The challenge was to create a story with a character who has an absurd flaw, and also include a character under the age of 18, a cane, and a food item.



Example story:


Business Unusual

By:
N.J. Kailhofer



Althea stopped texting her friends at the mall, mid-keystroke.

A bald man with a plunger stuck to the top of his head was stuck in the shop's doorway, the handle tight against the frame.

He unscrewed the handle from the black rubber base, straightened his gray business suit, and then used the stick like a cane as he walked up to the counter. The base of the plunger was still high on the back of his head.

After a moment, she asked, "Jewish?"

"No," he said, "just like to be prepared. I'm Delbert Lunt. Is Madame Oberlin in? I need a reading."

Her eyebrows rose. "I am Madame Althea, her daughter. How can I help you?"

"I have to find the Rharlac."

When her mom left to go to the bank, Althea just knew it was going to be one of those days.

"The Rharlac? Lovecraftian beastie? Tentacles everywhere?"

He brightened. "Good. You know it. I need to find it."

"What for?" She cringed. Never ask customers why.

He ignored the question. "Crystallomancy or astromancy?"

She didn't know how to do either. "I think cartomancy instead."

He frowned. "I don't have time for tarot card nonsense."

"Mister Lunt, if you want to find a creature that powerful, it will require the strongest skill I have."

She pulled out a tall stack of business card-sized slips and fanned them out in front of her, the written side away from Lunt.

He shrugged. "How do I find the Rharlac?"

He drew a card. "By Jove, you're right."

It read, Take the girl with you.

"What?! I didn't make one saying that! Besides, I can't leave."

He laid ten $1000 bills on the counter. "I can compensate you for your time."

She looked at the money. They needed it.

"No disrespect, sir," she said, "but I don't know you."

His 'cane' tapped the floor. "Does your mother have a phone, some way you can reach her? Ask her? I'll go to the butcher shop while you call. We'll need fresh meat."

He whirled out the door.

She stared at the money. It was more than she had ever seen. She knew they were never going to give her mother a loan--what reputable institution paid to keep fortunetellers in business? Without that cash, they'd be out on the street. She thought hard about it.

He returned with a small, white-paper package. "What did she say?"

Althea bit her lip. "That ten thousand is not enough for the Rharlac."

He added to the stack. "Shrewd, your mother."

$30,000! She clutched it in her hand. "I'll just put this in the safe, and we'll be off."

In the back room, she wrote a note about going to the ATM for change.

Lunt waited by the door. "We'll need those cards."

Her throat was dry. They had to have that money, but Althea knew she shouldn't have agreed--she could wind up on a milk carton.

"Which way is the Rharlac?"

He drew another card. Down.

Across the street, Lunt forced open a manhole and climbed down.

"Ew!" Althea held her nose.

"Come on down."

The rungs on the ladder felt wet and gritty, the air stale and heavy. Before she was even halfway, the darkness pressed in on her. Her foot plunged into gray liquid, and she tried to remember if these sewers were just for storm water or not. Lunt waited at the bottom with a small flashlight.

[align=center]***[/align]

The fortunes lead them through the sewers until there were only a few cards left.

"Listen!" Lunt cupped his hand to his ear.

The sound of him running away with the only light filled her senses, and she stumbled after him. When Althea caught up, he was standing by a support pillar.

"It's just over there."

She couldn't see anything.

He pointed his light at his own face and leaned close. "I need you to stay here and point this light at it. If you don't, it will get us both."

Althea felt something metal touch her wrist, then heard the sound of a handcuff close.

She tried to pull away, but it was too late.

Lunt pulled her other arm around the pole and locked it tight.

"Hey! Let me go!"

He put the flashlight in her hand. "Keep the light on it."

"What!?" Something moved in the dark. Instinctively, she pointed the light.

The Rharlac was just feet away from them. A mass of tentacles, like a giant squid, filled most of the passageway. She saw Lunt screw the handle back onto the plunger on the top of his head, and then pull it off, keeping the cup part upright.

"Mighty Rharlac!" he shouted. "I have brought you a sacrifice!"

She shook. "Hey! No!"

Lunt removed the steak from inside the plunger and threw it. The monster caught the body-temperature meat and pulled it down underneath itself. Seconds later, its tentacles rolled upwards. She saw the mouth of the Rharlac--a beak the size of a man's fist. Above, it's black eyes locked on hers.

It squirmed toward her.

She screamed.

Lunt whirled between the tentacles, jabbing his plunger over the beak.

He plunged like a madman.

