It's Just The Way We Are When We Come Down.

[BIAD]

As the MASH ambulance slowly turned around to begin it's reversing towards the four-foot high
wooden bay, Colonel Bevan eyed the two sweating scientists frantically failing to assist the puzzled
driver in guiding the red dust-covered vehicle into position.

"They should stick to their test tubes" the middle-aged man in the dark-blue uniform muttered to
himself from the window of his office, the base had been open two years and this new arrival wasn't
what the place was built for.

Kirtland -as it now had been decided to call it, was for flight training and as far as Colonel George
Bevan was concerned, the newly installed 19th Bombardment Group was his priority. There was still
a war to win regardless of what these scientists were messing around with.

"We've taken back Guadalcanal..." the other man in the room said softly. "...And they're saying the
Brits have Tobruk" Captain James Ramey added. The silhouette at the small wooden-framed window
never moved at the information and the younger man in the fawn-coloured apparel wondered if he
should also inform his superior of what the Professor Levinson and Dr. Coleman had requested.

The ambulance grinded it's gears as it pulled away from the hanger bay and the large metal container
it had brought to airfield near Albuquerque, New Mexico, was dragged towards the open doors by
three maintenance men. Bevan smiled to himself as he noticed the white-coated boffins didn't take
part in the physical action.

"Did they say where they got it from?" the statue at the office window asked in a low growl and Ramey
resisted the urge to check the file in his hand. Colonel Bevan had been given the documents two weeks
ago and with a quick glance, Captain Ramey saw them still on the side of the desk.
Where he'd left them.

"Professor Levenison reported that they found it in the desert just south of Soccorro, a couple of days
after the cosmic ray burst..." Capt. Ramey announced. "...The equipment they used is all burnt out"
The hanger doors were closed now and just as a theatre's stage curtain indicates that a play is over,
Colonel Bevan turned away from his entertainment.

"I don't want it here, but 'upstairs' demands we pander to these eggheads..." Bevan hissed and reached
for his service cap. "...Let's take a look at this creature that Levinson and his cronies hold so much store
in, heh?"
....................................

The subject held both male and female attributes and after two meticulous examinations, Dr. Todd Coleman
was initially certain the naked humanoid laying quietly on the operating table had no organs of vision or hearing.
As a couple of assistants busied themselves getting the creature to stand, the Doctor scribbled his findings
into the leather binder marked 'Classified'

Female breasts and male reproductive genitalia. Normal human features except for eyes and ear lobes.
Face partially covered with long fringe and regular teeth formation and lips. Digits on feet and hands similar
to humans.

Standing six feet tall and a hundred and sixty-eight pounds, the being was a tanned caucasian with a mop
of jet-black hair that reached the subject's waist. The hue was reminiscent of the Native American race and
from the way the assistants were seemingly becoming entangled with the long tresses, the Doctor amused
himself that it had the appearance of having a life of it's own.
Scratch that, the hair now reached the subject's ankles.

"May I speak?" a pleasant voice came from over Coleman's shoulder as he wrote his findings and quickly
whirling around, he found that the two attendants were bound and gagged within the black fibres that flicked
and implied finger movements in the nagative towards the wide-eyed captives.

""I mean, I don't wish to alarm anyone with my behavior, but I just think we should we have some type of civil
introduction" the smiling creature suggested. "Don't you agree?" he chirped.

Dr. Coleman nodded slowly and tapped the alarm button next to his file, the loud klaxon sang that Boy In A
Dress was in the building... without a dress, of course.

(To be Continued)

[BIAD]

As the rain came again and began to refill the puddle that lay outside his office. Colonel George Bevan stared
out of the wooden-framed window into the New Mexico evening and pondered what the scientist was saying.
The security lights along the facility fences blinked on just as they had the previous night and the forty-three year
old Commander of the base sighed softly to himself and turned away from the late-November scenery.

Professor Levinson, sitting on the other side of his desk looked gaunt, the thin-framed man hadn't slept since
he came up this crazy idea and now, his tired, paper-white features were evidence that his theory was having
an effect on him.
"Then you do it..." Levinson said quietly, taking off his spectacles to clean them "...you tell me what you did last
week"

Colonel Bevan raised an eyebrow and offered a dubious look over his shoulder, "I think you and your people
may have been working too hard" he said and settled himself into his own chair. To the Colonel, Levinson's
theory wasn't has crazy as it sounded, he had heard such things before. The only disappointment for the
clipped-moustached military-career man was that the boffin in the white coat before him hadn't arrived at
the obvious conclusion by himself.

