terms of keeping her warm it was useless, but at least up top it provided some degree of modesty.

The Manjura troll dismissed the Troll chamberlain and informed him that he would be speaking to his opposite number in some clan called the Rachtal about his appalling abuse of a mortal, and went to a small cupboard and took down an orb. He then grabbed a bag of crossbow bolts and a large crossbow.
“I have not seen action in over a year” The troll muttered, then beckoned Jenny to come across, which she duly did. “I have set this to land us where the previous orb was set to appear.

Suddenly the whole room in the troll quarters turned white, with a blinding light, then suddenly the light subsided and Jenny and the Manjura Troll were in the director’s office at the Facility. The door to the corridor had been forced open and the alarm was still sounding.

Jenny looked around the office and saw a computer terminal on screen saver, she went and moved the mouse and the screen cleared to show some kind of log. Jenny peered at it closer, it was some kind of assignment text, instructing that a retrieval team be sent to collect her due to her contact with an IDE, possibly an HIDE47, it also told them to assume she might be one of these creatures as well. She looked for a name, she half expected it to be the person that met them when they arrived back at the Facility the previous day, Guthrie, but it was a Williamson. Jenny then looked at the date and time of the order to mobilise the retrieval team, it was one hour before she was attacked.

They had all been set up it seemed, the attack on her and the retrieval unit sent up prior, so another doppelganger assassin could kill the flight leader and take his place to gain access to the Facility, but why?.

Jenny and the Manjura troll clan chief ventured into the corridor all the while looking to see any sign of life. As they walked down the corridor all the office doors appeared to be shut, in accordance with the automatic lockdown. At the end of the corridor a display indicated that the lift was off line. Jenny looked to see if there was an alternative stairwell, there was, and the door had been jammed open with what seemed to be a bookend from the office they had landed in.

As they ventured onto the stairwell Jenny could see that there was only one more flight upwards, and from the look of it, it was up to the roof. The door out to the roof was still closed, so it seemed that the Colonel and the Commander must have gone downwards, so the two of them crept down to the next level. That door was still firmly shut, and they had no way of opening it, so down another level was all they could do. Jenny could only guess at how many people would be trapped in offices or laboratories, Who ever designed the Facility must have been really paranoid about those from the Mystical Realms to go to such draconian measures, should one have got loose, but from what she had heard about these doppelganger assassins, maybe that paranoia was well placed.

At the next level down the door was opened, Jenny went to go through it, but the troll stopped her and insisted on going through first, with his crossbow loaded and at the ready. As Jenny followed him through it was a section she did not recognise and on either side there appeared to be more offices, with name plates on the doors and all the doors locked shut. The odd person could be heard banging and calling out, but they had to ignore them, they did not have the ability to override the security lockdown anyway

“There is an open door up there” The troll whispered to Jenny, “I will check it”
Jenny nodded and as they advanced towards the open door, Jenny pulled out an arrow from the quiver on her back and strung it to the small bow, so she could cover the rear in case something or someone were to follow them

They got to the open door, in fact the door was open because it had been kicked in with severe force and Jenny noticed the name plate said Frank Williamson. Yet again, the Manjura clan chief troll insisted on entering the room before Jenny, and then uttered a sigh.
“Sir” Jenny whispered
“The occupant of this room has been slain, but it does not seem to have been by doppelganger, but by a weapon of your world and if memory serves me well, what you call a hand gun”

A handgun? – Could this have been a shootout with either the colonel or the commander?

Jenny looked at the damage to the door, and it was difficult to say if a human had broken it in or the doppelganger

Then a horrific thought ran across her mind, could this body be the colonel or the commander? “Is there anything on the body to say who it was?” she found herself asking, all the time looking back to the entrance to the stairs.
“There is a badge with his image around his neck, in your human tongue it says Frank Williamson”

For a brief moment Jenny was relieved that it was not the colonel or the commander, well not this time, but someone had been killed, someone who would not be going home to their family if they had one. The victim here was the person who had sent the retrieval team to collect her, in the violent manner that it had been done, but they had been told before she was ever attacked. There was some sick politics going on and it was not making sense to her.

Jenny turned around and then noticed on the floor of the corridor, and going round the corner, a trail of blood drops so she called to the troll and they both began to follow the trail.

Round the corner were the toilets, which were locked as well by the lock down, and at the end of this corridor was the entrance to another stairwell and the entrance to what seemed like a small corridor with a library at the end, both doors to the stairwell and the library were smashed open by something very strong, the hallmark of a doppelganger assassins. The blood drops were heading into the library.

The Manjura troll sniffed and pointed into the Library, and slowly entered it, crossbow at the ready, Jenny entered behind, arrow at the ready in the bow.

The library seemed to be quite big and there was another mezzanine level contained with in the library, with a set of stairs to it and a mini lift for carrying wheelchairs. The shelves were all made of metal and seemed quite modern, although the books looked quite old.

The troll tapped Jenny on the shoulder to get her attention and then signalled for her to be quiet. Jenny felt terrified; as she listened she was certain she could hear someone else somewhere in the library.

On the floor in front of them was a lamp stand, it was snapped in two and the top part had been broken and the bulb had been smashed. A small aerosol can lay nearby. Jenny picked it up; it was a can of pepper spray.

Jenny followed the troll through one corridor between the shelves, all the while trying to be quiet, then they came to a cross walkway where another block of shelving rows began. At each end of the cross walkway was a set of stairs up to the mezzanine level the troll signalled to turn left and Jenny followed on.

Something moved to Jenny’s right, she drew bow back and aimed at where she had seen the movement.

Just empty wall.

Suddenly, empty wall seemed to move to the right, Jenny instinctively let the arrow fly, and it bounced off the stone wall with a loud clatter. She had missed the creature.

These doppelganger assassins could act like chameleons it would seem, and now Jenny had alerted it to their presence if it had not noticed them already.

“Ssssssh” whispered the troll, “did you see the doppelganger”
Jenny nodded and pointed where she had fired the arrow.

The troll pointed to the stairs at the left hand side of the crosswalk and motioned for Jenny to go up them.

There were several corridors of shelves on each side of this crosswalk between her and the stairs, maybe four maybe three. Jenny strung another arrow to the bow. (She only had five left in the quiver). As she passed each corridor of shelves she pointed the bow, first to the right, where she had seen the doppelganger, then to the left.

She passed the first corridor, nothing

The second, nothing

Third, she could hear something creeping to her left. She hid behind the end of the row, her back to the end of this section of shelves. She looked around for the troll, but he seemed to have gone, possibly down one of the corridors of shelves.

There was one more corridor of shelves before the staircase, and possibly the doppelganger assassin in it ready to ambush her.

She pulled the arrow taut in the bow, took a deep breath and rotated her body to the left and took aim, in case something was there waiting for her in the corridor between the shelves.

It was Captain Strang

Or was it – could this be the doppelganger assassin?

Jenny still kept the arrow at full stretch, and pointed at what seemed like the troll captain
“Miss Green” It said in a gruff voice, “It’s me Captain Strang”
“How do I know you are” Jenny told it, “How do I know you are not a doppelganger”
“I’m sorry I left you on the Mystical Realms, Miss Green, Colonel Peters thought it was for the best. It is me Strang”

Jenny looked into the troll’s eyes, they seemed trusting, but how good a mimic were these shape-shifting mercenaries?