The monster convulsed, and then she saw a bright light inside the creature.

Lunt pulled.

A globe of light inched out.

The light shriveled to the size of a marble and stopped glowing. Lunt dropped it into his pocket.

The creature morphed, taking on the shape of a person.

"Mom?"

"Althea?" Madame Oberlin, shaken, looked around. "Mr. Lunt? The banker?"

Lunt said, "Those weren't treats in that bowl. You ate one before I could stop you."

He unlocked Althea, and she hugged her mother.

Althea looked back at Lunt. "How did you make the cards work?"

"You did that, not me. Your gift is real."

Her mother smiled at Althea, and then asked, "Why would you have such a thing on your desk?"

"Flexible payment plan." He grinned. "Banking is a lot more exciting than people think."


[align=center]The End[/align]

Memories of Charlie Finch

By:
Daniel Popple



"Charlie always lived on the edge, then again, he had to."

That is how I began my eulogy of Charlie Finch. As I got up to speak I looked out on the small assembly made up of mostly fragile looking old men, some with canes and some with equally frail looking wives to steady them as they had for years. The only bright spot in the gray group was the little girl who lived on the other side of me. Her parents had just given her a roll of Wild Cherry Lifesavers as incentive to be good, just as my parents had done to me.

Standing behind the lectern I thought to myself how does a person get so far in life, be known by everyone, and yet nobody really knows him. I was asked to deliver the eulogy because I had been his neighbor for about the last 20 years. There had to be someone who knew him better. But I suppose you tend to keep to yourself when you are different from most folks. I then took a breath and delivered my opening line, which was greeted with a small, warm grin for all in attendance.

Most of you probably aren't familiar with Charlie Finch. You see, Charlie was thin, and I don't mean skinny. I mean thin. Paper thin in fact. About, as thick as three playing cards stacked up. None of us know how he got that way, figured he probably was asked that all his life, and no one wanted to bother him. I always hoped that someday he might tell me, but, kind of late for that now.

I assume he always was that way. On one of the rare occasions that he spoke of his childhood, he talked about being a lonely child. Never did mention any brothers or sisters, or did he ever talk about his parents much. 'Bout the only thing I remember is he was talking about getting a bike, used of course, 'cause times were hard back then. He said a couple of the kids that he did kind of hang around with would put baseball cards in the spokes for kind of a motorcycle sound. 'Course Charlie didn't need a card, he would just put his hand in the spokes. Said it tingled more than hurt, like when your hand falls asleep. Unless he did it a lot, then his hand would be all sore and bruised. That, and he mentioned that no one would play hide and seek with him. I supposed he could just slide under the couch, or behind the 'frig, or just stand there, he would have been tough to see.

Charlie would talk about his college days once in awhile. I asked him once if he dated much in college and he said 'No, the girls all thought he was shallow.' I said to him he had to be a little more thick skinned. He said 'where?' He said he made some money in school being a model. Not a clothes model, but like a cardboard cut-out pointing at or holding a product. He did say he loved to scare little kids. Just stand still 'til they walk real carefully up to him and he would jump out and grab them. Anyway, he never finished school 'cause he dropped out at the end of his sophomore year. Mentioned something about a late spring party and making a kite.

He ended up being a locksmith after the post office job didn't work out. He had started as a janitor, but was moved up to maintenance after they installed the first automatic cancelling machine. Seems the machine wasn't working right and someone jokingly asked Charlie if they could send him through so he could maybe see what was wrong. He said the ink tasted terrible and it took a couple weeks to get the ink off his face. He quit shortly after there was talk about promoting him to "Inspector" and rolling him up in a mailing tube and mailing him places so he could see and feel how the mail was being treated. Anyway, he had been a locksmith as long as I knew him. Even after he retired people would still bring locks and stuff to his house. Most times he did it for free, some sort of pay back for when he was working. His specialty was unlocking houses and he always said he felt a little guilty for taking people's money. Said he would go to the house and fiddle around with the knob until the people got tired of watching and when they looked away he would just slide himself under the door, or stuff himself through the mail slot, and unlock the door.

Now Charlie was a pretty civic minded person. He belonged to most of the clubs in city, though not a very active member. But if the cause involved kids in someway, he would be all in on that. He just loved kids, the little neighbor girl even called him "Thin Grandpa Charlie". Everybody was pretty surprised though when they went through his will after he died. He left a whole bundle of money for a park for the kids of this city. He wrote 'you can save a lot of money when you can just wear a picture of clothes instead of actually having to buy the clothes'. People were also surprised to read that his real goal in life was to be a cop. He went on to say that he had to quit the police academy because the hand-to-hand combat instructor was going to fail him because all Charlie could do was give him paper cuts.

