Annie XIII: Volunteered

(Chronological index: Ray as College Sophomore)

Annie spun in front of the mirror, looking at how the sun dress hung and swung. Mom's college care packages had dropped off over the years, but this one more than made up for it.

She'd thrown in no less than four outfits for the sylph. And the brownies for sylph and master were easily as good as any she'd ever made.

Annie skinned the dress off and went to hang it on the rack. She'd save it for when they went out. For now she put her t-shirt and shorts back on.

The door opened just as she finished dressing. Ray came in, found her and picked her up as he went by.

He threw himself backwards onto his bed (the blissfully silent one Deliah'd found him. The squeaks of the old one were definite moodbreakers.). Annie rode through the bounces, then dropped to his chest as he let go.

"How's your day going, master?" He glared at her. "That good, huh?"

"I seem to have volunteered for a night at Sylph Rescue," he said.

"Oh, goody!" She hopped on his sternum and clapped. "I always wanted to go one a Rescue Run."

"Well, you're sure as hell not going," he said. "I'm not going."

"You have to! You're signed up!"

"Someone signed me up," he said. His eyes went to slits. "And if I find out who did it, they're going to spend a week sleeping on the top shelf of the closet."

"Me?" Annie was quite shocked. "You think I signed you up? Where is the clipboard? How could I reach it? And you know that I can't copy your signature for shit."

"Uh huh. So, what, you think a cheerleader thought I was the Rescue type? And she'll express her gratitude with smoochies and beer for spending a night in back alleys and abandoned homes?"

"And empty lots," Annie said. "Abandoned cars. Construction sites." Someone knocked at the door. Ray lowered Annie to his desk and went to answer.

She continued her list. "Those trash dumpsters that get emptied about every eight months. Storm drains. Overpasses. Underpasses. The old stockyards."

A skinny underclassman stood outside. Ray glared at him for a second, trying to figure where he'd seen the guy before.

"Mr. Foster? Hi, you helped me with a problem in the computer lab a week ago?"

"Sure," Ray said. He didn't remember it, but maybe it'd come back to him.

"Well, you seemed really helpful, and I watched you help a few other people, so I, uh…"

The silence stretched between them. Ray wasn't sure if the guy was making a pass at him or not. Behind him the sylph's voice carried on. "Campgrounds. Picnic grounds. Ball fields in the off season. Bleechers. Military Reserve bases."

"I signed you up for Sylph Rescue," the kid said. Ray started to open his mouth. The kid spoke quickly. "It's just one night, you never have to go back, I'll never do it again. It's just, it's a good cause. And you seemed trustworthy."

"Hey, guy, I…"

"Please? We're trying to build up awareness and popularity, you don't have to be a regular, but if we can say that we got twenty or thirty new volunteers then maybe the paper will give us some press."

"I…" Damn, he thought, the kid looked like a kicked puppy. Well, one night wouldn't kill him, Annie'd be happy with him, karma might pay him back. "Okay. Tell me when and where, uh….?"

"OH! Oh, that's great!" He pulled a 3x5 out and handed it over. "There. That's all the information. With my name. Howard. Thanks so much!" They shook hands and Ray closed the door.

Annie stood on the blotter with arms crossed. "Well?"

"You forgot rest areas and median strips." He sat back down on the bed. She jumped over to his pillow.

"And the apology?"

"Oh, you would have remembered them eventually," he said as he picked her up. "No need to apologize." He looked at her calmly as she kicked and sputtered.

He shrugged. "Well, it still sounds like something you'd have done."

The fight went out of her at that. She shrugged. "You might have a point there." She wriggled in a different way and he let her slide down to his lap. She sprawled on his thigh, cradling her head in her hands and looking up at his face. "So. You doing Howard a favor? Not withholding until the cheerleaders ask?"

"That would make me seem shallow," he said. "I want the cheerleaders to think I'm sincere." He put a finger to his lips to suggest secrecy. She winked and gestured zipping her lips shut.

-----

Friday night, he climbed the stairs to the meeting room in the Student Union. Annie rode in his pocket. She moved back and forth a lot. "You're about a Five on the Annie Excitement Scale," he said. "Maybe I shouldn't expose you to overstimulation like this?"