"Back in Saipan, we had guys who fought for eight days straight and during our push to a place called
'Hell's Pockets' we had a whole battalion come down with the same ailment you're dealing with, Proff..."
Bevan held out both hands to show he was accommodating. "...it's called fatigue"

There was a slight dimming of the lights for a moment and after the bulb above them went back to it's full
incandescence, Bevan spoke again.
"I've got people up at Los Alamos screaming for your 'pet' for their own experiments and frankly, I'm running
out of excuses to keep it here. They want me to hand it over"

The skinny man in the weave-faded lab coat sighed and decided to try once more.
"I can understand your impatience Colonel, but it's just that within the last two months, we've noticed this
phenomena and we're at a loss at what is causing it. All the readings, the data... all of it seems to be... to be,
well... fading away!"

Colonel Bevan offered a comical look of 'Oh My, what are we to do?' and then quickly changed his features
to show his true emotion, anger. "This facility is for war-time training..." he hissed "...and you've spent thousands
of dollars on machinery and God-knows-what, money that could've gone on helping our guys overseas"

Professor Albert Levinson frowned and began to rise from the hard-backed seat, but the man who had been
in forces for all of his adult life stopped him in his tracks. "Sit down" Colonel Bevan said easily, but the tone
of command that lay just beneath the surface of the request didn't go unnoticed by the scientist.

"Look, it's almost 1945 and the Germans are beat..." the man in the dark-blue uniform said with a fake-tone
of understanding. "...Roosevelt is back in for another term and he's looking for a way to end this damned-thing
in the Pacific once and for all"
A pregnant pause of five seconds sat between them.

"Whatever you have there in that room you've had for two years now..." Bevan continued and smiled in the way
a person does when they have another person over a barrel. Most carnivores can do it. "...You prodded it, poked
it and now you have it wearing a dress!" he snapped and for some unknown emphasis, moved his pen from one
side of the desk to the other.
"Find out how it works, replicate the evidence and maybe we can finish the war" he growled and opened the file
on his desk.

The documents were stamped 'Classified' and were about the other experiments going on up at Los Alamos.
"Get some rest and for God's sake, stop calling it Boy In A Dress" Bevan said with an exasperated tone and
quickly closed the brown-paper binder.

Albert looked up at the large map of New Mexico that covered most of the office wall next to the window and
wondered if he would go through all of this again tomorrow night. He was sure he'd done it before.
.....................................

"Time is a funny thing..." Boy In A Dress said to the nice lady who had provided him with the red dress two years
ago. Mrs. Coleman was the only female allowed on the base due to her husband's position and the fact that she
could make really scrumptious muffins.

Every Tuesday morning, the slightly overweight woman with the nice smile and the tight-curled hair would make
sure that the sentry at the Main Gate and the any lucky serviceman that happened to cross her route to the hanger
that her husband called 'The Lab' -were kitted out with a delicious cake.

"...We hold so-much store in it and yet, it doesn't love us back" BIAD mumbled and went back to focusing on the
sweet-tasting paper-cupped food. The glass walls of the Man-Girl's confines had only one door and a small
two-way drawer made of plastic. It was this that the muffin had come through on.

As the two miliary guards standing either-side of the main doors of the warehouse tucked into their own individually
scrounged goodie and ignored the busy woman wiping down the tables near where the weird prisoner was being
contained, Edith Coleman asked the question she'd been dying to ask since being allowed onto the facility.

Professor Levinson and three other academics were over on the far-side of the hanger going over paperwork and
only occasionally, sipping the coffee she had made for them. There was another guard who was standing a few yards
from the grumbling scientists that looked bored with assignment and seemed to find a great interest in something
lodged in his left nostril.

Edith's husband was away visiting a fellow-scientist that had just moved into the State and was heavily involved in
something called 'DNA' If the ever-optimistic woman's memory was correct, his name was Shaw and he lived near
Corona.

