Or Good Red Herring
by Chris Rosmini
Time: Sometime Late Sunday Afternoon
Place: The Loft
Vachon-Nick and the Knighties used with permission.



It took some backing and filling, but Roz finally got the big Bentley
squeezed into the garage, as far as possible from the
normally-but-not-now-pristine Caddy.  *Poor thing* she thought, *I don't
really suppose it's contagious, but you can't be too careful.*  "It's OK",
she told her dashboard in a soothing voice, "Nick will have it back in
shape in no time.  He's got it down to a routine now, it's become such a
wartime ritual to trash the Caddy that Nick probably has his body shop on
retainer."  She sat for a minute staring wearily into the gloom of the
garage, and then assembled the bags of miscellaneous notepads, photocopies
and pilfered microfiche that were the fruits of days of digging through the
archival dungeons of Toronto's premier Newspaper.  *I sold us into slavery
for this, I hope it's going to be some use to Nick.* she thought at the
car, and trudged towards the elevator doors.

Upstairs said doors opened into the chaos that was Nick Knight's Citadel of
Solitude in Wartime guise.  Beth sat half buried in a talus slope of books,
there were candles burning in the daytime and the smell of baking cookies
was overpowering.  People seemed to be everywhere: the place was crawling
with familiar female figures of various ages, descriptions and occupations,
and one lone male fooling with a motorcycle.

"Hey Roz," Marla called, "I was beginning to think you had been kidnapped
too!"

Katrinka hurried over to the new arrival, saying "Hey did you find anything
of use?"

The blond guy that looked like Nick Knight sat back, wiped greasy hands on
his pants  and said "Hey!"

"I found a theory, at least part of one, I think.  I don't know, but at
least it's Something.  Other than that I found a lot of Nothing, which is
probably significant in itself, but I haven't a clue what of."  Roz was
babbling and she knew it.  She stared at the guy crouching by the
motorcycle: Golden curls and familiar blue eyes with an unfamiliar slightly
vacant look. Rolled up shirtsleeves and unbuttoned shirt with oil rag
stuffed in the pocket.  Still sitting when a person of the female
persuasion entered the room. *Not Nick*, she thought with absolute
certainty.  *Not LaCroix either come to think of it.*

"It's another one, isn't it" she said. "Who is it this time?"

It rose to it's knees and swept a graceful bow in their direction, "Javier
Vachon, more or less!  At your service!"

"Well that's not too bad" Roz said somewhat ungraciously.  "Might even be fun."

"Roz!" Beth said impatiently, "What did you find?  Weren't you going to
look for any news report that seemed ... unusual enough to tie in with the
Personality Problems?"

"Yeah, I did find this one thing."  Roz answered, dumping her armload of
information on the one empty corner of the kitchen table, "And in a period
of astonishing ordinariness in Toronto news if I do say so, it kind of
stood out.  Remember those Biosphere experiments a few years ago, where
people were put in giant terrariums underground and left there for ages cut
off from the rest of the world?  Well, one of them ended shortly before all
this began!"

"So?"  Katrinka asked, and the others looked puzzled or patient or smiled
encouragingly as was their wont.

"Look, we have to dress and get out of here for Julia's Birthday Party" Ros
said, and headed for the stairs "we can talk about it in the car.  But
think about it, there were these people completely out of touch with the
regular world since '92 and then coming back into it ... like time
travel.  But what caught my attention was this one researcher they
interviewed who said what she really wanted to do most was to catch up on
her very favorite TV show which was renewed while she was underground ...
Forever Knight."  She reached the base of the stairs and turned for effect,
"And now she may be missing, and the best thing is ... her name is Mary Sue."

"But what does it mean? Beth asked, as Kat muttered "It's a Fanfic thing,
I'll explain later." to one of the younger Knighties.

"I have no idea" the Knightie co-leader said flatly, "but it's too
convenient not to be a clue.  No good writer would drop that in and not
have it mean something later."


                                                End