I found

a story I started a LONG time ago while I was poking through some old floppy disks. I like it a lot - mostly from Katie's pov - and I kind of want to continue it, but I don't remember where I was going to go with it.

“A little to the left," Katie Hitchcock told the feet sticking out of the power conduit. "Down…" She regarded her SEAPOC, then kicked one of the sneakered feet. "Stop screwing around," she said tersely. They had been at this all day, and she was beginning to lose her patience. And I thought working on the Stinger was hard, she thought, tapping in a code onto the handheld computer module. At least then it was something we both wanted to be doing.

"I'm not screwing around," came the voice of the owner of the feet. Lucas Wolenczak, too, sounded tired and fed-up, and was probably rolling his eyes at her. Katie was just glad she wasn't able to see him and his various expressions of disgust. She and the teenager had been recruited to work on re-routing power lines in and around the Mag-Lev, so it didn't eat up so much power from the main units. Why they had waited until close to the end of the tour to do so, Katie wasn't sure. It wasn't as though a lot of power was being sucked from the main cells, but just enough for the captain to notice it. Just enough for him to send her on a mission. She had been skeptical about having Lucas as her partner once again, until she found he was the only one who could easily fit in the conduits, and he was the only one on the science or engineering team who had been willing to dangle from the ceiling of the Mag-Lev tunnel to do the main re-wiring. If all went well, they'd get to the tunnel itself tonight. They would, if Lucas would just wire the right sequence.

"Then what are you doing?" Katie asked, trying hard not to sound impatient. She tried to be as nice to Lucas as possible; after all, he was much younger than she, and she had heard rumors… But sometimes he was so difficult it was hard to keep her cool. Like now: she was quite certain he was messing around, simply to irk her. "And could you hurry it up? I want to get the tunnel at least started tonight."

There was some generic grumbling from the conduit, and finally, Lucas scooted out on his stomach and got to his feet, wiping the grease and grime on his hands onto his shirt, then running his still-dirty hands across his face, leaving a trail of grease across his cheeks and forehead. His blonde hair was even more disheveled than usual, and his blue eyes were slightly glassy from staring at the small wires for the better part of the day. "You happy, Commander?" He asked, putting the needle-nosed pliers back in his tool-belt. Katie shot him a sarcastic smile, and together, they put the panel back on the conduit. "Into the tunnel?" Lucas asked.

Katie simply nodded.


"It's too tight," Lucas complained, pulling at the harness around his waist and abdomen. He had liked the thought of going up in the harness to work with the wiring in the Mag-Lev tunnel, but Katie had said nothing about cutting off his circulation.

"You want to fall out?" Katie snapped back, pulling at the strapping across the teen's back. Part of her wished Lucas would fall out, that would shut him up, at least. Katie scolded herself for having such a thought, but then consoled herself by figuring everyone on the boat must have had some sort of variation of it at some point or another.

Lucas scowled at her, even as she pulled the ropes to hoist him up. She tied off the end on the rail 10 feet below him, and stepped back, opening her SEAPOC. "Mag-Lev's turned off in the section, right?" Lucas asked, trying to push the apprehension out of his voice. It would not do to be in the tunnel when the Mag-Lev came roaring through.

Katie nodded distractedly, and Lucas twisted around in the harness to see her. "Just toss the panel down here," she told him as he pried off the conduit cover. The ropes creaked as Lucas shifted, and he threw down the panel, which landed with a sharp metallic clang on the rails below. "Now you're going to want to re-route the main drive to the secondary propulsion systems… need the numbers?"

"Nope," Lucas replied, reaching up and pulling himself half-way into the conduit. Again, the ropes creaked, and Lucas had to swallow his sudden nervousness. Nothing would happen, he assured himself. He was completely safe. Katie was there and...

Lucas dropped out of the conduit to grab another tool. The force of his drop, and the sudden pressure of his entire body weight pulling on the ropes was a bit too much. The main line snapped, and to Katie's horror, Lucas plunged onto the rails below. There was a sickening thud, and Katie heard an audible crack of what she hoped was just Lucas' SEAPOC. "Oh shit," she muttered, and ran to his side, kneeling down and feeling for a pulse. It was then she saw the odd angle at which his head was resting, and suddenly she realized that her off-handed wish had come true.

It goes on for about eight more pages. I may continue it.

The boy is posting a Silent Hill/sQ crossover on the ELF list. I should probably have told him to put a warning at the beginning of it, given that Tony and Lonnie have sex during it, which is...well... odd, to say the least.

I dropped my tapes off to get converted today. I should have them by Wednesday. Yay!!

No Matter

how hard I try, I can't seem to d/l episodes from Kazaa.