Chimerical Realm

A Simple Plan Scene 5 Leah hadn’t known much. Oh, she was willing to talk about everything she did know, which was mainly all the dirt she had on McGuire Woods. She just didn’t know much that I needed. She was another cog in the machine that had played me. But, she had known the cog above her. Apparently, she had mainly been working with Preston Thurges, one of the senior partners at the firm. If anyone knew what they were after at Vulcan, and for whom, it’s be the good Mr. Thurges. So, it only makes sense that he had vanished that morning. I’m sure that my visit to Vulcan had nothing to do with the sudden “family emergency” that took him away from the office for the first time in five years. But men like Thurges don’t just vanish like you and me. They buy plane tickets, rent hotels, make sure people know how to reach them. They leave a trail, and I just had to pick it up. So, I headed over to his house. Something else Leah had kno...

A Simple Plan Scene 4 Do you have any idea how many “O’leary’s” there are in the greater New Canaan metropolitan area? Five. Five damn places called “O’leary’s” or some variation. So, first I had to figure out which one my “date” would be at come midnight. I felt pretty safe ignoring the seafood restaurant and the “family grill.” It took a while, but I eventually found the one that would be open late, and sounded like a nice, hole in the wall dump. Just the kind of place “Mike” would have liked. I got there about 11, and tried to keep an eye on the place. Though, to be honest, I didn’t know what I was looking for.  I guess I thought it’d be a stereotypical “tough guy” bar, but there seemed to be a decent mix of people. Professionals still wearing their button-down shirts, college kids, and fans of one team or another--just folks out for a drink. Not something I ever did, when I was alive. Not that I was against drinking. Guess I ...

A Simple Plan Scene 3 Mikes car wasn’t anything special. Just a generic sedan, nothing that would look out of place at a typical car rental lot or outside any office building. If you were looking for it, you’d never find it. But, I already had. I knew it was part of a fleet of cars through “Morningside Courier.” I’m not sure what kind of relationship “Mike” had with Morningside. Maybe he was a courier who took a chance at something big. Maybe he was a plant. Maybe the whole thing was a front. The only way I was going to find out is by going there. But first, I had to get out Vulcan. Terry snuck in to the quarr y in the back of a work truck, so he has no ride out. The simplest thing would be for him to steal one of the workers cars, but what’s “simple” and what is “right” are often at odds. Terry is, fundamentally, a good person, and his Humanity of 7 makes such theft repugnant to him. To see if he carries through with it, he’ll...

A Simple Plan Scene 2 I got out of there as fast as I could. No one seemed to be pursuing me, and I'm not sure I blame them. I figure none of them understood what they had just seen, or why they were fighting. But, it’s not like they would just shake it off and think it was a hallucination or anything. They knew someone had been there. So, I was now screwed two ways. First, I hadn’t been able to get the files I had come here for. Two, they had seen me. Which is the biggest “no no” I can think of. I managed to make a nice mess of things, and I hadn’t even been able to figure anything out. I just wanted to get out there, crawl up back home, and put the night behind me. But as I was walking away—well, ok, creeping away—a thought hit me. What if they call the cops? What if I they had tapes? What if I had managed to screw up the Masquerade? And then I thought, what if they don’t call the cops? I knew whoever had hired me wanted information on...

A Simple Plan Scene One See, I wasn’t really sure what they were after, just that I had to get to it before “they” did. And I wasn’t even sure who “they” were, other than the lawyers. But I was sure they were a front, of some sort. Some were involved, probably, but I had no way of knowing who. Not then, at least. But, whatever, that’s not important. Yet. I had no idea how to get into the Vulcan facility, so I had to hitch a ride on one of their cement truck things. It went pretty well, got me all the way to their quarry. In through the gates, no problem. No one even thought of looking back there. Though, I suppose that’s not surprising. Have you ever been in one of those things? If it was on, or even kind of full, it would kill you. So, thanks to my brilliant plan, I was inside the gates. Of course, what I hadn’t thought about was that they don’t park the working vehicles near the office. The office gets the sedans and pickup trucks. The c...

A Simple Plan Prologue Winter was the best time of the year. When he was alive, Terry despised the winter. It was cold, and dark, and slick with snow and ice and the dirty sludge that covered the city after every storm. But ever since he died, winter had become the only time he felt even somewhat human. The cold didn’t bother him anymore, and he had seen far worse things than the filthy sludge. Even better, with his hood pulled up and a scarf covering his face, he could actually go out in public, and be around the happy, normal people who still had their lives ahead of them. He had slowly and carefully made his way to the park. The wounds were still raw, and would take time and blood to heal. But for tonight, there was nothing more he wanted to do than to be around people. They may not speak with him, the cold driving them to move quickly to their destinations. But he could be at least near them, as if he were one of them. And, fo...