From: Megan Kennedy <mekamorph@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 18:20:00 -0700 (PDT)

Title: Why Don't You Have an Adventure, John Byers?
Author: Megan E. Kennedy
Email: mekamorph@yahoo.com
Rating: G
Catergory: Adventure/Humor/Angst
Keywords: None
Spoilers: None
Summary: After acknowledging his jealousy of people like
Mulder and Scully, Byers is taken on an odyssey combining
the worst elements of _The Lord of the Rings_, "Twin Peaks,"
the _Hitchhiker_ Trilogy and a Blues Brothers movie, if they
had been written by Hunter S. Thompson and directed by Stanley Kuibrick. 

Disclaimer: Look, I own NOTHING IN THE FANFIC. The universe
ain't mine, the characters for the most part ain't mine
(I'll address that later) and a lot of the scenes are copped
from stuff I've seen or read over the years. If you happen
to see something that belongs to you, please don't sue
because there's not much pointing in bankrupting somebody
with $107.67 in the bank, is there?

Author's Preamble: I don't know squat about most of what I
mention in this story. What I do know is usually gleaned
from Encarta 'cause I'm too lazy to do any research. Please
just go with the flow.

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: READING LARGE PORTIONS OF THIS FANFIC IN ONE
SITTING HAS BEEN SHOWNED TO CAUSE "RUSHES" IN MEMBERS OF THE PRODIGY PHILE
CABINET. THEREFORE IT SHOULD NOT BE READ AT ALL BY THE ELDERY, SMALL
CHILDREN, PREGNENT WOMEN, OR ANYONE FOR


 THE MATTER. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

"Why Don't You Have an Adventure, John Byers?"
By Megan E. Kennedy

____________________________________________________________
                        -CHAPTER ONE-
______________in which OUR HERO PACKS HIS SUITCASE__________
------------------------------------------------------------

   I shut my suitcase and looked up at the two men standing
beyond it. Langley and Frohike looked back with twin stares
of disapproval. "It's not even for a week," I said
placatingly. 
   "Lots of stuff happens in under a week," Langley said
shortly. "The Kennedy assassination was committed and
covered up in under a week."
   "I'm going to St. Louis. How bad is St. Louis?"
   "_The Exocist_ was based on stuff that happened there,"
Frohike said tartly. "The brewery syndicate is seated
there."
   I gave them both exasperated looks. "So what am I
supposed to do? Hide you two in my suitcase? Tell my boss I
can't go because my roommates are afraid I'll be threatened
by a government conspiracy? This is a business trip. It's
not like I have a real big choice in the matter."
   They kept staring at me.
   "Look, the hearing isn't even expect to last as long as
it's scheduled for. I'll probably be back within three
days."
   "Why're they sending you, anyway?" Langley sniffed.
   I shut my eyes. "Because they wanted an expect witness to
testify that some shock jocks broke FCC regulations and my
name was drawn out of a hat." I picked up the suitcase and
grabbed my overcoat.
   "Nothing is a coincidence, Byers. They're sending you for
a reason," Frohike said ominously.
   I turned around at the door. "Does it ever cross your
minds that maybe, just maybe, there's such as a thing as
being too paranoid? I am capable of watching my own back."
   They kept staring at me. I thought their arms would maybe
freeze in that position if they held them crossed in
disapproval any longer. "Good-bye, I will send you an email
when I get to my hotel room," I snapped, and headed out the
door. 
   At the airport I "happened" to run into Mulder. "Where's
Curly and Moe?" he asked lightly. He had the air of somebody
who's sought you out and now wants to make it look like
chance.
   "This is FCC business," I muttered. "The Dean and JD
hearing in St. Louis. I got picked for the expert witness."
   Mulder nodded sympathetically. "Those things are bitches.
Hope no protestors spit on you."
   "Thanks for the happy thoughts," I said, heading for my
gate. 

____________________________________________________________
                       CHAPTER TWO
          in which A STRANGE STRANGER GETS SOBER 
__________________AND BYERS GETS DRUNK______________________
------------------------------------------------------------

   Protestors did spit on me, in fact. The hearing was 
longer, not shorter than expected because the attorney for
the deejays was a moron. He was actually thrown out by the
judge for objecting to every third statement on general
principals. I was on the stand two days in a row and had to
sit through half-hours of raving from said attorney that
made a blasted Frohike look coherent. Just when I thought
maybe, just maybe I'd be able to leave, the attorny (I think
his name was Mallinckroot) waved a wad of newsprint in my
face. It took me a while to recognize it as an old and
coffee-stained issue of "The Magic Bullet."
   "Mr. Byers, do you know what this is?" Mallinkroot asked
me in a smarmy sort of voice. It conjured up images of fire
alarms and Gilbert Godfried.
   "I believe it is a magazine," I said evasively.
   "A magazine," he said with high drama, "published in by
you, is that right?"
   "In part," I corrected him.
   "And does it not contain stories," he wailed, "which
propagate distrust of the United States government and
military, and allege that they are conspiring against the
people of this nation?"
   "Often."
   Malinkcroot then went into a soliloquey about how this
proved I was a paranoid anarchist who couldn't be trusted as
far as I was thrown. He spun around so fast that his tie
flew paralell to he floor. "Do you deny this, Mr. Byers?"
   I don't usually loose my temper. In fact, I don't have
much of a temper at all. I just don't like being called
a subversive. "I don't see how my personal opinions and the
manner in which I choose to express them have any bearing on
my ability to understand and enforce the regulations laid
down by the Federal Communications Commission for mass
media," I said sharply. "And furthermore, I would find it a
bit odd for an arachist to hold a government job, wouldn't
you?"
   Malinckroot froze and blinked. "No further questions," he
muttered. 
   The deejays were fined in excess of $10,000 dollars. 
   I was just relieved that the hearing was over and wanted
to get back to Washington. Frohike was already gloating over
my premature statement about the hearing's length. 
Unfortunately, the next flight out wasn't until morning. I
had a whole afternoon to kill, and sightseeing wasn't that
interesting.  
   I ended up reading newspapers in the hotel bar for three
hours. I haven't a clue why I went to the bar, and not
somewhere else. Consider it a date with destiny. I finally
decided that I'd be better off vegetating in front of the tv
in my room and lowered the newspaper. A woman was sitting on
the other side of the table staring at me.
   "Yeaah!" I skidded backward in my chair. 
   "Could you give me that section? I was reading about the
New Zealand space program," she asked placatingly. She had
short brown hair that fell in her brown eyes and was wearing
an Army surplus jacket.
   "New Zealand doesn't have a space program," I said
nervously. Dumb thing to say, but my mind had slipped a gear
at that point.
   She scowled. "Then what the hell was I reading about? Oh,
never mind..." She extended one hand. "I'm Juno Jones, last
time I checked."
   "John Byers," I introduced myself. She had a ring on her
index finger shaped like a snake. "Why, uh, why did you
sneak up on me?"
   Juno grinned. "I snuck up on you an hour and a half ago.
You didn't notice. Pay more attention when you read."
   I busied myself folding up the newspaper. "That still
doesn't explain why."
   "Why must there be a why? If you have to have a reason, 
life loses its adventure." Juno gave me a suspicious glare.
"Or don't you like adventures?"
   "All the adventures I've had tend to invovle too much
near-death," I answered back.
   "You've had adventures? I'm surprised, Mr. Wearing a Suit
in a Bar." Juno grabbed my necktie and started playing with
it. I brushed her hands away.
   "I happened to meet the love of my life on an adventure,"
I said testily. Suzanne would have laughed at me if she'd
been there. "Not to mention assited a good friend of mine on
several."
   Juno unhanded my tie and started tearing up napkins.
"Assisting doesn't count. You've had one adventure. That's
no way to live."
   "I guess I'm just not the kind of guy to whom adventures
happen," I said. She was making me uncomfortable.
   Juno snorted. "Adventures don't happen, silly. Sure, luck
plays a part, but most adventures are taken by people who've
sought them out. And you don't seem to be doing that.
Fer'instance," she pointed at my paper, "I bet you're going
to go back to your room, throw that in the trash, and watch
'CNN Headline News' or some similarly informative show until
nine or ten, at which time you'll go to bed. Heck, you'll
probably lay out your suit for tomorrow beforehand."
   I blinked. She was reading me like a book. "What's your
point?" I asked. God bless suspicion, it was starting to 
creep back in. 
   Juno sighed. "Why don't you have an adventure, John
Byers? Aren't you jealous of that 'good friend' that you
helped? Just a teensy-weensy bit?"
   "Not usually. But-" I paused, "what's that got to do with
anything?" I completed awkwardly.
   Juno laughed. "You admit it! Haha! So let's start you
seeking an adventure. Don't go to your room. Sit down here
and have a drink with a strange woman. And I'm pretty
strange, so you won't have to go looking."
   This entire thing smelled like a trap. Langley and
Frohike would have been going through the roof at this 
point. I pictured them sitting on my right shoulder,
screaming in my ear, "Don't do it! She'll surrender you to
the black berets!"
   Unfortunately, Mulder was sitting on my left shoulder and
he was encouraging me. 
   "How do I know you're not trying to pull one over on me?"
I asked warily.
   Juno sighed. "Would it make you feel better to frisk me?"
   "What?!"  
   "Would. It. Make. You. Feel. Better. To. Frisk. Me. For
weapons and such." 
   I shook my head. "I think I'll just leave on general
principals now."
   Juno scowled. "I'll scream bloody muder if you do. And
I've got good lungs."
   I didn't want to admit that I had indeed noticed her
"lungs" despite the bulky jacket. "What do you want from
me?" I asked. 
   Juno flagged a waiter and handed him a slip of paper. "I
want," she said slowly, "for you to have a drink with me."
   Right then I really, really wished, for whatever reason,
that the FCC carried sidearms. Thought what we would use
them for is beyond me. Maybe roughing up a modem? "Then I
will have a drink with you. One drink." I glanced around.
The room was too full to kidnap me...wasn't it? I really
wished that I'd thought to ask Suzanne if that mind control
chemical could be administered in food.
   "And then what you do is your choice," Juno agreed. "I
took the liberty of ordering you some imported beer."
   "What about you?" I asked. The waiter came up and dropped
a bottle with a label in German in and a glass filled with
something disturbingly green on the table.
   "A Vulcan mind-melt, of course," Juno said cattily,
sipping the drink. It looked to me like it could take paint
of a car door. 
   "And what exactly is a Vulcan mind-melt?" I said
conversationally. The beer was stronger than anything
domestic I've drank; then again, I don't normally drink
anything alchoholic, so I'm not much of a judge. 
   "It's green," she said, smirking.
   "Besides that," I prompted her. The bad joke was the
worst I'd have to suffer if I could keep her talking about
something benign like liquor. The entire evening was taking
on a dreamlike aspect. 
   "I'm not sure of the exactly mixology, but they don't 
call it a mind-melt for nothing. It strong like bull." Her
immitation was Corny with a capital 'C.' "Fortunately, me
strong like Panzer tank with flak armor."
   "Your liver can't like you for it."
   "My liver can just go right to hell. I'll find another
one to take its place. I think Rent-An-Ape is open at this
hour and they don't mind organ theft." Juno smiled. I
swallowed apprehensively.
   That beer was really quite strong; either that or I
didn't have the tolerance of college (more or less borne
from the many times my fraternity brothers made me chug Old
Milwaukee until I passed out). The entire room was getting
decidedly swimmy. "You make me very nervous," I confessed.
   "I make many people nervous," Juno laughed, "and you're
naturally high-strung. I'm surprised you're not crawling out
of your skin."
   I took a big swallow. "I would but it's stuck on."
   "Doesn't stop me."
   I gave her a long look. Unfortunately, it wasn't as long
as it could have been because most of the bar at that point
was mounted on a Tilt-O-Whirl. *The beer was drugged,* some
rational bit of my mind insisted, but it was rapidly shouted
down by the rest, which were all rather enjoying this. "You
are alarming. In many ways." 
   Juno toasted with her Vulcan mind-melt. "Here's to
alarming individuals! May we last to the days when chickens
have lips and Lebanese men with moustaches breakdance!" She
tipped the whole contents of her glass into her mouth, held
it for a moment with watering eyes, then swallowed. 
   I think I blacked out a bit at that moment. I remember a
significantly emptier bar full of people giving us strange
looks, and a large glass of blue somethingorother in front
of me. I remember a great deal of noise that seemed largely
out of place. I remember Juno seeming getting more and more
rational with the drinks. That's pretty much it from Mnemnos
on the subject of what the hell happened until about
midnight, maybe one.
   Juno lifted me up by my hair, a painful operation, and
looked into my eyes. They weren't exactly clear, and seemed
highly resistance to focusing, but she looked into them
nonetheless. "John, you are a pitiful statement about your
breed. Now stand up and do it quick because in a few moments
Satan-spawned CIA spooks shall descend on us like tsunamis.
Comprende?"
   I comprended, but my body was not catching up with the
rest of me. I felt like I was wearing a costume, something
like a NASA pressure suit, only this was a John Byers suit
about eight sizes too big. I managed to get my feet firmly
planted on the ground before Juno clenched her fists and
grabbed me by the lapels. 
   It is a very disturbing sensation to be dragged bodily
across the floor. My inner ear had already been arguing
violently with my brain over my orientation with relation to
the floor and being grabbed off my feet by an angry woman in
an Army jacket was doing little to help the situation. I
noticed out table was covered with a startling number of
bottles and glasses. "What'd I drink?" I managed to slur
out. Coherency glanced around and slid under a table.
   "An antifreeze," Juno said sharply. "Up 'n' at 'em."
   "Antifreeze?!" I was seriously startled, which allowed me
to work my way into a sort of half-crouch which, while doing
nothing for my orientation, did a lot for my body from the
waiste down by preventing further bruising. 
   "A drink. A blue drink. Are you going to stand up?" 
   I tried and rediscovered long-lost information about
drunken stupors: Certain limbs acquire something akin to
sentience when exposed to large amounts of alchohol and my
legs were recalcitrant. "Nope," I said. 
   Juno sighed and, in probably the most frightening moment
of my life up to that point, slung me over her shoulder in a
fireman's carry and marched out the fire exit. The alarm
really didn't complement my developing headache. I was
dumped unceremoniously in the backseat of a messy Buick Park
Century. "By the way, feel free to pass out."
   "Don't mind if I do," I muttered. Juno hastily wrapped 
some seat belts around me and got in the front seat. There 
was a sudden, massive feeling of acceleration and I blacked 
out again.
 ____________________________________________________________
                      CHAPTER THREE
______________in which JUNO JUMPS THE GUNMAN________________
------------------------------------------------------------
   