"Mr. Dress...?" Edith whispered without looking at the strange being with the long fringe, the table was clean but she
kept on wiping it. Without lessening his attention on the muffin, that long-haired prisoner sitting on the floor of the glass
cell whispered back "call me BIAD"
Edith smiled at the damp cloth in her hand and asked her query.

"Who are you?"

(To be Continued)

[BIAD]

Dr. Todd Coleman arrived home around 8.30 that night and as Edith stood at the sink washing the plate
from her husband's supper, she thought about her life and how she'd arrived at where she now stood.
The man who she'd married nine years ago sat snoozing beside the only item of furniture they had brought
with them from their first home in Idaho, a bureau-sized radiogram.

A low-volumed programme called 'The Eternal Light' murmured in from the front-room that was occasionally
disturbed by a soft snore from Dr. Coleman, a sound that unconsciously drew a smile from the nearly-thirty
year-old woman in the kitchen.

The winter hadn't fully set itself in yet and as Edith reflected on Boy In A Dress and his words from earlier,
she gazed past the small dark rock on the window ledge and out at the cold evening in a similar manner that
Colonel Bevan was doing at that very same moment back at the base.

She missed Idaho and it's cooler air. Edith had always loved her hometown of Boise and when her father
had told her that they had to move to Milan when she was four years-old, Edith had hid her disappointment
and promised herself that one day, she'd return.

Who'd have thought that after fifteen years of exile, she would have stood outside of Falks Department Store
on Boise Main street on her first day back in the States and after pondering the 'Last Chance Sale' sticker on
a large radiogram, Edith had turned and bumped into the man that was now sleeping in the next room.

A month later, the up-and-coming physicist had asked for her hand in marriage and three months after that,
they had bought a small house in a street called 'Kirtland Lane'... the same name as the Air Base where her
husband worked now.

The smiling Man-Girl with the long hair had spoken of synchronicity and how its tentacles touched us all and
Edith had to agree that life certainly did seem to have a pattern. ""Oh you have no idea, my friend" BIAD had
said and giggled then.

Her only brother James Jnr, who worked in England for the war effort, had recently returned to Italy in his lofty
position as Commander of something called 'Unit Z' and Edith smiled again as she imagined her wiry-framed
brother's new office door sporting their family name.
Angleton.
....................................

"I have no name..." Boy In A Dress said softly through the plate-glass. "...Titles are what humans use" he added
and tilted his blind-head to indicate that he hoped the open-mouthed woman would understand.
"But I will let you in on a secret, my fine muffin-maker" BIAD whispered and curled a long crimson-nailed finger
to draw Edith Coleman nearer.

Professor Levinson was shouting again and it seemed that his theory of 'Ghost-Files' was becoming more
prominent than ever. "It was here...!" he roared and pushing his thumb-smudged spectacles back up his pinched
-nose, he leaned over the table on the far-side of the hanger and scattered papers everywhere.
Even Watkins, the nose-picking sentry came out of his semi-stupor of boredom at the scientist's action.

"...I read it this morning and placed the documents back into this blue folder" Albert said between fuming gasps
and brandished the empty sheath above his head. The three assistants emulated Edith's puzzled features and
waited for the tirade to be over.

They'd also noticed that the many documents compiled during the evaluation of the creature had been going
missing. The only difference was they thought that their superiors had them.
Levinson glared at Munson, Peters and Johnson. "This is going to stop and from now on, I'll check every evening
that they're all here and heads will roll if any of them are missing" Albert hissed.

BIAD smiled at the vociferation going on across the far-side of the hanger, but kept his face towards the woman
on the other side of the glass. "Some will call me the Devil..." he breathed "...and some will think I'm from
another planet, yet both will be wrong"
Edith Coleman's eyes widened as she fell into the smiling face of the hermaphrodite of the silicon cage.

As she leaned closer, she was sure she could smell onion flowers that used to grow along the
river back at Biose. The tall cedars that kept the wind from coming down to the where the boulders
met the water, swayed as if to say that they agreed that she should come here again.
The bluebells along the slender unpaved track nodded their consent that today was a magical day
for the young Edith Angleton to be here.

"This world is slipping and there are forces at work to send it another way, we cannot allow that. Can we Edith?"
he continued and waited for the woman to agree with his suggestion. BIAD knew he wouldn't have much time to
pull this off and he really needed that Dragon stone.

