(xii.)

"Hey, Midge?"
"What is it, Lor?"

Midge watched the shadows dance across the featureless ceiling. She expected another stupid question about her past. Another stupid question regarding her, or her brother.

"What's high school like?"
"It sucks."

Lorelei was also studying the ceiling. "That's it? 'It sucks'? There isn't anything more to it? It's just an excersize in physical and emotional torture?"

"Why are you asking me? Why-- Why does it matter?"
"I was curious, was all."
"Curiosity killed the cat."

They had been in her brother's house for two nights, and, with any luck at all, they would be able to leave the coming morning.

"Midge?"
"Yes?"
"...Have you ever committed a crime?"

Midge couldn't help but pull herself up, out of the small bed, and try to look across the room at her idiot friend.

"Have I ever what?"
"Committed a crime."
"Why?"
"Well--"
"You were curious."
"Yeah."

Midge slipped back between the cotton sheets.

"Lor?"
"Yeah?"
"You ever committed a crime?"
"Yeah."
"Really?"
"I was a proffessional burglar for a while."
"But, I thought you were, like, a child prodigy..."
"I was. I was eleven years old, and in college. Had to pay my tuition somehow."

Midge watched the shadows dance across the ceiling.

"Hey, Lor?"
"Yeah?"
"You're joking, right?"
"What'd'ya mean?"
"You really expect me to beleive that you broke into people's homes at night and stole their valuables?"
"No--"
"You admit it--"
"I broke into banks and museums at night."

Midge snorted with laughter. "Okay, yeah. Little miss I-got-into-college-when-I-should've-been-in-the-seventh-grade was a thief. Right. Okay. Sure."
"No. Really. Had to pay my tuition."

"I don't think you could pull it off," she said, as she rolled over, on her side, away from Lorelei. "I don't think you could do it."

She watched the shadows flit about across the wall.

She pulled off the sheets, and swung her feet out, and onto the floor, only to find a something, under her feet... something cold, and metallic.

"Oh, what the fuck?"

She switched on the lamp. In the bright light, she saw a sword, lying parallel to the bed.

"Who leaves a... Lor? Lor, you there?"

She picked it up, and noticed an inscription at the base of the blade. It read, simply: "IF LOST, PLEASE RETURN TO: LORELEI KANISALA'AMPUJA, C/O OMNIVION CORP."

"Lor? Lorelei? Goddamnit, where'd you sneak off to?"


[chapter xiii]