Visit Home II—No Picnic

by H. A. Titus - 

"Hey, boss." Reeder poked his head into the cramped office.

Darcy raised one groomed eyebrow. "Make it quick, Reeder."

"Look, I gotta go topside for a while. Family stuff." He hoped Darcy wouldn't ask exactly what kind of 'family stuff'. People generally got creeped out when he told them about his brother's…disease…even when Reeder didn't mention that he thought Danyel was possessed.

Darcy sighed, shuffled through the stacks of paper on his desk. He tapped his computer screen. "I don't know. I don't have many people to fill your shifts."

"Please? It's kind of an emergency." He hated how he sounded on the verge of begging.

"Is someone sick?"

"Yeah, my brother. He's not doing well at all." Not a lie. Not a whole truth, either.

Darcy sighed. "All right. And before you go—" He flicked a message at him. "One more delivery for the wizard Galileo. The sender specifically asked for you. Have fun on your trip."

Reeder glanced at the address. Galileo, Wizard's District, in the same writing as the last time. "Oh yeah. It'll be a real picnic."

Delivered

by H. A. Titus -

This was the thirteenth door he'd knocked on.

Reeder took a deep breath and rapped the door with his knuckles. He knew that the wizards could hear him. He could hear the knocks echoing around in the hollow space behind the door, just as it had behind all the other doors.

As he waited for an answer—not that he expected one, there had been no answers at the other doors he'd tried—he looked down at the square of folded paper he held.

Galileo, Wizard's District was written in wiry, slanted letters.

"No address, no directions—serve him right if I up and dumped it somewhere," Reeder muttered under his breath.

He looked up, prepared to knock again. A thick brown face fringed with a static-y mop of yellow-white hair stared at him from two inches away, if that.

Reeder yelped and jumped back.

The man's fingers twined around his arm and jerked him inside the room. Reeder flinched as the slamming door brushed his heels.

The wizard poked his face close again. "Got a message for me?"

"You—you're Galileo?"

"Wouldn't have opened the door if I wasn't," the old man snapped.

Reeder thrust out the letter. The wizard grabbed it, stuffed a handful of credits into Reeder's hand, and shoved him back out the door, nearly taking off Reeder's nose as he slammed it again.

Reeder stared at the acid-splattered metal. "You're welcome."