   I woke up still in the back seat. There were lots of
beeping car horns and I decided to press my luck by sitting
up. The seatbelts had other plans and it took some creative
contortions to unclasp myself. Juno had parked in the
breakdown lane of a highway I didn't recognize. She was
sitting rigidly upright in the driver's seat and it took me
a moment to realize here eyes were rolled into the back of
her head. 
   Hangovers are small demons sent to punish people for
having fun. After failing to wake Juno on the first try, I
climb out of the car (painful after a night in the backseat)
and opened the driver's side door. I was glad it was
cloudly; if the sun had been out I'd have probably crawled
in the trunk to sleep it off. As it was I wished I had a
pair of sunglasses. I yanked on her arm, pinched her nose
shut, even slapped her lightly, to no effect. I gave up and
sat on the hood of the car trying to figure out where we
were. 
   "Somewhere west of Memphis," Juno suddenly blurted out.
   "That's where we are?" I asked hopefully.
   "That's where we're headed." She unbuttoned a pocket on
her jacket and pulled out a flask. "Where we are is subject
to question."
   I rubbed the bridge of my nose and watched her take a few
swallows from the flask. "Isn't that what got us in trouble
in the first place?" I asked pointedly.
   Juno shrugged. "Depends on your definition of trouble." 
   "I define 'trouble' as 'being chased out of a bar by the
CIA in the company of a strange woman who got me drunk and
has proceeded to drive off into the middle of nowhere and go
into a trance.'"
   "You must not get in trouble much, then."
   I climbed off the roof of the car and started walking.
"Where do you think you're going?" Juno hollared out of the
window.
   "I am going to walk down this highway until I find a gas
station or some similar locality, from whence I am going to
call my roommates and have them pick me up." I had no desire
to stay in her company for any longer than necessary. I
cursed myself for not leaving when I'd had the chance last
night.
   I'd gotten about ten yards from the car when she tackled
me.
   "Oof!" was all I said, largely because the wind had been
knocked out of me. Juno twisted my arms behind my back and
straddled my midsection, which pretty handily prevented me
from fighting back.
   "John, you are being stupid. The CIA knows you're in my
company and, yoo-hoo, they control the phones. So you have
no way on contacting your 'roommates' until we get to a
place which can be secured, i.e. not a payphone. Now we're
going to get back in the car and drive."
   She climbed off me and I pushed myself up, if only so she
wouldn't pick me up by the hair again. I clambered to my
feet with some difficulty and started back towards the car,
marvelling that none of the passing drivers had noticed the
altercation. 
   When we got back in, Juno looked me over and pronounced,
"We'll need to get you new clothes, of course."
   I looked myself over. Aside from its generally rumpled
appearance and a smudge down the front from our recent
entanglements, my suit was fine. "I don't see why."
   "Look at you. Look at me. Look at the car. One of these
things is not like the other." 
   I had to admit that, but the prospect of Juno shopping
for me was frightening. "Can't I just wear a long coat
buttoned to the chin?" I ventured.
   "No."
   "Please?"
   Juno smiled. "John, you look like a kicked cocker spaniel
when you do that." She merged into traffic at five miles
over the speed limit and turned on the stereo. I almost
jumped out of my shorts. The volume was only a few tweaks
from as high as it could go. Juno started singing along
loudly.
        "Well, I'm wanted in 50 states and in Mexico, 
         And them wanted posters stretch from Alaska 
               down to Tierra Del Fuego.
         I do the don'ts, don't the dos, 
         I wrong the rights and I false the trues,
         I drink all night and I howl the blues..."
   "Could you turn it down?" I yelled over the music.
   "What?" 
   "COULD YOU TURN THE MUSIC DOWN?"
   "WHAT?"
   I made a never-mind motion and sank back in my seat.
*Best enjoy the ride.*
	"The Federales put a bullet in my sombrero,
	still there ain't a hombre standin' 
	that's got the drop on this here pistolero..."

____________________________________________________________
                         CHAPTER FOUR
            in which BYERS HOPES FOUR ACES SOMETIMES 
____________________BEAT A SMITH & WESSON___________________
------------------------------------------------------------

   Juno wasn't a bad singer, despite her eclectic taste in
music (and poor taste in volume, considering my hangover).
We stopped in a gas station and discovered we were nearing
Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and between us we had about thirty
bucks.
   "This is so not cool," Juno muttered, popping open the
glove compartment. It banged me in the knee and I yelped.
"Shut up!" She found five nickles and a Canadian penny.
   "That brings us to $32.67. Any suggestions?"
   "Ask for a loan?" I said timidly. But Juno's eyes had
fixed on something over my shoulder, in a rest area across
the street. I turned around in my seat (having discovered
there was no seatbelt on the front passenger side) and saw
what she was looking at. "No. No no no no no."
   "You can have your twenty dollars back now if you want."
   "No. I'm not going to let you, considering you seem to be
the only one who knows what the hell is going on."
   Juno smiled. "You're wrong, John, I have no clue what's
going on. I am, however, a good poker player."
   The game which she wanted to join current had four
players. They looked like WCW rejects. They were wearing
leather. At least two had prominently displayed weapons. All
of them were tattooed. 
   "Please don't get yourself killed," I said. She smiled
sadistically.
   "I'm not going to get myself killed, John, I'm going to
get both of us killed." She climbed out of the car, came
around, and dragged me out by my tie. I was seriously going
to have to consider taking that thing off. 
   Juno Jones, who was about two inches shorter than me and
very skinny, walked right up to the nearest australopithecus
and put a leg up on his chair. "Care to deal us in?" she
said, smiling a little and raising an eyebrow. She still
hadn't let go of my tie.
   The hulk shrugged, which reminded me alternately of
breeching blue whales and a rockslide. "Have a seat," he
rumbled. The four behemoths scooted down the table to allow
room for us. 
   Juno palmed me fifteen bucks and some dimes. The first
giant dealt. "The game is jackpots," he boomed, "jokers
wild. Ante up." 
   I put in two bucks and the ogres looked at me like I was
a speck of vomit on their shoes. I am a very bad poker
player; my greatest skill is my bluff, and that was being
sorely tested by this crew. Juno anted five and the rest
about the same. 
   I had two queens, a one-eyed jack, a deuce and a seven.
Titan Number Two started the betting. It seemed to me that
they'd never win anything, because no one ever raised the
stakes more than a dollar. I didn't want to rock the boat
and did likewise. Juno, however, had no such inhibition.
   "I will see your bets," she said, very carfully, "and
raise you six dollars and twenty-seven cents." She dropped
all her money in the pot, smiling. The neandrethals raised
they eyebrows; I quietly panicked.
   The draw was done, and I now had a full house--two queens
and three sevens. One of the muscles folded, and then it was
my turn; betting had run a different order this time. I had
just enough left to see and move on to Juno, who either had
a wonderful hand (she'd only drawn one card) or was prepared
to bluff her way through. 
   I folded.
   Juno smiled sweetly again. "I see and raise you,
gentleman, my car." She dropped her keys into the pile. 
The last two neckless wonders folded. It was Juno versus
Titan Number Two. He winked. "I see your bet," he said,
dropping a wad of hundreds in the pot, "and raise you my
guns."
   They were very nice guns, very shiney, and appeared to
have full clips. I desperately wanted to jump up and look at
Juno's hand but I didn't want to incur anyone's wrath. She,
for her part, laid her cards face-down on the table and
stuck her hands behind her back. Something moved under her
shirt and she produced her bra, which she set on top of the
pile. "Redeemable any time at face value, sir," she said,
and ran her tongue over her teeth for emphasis. One of the
lumps wolf whistled. I started to shake.
   Titan Number Two laid out one, two, three, four kives and
a plastic baggie full of clips (apparently for the guns) on
the table. "Your bet."
   Juno laid down her flask, demonstrating that it was full;
the bet was countered with a credit card. Juno looked
around, biting her lip, then bet a lighter. The tough saw 
her with a smaller pistol still in its ankle holster. Juno
shrugged and said quietly, "Show 'em."
   My heart stopped. She two pair, kings and nines.
   Titan Number Two started at her cards for a moment. Then,
very softly he began to cry. Then he started sobbing, and
the sobbing became bawling, and he dropped his head on the
table and wept. His hand dropped down.
   Two pair, queens and sixes.
   Juno smiled and gathered her winnings and property. "See
you around, gentlemen," she smiled. Titan Number Two gave us
the finger and his cronies looked like they were ready to do
major damage. One of them started to rise and Juno, like
some kind of legendary gunslinger, flipped one of the won
weapons into her hand. "No, please, don't get up." She
turned on her heel and left. I raced after her.
   "Why did you do that?" I asked her softly.
   "For gas money. Anything you'd like?"
   "Clean underwear." Juno laughed and started filling the gas tank. 

