STEALING EDEN Part Two

When Spike Thomson awoke on "The Morning After"--as it would always be called whenever it was discussed--his first reaction was to see if he'd dreamed Lynda Day. No, it was no dream. He still smelled the smoke of her singed clothes; very strongly he thought. He looked at the clock, which said it was just turning 6:30. He could hear Lynda's voice in the background.

  "Mum, it's me. Mum, stop screaming. I'm fine. Mum, don't believe anything you hear about me being dead. Yes, I know. I know they said nobody could get out. Its a long story. Say, I need you to do a favor for me. I got as far as Spike's, and I remembered I lost my keys to the apartment in the fire. I'm going to need some clothes and stuff. Yeah, bring it over here. I've got a surprise to tell you, too. No, you come here. I'll have to tell you in person. Trust me. I love you, too."

  Spike got out of bed and wandered out into the next room. Lynda had gotten as far as getting a shower, and she was wearing one of his bathrobes and still dripping a little water on the carpeting. The coffee pot had been turned on and Lynda had tried to make some toast, but had burned it rather badly. Lynda hadn't heard him at first, and was only aware of his presence when she suddenly felt him embracing her from behind. She allowed herself a warm smile, opened her mouth to speak, and then changed her mind. Let Spike have the honors, she thought.

"I had the most amazing dream," Spike began.

"Really?" Lynda asked coyly.

"I dreamed that Lynda Day was standing in my kitchen wearing only a bathrobe and burning my toast."

"I was on the phone listening to my mother scream a lot. I forgot."

"You're so beautiful, Lynda. Did you really propose to me last night?"

"Crazy, wasn't I?"

"I'll let you take it back if you want to," he said.

There was silence. Spike held his breath. Lynda held hers. Now or never, she thought.

Spike let go of her. In that instant, Lynda viewed a universe of options and possibilities flash before her and made her decision. "To think when I met you, I hated you."

"Shallow, show-off American," Spike quoted from memory.

"You left out lame-brained," Lynda replied with a smile.

"And now we're here," Spike said.

"Yes, we are." Lynda looked at her watch and smiled. "This is all going to seem strange when the rest of the news team shows up and I have to go back to being Vampira again. Kenny was right. Being nice does grow on you."

"Then don't go back, Lynda. Be someone different now that you've had a second chance."

"I am the editor of the Junior Gazette, and I have a newspaper to run. I can't be 'nice' and successful." She paused for a moment and looked at her watch again."

"Are you expecting someone, Lynda?"

"Yes," she said. Then she pushed Spike up against a wall and kissed him. Hard.

From somewhere in the background came the opening of a door . "Spike?" the voice called out. "Are you okay? The door was open and I....." The voice stopped and a loud thud was heard. Lynda ended the kiss and walked over to where Sarah Jackson had fainted in the middle of the room.

"Nice to see you again, Sarah," she said. "Have you met my fiancé, Spike?"

"Don't you think you should do something here, Lynda?" Spike asked as he walked over to join her.

"Find a good hiding place for that book of mine," she chuckled. "This is too much fun to be legal."

Someone half a universe away agreed and picked up a phone.

The crowd in Spike's apartment had grown by two members. Sarah was sitting in a chair being fussed over by Lynda's mother. Spike was watching the morning news on a small television set, drinking a cup of coffee and glancing from time to time at Lynda, who was on the phone scaring people, and enjoying it. Though her mother had brought some clothes along, she still had not changed from Spike's bathrobe.

"Mr. Kerr," she purred. "I read in the paper this morning that I had died. That was very silly of you wasn't it?" With great flourish, she hit the speakerphone button and Kerr's voice filled the room.

"Lynda....." he stammered. "How did you get...."

"Out? If a gunman can sneak out of the building---If Colin Matthews can get out of the building without anybody knowing it, why can't I do the same thing? Sloppy, Matt. Very sloppy."

"Why didn't you get in touch with someone?" he asked angrily. "Some kind of publicity stunt to sell papers? Let everyone think you're dead and then show up at your funeral?"