“Miss Green” The creature tried again, “When I left you, your skirt was down to your knees and you wore a blue garment over a white one. I can only assume from what you are wearing, you must have encountered our new Troll Chamberlain”

Jenny put the bow down; this had to be the Real Captain Strang, “I need to go up the stairs” Jenny told it and moved to the stairs, still trying to keep her eyes on Captain Strang, just in case she was wrong.

Slowly she climbed the steps, she felt very tense, as now as she was going up them, she had to take her eyes off of the troll captain, assuming he was the troll captain.

She reached the upper level. On this section, one of the sets of shelves had been replaced by large tables on the far left, where she had emerged.

Jenny looked at the floor and saw more blood; it was trailing to the back, so she padded across following it, bow and arrow at the ready. Hiding between the back wall and the end of one of the shelves, towards the other side was Commander Mark, sitting on the floor clutching his right arm, looking in a bad way. With her back against the wall, aiming her bow and arrow down the corridors between the shelves as she went across, she made it to the commander.

He was barely alive, slipping in and out of consciousness, and it looked like his right shoulder had been broken and he had also been shot in the right side and was trying to put pressure on it with a handkerchief in his left hand. Beside him on the left was his handgun.

Suddenly Jenny heard what sounded like a cry of agony from below, it sounded like the Manjura Clan leader, and obviously the doppelganger had found him first. She had no way of telling if Captain Strang, still assuming that was Captain Strang she met, had been got to by the doppelganger. Jenny was all alone.

Jenny knelt down to tend to the commander and she wracked her brain trying to remember the first aid course she had once attended when she first became an assistant manager at the coffee shop. She had to act fast as the commander was loosing blood from the gunshot in the side. She had to stop the bleeding and in his weakened state, the commander was not going to be able to put enough pressure on it with his left hand. She needed a bandage from somewhere, but the only thing she could think of was the sash from the Troll Chamberlain’s cloak she had been given to replace the clothes he had disintegrated. It was the only thing long enough. There really was not other course of action she could do, she had to use that.

“Mark?” She whispered to him, “I’m going to try and make a bandage
Commander Mark slowly moved his head up, “Jenny?” he said weakly
“Yes it’s me” Jenny replied, and then undid the sash that she had been wearing like some kind of bikini top, to cover herself, and after lifting the commander’s shirt, used it to tightly tie the handkerchief to the wound. She just hoped her sacrifice of her modesty would save his life.

She also needed to keep him talking, “Mark what happened?”
Commander Mark Groaned
“What happened?” Jenny repeated
“It was Guthrie, I went to see Frank”, then Mark started to fade out, so Jenny grabbed his left arm to keep him awake.
Commander Mark came round again, “Guthrie had just shot Frank, saw me and shot me as well, I got as far as the library, when the aitch eye dee ee forty seven came down the other stairwell. Guthrie told it to kill me” Mark faded out again
“Mark” Jenny repeated, “Then what”

The commander shook his head again, “The colonel had used Caravel’s access card to get us back into the system, so I ran to the library doors and opened it up and then closed them. But the creature just smashed them in as if they were paper. I tried to use a lamp stand to try and shock it, to try and take it out, but it only stunned it briefly before it broke it and took my shoulder out. I was only able to buy, er buy time with a small can of pepper spray”

“Mark don’t leave me” Jenny told him, “Where is the colonel, where is Sam”

“Right here, Miss Green” came a familiar voice. Jenny looked up and saw the colonel standing to her right.

“No it’s not” yelled the same voice, this time from her left. She looked and saw the Colonel.

Jenny quickly grabbed the Commander’s automatic, and from what she had remembered from the dead fiancé, who had died on active duty in Afghanistan, took the safety off and put her finger on the trigger.

“Come on now” said the colonel on her right, “give me the gun, that thing over there is the impostor”

“No it’s not, that thing is” yelled the colonel on her left.

Jenny looked from one to the other

They both seemed identical; one had to be the doppelganger assassin and one the genuine colonel. Assuming the handgun would kill a doppelganger, she would be able to take it out, but if she got it wrong, the colonel would be dead, and even if she got another round off at the other “colonel” the doppelganger would still have won.

She had no choice; she had to shoot, but which one

To be concluded

[Magic]

I havent read any of season six yet, I have just started on the prologue/transmission. I must say, i like your writing style.

[Sticks]

Episode VI – Mr Blue’s Legacy

Decisions, decisions, decisions

Sometimes we can get to drift through life with all of those horrible decisions being taken by others or by circumstance. That way we don’t have to be held accountable for why we decide on things the way we do. Sometimes when we are forced to decide we have the luxury of applying a formula or a procedure that takes control, and again we can hide behind those who created this formula who may be long gone.

Sometimes however, they can not be avoided.

We are forced to decide, and even worse, it is nothing as trivial as what clothes to put on or what to have for lunch. It is a decision that can have far reaching circumstances, like accepting a job offer, proposal of marriage or what subjects to take at college. Usually when forced to confront a decision, we are encouraged to do lots of research and do things like a swat analysis, list pros and cons and so on.

However, sometimes we have to make a decision in the split second it is pressed upon us, so what do you do then?

Jenny Green is in just such a position, after having been left on the Mystical Realms for her own safety, she enlisted the aid of the Clan Chief of the Manjura to get back to Earth and the Facility, has found a badly injured Commander Mark in the Facility’s library, tended his wounds as best as she knows how, and now she is faced with two Colonel Samuel Peters, except one is a doppelganger assassin and one is the real one. She has the commander’s gun and must shoot one, but which one.

Jenny looked from her left to her right; both colonels were identical in looks and the way they sounded.

“Come on Miss Green, this has gone on long enough” The colonel on her right insisted, “I need to look at the commander”

“Jenny, Don’t let that creature near him” yelled the colonel on the left as he started to approach her.

Jenny pointed the gun at him, “get back” she told him, that Colonel stopped in his tracks. Jenny looked up at this colonel, noticed something, and then swung round to the colonel on her right who was also starting to approach her, and pointed the gun in his direction.

“MISS GREEN I ORDER YOU TO”

BAN BANG BANG

Jenny could not believe she had just pulled the trigger and fired on the colonel on her right and she sat there for a second or two, stunned at what she had done, with the gun still in her hand. Had she picked right? But to her surprise and horror, instead of falling to the deck as she half expected, this colonel just moved back a few inches, and then gave an evil grin and morphed in to a sexless tall grey and skinny humanoid creature



Jenny dropped the gun to the floor and shook her head in disbelief, she had picked the right one to shoot, but it had not done any good. She could see where she had shot the creature, in the main part of the body, but it seemed the nine millimetre rounds were merely an irritant, a minor flesh wound.

“I am going to rip you to pieces, if that is the best you have got” The doppelganger uttered in a metallic voice and then started to approach Jenny and the commander. By now the real colonel had reached them and was pointing a 45 magnum at the creature.

The creature stopped and looked at the weapon, and grinned, “You humans are pathetic, so I will be merciful and kill you quickly”

The colonel fired a round at the doppelganger, but like the nine millimetre, it seemed to be almost a mere flesh wound to it. All it was doing was to make the creature back off a bit and make it grin.

What was it with these creatures, how could these creatures be killed if they were not affected by handguns

“Oh I am so disappointed, is that the best you can do” uttered the doppelganger.
“Who hired you” yelled the colonel
“As if I would tell you, you pathetic little creature” the doppelganger replied then it started to approach again “I do not have time for this, time for you to die”

WHOOSH THUD

Suddenly an arrow hit the creature in the neck.