____________________________________________________________
                       CHAPTER FIVE
_______________in which BYERS SAVES THE DAY_________________
------------------------------------------------------------

   We made it into Cape Girardeau and found a hotel. One
room. Juno told me to sign the register as Mr. and Mrs.
Stanislaus Smith and I didn't feel like arguing. I found her
in the room, counting the money.
   "Surprising, this. Nine hundred seventy-three bucks from
the four of them, plus some very nice pieces of artillery
and a credit card with a reasonable limit. Added to our
previous balance we should be able to make it to Memphis."
She glanced up at me. "That is, if you want to go with me."
   "Oh, I get a choice? Me oh my, whatever shall I do?" I
held my head in my hands. "Sure, why not? There's got to be
somebody there who can get me back to Washington. Langley's
probably on maximum overdrive right now. They're probably
calling Mulder every ten minutes because they don't want to
list me as a missing person."
   Juno stacked the bills and wound them with a rubbed band.
"Why wouldn't they want-oh, right. Paranoia zone."
   I laid back on what I assumed would be my bed for the
night. "It's ironic, how I was looking forward to this trip.
I was thinking I could leave all that behind for a few days,
the phone taps, the triple-identification--look who I ended
up with."
   Juno glared at me over her beer. She'd bought a six-pack
at the gas station. "I beg to differ," she said. "I am not
paranoid, merely conscious of my status."
   "Why is the CIA after you, anyway?" I asked, sitting up.
"You're obviously in enough danger from them."
   Juno shrugged. "I really have no idea. They're just sort
of after me and I'm just sort of not wanting to be caught.
Now if you don't mind, I'm going to go fetch you a wardrobe.
I suggest you use the interim to shower and take care of
hygiene." She stuffed the money in on of her inside pockets
and departed.  
   A shower was a very good idea; while in the shower I
could momentarily forget that I was on the lamb from the CIA
with, for all intents and purposes, a madwoman. I found my
suit handily removed from the bathroom floor when I finally
got out and a plastic bag hanging from a hanger on the towel
bar. The bag contained underwear, socks, a pair of blue
jeans, an undershirt, a green polo shirt, and a leather
jacket, all neatly folded and stacked. A pair of boots that
appeared to have come from the same locality as Juno's
jacket were on the floor underneath. 
   I was extremely uncomfortable. 
   Juno laughed at me when I came out. "John, you look like
you're wearing an iron maiden. Or a suit." She stood up, set
down her beer, and untucked my shirt. She shoved down my
shoulders into a slumped posture and pushed me to the side
until I shifted my weight to one foot. She stuck my hands in
my pockets. "There. Now you look right."
   I straightened up immediately and tucked my shirt back
in. Juno sighed and rolled her eyes. "You are insufferable."
   "Mind telling me where we're going next?" I said,
shrugging off the leather jacket. It reminded me of Titan
Number Two. 
   "Well, to bed, probably, but in the morning we're driving
into Illinois." Juno started doodling on the complementary
stationary pad with the complementary pen which for some
reason is always green. 
   "Illinois. Lovely." I found my suit crammed in the trash
can with several beer cans that hadn't been quite empty. And
not a dry cleaner's in sight. My jacket was salvageable but
the rest was a lost cause. I brushed it off and put it on.
"I feel like a cowboy dressed like this," I grumbled. "We 
didn't look that mismatched before." 
   I turned around, the expected sarcastic comment from Juno
not forthcoming. She was sitting bolt upright on the bed,
eyes rolled into the back of her. Another trance. I waved my
hand in front of her face and got no reaction. "Wonderful.
Entre l'folie."  
   Somebody pounded on the door hard enough to make the
floor vibrate. "Juno Jones?" somebody shouted. I envisioned
a platoon of Marines on the other side of the pitifully thin
wood. I remembered, heart climbing into my throat, that the
door hadn't been locked when I came out of the bathroom.
   I pressed myself again the wall, and dragged Juno down to
the floor. She didn't move a muscle and therefore would
probably have a nasty crack on her head later. The guy
pounded again, then discovered the door wasn't locked. 
   He was big. He was blonde. He looked like a refugee from
a muscle magazine. He flexed his hands and looked around
slowly. I shifted my weight and kicked him firmly in the 
ankle. He fell like a toppling tree, banging his head on the
footboard of the bed. Just like that. One moment he appears
to be desirous of our heads on a platter, the next minute
he's out like a light. 
   Juno came to behind me and looked over my shoulder at the
fallen invader. "Good work," she said lightly. "Now we won't
have to kill him."
   I just sat there and kept hyperventilating.

____________________________________________________________
                         CHAPTER SIX
_____________in which THE CREATOR CALLS COLLECT_____________
------------------------------------------------------------

   Juno dragged the big blonde man off somewhere and came
back with his wallet. "Are we robbing everyone we see?" I
asked, still trying to get my heart rate under control.
   "It's not like he'll need it until morning. That was a
nasty crack on the head you gave him."
   "He fell!"
   "Whatever." She pulled out six hundreds and some more
credit cards. "Thomas Syne, Kevin Langham, Steve
Brussels...can you say 'alias' boys and girls?"  
   "Do you know what he was after?" I asked. She pulled a
laminated card out. 
   "D-of-D, Wesley Marx. I'd venture he was looking for us."
She threw the wallet in the trash and pocketed the money.
"Feel like dinner?"
   I shook my head. "Why not? Life's certainly not going to
stop for my state of mind."
   We ate in a Denny's across from the hotel. Juno bent all
her utensils double and ate with her fingers. I didn't even
bother to stare at her at that point. She really packed the
food away, though; her first plate disappeared before I'd
even finished adding sugar to my coffee. 
   "The way I see it," Juno said, coming up for a breath
three plates later, "we'll need to move quickly to get west
of Memphis. They're obviously on to us."
   I put my fork down and stared at her. "That's all you
know? I mean, 'west of Memphis' is a pretty large area. More
than half a continent, technically speaking. How do you
intend to find the exact location?"
   Juno shoved a French fry into her mouth. "Well, I planned
to go to Memphis, then drive west until we got where we're
going."
   "But we don't know where we're going!" I hissed.
   Juno shrugged. "We'll know when we get there." 
   I rolled my eyes and kept eating.
   Juno paid for all the food with the credit card we'd won
in the poker game. "Don't you think that's dangerous? It
could well be how they found us in the first place..."
   She shushed me. "John, I am using this card to pay for
everything until it's maxed out, at which point I'll just
pitch it. That's how real credit card thieves do it and that
how I paid for your clothes. If we're careful and cautious
in our spending, then somebody's going to catch on and maybe
believe that Hell's Angels' story. As it is, they'll assume
his card was stolen by one's average run-of-the-mill
pickpockets. Verstehen?"
   I nodded. At we went out, a payphone rang. Juno grabbed
it off the receiver and waved me onward. "Jones." Pause.
"This is she." Pause. "Sure." A longer pause. I hovered near
her, not really wanting to leave but dreading what might be
on the other end, taking into account the rest of the day.
"Thanks." She hung up. "We can fly to Memphis. A plane will
pick us up at Spirit of St. Louis and take us directly
there."
   "Who was that, on the phone?" I asked warily.
   Juno shrugged. "God."
   "WHAT?!"
   She rolled her eyes. "I know. You'd think He wouldn't
need to call collect, Him being a Divine Being and all. I
mean, He even dialed zero."
   I would have commented but my jaw wouldn't shut.
   When I finally did find my voice, we were in the hotel
parking lot. "How, uh, how did you know the Almighty was
going to call you collect?"
   "Uriel told me."
   This was too much. "Uriel? Uriel the archangel?"
   Juno glanced at me. "You have a problem with that?"
   I leaned against the wall in shock. "No. No problem. It's
just that I'm not accustomed to getting collect calls from
major deities, let alone their help in anything."
   Juno shrugged. "You get use to it."
   She pulled a wad of clothes out of a satchel I hadn't
noticed. "I'm turning in for the night. We can start back to
St. Louis in the morning. I don't think it much matters when
we show up."
   "Of course not, it's been arranged by the Master of the Universe." I
found a satchel of my own on my bed packed with a second change of clothes
and some other odds and ends. Juno went into the bathroom and came out
rather quickly, dressed in flannel pajama bottoms and a brown T-shirt that
said "Get Lucky in the Bush." The pajamas featured skiing reindeer. 
   " 'Night, John Boy," she said, climbing into her bed. She was asleep
almost instantly. I flicked off the lights and fell asleep with my clothes
on. 

