From: drenze@icaen.uiowa.edu (Douglas J Renze) Newsgroups: alt.ql.creative Subject: Roundtable #3 Message-ID: <1993Feb22.071715.28719@news.uiowa.edu> Date: 22 Feb 93 07:17:15 GMT Sender: news@news.uiowa.edu (News) Organization: University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA Lines: 165 Nntp-Posting-Host: grind.isca.uiowa.edu X-Newsreader: NN version 6.4.19 Sorry for the delay--I've been a bit busy with my thesis these last few weeks. I hope the wait was worth it! --- OCTOBER 3, 1983 I've never managed to figure out why, but some leaps are worse than others. When I make the leap, it's a lot like walking across a carpet on a cold winter day--I can feel the charge building up, and then, *ZAP!* A shock, and I'm in a new body. As things shifted around me, I felt kind of sick--I didn't know why. Maybe it was the cigarette hanging out of my mouth, maybe it was the bra that felt just a little too tight--but I was sick. "Make sure you give me cream with that coffee, babe." *Babe?* I looked down at myself, and for a moment I flashed on the diner back in Elkhart--I'd've sworn I was wearing the same pink waitress' uniform that they wore there. I shook my head and it cleared--not a pink dress, I was wearing black jeans and a red and white striped shirt. I looked down at the pad in my hand--coffee and chocolate cake. "You hear me, babe? I said get me some cream with that coffee." "Uh--right," I looked up, the guy was fat and bearded, looked like he'd slept in the same clothes three days running. Something in me said "trucker." I scribbled something more on the pad, "Cream with the coffee," I mumbled. A man in a gray sweater touched me on the elbow as I got out of the way, looking for the coffee. "Ellen, two in D-4, coffee, no cream, two number-nines, everything." He pushed past me to the cash register. "Hey, babe, get your ass moving! I need to be on the road in fifteen minutes!"--"Miss, could I get some more coffee when you have a moment?"-- "I need another bowl of chili!"--"I just spilled my water, could I please..." --"More--"--"I need--"--"Miss--" "Ohboy!" It took me a few seconds to get my bearings. I'd waited tables before, and that's one job that's pretty much the same everywhere. You just have to get used to the way they do things in each restaurant. And I was lost. So I did the safe thing--I ran back to the kitchen. There had to be an employee bathroom back there somewhere. "Al!" I was calling for him before I even had the door locked. "Al! Where are you?" "Right here, Sam!" I jumped as the door to the chamber opened behind me. Al stepped through. "What's the scoop, Al? Where am I?" "Well, Ziggy's trying to get a fix on that right now." He scowled at the hand-link and slugged it. *SQUARK! FRRRZZ!* He grinned at whatever he saw. But it didn't last long. You don't work with somebody for--well, I couldn't remember through my swiss cheese brain how long I'd worked with Al--but you didn't work with some- body as long as I'd worked with Al without learning when something's wrong. "Al, what is it?" His grin changed back to a scowl. "Uhhh--Sam, your name is Ellen Clark. You're a law student at the University of Iowa and you wait tables at a truck stop in uh...Coralville, Iowa." "OK, what am I here for?" "Well, according to Ziggy, there's a 78.4 percent chance you're here to stop Ellen from getting raped when she walks out the door in fifteen minutes." "What's the next highest probability, Al?" "Ummm..." *SLAP&!KKKRRRK* "I don't know Sam...Gooshie! Handlink's on the fritz again!" Somebody knocked on the door. "Al..." The knocking got louder. "Ellen, are you in there?" "I'll be right out! Al...!" The knocking turned to pounding. "Ellen! You've got customers waiting!" "I don't know, Sam!" *!SLAP* "I'll be right back." Punching the hand- link, he stepped out of the acceleration chamber. I was alone. I flushed the toilet and ran some water into the sink. "I'll be right out!" The pounding stopped as I opened the door. The manager stood there. She didn't look too happy. "I--I'm sorry...Rachel," I said, reading the name off her tag. "I--I wasn't feeling well." "No problem. Sara took your section. Just tell somebody next time, all right?" I bobbed my head. "If you're not feeling so hot, why don't you punch out, then. It's almost eleven." "Uh, yeah, punch out. Thanks." Luckily the time clock was right across from the restroom. I pulled the card labelled "Clark" and ran it through. And