Jenny had picked the small bow up along with the arrow, while the colonel had distracted it, after all if handguns were ineffective what did she have to loose.

The doppelganger stumbled back a few steps and grabbed at the arrow which seemed to have penetrated into its hide. Jenny grabbed another arrow from the quiver and looked at the arrow head briefly, she had not noticed it much before, but it was fashioned out of some mineral, rather then the metal ones she was used to, when she competed on the archery circuit.

Jenny stood up and let loose another arrow into the creature’s neck and watched it start to scream in agony.

Suddenly another arrow hit the doppelganger’s neck, but this time it was from its right side and it was not an arrow. It was a crossbow bolt. The doppelganger fell against the back wall and started to sink down, and at the same time it tried to move forward.

Jenny pulled another arrow from the quiver, but was beaten to the shot by another crossbow bolt.
The creature slumped to the floor, and then started to smoulder, Jenny put the bow down and the arrow back in the quiver and went to go and look at the downed doppelganger, but felt a hand on her bare right shoulder restraining her.
“I wouldn’t get too close if I were you Jenny” the colonel told her.

Jenny backed off as the body of the doppelganger erupted into flames in an intense heat, with in seconds it was all but ash.

“Well done Miss Green” came a familiar voice, it was the clan chief of the Manjura, “You are indeed a worthy female warrior”



Then the troll added, “And indeed you most certainly look the part, just like some of our female trolls who would go into battle as unencumbered as possible”

It was obvious to Jenny the troll was referring to how she was dressed, so she crossed her arms to try and cover herself “Thank you clan chief” she said then after a few seconds added, “we used to have such a race of female warriors in our history, they used to be called Amazons”

The troll chief smiled at her and then wandered over to look at the ash remnants with his crossbow in hand, and then looked up at the colonel and Jenny, then down at Commander Mark.

Jenny wander over to the troll “I thought the doppelganger had got you” she told him
“It was that oaf Strang, Miss Green, He was not watching where he was going when he blundered into me down on the lower level”
“Where is he now?” Jenny asked.
“I sent him to guard the entrance while I hunted the assassin down with this”, at that the troll showed the Colonel and Jenny as spherical piece of what looked like emerald, that was the size of a tennis ball.
“This is all very well clan chief” The colonel interrupted, “but I have a commander here in need of medical attention or one of your troll healing potions.”

“Of course Colonel” the troll replied and started searching through the pouches on his belt. After about half a minute of searching and muttering, he pulled from one of them a familiar green looking bottle that Jenny recognised as being of the same type that Strang the previous day had passed to her.



The troll took the top off of the bottle and squatted down to hand it to Commander Mark. Jenny watched as he took it with his left hand and without any hesitation gulped the potion down in one go, and then started to watch his injuries start to heal magically, just like hers had done.

While Jenny was watching the troll seeing to the commander, the colonel spoke to Jenny, “That was a good call Jenny, how did you tell”

Jenny turned to face the colonel, and dropped her arms by her side momentarily forgetting that the only piece of clothing she was now wearing was the shortened skirt. “Well Sam, it used my surname and you have been using my first name and” at this she gently brushed the colonel’s forehead, “you were perspiring a bit and it wasn’t”

The colonel stepped back a bit and felt the top of his forehead with his fingers, “looks like you’re right, I need to do a bit more time in the gym if I am starting to get out of condition”
“Sorry Sam, I didn’t mean to embarrass you sir” Jenny replied then she went over to where the commander was recovering with the aid of the troll’s healing potion.

Before Jenny could say anything to the commander, she felt the colonel tap her on the left shoulder, so she turned to face him again.
“You didn’t embarrass me Jenny” he told her, “Now I know you look Amazonian, but perhaps you might like to put this on”, at this he offered her his military jacket.

Jenny hesitated for a moment and looked down at what she was wearing, smiled then blushed and said a quick thank you and took off the quiver with its remaining arrows, placed it on the floor, took the jacket and put it on. This time she was able to button it up herself, and picked up the quiver again and slung it over her shoulder. It felt good to her to be covered again.

The commander stood up after the troll healing potion had taken effect, “Sorry Sam, it was a rookie’s mistake; I should have had my weapon drawn when I saw Guthrie in Williamsons office”

The colonel shook his head in surprise, “That’s odd; I thought it was Williamson, because I found Guthrie’s body downstairs, and he’s been dead for sometime.
“But Sam I swear, that was Guthrie who shot me” Commander Mark insisted

The Troll clan chief saw their confusion and got out the emerald coloured orb and peered at it. As jenny looked at it, it seemed that in it there was a small speck of green light with in the object.
“Colonel” the troll interrupted, “There is another doppelganger within this building”
“What?” Queried the colonel
“Clan chief” The commander insisted, “it was only one that came in with the flight crew, all the others are accounted for”

Jenny noticed the colonel look, slightly more distant, then she notice a realisation creep across his face.
“Mark, there was another aitch eye dee ee forty seven here” He told the Commander
“When?” Commander Mark asked
“Last year, under the old administration, Mr Blue captured one in the Isle of Dogs, the other one was killed by automatic weapons fire which were of a heavier calibre than our side arms”
“But Sam” Protested the commander, “Mr Blue ordered the extermination of all Eye dee ees after they were interrogated; it was only luck that that Spirit of Fidelity was not exterminated before that FBI observer and Mr Andrews found her here”
“Mark, maybe someone at that time had a different agenda to Mr Blue”
“You mean it’s been kept alive all this time, but why? And why arrange for another one to be smuggled into the Facility?”

“Maybe we should track it down Colonel and find out” suggested the troll clan chief
“Yeah, but we need more heavy weapons before we can take it on” The colonel replied
“But I can fell it with my trusty cross bow, and Miss Green here has proven her self in battle with the short bow” the troll insisted.
Jenny found herself blushing again, and this time it was not because of any lack of clothing, since the colonel’s jacket was excellent at covering her up, but because she felt she was being billed as some kind of super hero.
“I still would feel more comfortable if we had more firepower than crossbows and arrows” The Colonel objected
“Sam” commander Mark, chipped in “The armoury is in the basement, in the current lockdown, I don’t think we can get to it”
The colonel swore then said “if only we had tasers, we know those things work”

“So, Sam, it looks like it’s down to Jenny and the clan chief after all” The Commander responded, then went and clasped both his hands on Jenny’s arms, “That was some shooting Jenny, maybe you could teach me how to shoot one of those things”
“Thank you Mark, maybe I will some time” Jenny replied, still feeling embarrassed at being at the centre of attention, and because he had seen her in the state she was.

“Can we get on now” The colonel asked.

The clan chief troll lead the way, followed by the two American Marines with Jenny in the rear as they went down the steps to the lower level and through the corridors amongst the shelves of the library to the entrance where they found Captain Strang, guarding the entrance as he had been instructed. Jenny noticed in his belt was what looked like an arrow, possibly the one she had first shot at the doppelganger and missed, she was going to ask for it back when the colonel interrupted and told them that they needed to get on.