____________________________________________________________
                       CHAPTER SEVEN
____________in which JUNO JUMPS THE HIRED GUNS______________
------------------------------------------------------------

   I woke up when I heard Juno start to move around, the
shower go on. I really wished for one of those morning
amnesias, like you always read about in books. "He was awake
a long time before he remembered his heart was broken" and
their ilk. As it was I remember more or less everything,
or at least the salient points, such as the collect call
from God. That alone made me want to fall asleep again. 
When I finally did make myself roll over and open my eyes
I was greeted by the sight of Juno, stark naked and with a
towel on her head, rummaging through her satchel. I closed
my eyes and rolled over again. It's not like I'd never seen
a naked woman before, I just wasn't thinking of Juno as a
woman so much as a lunatic, and I had no desire to see a
naked lunatic. 
   "Mornin' John. You want to shower first or shall we leave
when I'm dressed?"
   I sat up, keeping my back to her. "Let's go." It was
still dark outside. I found her flask on he floor and took a
swallow out of it.
   I was content to let Juno drive and watched the road roll
by. I picked out the place where we'd stopped yesterday.
Suddenly a thought struck me. "Why are we going all the way
back to St. Louis? Why can't we just drive to Memphis?"
   Juno rolled her eyes. "Why are the pretty ones always so
stupid?" she muttered. "Look, do you want to explain to God
that we disobeyed Him because we thought we could go faster
our way? 'Cause I don't. Now shush and turn on the stereo."
   I obliged. She advanced the song a few tracks sang along
(as usual):
         "So just how far down do you want to go?
         Well we could talk it out over a cup of joe 
         And you could look deep into my eyes like I was a
                supermodel.
         Uh-huh."
   She mined the guitar solo with one hand.
         "Well, it's you and me, baby, no one else we can 
                trust
         We'll say nothing to no one, no how or we're bust
         And never crack a smile, or flinch or cry for 
                nobody.
         Uh-uh."
   Suddenly a blockade consisting largely of cop cars
appeared over the horizon. Since there wasn't much traffic,
they were searching every car thoroughly. There was no one
on the long stretch of road between us and the car
currently undergoing scrutiny. 
   "John," Juno asked calmly, "how much do you know about
ballistics?"
   "Not much," I said, failing to see the connection between
physics and the blockade.
   "What about physics? Body in motion, simple machines,
gravity and such?"
   "What are you suggesting?" I said slowly.
   Juno winked at me. "Crawl in the back and put on a
seatbelt."
   I looked at the crack between the seats. "I can't fit
through there."
   Juno sighed. "Now, see here, Double-oh-seven," she said
in a fake British accent, "your seat is equipped with a
lever on the side, near the seat belt anchor, which will
lower the back when pressed. Now if you could be so kind as
to lower it all the way and crawl back there I will be able
to get us out of this mess with relative ease."
   I crawled. Almost as soon as I was buckled in, however,
that massive acceleration I'd felt the first night returned
with a vengeance. Juno was flooring it. "What are you doing?" I yelped, grabbing the seat.
   "I am getting us out of this mess," she said through
clenched teeth. The cops saw us barreling down and I
realized why the block was so perfectly set up: in order to
be checked, one had to drive up on a slightly raised
platform. Only after your car was cleared were the spiked
chains removed to allow passage. And a combination of a
corrugated-steel roof over the checkpoint and a slight turn
in the road meant that any driver crazy enough to try and
jump it would probably either cave her roof or roll. 
   I realized that Juno was ample crazy to try and jump. 
   She spun the wheel hard to the left as we came on the
turn--the right turn. 
   She pumped the gas and brakes alternately. putting us in
a corkscrew spin.
   She headed straight for the checkpoint without the
slighted sideways list.
   I prepared to tuck my head between my knees in case we
crashed into a burning hulk in the breakdown lane. 
   To the shock and amazement of everyone present, Juno Jones cleared the
chains and plowed onward to the open road.  The tire chains went up in a
hurry, and cop cars came in full pursuit. Which was why she did it again.
   When we finally got straightened out, we were heading back the way we
came and a rather nasty smash-up had occurred at the checkpoint, which
caused all the cop cars to be more or less stuck. I'd thought I'd gotten
used to Juno's creative navigation of traffic, but apparently I was
mistaken. 
   I looked up warily. "You are," I said slowly, "completely and utterly,
totally and wholly, barking mad." 
   Juno sighed. "Yeah, and now we're going the wrong way, too." 

____________________________________________________________
                       CHAPTER EIGHT
________________in which THE FAT MAN COMETH_________________
------------------------------------------------------------

   I fell asleep in the backseat, probably from shock. My
heart rate seemed to support that theory. I woke up sometime
in the later afternoon, while Juno was getting gas.
   "The sleeper awakens," she said dryly. "Maybe I should
take out the seats and outfit you with a bed there."  
   I rubbed my eyes. "Where are we and what are we doing?"
   "We're on Earth at the moment, getting gas. In the
long-term I'm going to drive around until I find an airport.
I assume God will do His part and get the plane."
   "Did I mention I'm an atheist?" I muttered. 
   Juno look at me reprovingly. "John..."
   "Well, what am I supposed to say? 'Sure, let's wander
around with the CIA after us until we find and airfield and
hope there's a plain available?' Come on!"
   "Would it help if I told you an angel gave me this plan?"
   "No, it would not help!" I snapped. Wandering around the
country with a strange woman was one thing. Wandering around
the country with a strange woman in direct contact with
Heaven Above was a bit too much. 
   Juno sniffed. "Well, if you've gotta go, go now, because
I'm not stopping one we get started."
   I sighed and trudged off to the men's room. 
   While I was inside a tall, heavyset man in a trench coat
and a fedora came in. He had a scruffy beard that barely
concealed his double chin and graying hair. He looked at me
from behind thick, horn-rimmed glasses. "You're Byers." Not a question.
   "Yes?" I tried to say courteously. Though that is a
rather difficult situation to be courteous in. 
   "I'd like to inform you that your travelling companion is
quite mad."
   "I guessed that."
   "It's not difficult." The man, whom I mentally dubbed
Arthur, began relieving himself. "I'd also like to inform
you that the CIA isn't after you. Or, rather, they're not
the only ones."
   "Oh?"
   "Yes." Arthur snickered. "In fact, between you and me and
pisspots, somebody's trying to kill you."
   "So I'd gathered." I felt very vulnerable, very
frightened, and very, very nervous. 
   "I'd guessed you'd figure it out. You're a bright guy
when you want to be." I felt vaguely insulted. Arthur
ignored me. "So I'd like to inform you that if you stay in
here for a few minutes, Jones will take off without you and
you will be able to safely hitchhike to Joplin from whence
you can be picked up. No huhu."
   "No huhu," I echoed. Arthur smiled, zipped up, and walked
into a stall. Both his feet rose off the floor at the same
time. Startled, I went over and tapped on the door. It swung
open and nothing was there.
   If it hadn't been so quiet I'd have sworn he flushed
himself.
   I walked out quickly, seeing that Juno was growing more
and more peevish by the second. Quite suddenly, behind me,
the bathrooms and in fact most of the gas station exploded
into a fireball. I flung myself down against the car. 
   "Get inside, you big baby," Juno snapped. "Aren't you a
little old to be conducting cherry-bomb experiments on the
plumbing?"
   "It wasn't me!" I blurted. "It was Arth-the old man-fat
fedora guy-he tried to kill me!" 
   "Whatever. Let's go before the pumps explode."

____________________________________________________________
                       CHAPTER NINE 
____________in which JOHN AND JUNO GET CREATIVE_____________
------------------------------------------------------------

   Juno wouldn't talk to me the rest of the ride. She just
turned the stereo up. I believe this was her way of telling
me she was in a full-blown snit. After the previous two
days' acrobatics, the long drive seemed very monotonous
(except, or course, for her brief lapse into trance while at
the wheel, but no one else was on the road and I steered us
away from medians). I found myself disbelieving more and
more of what had happened after I blacked out in the hotel
bar back in St. Louis. Rather, I would have if it weren't
for Juno sitting next to me slamming back beer during
instrumental solos. 
   She slammed more than just a drink, though, when we came
to an exit. She pumped the brakes, jerked the wheel, and
turned us completely around in the wrong lane. She then
executed an astonishingly tight turn onto the exit ramp,
narrowly missing the guard rails. 
   "Could you warn me when you're about to do that?!" I
shouted over a guitar solo.
   "Sorry."
   "Damn straight."
   Juno laughed. "You flinch when you swear, you know that?"
   "I do not."
   She turned down the stereo, an apparent peace offering.
"When you say 'damn' or 'hell' you flinch. And you blush a
little bit. It's endearing."
   "I don't blush, either!" 
   Juno smiled. "You've obviously never seen yourself swear,
then."
   I let the matter drop. 
   After another creative left turn we camp to a dusty side
road. A faded sign with dim spotlights read "Ozark Bottoms
Airport 2 mi." right above an advertisement for Elvisland. I
assumed heavenly hosts had once again informed her of its 
presence.
   Juno stopped suddenly in the middle of the road. She
flicked off her lights, turned off the whole car in fact,
and pressed something cold into my hand. "John, have you
ever fired a gun?"
   "No," I said truthfully, bewildered. 
   Juno removed one cold thing and put another in its place.
"Then you get the pistol. I'll take the Sigs."
   "What?!" I blurted. But she'd started the car again and
seemed unwilling to speak further. I looked at the pistol.
It was the one we'd gotten in the poker game. Jut holding it
made me nervous. I didn't want to check to see if it was
loaded.
   Juno revved the engine once as warning before peeling out
again as the asphalt gave way to gravel. I held the gun very
tightly to stop it from firing. Suddenly she started singing
along with the song on the stereo.
         "Switchblade 327, lit cigarette in his hand,
         Steel-toed boots on a accelerator, oil leaking out 
              of the pan.
         Switchblade 327, he won't cut you no slack,
         He'll cut you to ribbons if you come into town, 
         carve out his name in your back."
   She elbowed me in the ribs as she chanted along. "Black- 
top burnout, Saturday night, try and catch him if you can!" Then she started laughing.
   I clenched my teeth and held onto the gun. 
   Suddenly I learned what the speed was for: we plowed
right through the airport gates at something to the tune of
120 mph. She spun a hard right almost as soon as we were
clear, a controlled skid, and aimed for the tarmac. I
abruptly realized why she'd provided the pistol; I heard
bullets ricocheting off the cement in the darkness. Each one
made a little spark where it hit. I ducked.
   "C'mon, you big baby!" she urged. "This is the fun bit!"
   "This is the fun bit?!" I echoed, not a bit hysterically.
I have bad memories of guns and I wasn't keen on bringing
them up again.
   "Return fire, soldier, that's an order!" she barked like
the drill sergeant in _Full Metal Jacket_. " 'What is your
major malfunction?!'"
   I gulped and looked in the mirrors. There was a jeep
following us and somebody was hanging out the passenger side
with a large gun. I rolled down the window and stuck one
shaking hand out. "Two hands, soldier!" Juno barked. 
   I used two hands and fired a gun for the first time in my
life.
   The front right tire of the jeep blew out; the gunman
fell off from the turbulence. I leaned back in my seat
panting. "Not bad," Juno said approvingly. "Now can you keep
us on the straight and narrow while I take a crack?"
   I obligingly held the wheel still while Juno hung out her
window and pumped a clip into the jeep. It broke off but
there were more. "Prepare to bail, soldier!" Juno said in
sergeant mode. 
   "Bail?" I squawked. "You mean, jump?"
   "No, I mean dump water." She pounded the brakes and took
off. I followed in a panic. There was a little Cessna
turboprop with red piping a few yards ahead with junk
deployed around it that looked suspiciously like a defensive
perimeter. "Go inside, I'll cover!"
   I ran under the plane while Juno knelt behind some detritus and emptied
another clip at our pursuers. I pulled a handle with a red "Pull" label on
it and got conked on the head by a descending stairwell. I climbed inside
the plane's belly and promptly collapsed. 

