Plans, Plans, Plans - And Something (Hopefully) Funny)

[athersgeo]

Well, I took the first editing step on Shadow Games yesterday: I've booked four days off from work at the beginning of July. The intention is that I have the first draft finished by June 30th, then I'm not going to touch it for a few days (it's almost all I've been looking at since mid-March!), then I'll start the editing process, with the intent of having a second draft completed by July 9th.

All of which means between now and the end of June I have somewhere in the region of 25000 words to write! I need to get busy...

And now time for something completely different. I have absolutely no idea where this snippet came from and I have no idea where it's going to. The set up is as follows:

Not long after You Had Me From Hello, Frank Peterson shows up on Eric's doorstep to ask for Eric's help with something and Eric goes away for a couple of days. When he comes back...

Shaken Not Stirred

Eric stared at the two occupants of the room -- his office in point of fact -- in something that was rapidly switching from stunned shock to murderous rage.

With difficulty, he managed to restrain that rage enough to say, "What the hell is going on here?"

The two occupants jumped. They hadn't even heard him enter the office, so engrossed had they been in each other.

From behind him a soft voice muttered, "Oh shit."

Eric rounded on the speaker. "It's your husband and my wife playing tonsil hockey and all you can say is 'oh shit'?" he exploded. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

The speaker, Jen, closed the office door, the expression on her face so completely at odds with what they'd both walked in on that Eric felt the first suspicion that this wasn't entirely what it seemed, despite what his eyes were showing him.

"Eric, it's not what it looks like," said Wes.

"So you weren't just sticking your tongue half way down Kim's throat?" Eric snapped.

"I'm not Kim," said Kimberly.

Before Eric could say a word, Jen put in, "I am."

Eric looked from Wes to Jen to Kimberly and back again. "OK. All three of you have lost your fucking minds! Either that or I'm going to kill Peterson when whatever the fuck it is he's given me wears off."

"Option c," said Jen. "Peterson hasn't given you anything and we're all perfectly sane." She smiled wryly. "Despite what it looks like."

Eric closed his eyes and slowly counted to ten. Now that he was past the first flush of shock brought on by the apparent sight of Wes and Kimberly kissing, there was enough about this situation that didn't add up, not the least of which was the fact that -- at least in their right minds -- neither Wes nor Kimberly would do that to him, or to Jen.

Quietly, he said, "All right. Just saying I'm not whacked out on whatever Peterson's newest toy happens to be and that you three haven't completely lost it, what the hell is going on?"

"Eric, hon," said Jen, "you might want to be sitting down for the explanations."

There was a long, awkward pause as everyone took up seats. Eric was more than a little disconcerted by how close to him Jen opted to sit -- and probably even more disconcerted by the fact that Kimberly was almost sitting in Wes' lap. Then, finally, Wes began,

"This all started with Mike Zaskin getting curious."

"I wasn't aware Zaskin could 'get' any more curious," Eric observed.

"It would be my fault," said Jen. "Alice is transferring into Holly Zaskin's class at Northfield Elementary...honey pleased don't look at me as if I crawled out from under a rock," she added as Eric stared at her, "I did tell you about that last week."

"Uh," said Wes, "I think this might not be the best time to have that sort of conversation, Kim -- maybe when things are all fixed?"

Eric pinched the bridge of his nose and counted to ten again. "All right. Please, just cut the side stuff and get to the point, before I decide to check myself into the nearest asylum."

"All right." Jen sighed in exasperation. "And here's me thinking this explanation would be easier with us being adults," she muttered. Louder, she said, "The thing of it is, I told Zaskin about something that happened back when I was a Ranger. And he decided to work on the problem."

"The problem?" Eric echoed, trying to ignore the concept of 'back when I was a Ranger' -- which only made sense if he actually went along with the idea that Kimberly and Jen had swapped bodies.

"Mike Zaskin decided it was a good idea to resurrect the idea of thought transfer apparatus," said Wes. "No," he added as Eric opened his mouth, "don't ask me why he thought that could possibly be a good idea."

"I was going to say I think I'm stuck in some bad sci-fi B movie," Eric retorted.

"And you've only just walked into it," said Wes, not without sympathy. "Believe me, you've got the better end of this deal -- this has been going on for the last two days."

Eric blinked. "Two days?" Wes nodded. "What's been going on for two days?"

"This," said Kimberly.

"And this is...?"

"Oh God you can be so dense sometimes, Eric Myers," Jen muttered, almost tone for tone matching something Kimberly had said to him just before Frank Peterson had shown up with a 'plan'.

Eric did a double take. That was just too much. "You really are Kim."

'Jen' rolled her eyes. "Yes. And the person over there -- who you caught kissing Wes -- really is Jen."

Eric looked across at Wes, who was shaking his head in sympathy. "Does it help if you bang your head against a brick wall?"

"Well it makes it go away for a little while," Wes agreed.

"That's starting to sound appealing." Eric pinched the bridge of his nose again. "From the beginning, does someone want to tell me what the hell is going on?"