"Bite me," she replied. "This is great! Sylph Rescue! Maybe they'll tell stories of roaming bands of free sylphs."

"The legal term is feral sylphs," he said softly. "Pets roaming wild are not 'free.'"

He opened the door just as she yelled, "Jackass!" Everyone turned to stare. She quieted instantly under the scrutiny.

Ray walked calmly in and sat down apart from every one else. No one moved to sit next to him, but several stared at him as they talked to each other.

"What's going on?" Annie asked softly.

"Remember Juliet?" he replied just as quietly. "The girl that talked me into going to a poetry performance?"

"Oh, yeah, her. And you wore the leather belt to a vegan poetry reading."

"Well, I'm carrying a pet sylph to a Sylph Rescue meeting."

"I noticed you didn't give up bacon after the pig slaughter film."

"And I'm not going to abandon you to the wilderness," he said. "Unless you want to go."

She thought briefly of Mia and shuddered. "Not the life for me," she said. The Wild was someplace to visit, not to stay in.

Ray felt her shiver and stroked her gently through the pocket fabric. She'd never told him why she was so upset the night he'd found her, even beyond shrinking, but he knew it had been a bad night for her.

Howard showed up, spoke briefly to a few friends and made a point of sitting next to Ray. "I'm glad you came," he said.

"I made a commitment," Ray said.

"And I wouldn't let him forget it," Annie added.

"That's true," Ray admitted. "Even when I offered her money to do so."

"Yeah, $20. What am I gonna do with a $20 bill? The candy machine needs quarters."

Howard stopped trying to tell if they were joking, shook his head and sat back.

"Thanks for sitting by the evil oppressor," Ray said. "Hope it doesn't ruin your sylph street cred."

"No biggie," Howard said. Then he slapped a hand over his mouth and stared at Annie.

The lights flashed a couple of times for attention. The man at the switch walked up to the front of the room as conversations slowed to a stop.

"Sizist," she muttered. He looked mortified.

"She's joking," Ray assured him.

"Welcome," the speaker started. "Welcome to Sylph Rescue." He covered the history and purpose of the organization, their political goals, their fund raising efforts and the details of tonight's activity. They were Philly-based, of course, and the local chapter in Atlanta sponsored the campus group.

Most of it was familiar to Ray. Annie had spent half the week lecturing him about SR. She lapped up the talk like a choir member at a sermon.

The slide show of humiliated sylphs drew growls from the rest of the attendees. There were sylphs on shoulders as living jewelry. A picture of a pregnant sylph eating kibble in a dirty cage. A sylph in a hamster ball running from a kid with a plastic golf club. And some carefully edited shots of Passion Cakes.

There was also a shot of a sylph in a raven costume, posing on a tunic-covered shoulder. Ray and Annie both broke out in laughter. Howard looked embarrassed. Everyone else stared.

"You find this funny?" the speaker called, stopping the slideshow.

"I think the term is ironic," Ray said.

"No, there's no contradiction here," Annie replied. "I think it's just coincidence."

"Where'd you get that picture?" Ray asked. "And could we get a copy?"

"That's her!" Howard shouted suddenly. "She's the raven!"

"That's disgusting!" someone near the front shouted.

"I beg your pardon!" Annie shouted back. She climbed out of the pocket. Ray lifted her up. "Who said that? I spent days on that costume, thank you very much!"

"Maybe we'd better go," Ray said.

"No, no, please," the speaker said. He gestured towards the more vocal regulars. "We'll behave. We just… Can we get back to our effort here?"

Tonight's effort was the one that SR was most famous for. Volunteers would be taking donations to places that sylphs in the wild congregated, or might congregate. They'd be able to avail themselves of clothing, vitamins, medical supplies and some tools.

"Now, the secret will be where you stand. You need to be far enough away from the donation box that the sylphs won't think it's a trap. But you have to be close enough to prevent some… unscrupulous individuals from replacing the box with an actual trap."

All eyes in the room turned to Ray. Except for Howard's. He turned a defiant glare at the others.

"So, we've got the schedule of places to visit tonight. Come on up and we'll hand them out." He held up a folder and started pulling out stapled documents.

"Nice turn out," Howard said as he looked around the room. "Not enough to cover all the places we want." He turned apologetically to Ray. "So we can't double up."

