Convergence Two

Detective Musharef offered to drive. Stone let him. He was a nice enough guy; Stone wanted to try and make this work.

They talked as they headed towards the crime scene. Musharef had just had a short story published in a magazine. He was about to test for his 2nd Degree black belt in Taekwondo. He volunteered at a local children's theatre company. It wasn't that he was bragging, only that wherever Stone tried to take the conversation, Musharef had an achievement waiting there. He offered them up humbly, as casual points of interest, not badges of honor. All that and the Lt. had said he was a great cop too.

Stone thought about Colleen, about his tour of duty. Thought about his therapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Thought about his therapy after Riveta... Thought about Riveta. Wondered where everything had gone. Not gone wrong, or gone right. Just gone.

And he thought about that message on his answering machine. Just as Musharef started telling a story.

"So my girlfriend calls me and says 'Do you remember that dream I had last night?'. She had had this dream about being bitten by a spider and all these baby spiders growing inside her. Now at this point she didn't know I had been invited by my buddy to see the latest Spiderman movie yet. So she tells me how in the novel she's reading while she's waiting at the pharmacy, there's this character who collects spiders. And right then, this little girl who's there with her mom, says, 'Look mom-' and she holds up this tangled bit of string '-I made a spider!' Weird, huh?"

The same pattern occurring at all levels.

We have to find a way out.

A call came in on the police band. "All units be advised. A suspect has been spotted on foot in the Davis-Brockton area, female, mid-teens, brown skin, black hair, goes by the name Meagan."

"That's where we're headed," Musharef said.

"All units please be advised. A large animal, likely a canine, possibly rabid, has also been reported in that area..."

Different Name, Same Show

Simon sipped his tea. His head hurt, it had been hurting a lot lately. Migraines, powerful ones that felt like his head was going to implode. He remembered getting these headaches as a child, long ago. His grandmother would take him in her arms and rock him while singing a song.

He didn't know what to do. He had stopped taking aspirin, tylenol and other medications since they only seemed to pollute the body with chemicals.

But with these migraines it seemed he was being divulged with massive information, his brain processing images and events that seemed to happen, or didn't happen but he was remembering them as if they did. He winced again.

He picked up his tea and sipped, the liquid felt like heaven as it ran over his taste buds. Green tea was doing the trick.

"You okay, Simon?" Shelly asked. She took the chair opposite him. 

"Looks like you're in another world."

"Sometimes I feel like I am," Simon replied. He had closed the notebook in front of him with what looked like a list of items and events and dates, but Shelly couldn't make them out.