Hmmm very interesting.

Well, Dr. Boggs,

As you're no doubt aware, I tend to post my 'adventures' several days after the 'fact'. Usually after I've had a chance to move around a bit.

It just so happens that I intended to follow up that post immediately with another one (it was getting on the longish side) but my normal movement and business prevented me from doing so.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So now I had to deal with the problem of this young girl. It was particularily vexing as she had seen my face. It is certainly in my best interest to discourage people from believing in me, much less anything I say here. Being confronted with a living person who could identify me later was not a problem I had anticiapted in this situation.

Now, she hadn't seen me commit a murder. This creature, whatever it was, was not human. And it was demonstratably dangerous to humans. Definitely a clean kill on the surface of it. Except that the weapons used could create an air of suspicion. Neither were legal and at least one could indirectly and circumstantially be linked to other crimes. Not enough to press charges but enough to get the wrong sorts of people suspicious.

One must always be careful in my line of business.

Killing an innocent child would just make things much, much worse. Any optimistic thoughts of me growing a conscious aside, there are very practical reasons for not killing the child. She no doubt had parents who would be looking for her. Which would bring in the police and other officioius organizations. Sure I could try and hide the body, and I might be successful. But there's always the off chance that I might fail. One must always plan for the worst case scenerio.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Clearly the best option was to get the girl home to her parents to end any search that was probably already underway.

The trick would be not being seen while doing it.

While convincing the child that she shouldn't tell her parents or any other officious types about her rescuer. This really isn't as easy as it sounds.

"What's your name, sweetie?" I asked as gently as I could why holstering my weapons.

"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers." She said and then paused, "Can I turn around yet?"

Glancing around, I decided it wasn't in her best interest to see the mess. "Close your eyes. I need to carry you away from here."

Obediantly she clenched her eyelids shut, schrunching up her nose as she did so. Then she held up her arms to be picked up.

I carried her quietly through the tunnels for a bit, making mental notes of how many turns and paces I took. "You know, you're right about not talking to strangers. My name is *Nemesis and I need your help so I can take you home to your parents."

"Can I open my eyes NOW?" She asked with some exasperation. After I assured her that she could, she did so. "My name is Anna and my address is *******. Are you a police officer?"

Now there was an interesting potential to lie. But knowing that she would doubtless wind up talking to some real police officers at some point, I resisted the urge. "You know the story of little Red Riding Hood?" She nodded in the affirmative. "You know the woodsman from that story?" Again she nodded. "Well, you are like the Little Red Riding Hood, and Sam back there was the big bad wolf. I'm just the woodsman who happened along to save you."

"Ah." It all made sense to her now.

"It might be best that we keep this fairy tale to ourselves, however." I stated casually. "Some adults won't beleive it and will think you're lying." Almost as an afterthought I added, "Do you get punished for lying?"

She nodded vigorously.

"It's not normally a good thing to lie. So maybe what we should do is make up our own story to tell people." I smiled at her, "You like stories, right?"

Again she nodded vigorously.

So a story we created together. I won't be sharing the details here in case she ever did speak with police. I wouldn't want anyone with government connections tracking the story down, now would I?

Suffice it to say that I dropped her off within site of her home and stuck around just long enough to see her frantic parents gather her up.

Despite being quite tired, I couldn't let myself rest until I returned to the site of the incident. There I did my best to clean up the scene. Being no surgeon, I couldn't easily extract all the bullets from the creature, so I bagged up it's body. I would later take it to a secluded location for incineration. There I finally retrieved the rounds.

Certainly not the best way to spend a weekend.

I'm on the road again and on the hunt for my next, PAYING job. This freebee, even if it was for personal reasons, has left a bad taste in my mouth.

*I didn't tell her that my name was Nemesis. Nor did I use my real name. Nor is her name Anna.
As always, the contents of this post and my previous one are works of fiction. I am not a trained killer nor do I hunt creatures that can't and don't exist. Or those that do.

Doctor Boggs wrote:That's one heck of a purely fictional story there Nemesis, glad to hear it had a mostly happy ending. As far as paying jobs go this story brought to mind an old tale of mine I wouldn't mind paying to have finished, drop me a line if you're interested.

You have my attention, Doc. I'll be PMing you shortly with some of my policies.

Mr Nemesis> a colleague of mine has also recently posed the question of blocking telepathic intrusion...he is working along the line of thought of the brains motor impulses being low grade electrical current. As such, he has started to play around with setting on a "Portable TENS Unit" (those little electrical boxes that physio-terrorists use to treat damage to muscle and nerve in the back and major muscle groups).

He has re-wired one to randomly switch voltage, pulse, and pattern, and according to him, has had some success with it (no having ever needed an external device to fend off such intrusions, I cant speak to its authenticity, but it may be something to look into)

Good Luck!

Bre'Hanna

The important thing to remember, Miss Grace is that a girl that was not named Anna was not harmed although she may have had a fanciful tale to share with others.

P.S. If this Ethan person has anything interesting to share, please let me know. Preferably before you mention anything on the forums. Thanks.