"What a great idea," she dead-panned. "Here's another one. You're going to see to it that we get whatever we need to get the next edition of the Junior Gazette out and on time or I'll sue you and Bobby Campbell from here to the moon and back by lunch time. I'll see you this afternoon to set up the details."

"But Lynda...." Kerr's reply was cut off when Lynda slammed the phone down.

"I've always wanted to hang up on him," she said to no one in particular. She walked over to Sarah and knelt down beside her. "I wasn't aware I had such a powerful effect on people."

"Sorry," Sarah mumbled. "Haven't gotten used to meeting dead people yet." Sarah looked over at Spike. "I could have sworn you said she was dead, Spike. If you two were in on this to trick me...

"Shhhh," Mrs. Day told her. "Talking will make you feel worse. Drink your tea." She turned to Lynda. Spike caught a glimmer in Lynda's eye.

"Uh, this might not be the right time, Lynda..." he began.

"Nonsense. It's as good a time as any, and I have to get back on the phone. I asked Spike to marry me, and he said yes."

Sarah choked on her tea. Mrs. Day looked at Lynda and smiled. "The Spike Thomson? The Spike Thomson who you said was a lousy, two-timing, no-account jerk you wanted to torture and kill?"

"That's not true!" she said with mock indignation. "I used at least three expletives in that sentence." She looked distracted for a moment. "Spike, are you taping the news for me?"

"Yes, Lynda," came the exaggeratedly disinterested reply.

"Anything interesting?"

"Somebody broke Sophie and Laura out of prison. Trains are late out of Norbridge station. Campbell Media's facing a possible hostile takeover. You're dead."

"I am? Just checking. I want to gloat later, when I have time."

"You proposed to Spike?" Sarah asked. "I'd pictured it as happening the other way around."

"He looked about like you do after I did it. I decided I didn't want to lose Spike....I saw a glimpse of what life would be like in the future. Something told me it had to be this way, so I did it and I'll see to it that Spike Thomson never leaves me again."

"Nor will I," piped up the fiancé ,"If you keep wearing that bathrobe around the house."

"Should I quit shaving my legs, Mum? I think he's staring at them."

"I guess I don't have to jump out of windows when people come around now, huh?" Spike and Lynda's mum shared a conspiratorial glance. Lynda and Sarah were smiling, too.

"Enough happiness for one morning," Lynda suddenly said. "Time to get the team together."

Colin Matthews was a wreck. He had not slept at all, nor had he shaved. Sometime during the early morning, he had left his apartment and gone down to the burned out remains of the Junior Gazette building. There he stood, watching the steam rise from the ashes and the water drip from the burned out superstructure. Four years of his life, gone, soon to be followed with his soul, which a demon bearing Lynda's visage had come to him and claimed during the night. "Buy your way out of this one, salesman," he said to himself. As the morning went on, he was no longer alone. Polly, one of the newer hires to the staff, came by. She had only just begun working there, and seemed to be a little shocked to have it all end so suddenly. Tiddler and Kate arrived soon after. Nobody knew where Julie was--she wasn't home or wasn't answering. Frazz and Kevin were shooting pictures and doing interviews at the scene. Jane, Martin, and Jeff had only just come by. Everyone stood and talked amongst themselves, pondering the mysterious phone calls they had received summoning them here. Except for Colin, that is, who was barely noticed by the others, and seemed to be inhabiting his own little personal Hell that no one wanted to intrude upon.

A taxi pulled up to the site, and Spike and Sarah emerged from it. The crowd quickly flocked to them, excited to see Sarah and expressing their concerns about Spike's well-being and his grief. After listening to the babble for a bit, he raised his hand, cleared his throat, and made an announcement."

"Everybody, I want you to know I'm okay. In fact, when I looked in the mirror this morning, something absolutely amazing was staring back at me." The crowd murmured nervously. Sarah smiled. "Not me," he chuckled. "Her." He pointed at the taxi.