They all walked out of the library and headed through the doorway to the other set of stairs. Strang stayed next to Jenny, even though she had the only other distance attack weapon that could at least penetrate the hide of a doppelganger

The clan chief signalled that the doppelganger was beneath their location and so they headed down the stairs for two levels until they came across the next open doorway. It went into the corridor with the research and development laboratories.
“This was where I found Guthrie’s body, in his office on this level” the Colonel commented, pointing at a door that was partially closed, “It’s not a pretty site”
“Sam, this still doesn’t make sense.” Commander Mark responded, “Carvel looked after all the prisoners and so we might have considered it was him keeping this doppelganger alive if he wasn’t so much the by the book man, Williamson was the one who sent out the flight team after Jenny so was in the position to assist an aitch eye dee forty seven to infiltrate the Facility, but Guthrie was just RnD. All his section did was look at the artefacts the eye dee ees had when they were picked up and see if they could be reversed engineered”

“Could they have all been in on what ever it was?” Jenny asked
“Unlikely Jenny” Commander Mark responded, “Carvel may have been a by the book and an old book at that, but a conspiracy, I’don’t think so, besides he was the first person we found murdered”
“Mark, you said you had got Carvel to do an audit” the colonel asked, “What was he auditing”
“We were told there was some spending anomaly in the RnD budget, I got him to look into that, as he was not part of that section” The Commander replied, then momentarily put his right hand to his head, “He was supposed to be giving a report to a representative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was coming to the facility”
The colonel shook his head, “That would explain the need for a doppelganger. Who ever is pulling the strings must have wanted a person on the inside of the Joint Chiefs”
“But Sam, even if they got someone on the Joint Chiefs, there would still be the oversight committees in Washington, or even here in London”
“Mark, who ever it is, they went and got two of them”
“And they used a third to attack me” Jenny chipped, “Sorry if I don’t seem that important”
“Of course you’re important Jenny” Commander Mark told her
“Why because I’m the patsy that allowed them to get this creature in here?”
“Jenny” The colonel started, “we don’t have time for this”
“Sam, Jenny does have a point” Commander Mark put in, “There is at least one Aitch eye dee ee forty seven out there in the wild”
“And Captain Strang and I will hunt that one down as soon as we are finished here” chipped in the Clan Chief of the Manjura, “Now the colonel is right, we must get on”

With this the clan chief pushed forward, with the colonel in tow, and headed for the one laboratory near the end of the corridor that seemed to have a door open, crossbow in one hand and the green detecting orb in the other. Captain Strang, on instruction from his clan chief stayed at the back, with a dimension jump orb at the ready.

Jenny just found herself following the troll clan chief and the colonel, when the commander put his left arm around her shoulders, “You’re important to me Jenny, I didn’t get the chance to thank you for binding my gunshot wound up, I know you don’t really like going topless so that was some sacrifice on your part”
“Thank you Mark” she said, “I’m sorry I snapped” Then she thought for a moment, “What did you think of me as an Amazonian warrior?, the look I mean, even the clan chief thought I looked the part like that”
“So how did that come about?” Mark asked
“Well I had a run in with the troll chamberlain” Jenny explained,” and when the clan chief said I looked the part, I remembered what I had once read about the Amazon warriors and for a brief moment, I remembered when my brother used to play Dungeons and Dragons, and it seemed so like that, and with what the clan chief said, I thought for a moment if I was to helping to fight this creature, that was how I ought to be dressed for action, if this were a Dungeons and Dragons game that is”
“Jenny, is really that how you would prefer to dress?” Mark asked further, “just a very short skirt and nothing else”
Jenny thought for a moment, “Not really Mark, it really isn’t me, but if that’s how”
Mark interrupted her “Jenny, if that isn’t you then, that’s your answer, don’t get me wrong, you have a beautiful body, and from my vantage point, I just about saw all of it, but as I told you yesterday, I much prefer it if you dressed in a way that you feel comfortable with. As for your archery, as I said before, that was some shooting”

The four of them entered the laboratory. Jenny expected to see all sorts of glassware and the odd Bunsen burner, but there was none of that. This was an electronics laboratory, so there was a lot of electronic equipment instead, some she recognised such as computers or oscilloscopes, but a lot she did not recognised. At the back of the lab was a small cubicle, so the colonel and the troll clan chief approached it. Jenny decided she would follow and took an arrow from the quiver and strung it to the bow.

In the cubicle was the man Jenny recognised as Guthrie, except the colonel had said he was already dead. The Troll clan chief immediately pointed the crossbow at him
“We know what you are, Doppelganger” The Troll growled.
Jenny came round the other side of the colonel and through the narrow entrance pointed an arrow at the throat of this individual.
“The games up” The colonel added, “Now who are you working for”

The creature morphed into its natural form and looked up at the trio, “Why should I be working for anyone, why can I not be working for myself” it asked in its metallic sounding voice.

“Because there was no way you could have escaped Mr Blue’s extermination order without help” the colonel replied.
“What makes you think I was that one?” it asked
“Because you had learned how to use a gun” the Colonel responded, “The other one was not armed”

The creature shook its head, “and you come at me with a bow and arrow from a mere child and a crossbow from a mere runt of a troll, you disappoint me”
“Hold your tongue” hissed the troll clan chief, “I am the leader of the Manjura clan”
“Oh yes, I remember” it continued in its metallic and callous sounding voice, “I was there when my brother, whom these humans slaughtered, ripped your pathetic father’s head from his body and stuck it on a pike”
“I was told that was the Arch Orc” The troll replied
“Were you really?”
“Yes, when he threw his hand in with the Spirit of Lust, not that it did him any good when she turned around and betrayed even him”
“Really?, She was a most generous employer”
“And who is your employer now?” The colonel repeated
“Answer him, you scum” The troll added.

“Er that would be me” came a voice from behind in a North London accent.
They all turned around to see a man in his twenties, in a white lab coat, a Death Metal T-shirt, jeans and carrying an Uzi submachine pistol in his right hand, pointed right at them.

“Timothy Zachary!” Exclaimed the commander, “The laboratory assistant”
“Surprised Commander? Just because I am a humble lab tech, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a vision on how to run things do I?” Timothy replied, “now if you would be kind enough to hand your weapons over to my associate, Scran” he added waving the Uzi

Jenny was the first to put her bow and arrow on the desk in front of the doppelganger, followed by the troll clan chief and then the commander.

“You too, Colonel” Timothy insisted, “And along with your knife, I know you never go anywhere with out one, I saw it on NCIS”
“Do you believe everything you see on TV?” The colonel responded.
“Just do it”
The colonel removed his nine millimetre handgun from it’s holster and laid it on the table, then bent down to remove his knife from his ankle
“Slowly now” Timothy insisted
Slowly the colonel removed the knife, stood up and placed it on the table.
The doppelganger picked up the handguns and crushed them as if they were a common soft drinks can.

“Why?” The Colonel asked
“And what did I do to you?” Jenny chipped in, “Did I blow you away as well?”

