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  The scarp metal that was once the Super Furby slash pop culture icon Albert clanked down on the hard wood floor of Jake and Kelly's smallish dorm room. Megoth followed his girlish cry with a girlish whimper, and sank to his knees in a girlish slump. "Al… Albert…!"  Jenkins looked at Megoth and chuckled. This was the kid that got Blare killed, he thought. Well, not exactly. But close. "I heard a boom. Everyone alright?" "Do I look all right?" "I wasn't talking to you, Kelly Rose." "What… Albert… what…" "I don't know what happened, Mister Megothsky. I found him in the bushes in front of the building. That was the only piece I found. I figure Jake and Kelly here were taking turns mouth-fucking your little robot there and it exploded." "Mouth-Fucking?" "I would never fuck a robot…!" "Always know how to kill a crowd, eh, Bruno?" "Uh…" "I wasn't serious." "Uh…" "Shut up, Bruno." Jake shut up, and looked at his room. All the glass was broken and scattered. The computer screen that he paid four hundred dollars for in 2000 and that now was sorely outdated, gone. The windows, the mirror. All of it broken glass now. What the hell happened, and where was Faith? Jenkins shook his head and said something under his breath. "Enough playing around, you three, we need to talk. Let's go…" "We can talk right here." "I don't think so. I'm hoping whoever did this isn't going to come back, but if he, or it, does, I don't want to be here and I don't want any of you pussies to be here." Jake looked at Kelly who was already nodding to Megoth. Megoth picked up Albert's head like it was the most delicate thing in the whole world and cradled it. Jake thought he saw him stroke it but wasn't sure. They silently followed the six five; muscle packed frame of Jenkins outside. Mercy and Trish were just walking in while Jenkins and co. were walking out. "Jenkins! Jake, what the fuck happened?" "Ms. O'Gara, Ms. Phillips, where are Ms. Schwartz and, uh, Ms. Duncan?" "Why…" "Just please answer." "Mecca went home early, some problem with her brother, car accident, I think, not too serious, though, but any excuse, y'know? And Sandy… no clue." Jenkins rolled his eyes and looked left and made a hand signal as if to say, get over here. Jake turned around to see who Jenkins was waving to, and didn't see anyone. As he turned around again to face Jenkins, a man in black sweats who seemed to appear out of no where was talking quietly to the Head of Security. Jake swore he recognized this man, probably from around campus. Everyone else thought the exact same thing as Jake. Jenkins whispered something in this man's ear, he flicked his chin in response, and jogged off. "Young ladies, please, if you would, come with me and these three… young men. We have something to talk about, and, I'm afraid, it affects you all." Mercy was going to say something, but hesitated to Jenkins finger over his mouth. She understood. Trish looked most confused, but stayed silent. Inside, she was actually kind of excitied. Usually she doesn't have a part in any of the weird stuff. Mercy noticed Megoth carrying Albert's head like a baby, and caught Jake's eye. She motioned Jake's eye toward the somber Megoth and Jake weakly smiled and shrugged. Mercy also saw that Kelly's nose and mouth were recently bleeding, but didn't go over to him because he refused to make eye contact with her. Jenkins brought them down to the Self-Defense Classroom slash Gym, into his little office on the side. Jake noticed that the spot where he put Artie through the wall was repaired. He smiled. The office was small and humid. There were two uncomfortable folding chairs in front of Jenkins seventies style gym teacher desk, wood paneling and all. There was a switchboard behind and to the left for emergency calls. Jake wondered if this was the security room, and if so, where were all the cameras? Trish sat in one chair, Megoth nursing Albert in the other. Kelly stood behind Megoth, Jake in the middle, and Mercy to the right. Jenkins sat at his desk and rubbed his temples. "Do any of you know the janitors in your building?" "Yes", Jake answered, he did, one had approached him before Christmas about tossing his cigarette butt in the trash, which he didn't, and he told Jenkins that. "Sounds like Sweet Dick-" "What?", Kelly, trying to maintain a degree of humor here, he felt, was a little inappropriate. Less than a half-hour ago he was about to do dirty things to Faith Robbins, then he was attacked and she's gone. His head was killing him, and it felt as though one of his ribs was busted… until he came down here. He felt… he felt healed. "Jenkins, this reall-" "Sweet Dick, or Apollo Arianas. Sweet Dick is his… unfortunate nickname, derived waaay before Dick was the slang, the slang for, well, dick. Sweet Dick and Swag, Mikal Swagorski, Swag, are your two janitors at Gorney Hall." "And so?" "They found someone, a bum, they thought, a while ago in the basement. They left him there and did not alert me… a very bad mistake. Neither here nor there at this point. A little while later, we were visited by Officers Steven Epel and Matthew Blare, from our friends at the NYPD. Do these names seem familiar to any of you…" No one answered, even though Jenkins was intently starring at Megoth, who wasn't paying attention to no one else but the severed head of Albert. "Any of you… specifically you, Christopher…." "What? Who? Epel