It took a couple of city council meetings to decide how to honor Charlie. It was decided to laminate Charlie with a picture of the police uniform and place him in a cardboard cut-out painted up to look like one of the police cars. The whole thing would then be placed near the new park as a reminder to people to slow down and watch out for kids.

After his death, Charlie Finch got to realize his life's dream. He finally became part of that thin blue line.


[align=center]The End[/align]

The Promise

By:
Jamie L. Elliott



She watched him from across table as he sat collapsed within himself. She despised secrets and so in a way she despised him, the one she thought she loved, as he huddled there in a trench coat as an enigma, his arms below the table, a certain fog of madness hanging about him. Only the fact that they were seated within a popular restaurant with other couples scattered about kept her from standing up and screeching at him. He knew her too well. That only angered her more. “You invited me here,” she said coldly as their expensive entrees wafted delicious and untouched. “So what do you want?”

She saw him shirk from her harsh words. “I-- I-- I wanted to see you,” he stammered. “It’s been such a long time--”

“Months,” she interrupted, her voice rising.

“Please,” he said. “I haven’t been avoiding you. I-- I haven’t been around.”

“And you couldn’t tell me you were leaving?”

“I didn’t plan on leaving.” He trembled. “That book...” His voiced trailed off.

“That silly occult one.”

“Yes!” he hissed. He lurched forward, the table shuddering. “Your promise!” he said suddenly. “Do you remember?” A spasm wracked his body, causing his cane to fall clattering to floor. A hush settled upon the dining area as curious heads turned toward them.

Fear, a stabbing cold, iced her. “What promise?”

“That we would love each other no matter what! No matter our flaws.” He sobbed. “Those books opened a door to another world. A terrible world! It changed me. But I’m still me! I’m still me!”

She stood. “You’ve gone mad,” she whispered.

“Please, don’t go!” he pleaded. His arms rose to reveal--

Hands.

She screamed, her tentacles rising to her chitinous face. “By blessed Cthulhu!” she gasped in horror. Other patrons screamed, rushing toward the door.

“Don’t leave me!” he roared, reaching out with these grotesque, alien appendages. He grasped on air.

She disappeared within the mass of bodies heading for the exit. He would never see her again.

He slumped in his chair within the now-deserted restaurant, the sound of sirens growing louder. In his mind, he could still their pale skins, their symmetrical bodies, that hated orb in the sky that blinded him. He remembered their stench, that awful stench, as they scuttled about impossibly on two legs.

She was his last chance, his last tenuous hold on reality.

He let go then, to let the insanity claim his mind for rest of his wretched, aborted life.


[align=center]THE END[/align]

Good Help is Hard to Find

By:
Bill Wolfe



The Kid looked norm but didn't talk. Like the rest, he was born to one of The Tribes out in The Green and banished to the city 'cause he was Skyburnt. There weren't no more city tribes. Too much burn still in the old buildings and almost no food. Far as I know, I'm the last of the Deesee Tribe. Born in the city, not exiled. But boy-oh-boy could The Kid Tinker. We found him 'cause we heard music.

Music!

None of us had heard real music till The Kid showed us he could fix the old Pods. He liked nothin' more than to sit and Tinker with machines 'til he made 'em work. Most times he'd take the thing apart and put it back together a dozen times before he'd figure it out. You give him a gizmo he hadn't seen and you'd have to slap it out of his hand to make him eat. Don't know how he survived 'till we found him.

The Deesee Tribe been tryin' for generations to open The Door. Took The Kid six months but he kept pushin' buttons, night and day. We kept him fed 'cause we wanted inside the bunker real bad.

Why?

'Cause everybody knew here is where Potus and The Joincheefs all escaped to.

How do I know?

My Gramps told me that his Great-Gramps told him, that his Uncle was one of the secservs for Potus and he seen it with his own eyes. They went in through The Door and it hadn't opened since. We was told they was livin' high in here since the sky burned. They had everything we didn't. They ate safe food and drank clean water, had 'lectrics to do their work, and women.

Women, oh yeah! We wanted in bad, all right. Hadn't even seen a live woman in close to four years. And The Monster ate most of her, though he did say he was sorry about it, later.

The Monster was scabby and ugly and Skyburnt bad, but he could see at night and smell things before any of the rest of us could. He probably helped us find more food than anyone. 'Till The Kid let us in here, anyway.