The pungent aroma of the onion flowers swirled around her as she passed under a naturally-formed
lychgate that implied a doorway from her world to another. Yet, just like the bluebells, Edith nodded
and followed the little path towards where someone wearing the same coloured attire as herself waited.

Rooks cawed from the high trees and the small girl in the dark-red dress knew that it was wrong to
disobey her father's warnings about being near the river, but she had to go there... she had to listen
to the smiling stranger.
The dissipating foam formed happy faces across the Boise river's surface as Edith quickened her pace
towards where Boy In A Dress waited.

The Man-Girl glanced again at the other people in the room and saw the bored sentry and the two military men
standing at the hanger door weren't looking this way. The Professor was instructing the trio of assistants on how
to file the silly paperwork and there it was, nobody was watching.

"I can leave here any time Edith, but this world doesn't work that way..." BIAD said to the mesmerised Mayoress
of Muffin County, "...I need a gift to assist me, a gift that only you can provide" he added and allowed his hair to
sway rhythmically.

Edith watched as Boy In A Dress leaned against the boulder that -if you squint, looked a bit like her
brother's sad face when he used to read his poetry to her. The likeness caught Edith off-guard for a
moment as she stood waiting for the taller Man-Girl to ask his request.

"There's a type of stone that I need, Edith... a rock that you call 'Lodestone' and it's very important to me" the
whispering BIAD told the hypnotised creator of the gorgeous cakes. "You can find this for me, you can save the
world" he cooed softly and suddenly looked up at the silhouettes at the hanger door.
Bevan and his underling.

Edith turned her head to follow where Boy In A Dress' blood-red-nailed finger was pointing and there,
under the calm waters, swaying weed roiled and twisted with unknown torment. The sky was still blue,
yet the colour failed to transmit to the surface of the Boise and as Edith leaned further to examine
something that she thought she'd spotted among the weed, those young eyes widened as she saw the
reflection of a uniformed man behind her.

"What the hell is going on here?!" Colonel Bevan boomed and the loud query drove any magical influences away like
Rooks roosting in a tree-top. The serious-looking man stormed forward and for a moment, left Capt. Ramey standing
with the sentries.

BIAD stepped back from the glass and watched as the Colonel ripped into everyone who was there. If it was a contest
of who could shout the loudest, an adjudicator would be hard-pressed to decide between Bevan's outrage of the
facility's failing security and Albert Levinson's rant at a conspiratorial plot to steal the information he and his fellow
academics had collated.

Watkins, the bored nose-picking guard got some of the rage and the remaining trio of assistants accepted the rest.
By the time the point-scoring had stopped and the Colonel was ready to speak to the woman who had ignored all the
protocols her husband had been warned about when he first came here, Edith had gone.

"She's not allowed on this side of the Base, you got that...?" George Bevan warned and tossed a rage-dripping glance
at the lanky guard near the table covered with papers. Watkins gulped, saluted and drew a sigh of exasperation from
his superior.

Jamming his chin out and checking that the knot of his tie was straight, Colonel Bevan added "...And get this mess
cleaned up, no wonder you're losing paperwork" and mentally chalking a bonus point on his imaginary blackboard,
he marched back towards the Hanger doors with a silent James Ramey in-tow.
....................................

Edith sighed softly and placed the dried plate back into the cupboard above the draining sink. The ticking clock with
the black cat's whiskers told her it was time to wake her husband and get him to bed. It was another working day
tomorrow and they had a war to win.

Without looking, she took the black stone she'd found (was it in the water...? she couldn't recall) -from the window
ledge and switched the kitchen light off. In the back of her mind, she wondered if a chocolate cake along with the
muffins would be a good idea on her next visit to the Base.
There was a war to win.

(To be Continued)

[BIAD]

The woman with the colourful pointy hat on her head stifled a burp and shooed the feeling of
drowsiness away, midnight wasn't here yet and she wanted to see out New Year's Eve before
she succumb to a drink-fuelled oblivion.

Marion breathed deeply through her nose and wondered if she had volunteered for a stint in
England, would she have been doing the same thing in a draughty barracks on New Year's Eve
with the only difference that she'd have been with her friend, Janet?
'I should've gone' Marion thought and moved away from the unfolded tressle laden with bottles,
a keg of beer and a large metal pot of homemade punch.