"S'alright," Ray said.

"Come on, let's get your assignment," he said. Not 'our' assignments, Ray noted.

The speaker made a big show out of choosing just the right location for Ray's first effort. The package include a map, instructions about times and suggested places for the box and the monitor. "Try to be punctual and precise," they told him. "It helps the sylphs believe we're trustworthy."

Ray thanked him, thanked Howard, took a box from the table by the door and headed out.

------

They were at a picnic spot on a freeway rest stop. The box went on a cement slab by the woods just before sundown. Ray opened the sides so the contents were visible. Annie checked that the plastic wrap seals were insect proof but not sylph proof. Then they took station at a picnic table a dozen yards away.

He read a book by streetlight while Annie sat on his Walkman and watched the box. She had a pair of GI Joe binoculars. Toy binoculars, but she swore that her vision was improved by using them. Ray declined to argue with her.

"I don't see anyone," she complained.

"You're not going to," Ray assured her. "Either they don't trust us because it's our first time, so we get some empty site. Or they don't trust us because I own you."

"What? Why would they waste manpower that way?"

"Well, if there is no colony here, there's no chance I can kidnap some poor sylph. But I might be drawing the attention of some sylph hunters away from a real colony. Or it might be a test. Or maybe they never expect me to come back, so I never have to establish trust with the ferals.

"Of course there's always a chance that there are sylphs here but the goal is for them to rescue you." He turned the page. "So tell me if anyone shows up that looks like a trap."

They were scheduled to turn the box back in at 11 pm. About 10:30 someone ran out of the brush and staggered towards the box. Annie jumped up when she noticed him.

Ray didn't move but followed Annie's gaze with his eyes. The figure was difficult to see in the gloom. The streetlights over the parking area and the restroom barely let them detect movement at the back.

As the sylph reached the cement base under the box, he sagged and fell against the side. He didn't seem to have the energy to climb up.

"Oooh. He needs help!" Annie said.

"Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't," Ray said. He looked around but found no other cars.

"If he's hurt, he'll thank us," Annie said.

"If he's wild, he'll think we're trying to catch him. They waited for a moment.

"Pleeeeease?" Annie said. She adopted her vixen tone and said, "She begged sincerely and offered her master several favors!"

"Don't think I won't take you up on that," he said, standing up and offering his hand. She smiled and climbed on. He kept her in his grip rather than pocketing her.

Then he slowly and carefully walked towards the box. The sylph didn't move. Finally Ray was standing over him. He lowered Annie, keeping an eye out.

"Buddy," she asked, stepping close. She brushed the rags aside and found a surprise. "Gal?"

"What?" Ray asked.

"It's a girl!"

"Cassie," the figure croaked. "She's sick."

"Who's Cassie?" Annie asked.

"Sister. Weak. Was looking for…" Her head lowered.

"No, no, no," Annie said, shaking the woman's shoulder. "We have to find Cassie. If you're the one out looking for help, she must be nearly dead!"

"Annie, maybe you should-" Ray started to say.

"She's not diseased, Ray," Annie said angrily. "She's starving and she's cold." She stood and turned to the box. Ray's hand dropped down like a gate door.

"Hang on."

"I have to get her something. Food or water or-" She tried to step around his hand, but he was too quick for her.

"Annie, we can't take anything from the box. They count the stuff."

"So? This is for a sylph. All this shit is for sylphs. It's why we're here."

He got tired of chasing her so he picked her up. She kicked and slapped at his hands. "Annie? Listen for a second, okay? The rules of the Rescue say we can't pick up feral sylphs."

"The rules don't use the word 'feral,'" she snarled.

"Anyway, if we go by the rules, we give her stuff, then leave her and her sister here. And go away."

"Oh." She stopped fighting.

"Now, if we can find Cassie, we can take them home and nurse them to health and let them go. But we can't let the Rescue find out about it. Okay?"

"Okay." He lowered her back down. She crouched by the collapsed figure. "Hey! Hey! Where's Cassie? How can we find Cassie?"

-------

Ray slipped the carrier to the floor of the car a block from the mall. Annie knelt between Nameless Sylph and her sister Cassie and pressed a wet rag to their lips.