“Ya know” Timothy started, “This is just like when a Doctor Evil explains his plans to the hero, just before the hero breaks free”
“But what is a Doctor Evil with out an audience” Commander Mark responded
“True” Timothy replied, “I just never thought I would be in that role, but first things first” With that Timothy produced from his pocket a remote control unit and pressed a green button, causing the alarm signal to end, “That was beginning to give me a head ache”

Timothy placed the remote control in his lab coat and went to the window and picked up what looked to Jenny like a Geiger counter, “Do you know what the main problem with Mr Blue was?”
“Apart from being an out of control homicidal maniac with a brain tumour?” The commander responded
“Apart from that Commander, it was his lack of vision” Timothy Grinned, “He was just catalogue and annihilate, every visitor from what we called Eye Dee Double-you oh one was a potential mass killer to be examined, interrogated and exterminated”
“We don’t do that anymore Timothy” The colonel interjected, “Mr Blue may have but we don’t”
“I am well aware of that Colonel” Timothy responded, waving his gun at the troll, “But in those days, we in RnD considered it such a waste, I mean we got their devices to try and reverse engineer, but the visitors themselves were being wasted, then came my associate Scran, a shape shifter. Imagine Colonel, a shape-shifter doing our bidding, taking over say an official in an unfriendly regime, and then systematically going through the ranks, replacing officials higher and higher until the very top, all under our control. Mr Blue, just wanted him put to death”
“So you managed to fake his execution” Colonel Peters replied.
“It was easy, as being a bit of an AV geek” Timothy explained, ”I just replayed the death of an earlier visitor, they all burst into flames when they die, and I sabotaged the stun-gun Robert Hughes, the other techie, was using when he went in to administer the lethal injection”
“His death was swift and enjoyably satisfying” The doppelganger chipped in as it stood up and started walking outside the cubicle. Jenny moved out of the way to let him past and the doppelganger went and stood by the troll clan chief.
“With my skills in faking the death, and Scran’s abilities, not even Guthrie knew about this one”
“This one?” The Colonel asked, “you mean he was in on getting the other aitch eye dee forty seven”
“Yes, he was in on that one, it was clever of me to manipulate him to do that don’t you think”
“Just like you manipulated that dirt bag up north to have Jenny attacked, what did she do to you Timothy”
Timothy looked at Jenny, “Oh sorry Miss Green, it wasn’t personal; it was just that you were convenient”
“Convenient?” Jenny repeated This man in front of her had had her battered, violated and indecently assaulted over a matter of convenience?

“Yes Miss Green, or can I call you Jenny, since you seem to be on first name terms with the colonel and the commander” Timothy responded, “I mean if say someone, who was a female manager in the same coffee shop, in the same city, as another female manager who is now wife of a certain someone who had helped caused this place some embarrassment and had been active in the Mystical Realms, were to appear to be assaulted by an I D E, then maybe some might think it was that former manager who was the real target. And if the apparent victim survived what should be a lethal attack, maybe someone might conclude this could be a put up job by two doppelgangers to establish the cover for the other, after all, they do tend to work in pairs and as the colonel has said, they are incredibly devious. Like I said Jenny, it was nothing personal, any female coffee shop manager, assistant manager or barista would have done, but your promotion and that imbecile we got to be the fall guy was a golden opportunity”

Jenny just shook her head at what she had heard and thought of all the other female baristas at her branch that could have been attacked, for what? To trick those at the Facility to bring in another doppelganger Assassin. This thoroughly sickened her at the shear callousness of this man

Timothy continued “And being the geek that I am, hacking into Frank’s system was pathetically simple, I mean using your daughter’s name as password, come one he was asking for it”

“So you ordered the flight team to pick Jenny up” The Colonel butted in, clearly showing his anger at this technician.

“Not quite, he ordered it after I left in his system a priority message made to have come from you Colonel and copied to Carvel. It was just so pathetically easy for a super geek like me”

“But you had a doppelganger already, why did you need another one” Commander Mark asked

“Commander you may well ask, because you were responsible for this sorry chain of events” Timothy sneered, “You putting Carvel onto us with that audit, we needed a doppelganger to make sure that our funding stream was not cut off, just like so many were done when Mr Blue was replaced by Mr Sepia, and I couldn’t use Scran here, as only I knew about him”

Suddenly Colonel Peters seemed to Jenny to realise what Timothy and Guthrie had been up to, “You were involved in a black project” and you had Carvel murdered because he was about to expose you

“Yes and yes, as it so happens Colonel, and this is it” Timothy replied holding up the device he had picked up, “Of the devices we reverse engineered was one of those devices the visitors used to travel between their world and ours, our project was to create an artificial one and make it better, maybe even visit other dimension and other world that could be exploited. Not even Mr Blue was aware of it, and had he not been pushed out, the way he was, we were certain he would have approved it, but Mr Sepia he wanted all these projects suspended and we were to work on this boringly conventional war on terrorism. So we kept it secret and worked on it until we had perfected it, I mean how do you think we got those doppelgangers into the North of England in the first place”

“Because if you brought them straight here, you would have triggered every alarm in the Facility” The Colonel responded

“You got it in one and the idea of tricking you high rollers into bringing them in seemed so cool”

“If you were both together on this, why did you betray your own conspirator?” The Troll clan Chief asked
“We thought he would make the perfect fall guy” the doppelganger interrupted.
Timothy looked up at the doppelganger, then back at the group, and added “besides splitting proceeds two ways is a lot more than three ways, and after all Scran and I did do most of the work”

“So what happens to us now?” Jenny Nervously asked

Timothy put down the artificial dimension jump device on a bench and pulled the remote from his pocket, “Well for everyone else locked in their offices and laboratories, I have some Phosgene gas cylinders on remote in the ventilation system, as for you, you can be shot by this” at that he waved his Uzi at them, “or if you prefer, Scran here will promise to be quick as he rips your head from your body, or you can choke to death on the phosgene, the choice as they say is yours”

“You my lad are not the first treacherous mortal I have ever had to deal with” The troll Clan Chief of the Manjura raged, “And you won’t be the last”

“Oh really” Timothy replied, raised the Uzi at the troll, took aim, then grinned and wagged his finger, then spoke to the doppelganger, “Scran, check our troll visitor for amulets of protection, I mean I wouldn’t put it past him to have me shoot myself with my own gun, just like that Colombian gang leader did”

The Doppelganger walked over to the troll and grabbed his neck with one claw, and fished in his tunic with another, finally bring out a small piece of crystal on a piece of twine. The doppelganger then gave it to Timothy, who put it on.
“It is safe to shoot the troll now Mr Zachary or do you wish me to snap his neck” The Doppelganger replied.

“That’s ok Scran, I want everyone to be here before we start the fun, now if I recall we are missing a troll, Scran can you fetch him”
“Certainly Mr Zachary” at this the Doppelganger mutated to appear like the commander and headed out of the laboratory while Timothy held the others at gun point.

“How did you plan to get away with this” The Colonel asked him
“Oh Scran and I have our escape route and back up plan worked out and once we are out, we will meet up with the doppelganger I left up north and who knows what we will do, while your US oversight committees tries to account to the British why they allowed the biggest mass slaughter in a supposedly ultra secret base” Then Timothy put the remote controller on the bench next to the artificial dimension jump device and picked that up instead, without taking his eye off the group switched it on and then placed it back down facing the back wall of the laboratory.

The device started to hum, and in the back of the laboratory a wormhole appeared, similar to the one Jenny had seen before, but this one was green and quieter. “Unlike the natural ones” Timothy went on, “this is more stable”

Then he waved his gun at Jenny, “Now Jenny, I know you look fetching in the Colonel’s jacket, but I distinctively remember hearing you in the corridor talk about an Amazon look”

Jenny just shook her head and looked at the submachine pistol pointed right at her, was he thinking what she thought he was thinking? Then Timothy pulled from jeans an Iphone.