She was a long way from home, Vermont would be a snowy kingdom now and for a Northerner,
seeing in the new year from a southwestern desert was something she'd never imagined.
Marion's parents will be asleep now and her hometown of Middlebury would be no different.
Lively celebrations are for Burlington and maybe Essex, but the conservative home town of
Marion Stiles did not engage in such late-night frivolity.

The wooden-walled hut was only a quarter-full now as most the scientists who had actually come
to the party had decided to call it a night and get back to their families. Kurt Johnson's girlfriend
was passed out in the far corner of the barracks and two other women from the Women's Army
Corps were slumped together next to the large keg of beer parked on the tressle, their subdued
carol-singing left a lot to be desired.

Kurt -himself, was busy in discussion with two guys that Marion guessed he worked with and
letting her gaze track along the far-wall of the forty-or-so foot long room, she arrived at a poster
reminding her to continue to keep secrets.

"Let'sh hope 1945 will be a better year, huh?" a slurred voice asked and Marion unconsciously
straightened the gaudy head-wear as she turned to see who was speaking to her. The thin man
in the white coat stared back sheepishly and raised an almost-empty chunky glass in the effort
to greet her.
"My name'sh Albert, I work here..." he mumbled and cracked a weird smile to show that he wasn't
as drunk as she thought he was. "...I am a shientish" he added.

Kirtland Base was going through a transition period. The Flight Training Centre had been really
ramped-up in it's instruction and there seemed an air of solemn seriousness had crept into the
facility without anyone truly knowing why.

The Powers-That-Be had tightened it's security after it was discovered that a wife of one of the
scientists had been visiting the facility and actually entered an area marked for Authorised-Only.
The clamp-down had really been put in place when the same woman -so Marion had heard in
the Canteen, had turned up a week later at the restricted hanger with a chocolate cake and a plate
of muffins!

From the gossip she'd overheard in the Mess Hall, there was an altercation and whatever the
Military were doing over in Hanger 18, was to be halted and moved up to Los Alamos sometime
in February of next year.

Marion surveyed the man in front of her and guessed this was Professor Levinson who had been
working in that particular building. She'd seen him around the Base before and knew he could
pull some weight around here.

"I'm Marion Stiles, Auxiliary Third Class..." she said warily and urged a small-smile to show she
willing to tolerate the man's drunken demeanour -at least for a small amount if time. "...How do you
do?" she added and resisted the urge to 'clink' her glass with his.

The bespectacled man grinned and devoured the whisky in one gulp and the weak smile from
Marion wavered as she pondered how to leave the situation without giving the impression she
wanted to. "It's been quite a party, hasn't it?" she lamely put forward.

Albert Levinson stared blankly through the glass lenses and over his empty receptacle of the same
material. After two seconds of deliberation, he nodded. "Oh yesh... it's been very exciting" he slowly
murmured with a hint of sarcasm that was lost on the young woman.

Marion kept the polite smile on her face but turned slightly to see if there was anyone else available
to possibly palm-off the inebriated man onto, this sort of behavior would certainly be frowned-on in the
little town of her birth -she thought to amuse herself.

"Do you wanna shee what they're stealin' from me...?" Levinson slurred, "...Why the balloon went up?"
he quietly imparted with a wide grin. "We have a shecret and I'm apparently not qualified to deal wish
it" A thin finger appeared and tapped a nose that rivalled it's slenderness.
"Would you like to shee an alien?"
....................................

"I'm sorry Sir, this is a restricted area" the faint male voice said from the darkness near the Hanger
door. Boy In A Dress looked up from his musings and scanned the blackness in front of him.
Someone was at the door and the two armed guards waiting there were stopping somebody that
BIAD perceived as Levinson and an unknown female from entry.

The usual smile widened as he 'felt' that the scientist had enjoyed the New Year's Eve celebrations
a little too much. "This is my facility..." Levinson ranted "...you have no right!" and began a garbled
tirade about how the military were a force that were aligned with evil.

"If you only knew what true evil was, my dear drunken intellectual" BIAD whispered to nobody and
raised his hand to check his only possession was in place. The lodestone was deep in his cleavage
and the cautious Man-Girl knew that even the most eager of guards that searched him and his cell
once-a-week, would falter when it came to investigating that area of his body.