____________________________________________________________
                      CHAPTER TEN
___________in which BYERS LEARNS AN AWFUL TRUTH_____________
------------------------------------------------------------

   Ring, cell phone. Ring little cellular I found on the
floor of a mysterious plane ostensibly provided by God
Himself. And pick up, or I shall go mad.
   "Hello, you've reached Fox Mulder. Leave a message."
   The one night I need his help and the Dateless Wonder is
gone. Any night out of the week, and Insomnia Man is asleep.
I wanted to cry.
   "Hi, Mulder, this is Byers," I said in the phone, trying
to shut out the worst of the noise. "Listen, I don't know
where I am, and I don't know who I'm with except her named
is Juno and she's the sort of person God calls, collect. I,
er, we are being hunted by the CIA and several other groups
according to the disappearing fat man who tried to kill me
in the john earlier and right now we're being shot at."
Hysterically rambling as I was, my recall surprised me.
"We're headed somewhere west of Memphis which could mean a
lot but she claims we'll know when we get there. I'm in a
plane right now but this has to be safer than driving with
her so I'm not going to complain oh hell-"
   My train of through was ruin by Juno firing a shot into
the cabin. I dropped the cell phone and the battery snapped
off. My heart sunk. 
   "Ooh, toys!" Juno said, reassembling the phone. "And what
else? Sleeping bags, provisions...swank accomedations, eh?"
She smiled wildly. 
   "So, uh," I stuttered. "How long to do you think it'll be
until we land in Memphis?"
Juno shrugged. "Eight, ten hours, maybe. Subject to route."
   I blinked. "Memphis is in Tennessee! We're in Missouri!
Why the hell should it take eight hours?"
   Juno smiled. "You winced again."
   "Miss Jones-"
   "Don't." I jumped at the snappish tone. "I've been
calling you John, you can return the favor and call me
Juno."
   "Okay. Juno," I started again. "why is Memphis eight
hours away?"
   She rolled her eyes. "How come the pretty ones are so
stupid?" she said. "We're not going to Memphis, Tennessee,
we're going to Memphis, _Egypt_. You know, where Cairo now
stands-"
   I jumped to my feet. "EGYPT?!" I screamed. "You're taking
me to Egypt?!"
   "You said you wanted an adventure," she accused.
   I grabbed my hair in both hands in an attempt to brake my
brain. Didn't help. "I'm sorry, but I do _NOT_ classify
adventure as being kidnapped by a psychotic woman who
communes with angels, drives like Elwood Blues on
menthamphetamines and has a higher blood-alchohol level than
an Irish wake!"
   Juno leaned back on a cot. "Kidnapped? As I recall, you
went willingly at the time."
   I sat down abruptly. "I was drugged!" I wailed.
   Juno rolled her eyes. "No, you weren't. Except for some
stong beer, maybe."
   "Even if that were true," I protested, "did you happen to
mention we'd be going to Egypt?!"
   Juno shrugged. "Maybe. I don't remember what exactly
happened myself."
   I sat back and said a word I hadn't uttered since my
mother washed my mouth out with soap at age ten.
   Juno beamed at me. "John, shake my hand. You didn't flinch."

____________________________________________________________
                     CHAPTER ELEVEN 
__________in which we have A PEACEFUL INTERLUDE_____________
------------------------------------------------------------

   I decided to go to the cockpit and found the door locked.
   "It's on auto," Juno explained. "When I shut the doors it
took off. We're now on our way to Memphis."
   "Cairo," I corrected her. "We're going to Cairo. Memphis
ceased to exist in the seventh century."
   "No, we are going to Memphis, because that's where we're
supposed to go." She spoke with such utter conviction I
didn't know whether to laugh or back away in fear.
   In the end I slept. I'd been doing that a lot on this
trip, it seemed. I couldn't tell that the plane was in the
air anyway, and Juno was curled up under her cot with a
dog-eared book called _Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective
Agency_ and a beer. So that was about my only option at that
point. 
   I woke up and saw that Juno was still reading. Dear
Journal, I thought, I'm coming up on day three of my new
life in hell. After a rousing bit of stunt driving Juno and
I have holed up in a cargo plane bound steadily towards
Africa and she doesn't have a problem with this at all.
Maybe this is how she always lives. After Arthur's
soliloquy in the toilet yesterday I can't stop thinking
about anti-aircraft missiles and what they could do to a
Cessna with red piping. My entire life as I knew it have
been stripped from me except for my suit jacket, towards
which I am developing a complex of some sort. Oh yes, and I
fired a gun for the first time yesterday, I'm rather proud.
   Juno looked up. "We're coming up on the halfway point, by
the way. You slept through a brief refueling stop at Kennedy
but I didn't think you'd want to wake up, considering that I
wouldn't have let you get off."
   "Gee, thanks," I said sourly, sitting up. "What do you
suggest we do until then?"
   "Play cards?" she said innocently. I rolled my eyes and
laid down again.

____________________________________________________________
                    CHAPTER TWELVE
_______________in which FAT MAN RETURNS_____________________
------------------------------------------------------------

   Cairo smelled like sand. I have not previously been aware
that sand had an odor, but Cairo reeked of it. Juno grabbed
our satchels and marched off the Cessna and towards the car
park. I raced after her.
   Somehow, I don't want to know how, her Buick Park Century
was in the lot. It had been cleaned a bit but it was still
recognizable as hers. Bald tires, scratched pain and all. I
stood there staring at it for a few moments while Juno
calmly unlocked it and climbed in. "Well?"
   "How-uh-oh, never mind." I climbed in and held on as she
careened out of the parking lot. "How are we going to get
wherever we're going?"
"Driving, hopefully." Juno leaned on the horn going out,
apparently in emulation of every other car on the street.
"If not I'll get camels."
   "Please please plase be talking about cigarettes," I
murmured. Juno laughed.
   There are McDonalds' in Cairo and we ate there. They
taste nothing like American burgers, which isn't a bad
thing. Juno put away two Big Macs and three large fries. I
wondered how she stayed so tiny if she ate so much. 
   While I was washing my hands in the men's room I saw two
feet quite suddenly appear under a stall door. It swung open
and the fat man in the fedora who'd tried to kill me stepped
out. Arthur is what I'd called him in Missouri.
   "May I ask what you are doing here?" I asked, trying to
be polite.
   Arthur chuckled. "No you may not. I just want to tell you
that if Jones abandons you, stay the hell away from the New
Zealand consulate. And the odds are good she'll abandon
you." He doffed his hat, revealing a balding, graying head,
and walked into a cleaning closet. I yanked open the door
behind him and it was empty.
   Juno had paid up and was anxious to leave. "What does it
mean when you're twice visited by a prophesying fat man who
vanishes?" I asked.
   Juno shrugged. "Are you an Aquarius?"
   "Oh, never mind."

____________________________________________________________
                     CHAPTER THIRTEEN
_______in which TRUSTY STEEDS ARE NOTICEABLY ABSENT_________
------------------------------------------------------------

   We headed west from Cairo on the main road and went into
Giza. From Giza we followed a large highway until Juno
stopped us dead.
  "Too far."
  "Too far?"
  "Trust me."
   "Why?"
   Apparently we'd started west at the wrong place, and now
had to go south. No roads ran that way; she resolved to get
us camels.
   I flat-out refused to go with her. "I am not going to put
up with the indignity of buying a camel without proper
knowledge," I proclaimed.
   Juno sighed. "Fine, but if you don't like your camel you
can't complain. Oh, and we're renting them, not buying
them."
   She cam back four hours later with the ugly beasts in
tow. "You can pick. Omaira, or Hibah."
   "What's the difference?" I asked, getting out of my seat.
The car was too hot to tolerate without the doors open
anyway.
   "There isn't one. I just through you might like to pick."
   I ended up riding Hibah, as if that mattered. Both
creatures were ill-behaved and smelled like car soap. I felt
like I was riding down the Beltway in a wagon tied to
somebody's car and Hibah didn't seem in any mood to have me.
Juno had to whack him to get me on and whack him to get me
off. He tried to bite me and I whacked him, and he refused
to move until I apologized. 
   Eventually we came to a parking lot. An entirely
different complex of roads, which we had missed completely
(coming from the northern part of the city, rather than the
south which was nearer the Memphis of antiquity) led right
up to them. They were lots for the Great Pyramids.
   My camel chose that moment to keel over dead.
   I felt him begin to collapse and jumped off, acquiring a
mouthful of sterile sand. I rolled over, working more sand
into my clothes, and watched Hibah flop to the ground in a
cloud of dust. Juno climbed off Omaira and knelt down. "Man
alive, I do believe this camel has expired," she drawled.
   "Of course it's expired, it's not moving," I muttered. 
   Juno shook her head. "Mr. Ahmad the Camel-Seller is going
to get an earful. Not to mention I'm taking back my
deposit."
   "What about me? I can't ride a dead camel," I said
helplessly, standing. 
   Juno shrugged. "These are dromedaries, not Bactrians.
Unless you want to sit in my lap, she'll only take one
rider."
   I looked at the distant lot, growing more and more
distant as the setting sun lowered the visual distortion. I
looked at Juno and her camel, and the soft hot sand that
failed to support my weight but was quite successful at
running into my shoes. I looked at all of that sand between
us and the very distant parking lot.
   It's actually pretty comfortable to ride two to a camel.

____________________________________________________________
                    CHAPTER FOURTEEN
_________where we have A DRAMATIC CHANGE OF VENUE___________
------------------------------------------------------------

   It was almost dark when we got to the pyramids. The last
tour groups were departing. Juno tied Omaira to a pole
apparently designed for such things as camel-tethering. I
looked at the visitor's map mounted on a bulletin board and
encased in plexiglass for protection from the desert
weather, but Juno grabbed me by the arm and dragged me
forward. 
   "Where are we going?" I asked, anticipating the answer.
   "Two where we're supposed to be," Juno said distractedly.
She ran over the sand caking at the Khufu Pyramid's base and
I was forced to follow her. She had my metaphorical tie; I
had no illusions about my ability to work with camels. 
We passed a monument guard, who shouted something in
Arabic along the lines of "Cease and desist!" Juno answered
him in kind, they both laughed, and we went past.
   "What did you tell him?" I asked her, panting from
exertation.
   Juno kept running. "I told him we were psychotics."
   She was half-right but I was too winded to speak.
   The Great Pyramid of Cheops is very large. The base
measures just over 750 feet on each side. Juno ran half its
perimeter, leaving me to collapse panting in the sand while
she stood stock-still and stared at the wall. I attempted to
ask what she was doing, but between my gasping breaths (I am
not, nor shall I ever be, in outstanding physical shape) and
the large amounts of sand I was sucking up in each, I could 
do little else but cough for quite a while. 
   I hauled myself up on the rouch limestone slabs that
constituted the pyramid's side. Juno was staring at the
pinnacle. "Something up there?" I asked hoarsely.
   She held up a silencing finger. "Someone, actually," she
whispered.
   I watched the apex of the moument. It got very cold. I
stopped watching long enough to dig the leather jacket out
of my satchel and put it on. Juno just stared at the peak,
arms slack at her sides, Army jacket fluttering in the wind.
Her bangs fell in her eyes and she brushed them away. Other
than that, no movement.
   Then there were spotlights, Juno grinned like a maniac,
and I don't remember anything else for quite a while.
   When I came to I was in a hospital emergency room. That
was evident by various amounts of screaming, moaning and
beeping. I sat up and instantly regretted it.
   A nurse wandering by saw me and rushed over. "Doctor,
he's awake," she called, before attempting to force me into
a prone position again. "You really shouldn't, it'll just
make your headache worse."
   "At least I'm out of Egypt," I muttered. There were
several thousand miniature clones of John Henry doing their
thing to my brain. The nurse gave me an odd look and
murmured something about 'disoriented' to the doctor who
appeared.
   "Well, you're awake at least. Do you remember what
happened to you?"
   I did, all too well. "Where's--uh, did a woman come in
here with him? A strange woman?"
   The doctor shook his head. "You were admitted by a good
Samaritan. A cop found you passed out on a park bench and
decided to take you to a hospital instead of a drunk tank."
He began examining me but I pushed him away.
   "Where exactly is here? Exactly?"
   "Exactly? Mercy Medical Center, San Francisco,
California."
   I blinked. California- "How did I get here? Never mind, I
sort of know. Look, can you give me directions to the New
Zealand consulate?"
   The doctor blinked. "Are you from New Zealand?"
   "No, but Arthur told me not to go there. Seeing as he
tried to blow me up I think I'll go against any furthur
advice from him."
   The doctor and the nurse shared a Look. I'd seen those
things between Mulder and Scully enough to read their
meaning. "I'm not crazy," I put in for their benefit. "My
life has just gotten a bit odd in spots lately." I grabbed
my satchel and my jackets, which were both folded on the
tray-table next to me. 
   "I don't really think it's wise to be moving around just
now-" the doctor started, but I stood up and pushed past
him.
   "You really don't understand, I was ditched in Egypt,
there's a madwoman out there being chased by the CIA and
somehow the New Zealand consulate will help me find her so I
can gripe. Now if you'll excuse me-" I walked boldly out of
the ER and into San Francisco traffic.

