My Own Worst Enemy
A Crossover Adventure starring W.i.t.c.h.
By: A J
Standard Disclaimer applies, please dont sue.
Chapter 2
Welcome back, Agent Lin.
What in the name of Candracar? Hay looked at that sentence, dumbfounded.
After a full minute of just staring, she got an even bigger shock. The black background slowly resolved into a grey-on-black version of the United States Seal, like an old photograph of the floor of the Presidents office. Hay gulped as the words of the Seal turned yellow to match her greeting, still at the top. Then a new line of text appeared under it.
No new assignments. Current Agent status: Family Sick Leave. Would you like to update your status?
Hay Lin felt sick, alright. Just seeing that line made her realize the site getting her name right wasnt just a neat hackers trick to make the site cooler. No amount of hacking could have told a pack of random net-nerds that the whole Lin family was currently rallied around Yan Lin, trying to help her grandmother get over a lasting cold that kept threatening to turn into pneumonia. She reached forward warily, as if just touching the computer could lead to something worse, and typed No, then pressed enter.
She sat there with her head in her hands, fighting off impending shivers, as the site replied. Request acknowledged. A few more seconds crawled by, then, Next check-in at twenty-two hundred in three days.
Hay Lin gulped again, her golden skin g greying as she paled. What had she stumbled into? Her brain whirring, she typed in the only thing she kept coming back to, a phrase that had stuck as something to look up at the site after the show.
Mission reports she typed, and hit send. Damned for the hen as much as the egg, she thought. The old proverb, which even in her mind sounded like her grandma Yan was saying it, made her giggle, despite the situation.
Mission date or Report number? the cursed thing sprang back with.
Hoping she wasnt completely busting herself, she took a gamble the site was like a lot of e-mail server pages, and typed in First.
The little light on her modem went nuts for a moment, and Hay thought, Thats it, Ive had it. Theyre electronically tagging me for extraction and elimination as I wait here ..
*BEEP!*
She jumped. She couldnt help it, her nerves were wound so tight at this point. With dread, she looked at the screen. Now white with a faint image of the grey Seal still in the middle, the screen looked like it was displaying a form letter from some anonymous government agency. Except
No government agency employed Joan Meiying Reese (Lin, Hay added in her own head, then giggled if a touch hysterically – when she realized her mother had given Hay M. Lin her middle name.) That brought her back to the page in front of her. Thinking fast, she did a text-capture, logged off, and saved the file as Wow!#1. Then she ran for the bathroom, but whether to pee or to puke even she wasnt sure.
When she came out several minutes later, her mother was just getting to the top of the stairs. Whew! The late crowd finally went home! Now we can relax for the rest of the night Joan Lins voice trailed off as her daughter gave her the strangest look. Whats the matter, Hay-hay? The young woman turned to look in the hallway mirror at the top of the landing. Egg or flower somewhere? No, or sauce either … She turned back, and her daughter was now giving her one of her widest, silliest smiles.
Its nothing, muqin. I just I started my you know Hay Lin made vague gestures towards the lower half of her abdomen. It was enough.
Ah! That. All right then. Ill remember to pick up some more womens supplies at the store tomorrow. They were right when they said women in the same house tend to get synchronized. The rest of us cant be far behind, then. Hay just nodded guiltily, and scurried back into her room. Her period wasnt due for another week.
Pleading homework burnout, she shut the door on any extra conversation and turned her light off. Shed never lied to her mother before. At least not like that, and never if it wasnt Guardian-related. Hay had long since come up with a series of humorous sports anecdotes she could whirl off at a moments notice to appease her parents for any bruises she might bring home in the course of a days work Guarding the Infinite Dimensions. But shed never lied to her mother about normal life. What did it mean?
Face it, Hay, your life just got as far from normal as possible, she thought back in self-answer. She looked back at her computer, where the saved file was still waiting, minimized on her taskbar. Suddenly furious, she walked over, shut down her Lappy, and flung herself on her bed. The girls are never gonna believe me
Hay Lin sat bolt upright. The girls couldnt know. The girls could never know. She wished she didnt know. Everything was such a jumble in her head that, by the time she got to sleep, she had dream-mares. They mixed up the show, her life as a Guardian, and going on missions with her mother until finally she woke up with a start to the false dawn of the first school day after Fall-back. She felt like she hadnt slept at all in years.