The comedy of how he had acquired the dark magnetite was almost as funny as the behavior of
the guards who checked his room daily. One soldier would stand at the door and aim a rifle at the
standing prisoner's head whilst another would quickly pat parts of Boy In A Dress' body.

With his hands on this head, BIAD would wait patiently and monitor how the embarrassed recruits
would avert their eyes from the revelation of what happens when a short dress is pulled upwards due
to their detainee's stance.
It was comical to say the least.

When the endearing Edith Coleman had arrived at the Hanger in the early morning two weeks ago,
she had passed around the slices of chocolate cake and muffins and it seemed everyone was in a
good mood. Then the angry Colonel had appeared again.

The exchange had been loud and almost violent, Dr. Todd Coleman had been there and as a guard
as moved to physically to remove the Doctor's wife from the building, the small man with the easy
smile had lunged at the soldier. BIAD recalled how Albert Levinson had also ran to the aid of his
fellow-academic.

And while the men were spraying their testosterone at each other, Edith and calmly turned away
and headed for the glass enclosure. Colonel Bevan barked at his men to stop her, but they failed
to halt the dreamy-eyed woman from dropping a muffin into the plastic slide-tray.

"GET THAT OFF IT NOW!" Bevan had screamed and the guard who had been pushing Coleman
back with his firearm raced towards where BIAD was now sitting beside the two-way device and
plucking the cake from the tray.

The Man-Girl tore off a piece of the spongy muffin, dropped it in his mouth and stuck his tongue out
the man carrying the most braid. "The rest is a gift for you" he mouthed and knew the Colonel had
registered the silent comment, the damaged muffin lay once again in the see-through drawer.

Even though BIAD's face was mostly covered with a long black fringe, the fuming commander of
Kirtland Air Base knew that he was staring at something that held no respect for his position as
a leader or a human being. And he hated it.
The saving-grace was Bevan knew that the grinning-monster chewing on the cake was destined for
a destruction that nobody had ever imagined, not even the mixed-gender anomaly across from him.

The muffin had been taken away, the rest of Edith's edible gifts had gone also. Bevan ordered a
shut-down of the warehouse and a doubling of guards. "It's over" were his last words as he left and
every civilian were hurriedly escorted from Hanger 18.

BIAD stood at the glass wall and pushing the chunk of rock that had been concealed in the muffin 
-into the side of his mouth, he nodded his gratitude at the smiling woman looking back.

Now, the grin stayed as Boy In A Dress stood up and stepped away from the corner of his glass cell,
he thought again about how his appearance as a male and female seemed to always make the
uniformed men -and probably all humans, uncomfortable.

But wasn't the goal of Alchemy to seek a united point of any duality...? Didn't they understand that
true understanding lies within the wrappings of a combined male and female?
In one of his jaunts, he'd actually seen a rendering from a nice man called the Count of Saint-Germain
where the reason for all this misunderstood-science was clearly pointed out!



BIAD sighed as he listened to the drunken shouting and the automatic countering from the darkness
ahead of him.

Standing at the glass wall -just as he had when Edith had seen him before she was ordered out of the
Hanger, BIAD would wait until it's quiet again and then take another visit to Earth's past. 
'When things die-down a bit around here' he muttered to himself and touched his bosom once more.

After all, didn't the word 'Lode' really mean 'journey'?!

(To be Continued)

[BIAD]

The smell of rotting sewage and standing water wafted in again from the wharf as Boy In A Dress
gathered himself from his jaunt and looked around. The distant sounds of metal being struck and
men shouting orders from the high warehouses on the river Thames were a backdrop to the sun
going down over Victorian London and setting the river's oily-surface ablaze.

Moving quickly towards a dilapidated shack that leaned worryingly over the edge of the quayside,
BIAD knew that his short dress and general appearance would draw more attention than he wanted.
The wooden structure looked like a place that was no longer in use and when the Man-Girl tried the
handle, the paint-bare door just fell in and was enveloped in a cloud of dust.
"Knock-knock" BIAD whispered to himself and stepped in.

The shadows of the high buildings along the river stretched further as Boy In A Dress rummaged
through the dirt-covered scene and with the discovery of a filthy long coat and moth-chewed trousers,
BIAD felt a little-more assured as he dressed himself.