____________________________________________________________
                    CHAPTER FIFTEEN  
_________in which THE CONTRADICTIONS MULTIPLY_______________

   After walking around for a bit I found myself hopelessly
lost. 
   San Francisco is a large place and I had no map. I'm not
sure where I started out, but I ended up smack dab in the
middle of Haight-Ashbury. My headache was very bad and I
decided, in lieu of Juno to advise it, to have a drink.
   Easier said than done. I found a bar serving them quickly
enough, but ordering was the difficulty. There was a very
sticky laminated drink menu handy, but it touted such
specialties as: Smoking Bishop, Duck Fart, Artillery Punch,
Raging Purple Mother****er, Italian Valium, Shuddering
Orgasm, Let's Get Drunk & Screw, Slavedriver Jell-O,
Chartreuse Cocktail, Screaming Lizard, Windex, U-238 Punch
and Bend-me-Over. Drinking strange things had gotten me in
this trouble in the first place, but my headache was very
bad, I was very lost and they didn't seem to have anything
more run-of-the-mill.
   I ended up with a martini, which seemed safe and
recognizable. It was very strong but at that point, I might
have started sipping methanol. I reflected momentarily on
the difference four days made (at least, four days according
to my personal timescale). And I'd told Frohike and Langley
St. Louis couldn't be that bad. 
   I paid for my drink and left (a bit unsteadily--gin and
vermouth on an empty stomach aren't recommended) to resume
my search for the New Zealand consulate. After a few tries I
just started wandering; apparently I looked a bit too
criminal for anyone to tell me where an important political
building was located. I wasn't really watching where I was
going, nor was I even engaging in any sort of search
pattern. However, serendipity and blind chance caused me to
walk into a mailbox.
   "You should watch where you're going," a young woman said
demurely. At first I thought her accent was British, but
then I realized it twanged too much. Not Australian, but...
   "Is the New Zealand consulate near here?" I asked her
blankly.
   She laughed. "You're standing right in front of it."
   I thanked her profusely and ran inside. There was a
security lobby and I wasn't sure I'd make it through when I
saw Juno, wonderful Juno, arguing with a guard as she came
from the other side of the barrier. Finally she slapped him
and jumped a turnstile. 
   "John, we have to leave and do it NOW," she hollered,
snagging my satchel with one hand while she raced past. I
ran with her, back out to where the confused New Zealander
was only a few yards away, and across the street. Juno had
just yanked me behind a building when there was a terrific
explosion.
   I peeked around the corner. Car windows were blown out,
'my' mailbox was mangled, and the New Zealand consulate was
on fire. The nice girl who'd helped me was sitting dazedly
in the street, still confused. 
   I turned back to Juno, who was taking a long pull from
her flask. "Is your life always like this?" I asked.
   She shrugged. "More or less."
   I sat down very hard. "I've had the worst morning you can
imagine since we left Egypt."
   She gave me a bizarre look. "Egypt? John, you must have
gotten some bad grass. We never made it to Egypt."
   I stared back at her. "Never made it-of course we did!
You bought camels and the one I was riding keeled over, and
we doubled up and rode to the Great Pyramid, and you told
that guard we were crazy..."
   I trailed off as I realized Juno had no idea what I was
talking about. "You have no idea what I'm talking about."
   Juno put a hand on my shoulder. "John, you're off your
head," she said matter-of-factly. "We had to detour from
anti-aircraft missals and crashed outside Berkley."
   I shook my head. "That is not what I remember."
   "Well, I didn't expect it to be. You're obviously
cracked. Now let's go find my car."
   I started to follow her, but on impulse knelt down and
took off my shoe. It was full of sand.

____________________________________________________________
                    CHAPTER SIXTEEN
___in which JUNO JONES THANKS YOU FOR NO SMOKING,  DAMMIT!__
------------------------------------------------------------

   That car followed us again.
   It was still the exact same vehicle, but it bore no trace
of our Egyptian sojourn. Still, I had the sand in my shoes
to prove that we had too traveled to Cairo. Juno hunted the
Buick down in a parking garage near the Western Addition. I
dutifully got in and let her crank the stereo up.
   "I was at the consulate to get us visas," she yelled over
a chant of 'Carlotta Valdes!' from the stereo. "Your name is
Bavol Anderson. We're going to Christchurch and we'll be
there for three years or until Shipley resigns, whichever
comes first."
   I shrugged. "Anything else?" I shouted.
   "Yeah. We're really going to Wellington and Sam only
knows how long we're staying."
   "Sam?" I echoed dubiously. Juno shrugged and sang along.
   We went to Oakland International and left the car in
short-term parking. Juno slipped me a forged passport and
papers as we boarded the Air New Zealand flight. I promptly
zonked out in my seat, and was only awakened occasionally by
the small boy behind me trying to pour apple juice in my
shirt. Juno puttered around for a bit, then lapsed into some
sort of Zen meditation rite that involved staring at her
fingers and muttering. She lapsed out of this only once,
during a layover in Honolulu (during which I was once more
forbidden to disembark).
   She got the aisle seat because she claimed claustrophobia. That was fine with me. While we were loading
and unloading a few passengers, the man across the aisle
started to smoke.
   The effect on Juno was instantaneous. First her eyelids
started to twitch. Then she developed a tic under her left
eye. She let out a booming sneeze, then glared across the
aisle. "Would you please," she enunciated carefully,
"observe the no-smoking statute and put your cigarette out?"
   He made a vulgar gesture and kept smoking.
   Juno glanced up and down the aisle, then reached across
and grabbed the guy's wrist. "Douse the cancer stick, bub,"
she snapped. The guy prised off her fingers (difficult to
do, I've tried) and kept smoking. 
   Juno rummaged through her myriad pockets and came up with
a small water gun, the kind one hangs on keychains. She
filled it from her glass and, with great precision, squirted
it across the aisle and onto the glowing end of the
cigarette. 
   The guy looked at the cigarette, looked at Juno, and
crushed it in his fingers. His face looked dangerous.
"Thank you for not smoking," Juno said sweetly, as she
went back to contemplating her fingers. I checked out the
in-flight movie ("The Frighteners") and went back to sleep.
   "Are you a narcoleptic or something?" Juno asked me the
next time I woke up.
   I shrugged. "You're a tiring individual."
   She handed me a very small bottle of wine. "To tiring
individuals!" she toasted.
   I looked at the tiny wine. Last time she toasted me I
ended up in trouble. "To tiring individuals," I echoed. 
   What the hey. You only live once.

____________________________________________________________
                    CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
_________in which there is A STUNNING  BETRAYAL_____________
------------------------------------------------------------

   We arrived in New Zealand twelve hours, forty-five
minutes later, though we gained five hours from the time
difference. We also crossed the International Date Line,
though, so we lost twenty-four hours, too, but at that point
my personal timeline was so royally whacked I didn't care. I
called it Day Five and was done with it.
   Auckland was much the same as San Francisco, but cleaner
and with an accent. I was surprised at how easy it was to
fib my way past the customs agents. Juno magically produced
two bus tickets that took us from the airport to Wellington.
Once we got onto the street, she grabbed me by the lapel of
my jacket and started yanking me forward. 
   "Do you know where we're going?" I asked.
   "I think so."
   "Are you planning to unhand me any time soon?"
   "Nyet."
   "Just so we understand each other." I followed her as
best I could to avoid dislocating her arm and/or tearing my
jacket. 
   The two of us stormed though the streets of Auckland like
a juggernaut. Juno stopped only once, to buy liquor, which I
thought was damned silly but which she brushed off as "fuel
expenses." As long as she kept it in her own satchel I
deemed it best not to complain too vocally. 
   After about two hours of such treatment, Juno stopped at
sat down on the curb. "Siddown," she instructed me. I sat
next to her, feet splashing in some collected rainwater. She
quickly peeled the label off a bottle and handed it to me.
"Drink."
   The liquid inside was brown, but that didn't really say
much. It could have been beer or brandy and I wouldn't have
known the difference without tasting. "Why?"
   "'Cause if you don't I shall tackle you and shove that
bottle down your fool throat."
   "As long as there's motivation," I said dryly, taking a
sip. It was rum, and (at least to my inexperienced palate)
tasted something like 200 proof. 
   Juno scowled at me. "You are not going to finish the
bottle taking baby sips," she alleged.
   "You expect me to finish the bottle?"
   She grabbed my hair in one hand and popped the bottle in
my mouth with the other. She tilted my head back, and I had
three alternatives: a. die b. rip my scalp open trying to
struggle c. swallow. Although option 'a' was mildly
attractive, I elected to maintain and started swallowing as
fast as I could.
   When Juno finally unhanded me I felt like my head was
going to detonate. The human body is simply not designed to
handle that much liquor that fast. My stomach began heaving
and I suddenly understood why we were sitting on the curb
because I threw up into the gutter.
   Juno shook her head and clucked her tongue. "See what
happens when you don't do as I tell you?" 
   "Rot and die."
   "Aren't you pleasant."
   "Rot and die."
   "What would you most like to do right now?"
   "Rot and die!"
   Juno laughed. 
   Suddenly a black car careened around the corner and
pulled up in front of us. "Who's that?" I muttered.
   "Our ride."
   Three people got out, two men and a woman. The men were
wearing black suits with white shirts and blue ties. The
woman was wearing a black skirt, black blazer and white
blouse, with a blue tie herself. They were all wearing
sunglasses. I distinctly did not like their looks.
   Juno, for her part, didn't seem phased by the sudden
appearance of a flock of MIB. She climbed into the car
politely, toasting the lot of them with her bottle. The two
men grabbed my arms and the woman reached for my legs, it
being fairly obvious that I wasn't going to be standing up
on my own any time soon.
   I am not a violent guy, nor do I enjoy fights. However,
there are times when one must do what one must do. Although
I am not proud of it, I kicked that woman right in the teeth
and nailed one of the men in the shin. I yanked my other arm
free and drew that pistol (which I had no recollection of
either pocketing or smuggling though airport security), but
they grabbed me even harder and I dropped it. They pulled me
into the back seat of the black car.
   I was stretched out across their knees, the men and Juno.
I tried to kick the window out and Juno swatted me. "John,
that's no way to behave. We're their guests."
   Everything clicked and I passed out swearing. 