Lynda was getting out. She'd gone through the pile of clothes her mother had brought and managed to find the worst possible combination to wear. "For old time's sake," she'd said at the time. Now she looked at her team, or what there was of it. "Emergency staff meeting, 1 PM at the main Gazette building," she shouted. "Does anybody know where Julie is?"

Nobody seemed very interested in that. Those who were there were too busy running over to greet her. Kate gave her a hug, which Lynda seemed surprised by, but accepted. Everyone was asking a million things, and Lynda gave up trying to get anything done. She was surprised by what she saw. As much fighting as she had done with these same people, they had all been through a lot together and Lynda only now understood that she meant something to them. Lynda knew where Julie was, and was preparing to deal with that in good time. Colin had slipped away, and Lynda wondered where.

"She's going to be very unhappy when she finds out you didn't renew the insurance policy, Colin," a voice whispered in his ear. "I think we should have a little chat about that, don't you?"

Colin whirled around to find himself staring at three people dressed in some kind of military uniforms. United States Army, he guessed, as the uniforms weren't British, and the speaker's voice had a distinctly American accent. The voice was a man's, and a young man--surely no older than Colin himself--stood in the middle of two women, who each had a small green object strapped to their belts.. Two women who looked a lot like....

"Sophie and Laura," he barely could whisper.

"Shouldn't have sold us down the river," Laura said. She pulled a gun from inside her uniform and pointed at him, as did Sophie.

"That's enough, you two," the man said sharply. "Put those away. Broad daylight--do you think this is America?" The two women did as he asked. "Now, Colin," he continued. "You've seen my associates don't like you. But you are a man of business, as am I, and I'm going to make an offer you can't refuse."

"I don't seem to have much choice," Colin said glumly.

"Oh, no. You'd take this deal in a minute, guns or no guns. It is just a matter of, um, formalizing our position. Let's all pop off for a quick bite to eat and discuss the matter."

They walked down the street and entered the newly re-opened Czar's, found an empty table and sat down. Colin sat on one side of the booth, while the three strangers sat on the other. "Don't you think it is sort of obvious sitting down in a restaurant with two escaped criminals?" Colin whispered across the table.

"Seeing isn't always believing. I have a little parlor trick of my own going. You'd be able to sell a million of them if they ever become declassified. Only you can see their real appearance, and that is because I allow you to. Your editor used something along the same lines to scare you last night"

"How do you know all this?"

"I have good contacts. I read a lot. So does your friend Lynda, and that's rather a big problem for my employers."

Colin felt himself warming to the topic. "Employers?"

"Employers," the man repeated. "You sold her out to the Sherrington Herald. Perhaps you'd like to help us--in exchange for us saving your lousy butt on a fraud charge."

"Fraud? I'll have you know that I am an honest..."

"Stuff it, Colin," Sophie said. "You sold out-of-date food to nursing homes and defective prams to expectant mothers. Why should pocketing the Gazette's insurance money be out of character for you?"

"I'm hurt that you don't trust me after all the fun things we mates did," Colin began.

From under the table, two clicks were heard simultaneously. Both Sophie and Laura had cocked their weapons, and the man in the middle grunted. "You're not selling, Matthews."

"I see that," Colin said nervously.

"Here's the deal. I have in my pocket a check for four million pounds, payable to the Junior Gazette. That will make a nice insurance settlement, and doubtless some extra pocket money to ensure you cooperate with us when we need you. Nobody has to know you spent the insurance money. And you certainly aren't going to make that mistake again, are you?" Colin nodded his head.

"We understand each other. In a very short time, Bobby Campbell is going to be forced to sell the Junior Gazette to me. I am going to take a keen interest in the Junior Gazette and in its editor, Miss Day. Good day, Colin. I know you will do the right thing."

"Or else," Sophie and Laura said in unison, giving their joint cute-little-girl smiles which looked rather misplaced on not-so-little girls.

 To Part Two Continued