Scott's Exit

What a change two months can make. The last time I saw Scott, he'd had a bad relapse and was a mess. Tonight...

I dunno. I think I liked the mess better.

"Hi kids," he said, as cool, cocky, and obnoxious as the day I first met him.

"That's not the way you start," Tom reminded him. "The traditional way is by saying, 'Hi, my name is Scott, and I'm—'"

"Bugger tradition," Scott said. "And maybe my name isn't Scott. And maybe I'm not even a were-anything."

Tom sighed heavily and started rubbing his forehead, as if he was suddenly developing a migraine. "Don't start this crap again, Scott."

"I told you, I'm not Scott. I'm Secret Agent Delta Tango Mango Foxtrot Alpha."

Hank boggled. "What? Did I miss something here?"

Tom sighed again. "Scott is convinced that we're all under surveillance. That we've got an informant in the group."

I laughed. "An informant? In a public meeting? That is just nuts."

"Strictly speaking," Scott said, "it's paranoid schizophrenia, with delusions of persecution." He shrugged.

"And sometimes it's the only rational response to the situation."

Hank shook his head. "Now I know I missed something. Geez, you go out of town for one weekend—"

"I don't know how you missed it," Scott said. "It was all over the frickin' news. The Department of Homeland Security is investigating possible links between ALPS and domestic terrorism. They think WCA meetings are being used as fronts for recruiting dangerous radicals."

"Ah," Tom said. "You get this stuff off the Internet, don't you? No, the DHS is looking for right-wing domestic terrorists."

Scott smiled, in that smug way I've come to hate. "You forget, kids. I've got friends inside DHS. That 'right-wing' memo everyone was buzzing about two weeks ago was just the cover story. The real deal is us. And when the head of DHS dropped that Freudian slip last week about screening people in airports for medical problems and then sending people on to their destructions, that was about us."

Hank shook his head. "No, you're confused, Scott. That was about Swine Flu."

"You can believe that if it makes you feel better, Hank, but there never was any Swine Flu. It was all just a dry run, to see how fast they could scare people into changing their lives just because of virus. You wait until the stories about the ALPS Pandemic start breaking next week."

Tim nodded. "Yeah! I knew it! That's why they're buying up silver!"

Tom sighed one more time, and then sat up straighter in his chair. "Okay Scott, I think we've heard enough. If you're not here tonight to be serious—"

Scott flashed on angry, for just a moment. "Oh, but I am serious. I am so frickin' serious you've never seen serious like this before." He turned to the rest of the group. "And strange as it seems, I've come to like some of you people in the course of the past year. A few of you I ever consider friends. And that's why I'm here tonight.

"Hank? You and your Michelle, you be careful. She's got Stoker's Disease. That's what my friends say the people inside the CDC are calling it now, and they're also working up a little thing called Project Molokai. Look it up. Some of what you'll find on it is true.

"The rest of you? They've coming for us, kids. And I for one don't intend to make it any easier for them. Which is why tonight is my last night here. And if you're smart, it'll be your last night, too."

And with that he turned and walked out, his thousand-dollar hand-made English shoes ticking across the floor like a time-bomb.

"Well," Tom said, at last. "That was... interesting. Okay, who's next?"