A Rescue volunteer waited in the opened door of a van. Ray stepped out and gathered the donation box from the back seat. He'd purposefully dropped it and the orderly arrangement was a bulging chaos.

"Hey. Any luck?" the volunteer called. Ray walked over and offered the box. The other man glanced at it and glared up at Ray.

"Sorry. I dropped it. I tried to put everything back, but I wasn't sure how it was supposed to go. And no, there were no sylphs." He stood easily under the guy's scrutiny.

Ray was pretty sure the man thought that he or Annie had taken some of the things, then jumbled everything to hide the theft. They'd find out that nothing was missing when they restored it.

Right now, if Ray acted a little guilty, he wanted the guy to think he already knew what Ray was feeling guilty about. He didn't say anything as he put the box in the passenger seat.

"So, you ever see a feral-" Ray started to ask.

"We don't use that word," the guy said.

"Oh. Yeah, of course."

"Hey, where's your sylph?"

"She's asleep in the carrier," Ray shrugged. "I'm going to take her home."

"Home, yeah, you take her where her home is," the guy sneered. Ray shook his head and walked off.

Howard appeared, walking around the front of the van, catching Ray halfway to his car.

"So? How did it go? How did you like it?" he asked.

"Howard, you guys sent me someplace that sylphs have never been sighted, didn't you?" Normally, Ray wouldn't have been as aggressive with the only Rescue member that had treated him decently.

But he was a little worried about his two patients and the van guy had pissed him off. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized that he was using his angry tone. And Howard winced.

"Oh, man, I'm sorry, Howard. I understand why I got the spot I did. And really, I'm okay with it. I know, I haven't established any trust yet."

"It's not that," Howard said. "Well, yeah. Yeah, it is. Sorry."

"It's okay. Who knows, Annie may force me to come back some week." He edged to move around the underclassman.

"Hey, you don't have to, but if you do? I can, uh, I can get you a better spot." Ray stopped.

"That. That would be nice, Howard." He looked around the lot. Van guy was glaring at them. "Hey, can I ask you a hypothetical?"

"Sure!"

"Say I found a sylph out in the wild. A cute guy and Annie wants to take him back to the dorm and have her way with him."

"You can't!" he hissed.

"Howard? Hypothetical. I realize I can't, not while I'm with SR, but if Annie and I go back the next day, and meet him at an arranged spot? Is that okay?"

"If it's up to the sylph…and he has a chance to run away… If he meets you tomorrow night, that's your business."

"Okay." Ray nodded. "Now. If there was a sick sylph, dying of exposure, you guys still won't pick them up?"

"No. Not on nights like tonight. As you say, we could organize a return, after at least twelve hours." He rubbed his head. "There are still members that would say you were taking advantage of them. But as long as you don't use a donation box to lure them to where you can capture them…." Howard shrugged.

Ray stepped a few inches closer and looked right into Howard's eyes. "And if I found a sylph who probably wasn't going to live for twelve more hours? And I decided to take him home and nurse him back to health because Annie would never forgive me if I didn't? And I plan to let them go once they're healthy enough? It would still be best if Rescue never heard about him, I guess."

Howard's eyes opened wide. "Yes. Yes, that would be best. I-" He glanced at the car. "Ray. I, well, I trust you. I really do. For your motives, anyway. But. But maybe you'd better not come back. If you're going to ignore the rules."

"Not ignore," Ray said. "If I ignored them, I wouldn't be able to tiptoe around them." He opened his car door and got inside. "I did enjoy this, Howard. Thanks for inviting me."

Howard smiled. The voltage of the smile dipped a bit when he remembered that it hadn't actually been an invitation. By then Ray was gone.

------

Renee woke to music. She remembered music. This was an oldies station, taking her all the way back to actually being a human.

Her mouth was dry and salty. She smacked her lips, trying to figure out what she'd eaten to leave the taste in her mouth.

Eaten?

She sat up, looking around. She wasn't in the burrow. She was in a box of some sort. There was a flap cut into the side and it gaped a tiny bit.

In the light that it admitted, she saw that she was on a large sponge covered in a handkerchief. Cassie was next to her. Both of them were naked and tucked under another handkerchief. They felt like silk.