“I think” Timothy grinned, “You should hand the colonel back his jacket, so he can die with his full uniform on”
“You piece of low life scum” Colonel Peters called him
“Uh, uh Colonel” Timothy rebuked him and waved the gun at him, “It’s nothing I haven’t seen all those times I managed to bypass the Facility’s net filters to look at the porn sites”.
“We’ll add that one to the list” The commander retorted “Don’t give him the satisfaction Jenny” Commander Mark added, “Especially if he plans to kill us anyway”

“It’s ok Sam, Mark” Jenny spoke up, her head looking at the floor, “Maybe I shouldn’t have been so prudish and self conscious like my friends kept telling me, I’ll do it”

Slowly Jenny unbuttoned the jacket, all the while looking dejected and beaten, her spirit all but gone. She pulled open the jacket revealing her naked torso and slipped it off first her left arm and then her right arm.

The commander watched in disbelief as this young woman, who preferred to be conservatively and decently dressed, was being made to undress to satisfy the lust, you would expect from a teenage adolescent. Colonel Peters just glowered at the lab assistant and at the green wormhole forming at the back of the laboratory. But he had a submachine pistol with his finger on the trigger, and he could drop all of them with in the space of half a minute.

Jenny now held the jacket in her right hand, and then Timothy started to take pictures of her on his Iphone. “Jenny” he smirked, “the Amazon look does suit you a lot better”

Suddenly, because he was momentarily distracted with the Iphone, Jenny flicked the jacket at Timothy’s gun, yelling “Suit this creep”, As the jacket hit the gun it knocked Timothy’s hand upward and he let of a sudden burst into the ceiling. As Jenny pulled the jacket back, the gun was wrenched from his grip and it clattered to the floor

The colonel saw his chance and made a grab for the Uzi, but Timothy managed to grab the remote control. “Remember if I press this blue button, the whole of the Facility will be flushed with Phosgene gas, now give me back the gun and back off”

Just then Captain Strang returned, carrying the arrow he had picked up earlier, “Scratch one Doppelganger assassin My Liege” Strang told his clan leader

“What!” Timothy exclaimed

Captain Strang turned to the lab assistant and told him, “When you are a seasoned leader of a snatch squad, you learn to see through the forms doppelgangers take on, especially if you have one of these” Then he showed another green emerald style orb, “I let him think I was fooled, then I stabbed him in the back of the neck with the arrow that Miss Green shot on the lower level of the room of tomes”

The colonel turned back to Timothy, “You’re on your own now Timothy, it’s Over”
“Not while I have this remote control Colonel” Timothy replied looking at the colonel, “There is still the other doppelganger out there”

Somehow with the news of the death of the second doppelganger, they had forgot Jenny, standing there, just in nothing but the shortened skirt, still holding the colonel’s jacket in her right hand. Jenny noticed that Timothy, the man who had orchestrated the pain and humiliation she had undergone, was looking at the colonel and the trolls and not at her. She had done it once, and maybe she could do it again, but would that mean the fatal blue button would be pressed? He was going to press it anyway, Jenny reasoned, especially with the blood already on his hands.

Jenny surreptitiously moved the jacket from her right hand to her left behind her back, and then suddenly flicked the jacket at the hand with the remote control. Timothy was again caught unawares and he lost his grip on the remote which started to fall from his grasp. Jenny dropped the jacket and dived at the floor to try and catch the electronic device before it hit the ground, bruising her shoulder and her left knee in the process.

Seeing that game was up, and before anyone else could move, Timothy grabbed the artificial dimension jump device and jumped into the green wormhole. As he was entering the wormhole, Captain Strang triggered his dimension jump orb, and focused a blue wormhole into the green one.

The two wormholes became superimposed and turned turquoise, before exploding in a blinding white flash.

It took about a minute before everyone managed to regain their sight. Jenny just lay on the floor, in agony, clutching both her injured shoulder and the remote device, with the various buttons, which could do who knows.

The colonel came over to her, and gently took the remote control from her, and removed the batteries from it, just so it could do no further harm. “Strang what was that business with the second wormhole?” he asked the troll looking up at him.

It was the Clan Chief of the Manjura who answered, “Colonel, a long time ago, we discovered that if a crossing was opened in another crossing, then who ever was going through would be sent to who knows where”
“So our friend has been sent to a dimension other than Earth or the Mystical Realms?” The colonel asked
“Indeed, even possibly to the area between dimensions, I believe that is the last we have heard of that treacherous mortal”

The commander came over and helped Jenny to her feet, and she winced due to her shoulder injury and found it painful to put weight on her left leg.
Strang noticed this as well and handed over another bottle of the troll healing potion. This time there was no hesitation as Jenny quaffed it, to feel its magical healing effects.
As soon as she had drunk the potion, Strang took out an amulet on a leather thread saying “To a most worthy female warrior, Miss Green, I have a gift that will allow you to return to your life outside”
Jenny looked at it, “what is it?”
“It is an amulet of illusion, this will make all those who do not know you have been healed, see the injuries you first had” Strang explained, “and it is designed such that the illusion of the injuries will appear to fade in time” at that, the troll gently hung it around Jenny’s neck
Jenny looked into the troll’s eyes and said “Thank you” then she looked down at the amulet as it sat daintily between her naked breasts.

Suddenly Jenny remembered, she was undressed again, and she went bright red and crossed her arms, “Bother, I seem to be making a habit of this” she said out loud to no one in particular, “May be I’m supposed to be like this” she continued.

“Here Jenny, I found this for you” Commander Mark interrupted, as he handed her a spare lab coat he had found.
Jenny looked at it for a moment, let both arms drop to her side, looked into the commander’s eyes for a few seconds, then took the lab coat and slowly put it on and buttoned it up, “Thank you Mark” she told him quietly.

“Now what Sam?” the commander asked?
“Well Mark, I can still use Carvel’s card to over-ride the lockdown and let everyone out, and then we’ll clean up here” The colonel replied
“What about me?” Jenny asked
The colonel went over to the Clan Chief of the Manjura, “can you take Jenny home” he asked him, “I believe she has a funeral to attend”.
“Yes Colonel, but we will have to go via our world first”

Jenny noticed a tag on the lab coat’s sleeve, saying “Government Issue Only” and showed it to the colonel, “Do you need this back before I go”
“Jenny, I’m sure the Brits can spare it, you can always post it back later”
“Thank you Sam” She replied, then asked, “What about the police investigation?”
“They have the guy who was manipulated into paying the aitch eye dee ee forty seven to attack you but I suspect they will just keep this as an open file”
“By the way” Jenny then added, “You can count on me to keep quiet about this, I mean who would believe me anyway”
“I appreciate that Jenny” the colonel replied

Captain Strang then picked up the bow and the quiver of the remaining arrows, and replaced the one he had found in it and handed it to Jenny, “A souvenir for a brave warrior”.
The Clan Chief of the Manjura pulled out his dimension jump orb and with in seconds, the two trolls and Jenny were enveloped by a white light and after thirty seconds they were once again at Karam Tag Chou, the ancient citadel of the troll emperors .
“What happens about the third doppelganger she asked”
“Leave that one to us” Captain Strang told her, “That’s our job to hunt that one down”
The Clan Chief then told her to grab hold of the orb, so he could send her back to her flat. Jenny thought for a moment, then removed the lab coat and folded it up. “Could you see that this is returned” she asked.
Captain Strang nodded and then Jenny asked “do I really look like the part of a warrior in just this”
“Miss Green, yes you do, just like some of our female warriors, but you look every inch the warrior in what ever you choose to wear, you do not need to follow their example, or those of your ancient Amazons to be a warrior” The troll clan chief replied
“Thank you clan chief” she answered, then took hold of the orb as directed.