'Cause when we got in we found the water and food, crates of it stacked higher than Jolly Green's head. Eveeon, Mrees and SPAM? They ain't myths, buddy. And more working 'lectrics than even The Kid could fiddle with. Didn't find no women, didn't find nobody. Did'ja know it hurts to eat too much?

Cuckoo's the one that found the magic room. In some ways his Skyburn's worse than anyone's, though he looks almost norm. He don't say nothin' in real words but he can screech like a hundred kinds of bird and he's real expressive. Once you get used to it, it's almost like talkin' regular. When he found the room where Potus and Joincheefs went, he did his crow noise, real loud. You know, where the one crow calls the others to food? Like I said, expressive.

Kong 'n Gimpy got the door open and soon as they did, there was Potus Himself talkin' to us from one of the gray windows. I'd never believed the stories about the moving pictures in the gray windows but here He was, plain as day and lookin' more alive than His dirty, scorched pictures inside most of the gutted buildings in Deesee.


". . .pray to God you are an American. In any case, my scientists tell me that the H-Bomb explosions have released so much energy into the atmosphere that we cannot accurately target the Temporal-Spatial Portal, the TSP. It defaults to the first moment in history with similar conditions. . ."


We didn't understand most of this, but we sure understood it when the fat guy with skin so bad he looked Skyburnt himself, started telling us how we could escape the same way as Potus. We could go anywhere, any time at least fifty years in the past.


It was Gimpy who started yellin'. His legs hadn't grown any longer since he was a baby but his arms were stronger than anyone's, even Kong's. No sooner had The Screamer mentioned snow-covered mountains, and Gimpy was waving his canes around screaming. "No mountains. I can't climb no mountains! I gotta have flat land."


". . . conditions for at least a decade. For this reason, we will enter the TSP while it is in standby mode. You must push the Delete button first to cancel our destination and then push the Reset button to reacquire our pre-set target. But do NOT press Finalize. . ."

Bighead Jake took Gimpy's side, like always, and soon Cuckoo was doing his rooster call and The Screamer was louder than usual that he wanted to see snow you could touch and not die. Kong and The Monster were just yelling about finding healthy women, though they both knew they didn't mean the same thing by it.

Jolly Green jumped on that bandwagon and wanted to meet something called Watusi. He weighed no more than The Kid but was three times as tall, and he made one hell of a lookout. Who knew he'd always dreamed of a woman who was taller than his waist?


. . . for us no time will have passed, no matter how long it has been since the war. The TSP will be safe for you to use as long as the Power light is not flashing. . .


I was trying to calm them all down, they listen to me 'cause with this third eye on my forehead, they think I've got special vision. I've tried to tell 'em it's blind.


That's when The Kid pushed the button. He sure liked to push them buttons.


The lights dimmed and up on the screen there was words.

Destination Finalized:

Date: 1 November, 1952

Time: 07:15 local

Location: Eniwetok Atoll N11[sup]o[/sup]20'4.53" E162[sup]o[/sup]21'26.94"

'Course, none of us can read.


[align=center]The End[/align]

Luna Sea

By:
G.C. Dillon



Mai Zhang couldn't believe she was going to die when she was just sixteen. Why she had not even completed the tattoo pattern along her left arm! It just wasn't fair. Worst was that she really had no idea why she had to die. She did not understand why the Alien Administrator was going to destroy the Moon. Some insult by a low level Lunar bureaucrat was the current rumor (an insult involving one, or perhaps it was three, of the AA's wife/concubines, many said). It infuriated her that all the United Earth Government could do was send protests from New York to Arcturus.

Mai was a slightly built girl of Asian ancestry. Long black hair hung straight down the white shellsuit she wore. The shellsuit flowed about the young curves of her teen-aged form like glaciers drifting along the Himalayan peaks. The shellsuit was a functional garment designed to allow its wearer to survive a decompression breach in the molecularly thin atmosphere bubble that surrounded Tranquility City. Her Chinese ancestors may have gazed at the Moon in elaborate towers, but she lived upon its surface, or at least the climate controlled, air scrubbed, light filtered, artificial city she called her own rested upon Lunar soil.

“I was hoping to get this done before the end.” Mai stood in the foyer of her fav tattoo pallor, and spoke to the woman behind the customer service desk. She rolled up the arm of her shellsuit to reveal a plum colored canvass of Celtic knotwork, dancing tigers, coiling asps, and an incomplete and scaly school of coy.