She checked her sister. Her breath was even and deep. Her fever was down. Ribs still showed under her skin but she didn't look quite as close to death.

"Oh, thank god," Renee muttered.

"God, Ray, Annie," a voice called from the door. "Same thing, just a matter of degree." Another sylph was walking into the box. She was a bit younger than Renee. Or maybe she just looked younger, what with being clean and well fed, with access to shampoo. Renee snarled, not just because this meant they'd been captured.

"God has nothing to do with it," she said. She couldn't stand, so she crawled between the strange sylph and her sister. The new girl shrugged. She lifted up a plastic bucket and held it out.

"Whoever you want to thank, blame, credit or curse, you want some broth?"

"Broth?"

"Chicken broth. I have a can on the hot plate. I've been trying to get both of you to eat some for two days."

"Two days?" Renee sagged. The healthy one lowered the ignored bucket. "We've been sleeping for two days?"

"On and off. Cassie's been responding pretty well to forced fluids."

"How… How do you know her name?"

"You told me." She turned and sat on the foot of the towel-bed. "You croaked, 'Cassie is sick, ill, weak, save us.' And you told me where to find her."

"And that gives you the right to capture us?" Renee sneered.

"Capture? You begged us to take you."

"I would never…" Renee started to protest. But she remembered the aches. Hungry, cold and frantic about Cassie. She might have.

"I'm Annie. What's your name?"

"Renee. At least, it was before we were caught. Now it's probably Sunflower or Sparkles."

"You're not caught, Still Renee. You're in protective custody." Annie handed over the broth bucket again. "Here. Feed yourself, but don't go overboard. Then see what you can get into your sister." She stood and walked to the door slit.

"There are some rags in the plastic cup in the corner. I've had some success with soaking them and getting her to suck on them." Then she was gone.

She stuck her head back in and pointed into the darkest corner of the box. "Oh, and there's a portable toilet over there. Just so you'll know."

Renee looked from the broth to the corner and back. She started to crawl across the towel. Then the floor. There was a door. She couldn't reach the handle. Raising one hand made her three-limbed stance shaky. She cursed softly. "Annie!" she shouted. "Help?"

"Or course," the sylph said, stepping back inside. "Come on. Let's get you up."

------

When Annie helped her back to the bed, something of a truce was established. Renee sat and sipped from the broth and watched while Annie tried to feed her sister.

"So, what does protective custody mean?"

"It means, we found you in the wild, you were in a bad way. I talked my owner into bringing you back. You can leave whenever you want. Oh, look at that!" Cassie was licking her lips. It was the most hopeful thing Renee had seen in a long while.

Tears welled up in her eyes. She reached over and grabbed her sister's hand to squeeze it.

"Okay, Still Renee. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"I suppose clothes are out of the question," she said, gesturing at her naked host.

"Oh, no. Ray actually finds me more attractive with clothes. I just didn't want you guys uncomfortable being more naked than me." She leaned over the bed and sniffed. "Plus, it makes it easier to do the laundry."

She dragged a new sponge into the box and made a whole new bed on it. Cassie got a quick sponge bath and then moved over. Renee was unable to help with her sibling, but managed to clean and move herself. "All on my lonesome," she muttered.

"You'll get real baths when Ray comes back," Annie promised, dragging the entire soiled bed out. "That should be an hour or so. Think you're up to solid food yet?"

"No," Renee answered honestly. Annie nodded and backed out the door.

------

Ray came into the room and habitually slung his backpack towards the bed. At the last second, he remembered that they had guests under that bed.

He gripped the strap with his fingernails and spun around. The bag looped him in three circles and finally spilled him across the unclaimed mattress on the far side of the room.

The mattress caught him and bounced him back almost upright. He overcompensated and crashed to the floor, his face ending up very close to where the refuge lay.

Annie stood beside the door, biting hard on her fist to keep from laughing. An unfamiliar face stared at him from the cut door. She was close to the ground, sitting or kneeling. And her wide eyes looked at him with shock.

"You didn't think I could do those Russian dances, did you?" he said cheerfully.

"That's his plan to win your trust," Annie said, her face carefully hard. "If you think he's an idiot, you'll be confident you can outsmart him when the time comes."

"Okay," the face muttered.

"Is this Cassie?" Ray asked.