____________________________________________________________
                    CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
____________in which ELUCIDATION OBFUSCATES_________________
------------------------------------------------------------

   I woke up in a very small room with fluorescent lights
and a commode. I was stretched out on a bed bolted to a
wall, and decided that I was in a prison and if I ever saw
Juno Jones again I was going to shoot her. Then I remembered
I'd dropped the pistol and decided to slug her instead. 
   The door opened. "That's really not a way to treat
somebody who saved your keister so many times," a voice
said, "slugging me." Juno came in, flanked by a heavyset
black man with greying hair and a red-haired man who made
Langley look like John Goodman. I sat up, intending to pop
her one, and discovered exactly why I shouldn't have.
   "You can expect that headache to last a few more hours,"
the red-head said apologetically. "It's an unfourtunate side
effect."
   "Of what?" I snapped, laying down again.
   "Besides the booze? Chemical innoculation against Purity
and Endymion-III," the black man said calmly. Juno smiled
sheepishly.
   "I would have explained everything to you earlier but I,
well, I didn't know it earlier."
   I looked at her coldly. "You set me up," I accused. 
   Juno shrugged. "I didn't really have a choice, John. I
didn't know I was doing it when I was doing it."
   "Now how the hell is that possible?" I snapped.
   She put her head in her hands. The two men shared a Look
and Red-head explained, "Juno was under hypnotic,
chemosuggestive, psychoenabled and active-psi direction at
almost all times since she met you in St. Louis. She really
had no idea what all this was leading up to."
   "She also damn near killed our driver when she realized
we hadn't told her the whole story," the black man said
dryly.
   I looked between them. "Why should I believe you?"
   "You're here, aren't you?" Juno muttered from between her
hands.
   "What's that got to do with anything?"
   The black man sighed. "Mr. Byers, you are in a secured
location in the Auckland Islands of New Zealand. Juno
brought you here-under our direction-because we require your
services as a computer hacker."
   "Who's 'we'?" I asked suspiciously. 
   "My name is Goddard Clark, and this is my asssociate
Uriel Smith. We've been guiding you and Juno since you met
up, more or less."
   Suddenly that collect call from 'God' didn't seem quite
so strange.
   "In a larger sense," Uriel added, scratching the back of
his neck, "'we' are a group of people who defy the
government conspiracy you write so vocally about in your
little magazine."
   "Betcha didn't think you had such circulation, eh?" Juno
said dryly.
   "That's why the CIA is after you," I anticipated.
   "Among others." Goddard unfoled a sheaf of papers. "We
have a hacker problem, one with which you can help." He
passed them to me. They were covered in computer code and
looked powerfully familiar.
   "Our computer system was cracked months ago, but we've
been having trouble tracing the source until now." Uriel
pointed to a particular line. "His methods do leave a
calling card--it's 29A in hexidecimal, six-six-six in
base-ten."
   "Sounds like something out of a bad Y2K thriller," I
muttered. "How do you know I can help you out?"
   Juno rolled her eyes. "You don't remember it, but before
you got too drunk back in St. Louis I showed you copies of
that and you told me you could help us."
   "I did?"
   "We need outside help," Uriel explained, "because we've
all been identified. It was either fetch you for assistance
or crash-train a teenager and we figured you were the safer
bet."
   I shook my head. "Start from the beginning. Slowly."
   Juno took a deep breath. "We are part of what's called
the Society. The history isn't important because it'll just
confuse you. But we're essentially a eugenics program gone
awry."
   "Eugenics?" I echoed weakly.
   "Bred for psychic potential," Goddard put in. "We don't
officially exist, but there's a complete record of our
identities on file with the CIA, among others."
   "The Society went underground to go against the
agreements with the aliens, but we didn't get our records
out of their system until the eighties. So we're all on
file," Uriel added.
   "The Ubiquitous They are after us because they want us
under control. We're too spread out to nuke or raid so
they're trying to kidnap or kill our field operatives one at
a time. Like moi." Juno cracked her knuckles. "They're only
learning about them from the hacker, though. Thus, we need
your help to secure our system again."
   I nodded. "I think I get that. Yeah. Okay. But what
happened in Egypt?"
   Juno smacked herself on the forehead. "I knew there was
something I forgot to explain to you! Some friends of ours,
some Rebels, transported us from Egypt to San Francisco to
try and throw the Associated Bad Guys off our trail. Didn't
work too well, 'cause they blew up the consulate, but I
digress..."
    "We didn't know you were being followed by the Arthurs
when we arranged that," Goddard explained.
   My mouth went dry. "A-A-Arthurs?"
   "A series of clones," he elabroated, "who, among other
things, are equipped with space-time twisters. They were
following you most of the way."
   "And they're a buggers to shake," Uriel added.
   I nodded expansively. "Okay. Okay, I think that explains
everything."
   "No, it doesn't," Juno said, "but it doesn't quite matter
because we're going ahead with the plan whether you know
what's going on or not."

____________________________________________________________
                    CHAPTER NINETEEN
           we provide FURTHER EXPLANATION 
___________________IN A DIALOGUE FORMAT_____________________
------------------------------------------------------------

   "So you see, if I'd known what I was doing I wouldn't
have been able to do it," Juno said. We were sitting in the
mess hall of the building/fort/whatever, and I was eating an
onion bagel. I'd been eating nothing but onion bagels for
hours because Uriel hadn't informed me the headache caused
by the dual vaccination is followed by what might be mildly
called an "upset tummy." Anything but onion bagels made me
ralph. 
   "And why's that?"
   "Well, partly because I would have consciously tried not
to do anything above and beyond the powers of mortal men,
like at the poker game."
   I took another bite of my onion bagel. "I thought you
just had a lot of gall."
   "Nope, nope. I knew what everybody's hand was by the
second round of betting. I also encouraged you to fold, by
the way, because you wouldn't have pulled it off."
   "Thanks for the confidence." 
Juno took another swallow of coffee. "Well, it's true.
We'd only been on the road what, one day? You weren't
getting symptomatic yet."
   I put down my bagel in mid-bite. "Symptomatic of what?"
   Juno shook her head. "John, it's not just the Society
that has psychic potential. All humans have it, but it's a
bugger to get going without a catalyst, in the form of
something or somebody, like a Society member who's already
got them going. Hanging around me started you on the road to
ruin and the alcohol surely didn't help."
   I shook my head. "This is all nuts."
   "Yeah, but what tasty nuts they be." She polished off her
coffee. "You have to admit there were some things you've
done over the past five days that are unbelievable, and I'm
not talking about things like Egypt. Herr Marx breaking into
our hotel room, for instance."
   "What's so amazing about that, other than the obvious?"
   "You were in plain view," Juno pointed out. "He didn't
notice you because you really, really, really didn't want to
be noticed. And when your camel up and died, you jumped off
just before it collapsed. You only perceived it as happening
in the opposite order because you had no frame of reference
for that kind of precognitive intuition. Like it or not,
John, you are pretty closed-minded."
   I shook my head. "No proof. That doesn't prove anything."
   "Then what about when you shot out that jeep's tire at
the airport?" she challenged. "You'd never fired a gun
before in your life, we were bouncing around, you had a
moving target and it was dark. Under normal circumstances
you shouldn't have been able to hit the broad side of a
barn."
   "So you're saying I magically hit the tire?" I said
wryly.
   Juno rolled her eyes. "I'm saying that you were
unconsciously picking up years of experience with guns from
me and the folks doing the shooting, either because it was
being projected at you or because you were desperate. And
let me add it wasn't just luck that led you to the New
Zealand consulate."
   I bowed my head, as much for dramatic effect as to
relieve some of the nausea. "So you're saying I owe my
getting here intact to a non-existent Jedi mind trick?
Swell."
Juno scowled. "You do not have to get catty on me. And if
you're so sick, why didn't you take something for it when
Uriel offered it?"
   "Because I wasn't sick to my stomach at the time," I
muttered. Juno shook her head. "So fill me in: what's the
other reason you couldn't know what you were doing to do
it?"
   "Because if I was caught, it couldn't have been forced
out of me." I remembered all our close calls and shuddered.
"And be glad you're just suffering from the vaccine for
Endymion-III. If you actually contracted it you'd be much
worse off."
   "What exactly is Endymion?" I asked, forcing down the
last bit of onion bagel.
   "Endymion is a virus, a fast-acting catalyst. The strain
you got vaccinated for caused death by respiratory paralysis
within thirty-six hours of infection. 'Twas a little
accident from the boys in the back room." Juno got up, and I
followed her. We were due at a mission briefing. "We used
the 'safe' version, Endymion-II, as a bargaining chip with
the aliens. They mess with us too bad, we dust China. Once
enough people are infected it's pretty hopeless to try and
stop it."
   I nodded, but before I could respond I was plowed
headlong into rather hard by a tallish, skinny man with
curly brown hair and big brown eyes. "Chevalier, you nut!"
Juno snapped. Chevalier straightened up and bowed low. 
   "My lady doth have company. I do apologize. 'Twas not my
intention to harm thee." Juno whacked him across the
shoulders. 
   "Chevalier Anderson, meet John Byers. John, this twit is
a recent addition to the Society and doesn't know any
better."
   "Recent addition?" I echoed.
   "My lady did snatch me from death's foetid maw," Chevalier elaborated. I nodded nervously.
   "You can drop the Middle English, Chev. You've made us
late already."
   "Okay. Adios, mi senorita. Adios, Juan Amigo del la
Senorita." Chevalier jogged off, continuing whatever errand
he was on.
   "That was odd," I said, shaking my head.
   "That was Chevalier. He got shot and he's not quote
recovered." She shrugged. "Anyway. On to pillage."