and Blare? Cops? No, why? Should they?" "They said--- they fucking talked--- ach, nevermind. It's not worth it. Epel and Blare were assigned to a strange case in the beginning of last year, two dead bums and a hand belonging to you, Chris." "Ah, the evil version." "Whozzat?" "There was an evil version of myself and two cronies that came over in a dimension machine and sent me to another dimension, they cut my hand off first. And killed two bums. They kidnapped Jake and Kelly and Evil Me was going to use… use… Albert here to kill them but Albert instead saved the day. Jake and Kelly sent the evil Me back to his dimension and brought me back right before the evil one sent me in the first place. It's actually quite confusing." Megoth didn't look up once while saying this. Jenkins got up and slowly walked over to where Megoth was, and slapped Albert out of his hands. Albert's head hit the wall and broke apart more. A big section of his head was now just burnt wires and plastic. You could see some of the remnants of the Tekno Puppy Megoth used to build him. Megoth shrieked weakly, holding his hands out as if Jenkins had just knocked a real baby out of his hands. Jenkins grabbed Megoth's shirt and pulled him out of the chair and off his feet. He shook Megoth as he talked. "One… One of those cops is now dead and the other is missing. If there is any involvement that directly relates to you I'm going to rip out your eyes and shove them up your big, fat-" "The machine is gone, Jenkins, let him down." Jake had his hand on Jenkins' arm and intent in his eyes. Let him down, or I'll make you Jake's eyes read. Jenkins looked at Megoth, tears starting to form at the sides of his eyes, and then looked back at Jake. Inside, somewhere, Jenkins smiled. There's some of that fire I was looking for Bruno, good job. Megoth collapsed back into his chair and made a loud crashing sound, falling all over the place. He sniffed hard, grabbed what was left of Albert, and ran out the door. He slammed it behind him. "Ms. Phillips… Trish… please go see if he is okay." "Uh.. but.. I don't ev-" "Please just go." "Oh… okay…" Trish left the small office. Jenkins quietly picked up the seat Megoth had fallen on and righted it, and then went back to sit down. "Faith." Kelly said. "I know," Jenkins replied. "Where is she?" "I wish I knew, Mr. Rose, I wish I knew." * * * * * Megoth was sitting under a tree near the Gym building when Trish caught up to him. She really didn't know what to say to him. She didn't know him very well, and of what she did know about him kinda creeped her out a little bit. What she remembered of Albert was when Faith got stuck in a closet when that little thing went crazy and tried to kill them all. Faith had knocked it's head off with a kick and that was it. Faith… wonder where she is in all this? "Hey, uh, Chris…. Hey!" Megoth looked up, a tear leaving a streak on his dirty face. He smiled. "Sent you after me, did he? Guess that's okay… we're the powerless ones anyways." "The what?" "Nevermind. Shame, eh?" He lifted Albert's head to Trish, who tried not to laugh. "Uh, yeah, sure, he was your friend, right?" She really felt kind of silly and a little uncomfortable. They were, after all, talking about a robot no bigger than her dog. "Albert, you said his name was?" "One of them. I think he liked that one. But, it's not as bad as it looks. I hope I… I didn't startle anyone with my little display back there?" "What?" "The whole 'crying' thing, not my best performance, but note worthy none… none the… nonetheless." "Ah." Megoth weakly smiled and tinkered with Albert's head some more. Trish stood up and looked around. It was a beautiful day outside, but it looked like it would rain later in the night. She really wanted someone, anyone, she knew to walk by at that moment. Megoth quickly glanced up at Trish, who looked slightly bored. She was wearing a yellow, V-Neck shirt that stopped right under her boobs and a pair of black pants that just seemed to be painted on. Easily the hottest girl Megoth had ever been this close to. Trish wasn't like Melinda, of that night, she was different. Like on another level of hotness. Melinda might be the most beautiful girl in the world, Megoth thought, but Trish is the Queen of the Universe. Maybe she volunteered to come out here, he thought, maybe… maybe she kind of likes me. He stole another glance at her body, and then looked at Albert. "Oh, oh shit… of… of course!" Trish looked down and smiled, hoping he wasn't talking the whole time she was thinking about what kind of shoes she should wear on her ride home from school. "Hmmm?" "His optical sensor was recording when he was beheaded, a simple hook up to my PC and a bit of luck, we can see how he…. We… we can see how he spent his last moments." "That's pretty cool. Let's do it." Megoth started to sweat and gulped really, really hard. He knew she meant to his room to hook up Albert, but, still. He waited a beat, then got up. To Trish, she really didn't want to go into his dorm room, but, it was in the same building and this whole idea of seeing what Chris' little robot saw was kind of interesting. She then thought of the look he gave her when she said 'let's do it' and changed her mind a little bit. continued    
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EVERYTHING JAKE is TM & (C) 2000-2011 by Mike Rosenzweig. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