Marie Beau Coup was a heavyset black woman. Her dreadlocked hair fell to her shoulders. She ran the inkshop, but her real profession was as a fortune teller. She hung up her cards, except for few late night games of Texas Hold 'Em, because she could see no future for anyone beyond the Administrator's deadline -- no matter how hard she tried. And when it came to her own fortune she had fully exerted herself and her gift.

“I don't have any cash for the artwork,” Mai started, nearly shuddering, “ but – but I have real coffee. Juan-John brought it up on the last – uh, I guess final Seattle milk-run.” She smiled a neat flash of tiny white teeth. Marie took the small aluminum packet. She sashayed over to her auto-chef station. Soon the beans' aroma drifted lazily and happily through the shop's air.

Old man Essig came bounding down the stairs, taking them at a Lunar leap of several at a time. “Is that Terran coffee?!” His long nose ran profusely with yellowish fluids. His blood red eyes streamed tears that ran down the wrinkles in his ancient face like rainwater flowing through an arroyo. Essig was a tenant in one of the sparse one-room apartments above the business.

“It's Free Soil Bolivian Alpine Arabica Mocha Decaf,” Mai replied. “Would you like some?”

“Marie.” He waved his arms and gesticulated with his hands. “Marie, you know any product from Terra is deadly to me. Are you trying to kill me before the Alien has his chance to?” Essig wiped at his nose with an orange biohaz cloth.

“For the Love of God,” bellowed Marie. “You live on the Moon. How can you be allergic to the Earth? Our rock came from the Earth, as did all the original settlement's components.”

“Verily,” Essig sniffled, “but our planetoid separated millennia ago from its primary -- that vile planet you call a homeworld -- and we have been mining the fine Lunar regolith for raw materials since Colonization Day, my dear thing.”

“Phew-phew,” he sneezed. He wore only synthetics; ate only hydroponics; never had a girlfriend; never a lover; barely a friend. Essig had gone into anaphylactic shock once after receiving an e-mail from a possible pen-pal from Bangalore.

#NEWS FLASH# blared across Mai's computerized concierge. She grabbed it from her belt, brought it to her face and mashed the button for the volume. “The Alien Administrator has expressed His great compassion for all Lunar residents. A spokesman for His Excellency has stated that over the century of his oversight, numerous human guests have left behind many articles. These items are now upon display in the great hall. In His great Mercy, His Excellency will commute the destruction order of the Moon if one citizen can select the Alien Administrator's single personal item in the collection. More on this story as it develops...”

Essig settled down into the chair across from Marie, the one her Tarot clients occupy. “Isn't that precious of (H)im.”

Marie began to deal out a few Solitaire cards. It was with an according-to-Hoyle deck, not the Rider-Waite version she used for readings. Ten of Pentacles, Two of Wands. “Wait,” Marie muttered, “I'm getting a Reading here.”

“I thought you had admitted that your charlatanism was just an illusion. Something good coming out of our current crisis.” Essig sneezed loudly into his handkerchief.

“He has a future! Doesn' t that mean,” Mai paused. “Eh – something! ” Thinking a moment, she added: “I've an idea. Let's go.”

They took the Tube across Tranquility's wide span. Mai knew the janitor's entrance to AlphaComplex's great hall from her mother's former boyfriend. Essig, Marie and Mai drifted amongst the crowds and the artifacts. The Alien Administrator oversaw the chaos in the hall. His species grew their bones on the outside of their skin, with only connecting cartilage underneath. Essig's nose ran and his palms itched examining all the items. These included hats, umbrellas, and other sundries. Essig scrutinized one item, a cane. He touched its purplish wood; no rash marred his fingertips. It wasn't Terran.

Essig held up the cane. “He's found it. He's found it,” shouted Mai, clapping her hands furiously. The crowd suddenly stopped, awed and anxious. The Alien Administrator shook his bony jaw affirmative, and said,“You have found the starwood!”

And thus the Moon was saved.


[align=center]THE END[/align]

- Co-Winner -


Penguin Boy

By:
Robert Moriyama



What do you call a man with no arms, no legs, floating in a pond?

Bob.

The old joke ran through Jerry's head as he sank towards the bottom of Grenadier Pond, dragged down by the weight of his prosthetic limbs. He had arms and legs, but they were toddler-sized, too small for his body. Unfortunately, the prosthetic limb extensions that allowed him to function almost normally floated about as well as anvils.

Gotta get these damn things off...