then I stood there, thinking--what to do? "Excuse me." I jumped. I hadn't heard anybody walk up behind me. A hairy arm reached across my shoulder for a timecard. "I said, 'excuse me,' please," said the voice again. I turned again to see a fairly large guy standing behind me--one of the cooks. "Uh, yeah, sure." I stumbled out of the way to let him punch out. Then-- brainstorm. "Umm, would you walk me out to my car, please? I don't like walking across the lot alone at night." He looked at me kind of funny. "Sure. I'd be happy to. Let me get my coat." As I watched him go into the back room I took a good look at him. He was large--about six feet and pretty muscular. On the back of his hands were spidery black markings--prison tattoos? For some reason, I felt uneasy, but I tried to push it out of my mind. *HISS-THUNK* I heard the hollow sound of the door to the acceleration chamber opening. "Well, Al?" I whispered. "Ziggy's rerunning the calculations," he punched a few keys on the handlink. "She says she's also running a check on this guy. All she's got so far is a name, Max Bates, from the company's employment records." "Tell her to check prison records. I think he's got prison tattoos on his hands." Al looked at me. "I don't like this Sammy," he shook his head. "I got a good look at you--Ellen in the waiting room. She's a knockout." "Al--he's the only thing I can think of!" "Be careful, Sam." "You talkin' to me?" Max ambled out of the back room wearing a leather coat. "Uh--no, no, just talking to myself." He grinned. "Let's go." The night air was crisp. It could've been any one of a hundred early spring nights in Elkhart. "Where are you parked?" I stopped and looked around, totally clueless. "Where am I parked...Where am I parked..." I just stood there. A waving hand caught my eye. It was Al, pointing out toward the corner of the lot. "Over there!" "Sam, you're driving a 1979 Chevette, license TVY 232." Max and I sped across the lot...I spied the car. "There it is!" I turned to face him. "Thanks a lot, Max." I shook his hand. "I owe you one." I turned toward my car, digging in my purse for the keys. "Sam," Al's voice was right beside me. "Don't look back, but Ziggy's got the new figures. There's still a 58% chance Ellen gets raped, and I'w pretty sure Max is the guy that does it. "Sam, he spent seven years in the state pen for sexual assault." "What?" "Hey, baby," crooned a silky voice, "whatchoo doin' out here all by yo' lonesome?" I spun into a crouch. "Ooooh, mama," came the voice from the shadows. "I like whatchoo doin'. Y'all gonna peddle me some?" "I'm not a hooker." The voice laughed. "I'm not int'r'st'd in whatchoo'all sellin' baby. I'm int'r'st'd in what I'm takin'." I searched, all I saw was a pale face in the dark. Arms grabbed me from behind. "Get the bitch's purse." I shrieked. SLAM! It felt like my head was rolling across the lot. Footfalls--the face in the shadows snapped up and back. A fist swung over my head, the arms lost their grip. I rolled across the ground and up against a car. A face bent down and looked into mine. "Are you OK?" It was Max. I remembered what Al said--what he'd done time for. "S--stay away from me!" I tried to back up. Trapped! against the car. "You--you're a--a--" I stopped. The lot was dark and I couldn't see much, but I could see the look of pain on Max's face. "Listen," he breathed. "I don't know what you heard about me. I done B&E, I dealt drugs, I done a lot of things. But I never done rape. OK?" I don't know why, but I believed him. I threw my arms around his neck, crying. "I know, Max--thank you." Over his shoulder I saw Al. "What happens now?" "We call the cops," grunted Max. "Uh--Ellen goes on to get her law degree, and she and Max, well, she and Max never get married, but they stay together. He gets a degree in social work and becomes a councillor and in 1991 years from now she pushes through a pardon for him and gets his citizenship back." As I hugged Max, I felt the energies build up and-- --*!CRACK* the blow landed on the side of Sam's head, knocking him un- conscious. As he came to, the stickiness ran down his arms from his bloody wrists tied above his head. "Thank you for rejoining us, Lieutenant," whined a heavily-accented voice. Vietnamese? "Now, once again, your name is Alphonse Calavici, rank--" -- __ /| | Douglas J Renze | #include \'o.O' | +1 319 337 4664 | =(___)= | drenze@isca.uiowa.edu | U | drenze@delphi.com |