"This is Still Renee," Annie said. Ray nodded his head and Renee returned it.

"Still as in still waters run deep?" he asked. "Or, Still Renee because we haven't taken you to the Registry and changed it to Snookums or Itty Baby?"

"Yeah," Annie said. She pushed off from the box and walked over to kiss him on the cheek. "We need baths."

"Baths, milady? Your wish shall speed my feet." He thrust himself up and busied himself at the sink. He returned with a bowl of hot water, a glass of cold, and towels. "Can they walk, yet?"

"Not really," she said. "So be gentle."

"Gentle is my middle name!" he protested. "Right after Hamfisted." He slid the box out from under the bed and took the roof off. Renee had crawled over beside her sister.

"Okay," he said. "I'm going to pick you up and get you to help me get the temperature right. Then you'll bathe yourself. I'll help if you need it. Then I'll wrap you in a nice, soft towel and you can watch me bathe Cassie, okay?"

"O…Okay," she said, clearly not thrilled with the situation. He tried to be gentle and to give support as he moved her around. When she said the water was right he lowered her in.

Renee gasped as she had her first hot bath in nearly ten years. He let her sit and soak for a while, until she started to try to clean herself. A dollop of soap on the corner of the towel was offered and she lathered herself up.

She flagged after that. Annie crawled into the water to hold her head as Ray cupped his hand and poured water over her to rinse. When she was done, he took up a washcloth and wrapped her like a sausage.

She could just barely bend as he placed her on the floor and took up Cassie. Annie was involved a bit more. They didn't submerge the sleeping sylph, but tried to clean up her more soiled bits while avoiding drowning.

Renee heard her sister moan a bit from the attention, but almost happily. At least, Renee tried to convince herself it was happy.

Then they were both toweled and wedged against the bottom of the dresser.

Annie bathed, then Ray used the remaining water to clean the sponges and handkerchiefs.

When the beds were remade and the spares repiled, he replaced the sisters and then the box.

Renee wriggled an arm free to caress her sister's forehead. Cassie's eyes blinked, then she smiled.

------

A few days later, much improved sylphs lay on a block of foam on Ray's blotter, sucking in dual back rubs.

Annie sat in the window sill, watching the three of them. "So what are the options?" she asked.

"Well," he replied, working his way down two tiny backs, "in Georgia, it's a crime 'to recover a sylph from an unsupervised condition,' without taking them to the Registry. If nothing else, they should be checked to see if they've escaped from an owner."

"Okay, so you're officially a misdemeanor…-er," she said with confidence. "What else?"

"So, if we don't take possession of Still Cassie and Still Renee, there are other legal obligations. We 'captured' them on public lands, so the State actually gets first refusal on them." He felt the muscles tighten under his fingertips.

"But that's only an issue if we were to admit that we had them," she said. He pushed a little bit harder against their tension.

"Yep. Now, there's a legal loophole. If we release them exactly where we found them, we can't be prosecuted."

"For crimes no one knows we committed."

"Right. It's called the Sylph Rescue Article, intending that people can help sick feral sylphs without going to jail."

"Intended?" Renee asked.

"Yeah, in practice people keep getting caught with pets in a cage, swearing they were JUST ABOUT to take them back to the wildlife preserve or the abandoned warehouse."

He twisted his fingers in the air. The sisters stood. Annie hopped down from the sill and took Renee's arm. Ray held a finger to support Cassie. They started walking around the top of the desk.

"Legal obligations aside, there are moral ones. We can also take them to someplace with a large sylph population. But that would require knowing where sylph colonies are, which would involve Sylph Rescue, which wants nothing to do with illegal behavior. They can't afford it.

"And if we keep them, at some point someone's going to notice that we went on a Rescue and came back with ferals."

"Is there…." Cassie started to ask. Renee hissed.

"What?" Annie asked. "Is there an option that involves air conditioning?"

"Something like that," Cassie asked. She gave Ray a small smile. He smiled back, then changed fingers as she turned the corner.

"We don't want to be owned," Renee said. Two steps later she turned to the woman holding her up. "No offense."

"None taken," Annie said cheerfully. Behind Renee's back she pantomimed stabbing and twisting a knife. Cassie laughed.