Suddenly she was back in her flat. The damaged door had been repaired.

The night was drawing on, so Jenny played back the telephone messages that had accrued which were mostly of the “where are you” kind and one from the parents of her former fiancé with more details of his funeral

Then Jenny stripped off the remains of the skirt, and took a shower, went to her bedroom and put on her night clothes, which felt really good, and went to bed in her own bed.

+-+-+-+-+

It was now the morning before the funeral of her dead fiancé and Jenny still could not believe the events that had happened in the last few days. She showered, put on the amulet of illusion and got dressed. Fully and properly dressed this time. She was going to see if she could go back to where it had all begun for her, the coffee shop. She knew the magic amulet would work, she just hoped that she could remember not to do anything she could not do if she were still injured.

Jenny put her coat on and left the house and went to the bus stop. The banality of everyday life seemed starker with what she had experienced. She had wondered about talking to Angela about it, but from what she had heard, her former supervisor was also trying to put her experiences of the Mystical Realms behind her.

One of those, a woman, who saw her on the bus when she took the later shift, as effectively she was doing now, stared at her.
“What happened to you? Are you the one that was beaten up the other night in the city centre?” the woman asked
Jenny just nodded, the memory of it still haunted her, plus the fact it was done in some sick power play kind of made it worse.
“Well I hope they get the B*****D” the woman responded
Jenny just looked at the ground, dejected. She would have to get used to looks and stares and possibly lying to people about what had happened and that did not feel good at all.

Finally she got into the city centre and was in the main thoroughfare where the coffee shop was. She felt a knot in her stomach and tried to fight off the flash backs. Slowly she put one foot in front of the other as she walked towards the store. This was one of those things that had to be done, just like getting back on a horse after you had fallen off of it. This was where she worked, she had to face it and some how get back to being one of the company’s youngest coffee shop managers. After all, she still had to earn a living somehow

After what seemed like an eternity, Jenny made it to the front of the coffee shop and for a while, gazed with morbid fascination at the spot where she was attacked. Then she took a deep breath and went in.

Something was wrong

The shop was empty, and she could not see who was on duty.

Jenny reached inside her handbag for her rape alarm and held it in her hand; the previous attack had been too swift to use it before. From the door she tried to look for anything that might give a clue as to what was going on.

Suddenly Jenny heard a whimper from behind the counter, it was female and the voice sounded familiar.

Looking all around, she crept towards the serving counter, and to her horror found Stephanie, the assistant manager from the other city branch lying on the floor behind it, suffering severe bruising and concussed. She glanced at the till to see if this was a robbery gone badly, but it was untouched.

A wave of terror flooded over Jenny, the only thing that could have done this, was the last remaining doppelganger.

Jenny heard the door of the staff room open and heavy footsteps approaching. She then heard who ever it was sniff.
“We recognise that scent anywhere” came a horrifyingly familiar metallic voice, “It was the human I attacked a few nights back” then it added, “Maybe it can tell us what has become of our brothers”

It was the third Doppelganger

Jenny did her best to hide behind the counter with an injured Stephanie, it must have been expecting the others to show, and when they did not, returned to where she worked. Stephanie had been lucky, so far, as these creatures, so Jenny had been informed, could rip someone’s head from their body in a matter of seconds.

“Maybe can find out from her instead of waiting for the other to recover from our gentle tap” came the voice of the doppelganger

So that was why Stephanie was alive, it was still after information which Stephanie did not have, but where were the trolls, weren’t they supposed to take care of this

Jenny looked at the cupboards behind the counter that were open, to see what was available as any kind of weapon. They mainly contained supplies like coffee beans for the grinder, Soya milk, paper takeaway cups, and serviettes. All stuff useful for serving coffee, but not for defending oneself against one of the most efficient killers that the Mystical Realms had produced. The only thing she could see was the piece of equipment they used for floating the whipped cream on the coffee, it used a can of compressed air to blow the cream into the cups, so slowly and quietly Jenny picked it up.

Jenny heard the doppelganger approach the counter, and then she saw it, in its natural form as it stood at the entrance to the space behind the counter. Jenny was out of options, so she triggered the rape alarm, which let out its piecing scream and set it on continuous mode. Then she noticed the doppelganger stumble back, trying to cover what she assumed were its ears. She leapt up and with the cream sprayer and aimed the jet of cream into its eyes and its nose, causing it to stumble even more, then jenny had to jump back as it started flaying its arms and giving a metallic scream above the sound of the rape alarm.

Jenny did not have much time, so she pulled Stephanie to her feet and with her arm over Jenny’s shoulders, and high on adrenaline, she dragged Stephanie past the disorientated doppelganger assassin to the main front door. With her free hand, and while her eyes were on the doppelganger, who was trying to find it’s way to the rape alarm on the counter, Jenny opened the front door. This must have sent in a cool breeze, as the creature turned towards them, briefly, before smashing its claw down on the rape alarm, thus silencing it.

Jenny continued to drag the semi conscious Stephanie into the street, yelling, “We’ve been attacked” at the passers by, who decided that they were to pass by on the other side. Jenny could only just about drag her friend two shops down to a outward-bound and camping store that was just opening up, when she noticed that the creature had finally manage to get its bearings and had left the coffee shop, in the form of, of

Darren!

It must have got the form from a photograph Jenny had had in her office

Jenny tried to drag Stephanie out of sight into the camping store, but she noticed that the doppelganger had seen them and in the guise of Darren was swiftly following them, and it looked angry.
“What‘s happened” asked a male shop worker as they entered the store
“We’ve been attacked” shouted Jenny, “and he’s still after us” before getting the male shop worker to take over from carrying Stephanie.

Before the three of them could do anything else, the doppelganger smashed open the door, and in some other accent, “You can run but you can not hide”, then it morphed into its natural form.
“What the ********!” exclaimed the shop worker, suddenly paralysed with fear as the creature approached them.
Jenny noticed a box of loose metal tent pegs on the counter, so grabbed one from the box and instantly threw it at the creature’s head.

She managed to score a direct hit

Right into the doppelgangers right eye.

The doppelganger let out a terrifying scream as it stumbled in agony, Jenny grabbed another tent peg while the male shop worker just stood there holding Stephanie, transfixed, she threw it with all her might at the creature’s neck, but the doppelganger batted it away, more out of luck and headed towards them.
Jenny looked for any other weapons, but the hunting knives were all safely locked behind the counter, suddenly she spotted halfway across the shop some long handled barbeque forks, so yelled “it’s me you want” and ran across to the grab one from the stand. The doppelganger in pain from the tent peg in its eye, headed towards Jenny. It lifted its huge muscular arms to grab at the human that had injured it, not thinking much what it was doing, and blundering on instinct. Jenny had one chance only, and with all the strength she could muster, thrust the barbeque fork upwards, into the doppelganger’s weakest point, its neck, just under what passed for a chin.

The doppelganger was stunned for moment, then Jenny had to move to the side to get out of the way as it sunk to its knees, smouldering. Then it fell forward and burst into flames.

Suddenly the fire alarm sounded, and the male shop worker looked at the ashen remains of the doppelganger, then with his free arm, pointed at something else.

Jenny turned around, it was a blue wormhole, and out of it was about four or five trolls lead by Captain Strang.