Finally, he managed to trigger the releases on his legs and backed out of them by pushing against the bottom of the pond. His short, stubby lower limbs and torso floated upward, leaving him anchored upside down by the weight of his arm waldoes. A hard yank on a lever in each forearm released the straps and sensor pads, and then he was floating freely.

Enough light filtered down through the murky water to allow him to orient himself, and he began to paddle his way back to the surface. He'd been submerged for almost two minutes, but he was only now beginning to feel the panicky impulse to inhale that could kill a drowning man.

His head broke the surface and he took a huge, gasping breath, gagging as the fishy-smelling greenish water trickled from his hair into his mouth. Irony, thy name is Jerry, he thought. In utero gene therapy had corrected a fatal kidney disorder -- and stunted his limbs. Stunted limbs required artificial limb extensions that made it impossible for him to swim -- but let him stay submerged long enough to --

Had it been long enough?

Jerry turned slowly, trying to make as little noise as possible. Smith's goons were nowhere in sight. He relaxed and began swimming toward the muddy bank of the last "natural" body of water in the city, where his would-be assassins had left his clothes and the forged suicide note.

"Whoa, dude! You picked a hell of a place to go skinny... dipping..."

Jerry froze, but decided that the the gangly, pimple-faced teenager who had been caught in the act of checking Jerry's clothes for easily-pilfered valuables looked harmless enough, in spite of the aluminum cane in one hand. He waddled toward his clothes.

The kid stared unabashedly, transfixed by the sight of a naked man with a normal head and torso -- and arms and legs better suited to a toddler. From the way he leaned on the cane, Jerry guessed that he was a misfit, too -- just not in Jerry's league.

"These clothes can't be yours," the teenager blurted. "They're --"

"Normal?" Jerry asked. "They fit okay before I took my arms and legs off."

The boys eyes widened even more.

"Prosthetics," Jerry said. "Like bionic stilts, except the arms have hands that work pretty much like real ones." Sighing, Jerry rummaged through his clothes until he found his wallet. He dug out his driver's license (with the add-on card needed to make room for all the restrictions) and showed the picture to his uninvited guest.

"Geez -- they let you drive?"

Jerry suppressed the urge to scream. "Yes. They let me drive, sometimes, with the prosthetics on."

"Where are they? You said you took them off."

"At the bottom of the pond," Jerry said. "I had to take them off or I would have drowned."

The boy nodded, then asked, "Why'd you go in the water with them on, then?"

This time, Jerry did scream. "They threw me in, you moron! They wanted me to drown, to make it look like suicide!"

The boy's face crumpled, and Jerry hoped that he wasn't going to cry. Jerry had never cried (in public) in all the years he had spent coping with being a freak, a cripple... a penguin boy. 'Penguin boy' was the one nickname he actually hadn't minded -- much -- after he had seen real penguins streaking through the water like stubby torpedoes...

"Look, I'm sorry," Jerry said. "There was no way you could have known. But I'm worth a lot of money. My parents sued the clinic that made me like this, and won, big time. Some people figured out a way they could get control of that money -- if I wasn't around."

"So they tried to kill you, and make it look like suicide? Dude, that sucks the big banana."

Jerry nodded. Then he said, "Do you have a job?"

The kid shook his head. "Just finished my mandatory school time. No job, no money for college... And a bum -- leg..." The kid blushed as he compared his 'challenge' to Jerry's.

"Wanna be my driver and personal assistant? I need someone to help me into these damn clothes -- you'll have to cut off the sleeves and pantlegs somehow -- and drive me to the nearest police station."

The kid looked at Jerry with a mixture of elation and suspicion. "What's it pay?"

Jerry laughed. "Enough. I'll pay your tuition and arrange your schedule so you can take whatever courses you want."

The kid frowned, then said, "I want that in writing. Now, how short do the sleeves have to be?"

Jerry held his arms straight out from his body. "About like so," he said. "By the way, what's your name?"

"Andy." The boy pulled a cheap Swiss Army knife clone from his pocket and began to saw away at Jerry's clothes. "Andy Morgan."

"Andy, there's a signing bonus in it for you if you have a candy bar or some gum on you," Jerry said. "I have to get this pond-scum taste out of my mouth before I puke."

Andy grinned. "Slightly-crushed granola bar, fifty credits."

Jerry feigned outrage, then said, "Deal. You can pull the creds from my wallet while I get dressed."

He just hoped that Andy would be up to the task of helping him to dodge any further attempts at assisted (and resisted) suicide. Maybe they could rig Andy's cane with a taser...

[align=center]The End[/align]