Renee glared at her sister, then turned the corner. As they passed under Ray's arm, she looked up at his face. "Hey, how do we know you're not just setting us up? Getting us healthy for a better sale price?"

"Good question," he said. "Maybe you should stop getting healthy. That'll show me, huh?" He led Cassie back to the foam. Annie kept Renee going for another lap.

"You know, Annie, people have been asking about you. Maybe you should come to class with me."

"And leave these two alone all morning?"

"Sure. Tell them how you make it out of the building, we'll give them a few hours head start." He picked up the sisters carefully. Annie grabbed his sleeve and rode along as he placed them in the box.

"Okay," she said. "You can have whatever clothes fit. Except the Raven costume. Then the clearance under the door is enough to duck out. Then, at the door to the stairs, the rubber seal is loose about six inches from…"

-------

"Maybe I should go, just to look around?" Renee asked.

Cassie groaned and rolled over on the makeshift bed. "You talked yourself out of it seven times. Once more, that's your lucky number."

"My lucky number is three?" Renee protested.

"Then you're four times over! Look, there are students out there. If you're caught by some kid who's jealous of Ray having an exotic pet, you're going to stay caught. Here… I don't know. At least we're not caged."

"You're right," Renee said after a moment. "I just… I don't know how to be sure if we can trust him. Them. Either of them or both."

"This from a girl who used to hitchhike to meet new people." Cassie kneaded her thighs. "But seriously, if you want to try to escape tonight? After dark? I'm willing to limp along behind you."

"No. No, there's no point until you're really ready." They sat for a while staring at the cardboard. "What are we going to do if he does offer to let us go?"

"What can we do?" The silence stretched in place of a response.

They both snapped around when they heard a key in the door.

"He said hours!" Renee hissed.

"Maybe he forgot something?"

"Yeah, our head start." They crept to the door and looked out. And stared.

Jeans and a pair of tennis shoes they didn't recognize walked into the center of the room and stood there.

"Sylph enforcement?" Cassie whispered.

"They'd have said something before breaking the door open," Renee replied. "This person has a key."

"Two beds," a voice said. "Check. Two windows with two sets of blinds, check." The feet turned in a circle. "Two closets, check. Sink and medicine cabinets, check."

"Dorm manager," Renee said with relief. "But they should have at least knocked…." The girls couldn't quite figure out if it was male or female taking the inventory. Neither wanted to rush over to the edge of the bed and check. Whoever it was started to walk around the room.

"Hot plate authorization form, current, coffee maker authorization form, current." The tone of the voice changed when it drew next to the desks. "Sylph cage. Aw, it's empty."

They stood at the desk for a moment. The sisters heard some metal squeaking. "He's playing with the cage!" Cassie hissed.

"She's thinking about playing with Annie," Renee replied. There was a clatter overhead that made them jump. Then a shadow slammed down from the top of the bed. A clipboard lay on the floor where it hadn't quite landed on the mattress.

"What are they…?" There was the sound of a zipper, then the jeans rustled, falling to bunch above the shoes.

"Oh, oh, good girl," the voice purred. "Yes. Yes, do that for your owner. What a good little… sylph… you can be. Who loves… to rub me? Is it you? I think…. it's you. What a pretty, pretty pet."

"Eeeew," Renee said as the giant's breathing sped up. Cassie tapped her shoulder and drew her away from the door.

She put her face next to her sister's ear. "Let's not be at the door when they come down to pick up the clipboard."

Renee shook her hand off. "I don't even want to be in the room when they pick up the clipboard. Let's get out of the box while they're…distracted."

Cassie shook her head once, but followed when Renee slipped out the door. They ran as fast as Cassie could limp to the back of the box. Then Renee helped her crawl into the corner between the leg of the bed and the wall. They squeezed in, trying to hide both bodies from casual view.

Whoever it was went on ordering the imaginary pet around, touching and demanding service, offering rewards and enticements. The sisters squeezed their eyes shut tight and wished to go deaf.

The voice eventually stopped talking and just moaned. The sister's hugged each other tight as the intruder came, then went.

They shuddered as the door finally shut, then relaxed. It was a while before they released each other and tiptoed for the box.

The peek into some of life's possibilities did not paint a rosy picture for their immediate future. They crawled into the bed and tried to find safer things to talk about.