“What kept you?” Jenny yelled at them

Strang stepped out of the vortex and looked at the remains, on the scorched carpet. “I see you are indeed a most effective warrior Miss Green”
“And I did not have to strip off either” Jenny added
“Indeed” replied the troll captain, then he turned his attention to the other people in the shop, snapped his fingers and out of the vortex stepped what looked like a human, but he was very slender and tall and had pointed ears, a bit like Vulcans on Star Trek.
“We need to deal with some civilians” he told the new humanoid.
“You’re not harming them” Jenny said and got in front of the new arrival
“I will only make them forget, brave warrior” the new arrival replied, “with the finest elven magics”
“If you are going to do that” Jenny told him, “I have an idea”

+-+-+-+

Stephanie found herself coming round in the coffee shop, behind the counter, with a police officer by her side and her friend Jenny on the other side of the counter looking down at her. Stephanie could see that Jenny still looked battered and bruised from when she was attacked
“Don’t move miss, until the paramedics arrive” the police officer told Stephanie, then the police officer looked up at Jenny, “Are you sure the CCTV didn’t catch the guy”
“Sorry officer, the system seems to have gone down again” Jenny replied, “I have rung up head office and they are sending someone out to fix it”
“Did you see anything else Miss Green”
“No officer, I must have disturbed him when I came in through the back”
“This coffee shop does not seem to have had a lot of luck recently”
“Tell me about it, by the way, why the fire engine”
“Some shop just down from here has had a fault with their fire alarm”

For the rest of the day the coffee shop was closed, while the police did a search for the second assailant in a week, which had apparently knocked out the assistant manager in a robbery attempt. They never found any clues, but at least Stephanie was found to be relatively uninjured with just bruising, and she was determined to return to work, and not let who ever tried to rob the store rob her of the job she loved. Yet again the coffee shop chain offered a reward, but this case was to remain in the unsolved file.

+-+-+-+-+

The following day was Darren’s funeral and so Jenny dressed appropriately and turned up at the church and met with the parents of her former fiancé. A lot of people told her how much they were sorry, and how they would have made a lovely couple. For a short time Jenny forgot all about what had happened to her and her trip to the Mystical Realms, and found herself crying for her lost Darren, along side his parents and the other mourners.

The church did not have a cemetery that was active, so she had to try and get a lift to the burial. Going with the parents seemed inappropriate, and she was almost resigned to missing the graveside committal service, but a member of his army unit turned up unexpectedly and had a spare space in his car.

The weather at the committal service was cold and clear and grey, and as the coffin sank into the grave, Jenny looked up into the sky and just thought, “WHY?” before breaking down. One of Darren’s sisters came up to her and hugged her, until she recovered and told her not to loose touch with them.

Jenny waited for the others to leave, until it was just her and Darren’s parents, and then they said their good byes and left, leaving Jenny alone at the graveside. Jenny suddenly felt cold, and then looked at her watch. A bus should be due she thought and headed for the bus stop, only to find the colonel standing there in a black full length coat.

Jenny stopped and looked at him, “Hello Colonel” she said weakly
“Hello Jenny do you need a ride” He opened with
“That’s kind of you Sam but a bus is due and” she tried to say, and then broke down in tears again, so the Colonel held her in his arms. “I loved him Sam, I loved him” she wept
“I know” The colonel said quietly then after a while said, “I’ll drive you home”
Jenny recovered her composure and looked at Colonel Peters in the eye, “Thank you Sam, I don’t suppose you came all the way up here to just drive me home”

“Your right Jenny, firstly I came to apologise, Strang told me about the doppelganger you took out, I’m sorry we didn’t get it before it attacked again”
“I took care of it Sam, I had to”
“I know, it was the one that attacked you wasn’t it”

Jenny nodded the added, “it was what you Americans call pay back”

“Jenny, Strang was very impressed with that, and the idea you had for the cover up” The colonel complimented.
“Thank you” Jenny replied
“So Jenny, what do you have planned”

Jenny was slightly puzzled by the question, “Well I was going to take the bus to town, then possibly”
The colonel interrupted her, “I mean with your life”
“Oh, I suppose I will need to try and get back to managing the coffee shop, I mean I have to earn a living, see if I can find someone else” Jenny felt slightly guilty at saying this last bit so added, “although they will never replace Darren”

“Jenny”
“Yes?”
“I have another idea”
“What?”
“We were very impressed with the way you handled yourself with that scumbag of a lab technician, the way you spotted the doppelganger, the way you took one out single handed” Then the colonel changed his tone of voice, “And you showed compassion to Rebecca, the former Spirit of Kindness” Then the colonel grinned, “and the way you flipped Mark, now that was funny”

“And?” Jenny was still confused

“We want you to come and work for us at the Facility”
“Me?”
“Yep, I’m assembling a team to help deal with handling I D Es and helping the Minor Spirits of virtue become human, and I am supposed to pick a Brit, so I want you on my team. We can smooth out some of the rough edges you have, give you extra training where you need”
“But” Jenny started, “I was in pieces when I first arrived”
“Only because you were mishandled, once you recovered, you showed you have good potential as a field agent”

Jenny thought for a moment, she had reached manager at the coffee shop, and suspected that was the highest she might rise to, especially as she did not have a car, so this offer did have some appeal.

“I may have to work a notice period sir”
“We can fix that Jenny; we could have you working for us by Monday”
“Would I have to join the army or something like that, I mean both you and Mark are..”
“You would be classed as working for your Homeland Security on secondment; you would still be classed as a civilian”
“I would need to pack, try and find a flat and”
“I can arrange that, does this mean you are saying yes?”

Jenny nodded; to her this was too good an opportunity to pass up.
“I think it would be good to get away from this place, maybe see a bit more of the world” Jenny said, then she smiled and asked, “There is one thing I was wondering, Sam”
“What’s that Jenny?”
“I still have that skirt the Troll Chamberlain shortened, would I have to be back to just wearing only that again, I mean it has now been two days, where I have not been stripped or had to strip and I kind of got used to that? If I start work down there, I would like to wear a bit more than that, maybe some undies, or a thong under the skirt, at least if that’s ok, but if that is the job requirement and the dress code, I’m certain I could learn to live with that, if you want the Amazon look that is”

The colonel looked at Jenny in surprise at what she had just asked, and then laughed, “I’m certain we will let you wear quite a bit more than that Jenny”
“Even if we go to the Mystical Realms?”
“Yep, I heard the troll clan chiefs running the citadel there have read what you Brits call the riot ac t to the Troll Chamberlain, he will not be doing that to any female anytime soon”

“Then I would like to accept your offer Sam, I would love to come and work at the Facility”
“I’m so glad you said yes, Mark will be glad as well”
“Is he on the team as well?”
“You bet”
“I like Mark, who else will be on the team with us”
“Captain Strang and some leprechaun they will be sending over from the Irish Military intelligence service”

With that, Colonel Samuel Peters gently guided Jenny to his car, and drove her back to the flat, so she could help over see special packers from the Facility who helped her move her down to North London and the Facility.

With the new team, of Colonel Samuel Peters, Commander Mark Johnston, Captain Strang, Hogan O’Brian a leprechaun and now Miss Jenny Green to help monitor and deal with cross dimensional issues between Earth and the Mystical Realms, helping the young minor spirits of virtue realise their dreams of being fully human, along with backup from others at the Facility, the Facility, was now an agency under proper management and it had finally returned to main operations.

The End

For the time being

Coming later in the year – Tales from and around the Mystical Realms