____________________________________________________________
                         CHAPTER TWENTY
                 in which BYERS HAS MISGIVINGS 
                 ABOUT SOMEONE OTHER THAN JUNO 
__________________________FOR A CHANGE______________________
------------------------------------------------------------

   The mission breifing consisted of everyone who'd be involved gathering
in the back room. Goddard was there, as well as people I didn't recognize
but Juno silently (and startlingly, in my inexperience) named for me:
Smith, Cerise Anderson, and Ranjan Jones (no relation). We were the last
to arrive, but nobody made a comment.
   "Here's the drill," Goddard announced, pointing to a large world map on
the wall. "We will move by helicopter from the Aucklands to the target
base in Marie Byrd Land. Ranjan and I will remain in the choppers as
back-up. You six will drop into the installation and make your way into
the computer rooms, where Cerise and John will do their thing. Then we'll
blow a hole in the roof and airlift you out." 
   Everybody nodded. This seemed to make sense, this blowing the hole in
the roof. Juno gave me a look that screamed "Just go with it!" and I
wasn't about to disobey her.
   Goddard nodded back and that was really the end of it. I figured we'd
improvise our way through, and seeing as I'd been doing a great deal of it
lately, I was fairly comfortable with that. Ranjan came up next to me and
grinned, sticking out a hand. He wasa great big guy with swarthy features
and a mop of brown hair. He bore a vague resemblance to Mulder, actually,
but only a vague one. "So, John, feel like shooting something?" 
   Before I could even start to feel alarmed, Juno jumped it. "Ranjan,
quit trying to freak him out," she admonished. "Would you like some target
practice with the guns we'll be bringing? Or shall we throw caution to the
wind?" 
   I shrugged. "Why not? We're not leaving until tomorrow, right?" 
   Ranjan grinned. "Don't worry, if you can pull off the same trick twice
you'll be shooting the icons off playing cards soon." 
   It took me a moment to realize he was referring to my shooting the
jeep's tires out (egad was it only?) three days ago. But how could he know
about that? I shot a look at Juno and was greeted by a we'll-talk-later
eyebrow.
   It was a short walk to the firing range, which we spent in a sort of
comfortable/awkward silence. On one hand, Juno was apparently right about
the catalysts; I was becoming aware of things without any obvious input.
Yet, somehow, I didn't really give a damn. After almost a week of
weirdness I could've taken in stride stumbling up a cricket game between
Hitler and Ronald McDonald, reffed by thirteen elves and a kangaroo with
pants on. Perhaps that was what the convoluted journey had been meant for. 
On the other hand, though, I wasn't really comfortable with Ranjan knowing
little details of our hellish road trip. Juno brushing me off didn't help. 
Then again, she seemed pretty friendly with him, so maybe he wasn't all
bad. 
   I managed to maintain that illusion right up to the point when he
pressed a Howitzer into my hands. 
   Okay, well, that's an exaggeration. But it was a very large gun, some
kind of assault rifle with nasty little projections and divets in it that
made it absolutely clear with wasn't the sort of thing you put on display
in a glass case, it was the sort of thing you used to hold up banks. Or
embassies. Or capitols. I damn near dropped the thing just touching it.
   "Okay, John, you sure you want to try this?" Juno asked. I relaxed.
She, at least, was a known quantity, wild and weird as that knowledge was.
*Breath normally, Byers,* I encouraged myself. *You've got your jacket,
the world's not going mad.*
   Aloud, I simply gulped and nodded. 
   Between the two of them muttering and encouraging me (and my
now-neurotic attachment to that suit jacket) I managed to learn how to
hold the bloody thing and shoot it without great injury to myself or
others. My aim was wild and I couldn't so much as raise the thing without
sweating diamonds, but I couldn't really ask for more without a completely
new personality and maybe some amphetamines to boot.
   Juno put an end to practice by saying I really ought to get some rest
and shower, and she led me off (though not after brushing Ranjan's hand
significatnly with hers). When we got into the hallway, I blurted, "What
was that all about?"
   Juno shook her head. "Don't get territorial on me, John, you've already
got a girlfriend."
   I blew air out between my teeth. "I'm not getting territorial. How on
earth did Ranjan know about the shooting-out-the-tires thing? Did you tell
him?" 
   "After a fashion..." Juno sighed and lowered her voice. "John, there
are some people whose just fit together, their minds just dovetail
perfectly. I bet you know people like that." I nodded, thinking of Mulder
and Scully. "Ranjan and I are two such people. Hell, if he wasn't so bad
at long-range telepathy he'd be doing Uriel's job, at least with me. I
trust him implicitely because we can't keep secrets from each other. I can
pick up his throughts from across the room and vice-versa. So, since I
reflected briefly on our parking lot misadventure..."
   "He knew about it," I completed. "So you two are, uh, that is to say-" 
   "Married? No, we don't do that in the Society. But if I ever have
children I'll want to do it with him." She smiled. "You know the feeling."
   I did, in fact. Suzanne made me feel the same way. "I'm seeing a whole
new side to you, Juno. It's interesting."
   "Everybody's interesting if you know how to look at them." We can to a
door I hadn't seen before. "You can spend the night in here, clean up, do
primal-scream therapy, whatever it is you do to unwind. I'll come get you
in the morning."
   "In the morning," I echoed, suddenly remembering that hey, I'm going to
got fly to Antarctica and I'll have to carry one o' them mini-howitzers
and we're going to get out by way of blowing the friggin' roof off-
   "Stop it," Juno insisted. "If you don't get enough sleep you really
will get yourself killed."
   I nodded dumbly and went inside. 

____________________________________________________________
                       CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 
              _________in which WITH ZERO HOUR
                       COMES ZERO CONFIDENCE______
------------------------------------------------------------

   We all filed onto the landing pad at roughly nine o'clock. I'm pretty
sure this was a concession to me, as the effects of fourteen times zones
of jet lag were starting to take hold. I'd gotten to shower for the first
time since that first night in Cape Girardeau (cripes, was it already five
days ago?) but that had failed to quell any nerves I'd gotten over this
escapade. The upside was that I finally got to go outside, to board the
helicopters, and the Auckland islands are really very pretty. 
   Everybody was wearing a motley collection of black cat-burglar clothes
and army fatigues. Juno refused to let me wear my suit jacket, the result
being I broke into a cold sweat as soon as I left the building. Goddard
handed out the guns 'n' ammo (every body also got a handgun) which, while
not doing anything for my state over mind, gave me something to fidget
with. I fidget well. 
   Ashford Black rode with Juno, Goddard and I. He had light brown hair
and he was very short. I think all the tall people rode with Ranjan,
actually. Almost as soon as we were in the air, he opened up a bag and
handed out beer. "Is this, ah, really advisable?" I said, just loud enough
so Juno could hear me.
   She rolled her eyes. "John, you are naive. Alcohol, don't ask me why,
increases psychic sensitivity. Since that's our primary advantage over
these characters we've got to take what we can get." She silently toasted
me before bottoming up.
   Seeing some kind of sense in going into this plastered, I joined her. 
   Eventually, I could see the white Antarctic coast out of my window. I
was a bit tipsy and a great deal more confident that before, but that
wasn't saying much since I had no confidence to begin with. Still, it was
wonderful to experience all the liquid courage alcohol provides without
any of the nasty side effects, like inability to walk. 
   Juno tapped my arm and pointed at Ranjan's chopper, where a girl little
more than seventeen was waving at us. That, I recalled, was Cerise
Anderson, my back-up for this joy ride. I swallowed and hesitantly waved
back. Then Juno jumped out into a cloud of wind-driven snow and I really
had no choice but to follow her (Ashford shoving me forwards may have also
contributed). 
   Beyond the snow there was a roof; we landed on it. Signaling our safe
arrival to the pilots, we pried up a hatch and descended a ladder. Inside
it was very dark and quiet. My nerves were carbonated and I started
hyperventilating again.
   With Juno before me and Kitra Smith behind me, I got dragged-shoved
through the hallways in a crouch. There were occasional bursts of gunfire
from up ahead, where Ashford was, but they were startlingly brief. We
occasionally went around dark hunched sh apes that I had no desire to
examine further.
   I got herded into a dim little room full of computer equipment with
Cerise. In my element, so to speak. I gingerly set aside the big ugly gun
and dived into the system. I could even ignore the increasing frequency of
the gunshots. Cerise stuck her tongue out at a security camera and helped
me. 
   I found it amazingly silly that the Conspiracy Itself used not only
Windows, but Windows 3.1 for their computers. From this peripheral station
we managed to access the network hub. "Now what?" I said, blinking.
   "Now we cripple computer systems world-wide," Cerise said, removing a
Zip diskette from her pocket. "This virus'll knock out everything and
permanently keep them from hacking us." She stuck it into a handy drive
and ran it. She then drew her pistol and shot out all the security
cameras.
   The other four members of our invasion force burst in a split-second
later, firing. I hit the deck and grabbed the big nasty rifle. Marines
were forcing their way in and the Society were trying to hold them back.
   I shouldered my way next to Juno, under the table. It seemed
intelligent to get some kind of cover at that point. She had a nasty cut
on her forehead that was oozing blood. Before now, it somehow hadn't
occurred to me that she was a flesh-and-blood being, not after some of the
things she pulled. She gave me a meaningful glare and I raising the big
ugly gun in shaking hands. 
   Cerise yanked yelled something incoherent. The ceiling started
vibrating, which I assumed meant that Ranjan and Goddard were entering the
blowing-a-hole-in-the-roof phase of the plan. My jangled nerves came
completely unwound, and I tried to back out, which was the posture I was
in when somebody shot me. 

____________________________________________________________
                            EPILOGUE ____________in which ALL'S WELL
THAT...WELL....ENDS_________
------------------------------------------------------------

   "What are you doing?" 
   "Taking his temperature." 
   "He doesn't need his temperature taken." 
   "How do you know?" 
   I hesitated a great deal before opening my eyes. Langley and Frohike
were leaning over my head way too close for comfort and glaring at each
other. "Do you mind?" I said. At least, that's what I tried to say, but
the thermometer kind of got in the way. 
   They backed off and Mulder and Scully came into view. "Byers, man, what
the hell happened to you?" Langley asked as I sat up. "You say you're
going to take a morning flight out..."
   For one brief, shining moment, I thought it was all a dream. Yes, a
dream, a massively ornate hallucination, because all I did was get drunk
with a strange woman and that's why I have this headache, she wasn't a
psychic guerilla and we didn't fly to Egypt or New Zealand... 
   "...Then you up an vanish for a week, no calls, no notification except
for some gibberish on Mulder's answering machine about collect calls from
God and shooting, and then suddenly we find you passed out in a Dumpster
in Baltimore dressed in Army fatigues!"
   "Where were you?" Frohike demanded. 
   I looked at my clothes. Army surplus boot, fatigues, a black t-shirt
and my beloved suit jacket. On impulse, I reached into my pocket.
   "I'd kind of like to know, too," Mulder put in, "considering it was my
machine you called at two-sixteen a.m."
   Behind my wallet was a business card. In plain, unadorned letters, it
read: 

                         Juno Jones, Esq. 
             Psychic Detective, General Servicewoman
                "I know what I'm doing, trust me" 

   There were two phone numbers, an email address, and a fax. 
   My friends were looking at each other funny, and Frohike cleared his
throat meaningfully. I just kept staring at the business card. It had been
real. All of it. Every last little bit. It had really happened.
   I started to laugh. 
   "That's it, he's lost it," Frohike said dismissively, turning away. 
"I'm callin' a sanitarium."
   "Byers?" Mulder prompted, looking concerned. 
   "Byers, what's so funny?" Scully asked. 
   I just kept laughing. *Be glad you don't know...*

~Fine~

   Author's Epilogue: Okay, there's the catch: The Lone Gunmen, Mulder and
Scully aren't mine, obviously. But all the other characters and the
concept of the Society _are_ and if you pinch them I shall hunt you down
and freeze you in carbonite. Ask permission first, please. I put a lot of
time into this.
   There's several inside jokes in here, including a dare: can you guess
who Chevalier Anderson is supposed to be? There's no prize if you're
right, but if you do guess (it's fairly obvious) send an email to
mekamorph@yahoo.com. Just please make sure it'scomprehensible. 
   All flames may be directed to bonfire@byteme.com and shall be used to
fend off the mutant wood ticks standing between me and Seth Green. <sigh>
   I would like to offer my most sincere apologise to...well...everybody.