----

Ray woke to the sound of someone whispering in his ear. "I don't wanna go back, I don't wanna go back. Don't sell us. Don't take us back. Please." Pre-dawn sunlight drifted through the window blinds.

"For subliminal control," he drawled, "don't I need to be in a REM state?"

There was a squeak of fright. He turned his head to find Cassie scrambling across the pillow. He reached out and gently picked her up. "Hush, hush, hush," he said. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"I don't wanna be in the wild any more!" she shouted.

"Okay," he said. "What DO you want?" He sat up and swung his feet to the floor. What does Still Renee want?"

"I wanted a bit more sleep," a voice called from the floor. "Can't fend off horny giants without a good night's rest."

Ray reached down to lift the sylph up beside her sister. He looked to see if Annie was awake.

She was standing outside of her cage, hanging a sign on it. He leaned forward to read. "I don't beat up on women or beat down on men. I don't beat on your door, don't beat off on my cage. Huh. Think seven exclamation points will be enough?"

"No. I just ran out of 3x5 card." She walked across the desk and jumped to his pillow. "What are we talking about?"

"Their fate," he replied. "If we register them-" He noted the gasps in his grip, but went on. "Then we risk prosecution. If we turn them loose, they'll be all alone in the wild, unless we talk to SR and risk prosecution again.

"If we don't register them, we still risk prosecution, and they'll be taken away. You might be taken away." He tipped over backwards and set the girls on his chest. Annie crawled up between them.

"We could sell them, but without a Registry tag then the buyer is risking-" He glanced up at three icy glares. "Kidding."

"What's your schedule?" Annie asked.

"You know it as well as I do. Class to noon, three day weekend, then an exam in-"

"Three days is enough. Pack for a weekend."

------

"Miss Deliah?" Deliah turned from the cake she was cutting a stairway into. At first she didn't see who had called her. A year in the Sylph Center, though, she had learned to look down quickly.

One of the sylph pages stood on the access way. She nodded down at him. "What is it?"

"There's a man in the lobby, asking about you. Says he has a replacement part for your Maur Brush?"

"Oh, does he?" she said with a smile. "Well, tell him I'll be out in ten minutes." The little man hesitated, obviously hoping to find out what a Maur Brush was. She just turned around and finished the flight she was working on.

-----

Out in the lobby, Ray was holding Annie in his hand, lifting her up to scan the faces in a photo on the wall. "Oh! I know that guy!" she was saying as Deliah walked up.

When they dated, she made sure to hug and kiss her boyfriend first, before paying any attention to the other woman in his life.

Now, she figured that she could talk to whoever she wanted. He was already holding Annie towards her as she reached out.

"Hello, girl!" She held the sylph to her cheek.

"Hey, chef!" Annie replied. They kept the hug going as Deliah wrapped an arm around Ray's waist for his hug.

"What brings you to DC?" she asked, handing Annie back. She nodded towards an alcove off the main room and they walked into it.

"Well, we were wondering if you could help us with a problem," Ray said.

"We're booked solid," she said quickly. "If you could give me a week's notice, I can get you a table between the men's room and the phone booth-"

"No, no," he said, though he looked a little disappointed. As he should have. "Different problem entirely." Two little heads popped out of his pocket and started at her.

"Ah," she said with a nod. "Yeah. We get this a lot, really." She reached out. Ray lifted the two girls to her hands.

"This is Still Cassie, and this is Still Renee," he said. "Sisters. Girls, this is Deliah. She's a friend of mine and of Annie's."

"Pleased to meet you, Cassie and Renee," she said. "I assume the 'still' is a little joke he or Annie came up with."

"Little?" Annie asked. "In context, it's hilarious!"

"Okay, okay," Deliah said. She smiled at the two sylphs. "You know," she told Cassie. "I think you would look absolutely scrumptious in a page uniform. And you. Well, I think you'd be darling in a waitress uniform."

She stood and started walking quickly towards the Staffing office, which was three-quarters filled with living quarters for the staff sylphs. "Underdocumented sylphs disappear into that crowd all the time," she assured them.

Ray jogged to catch up with her. Annie looked up from his hand and threw him a thumbs up.



Back to the Index