"Hoi! What yer' doin' in there, Mister...?" a voice called from over BIAD's shoulder. He was still in
the shack and was deliberating about wearing a flat-cap he found beneath a pile of rodent-nibbled
rope. "...That's private property" the voice also warned.

Jamming the hat on his head and making sure his long hair was tucked inside the coat, Boy In A
Dress stepped out of the gloom of the hut and faced the man who had asked the question.
He was around fifty-years-old and wore clothes not dissimilar from the intruder he'd found skulking
around on the wharf.

"Are you in charge here?" BIAD said confidently and kept his stride towards the stranger at a pace
that hinted he was on official business. The puzzled-man put his hands on hips and took a slight step
backwards, a sign that the Man-Girl took as a positive.

Closing the space between them, BIAD moved his head to imply he was evaluating the area and that
the person who had interrupted his surveying could possibly be in trouble.
"I will not be asking again" the dark-clothed hermaphrodite growled.

Charlie Winston gulped and wondered what the hell was going on. When the company had took him
on two years ago, they'd told him to check for any vagrants looking for a place to sleep and to keep
the prostitutes away from the dockside and bothering the men.

This part of the wharf hadn't been used in months and with most of the buildings falling into disrepair,
Charlie had only given it a cursory glance. After all, what was he going to do, if there were more than
one tramp?

"Mister, 'Ah'm just a Watchman fur' the company and..." Charlie began and halted his explanation as
the oncoming figure waved a hand at him. BIAD quickly remembered that his fingers were red-nailed
and slipped them into the coat's pockets.

"Then the owners should of told you of our examination and that we would have full cooperation from
their staff, yes?" BIAD asked as he grasped an upright that supported a overhanging room connected
to the warehouse beside them.

"Just how long as this be property been vacant, Mister...?" he mumbled and shook his head to indicate
there was need of a possible upgrade. He was asking for his name and yet for a moment, it was if the
Watchman had been forgotten. "...This is going to cost a pretty-penny" he added with a sighing murmur.
 
"Winston... Charles Winston" Charlie answered and wondered whether he should doff his cap, it was
obvious this man was on official business and knew what he was doing. Boy In A Dress turned to face
the wide-eyed fellow and chanced a small grin.

"Well Charles, if In-A-Dress Shipping Chandlers decide to purchase this part of the Thames and increase
their operations in the East-End of London, may I be so bold as to ask if you would come along with us
and be able to monitor this wharf?" BIAD kept his tone easy, but the confidence remained.

Wringing the flat cap in his grubby hands, Charlie struggled to understand what the fancy words were
telling him. But he was at an age where he knew not to just say that he didn't understand.
"They didn't tell me yer' were comin' Mister" he answered softly and showed the last-few teeth he still
had in his head.

Boy In A Dress caressed a waist-high coil of dirty rope and this time, nodded out towards the sun-kissed
waters. "Well, they wouldn't. Not after what happened after we bought-out the East India Tea Company"
he said as if he was giving words to his own private thoughts.

Charlie stepped over to stand beside BIAD on the dockside and follow his gaze towards a passing barge
on the other side of the capital's major waterway. "Er... why, what happened?" the smaller-man asked
and followed it by clearing his throat and expelling whatever was dislodged into the river.

"It's the Watchmen who know how a ship-building company or a Chandlery should be really ran..." BIAD
said offhandedly. "...Our last man ended-up as a Supervisor" and sighed to himself in what he considered
later was a far-too theatrical way.

Charlie nudged the shoulder of Boy In A Dress and whispered "Yer' secret's safe wiv' me, Guvner" and then
turned away to commence his checking. BIAD smiled out at the smoggy industry of the river and sighed
again. This time with relief.

With the alleyways and narrow streets ahead of him, Boy In A Dress left the wharf and began his search
for Jack The Ripper.

[guohua]

BIAD, Be Careful,    OH MY. I Can't  :notlooking:

Excellent.

[BIAD]

BIAD, Be Careful,    OH MY. I Can't  :notlooking:

Excellent.

Hold my hand, we'll be okay. We're Rogue. :cool:

[BIAD]

As the last of the winter sun slipped away and a chilly evening descended upon Victorian London
of 1889, Boy In A Dress turned the corner from St. Katherine's Docks and began his journey towards
Whitechapel.

Every so often, a whisp of fog would float by and the feeling of poverty-ridden despair seemed to
increase in it's passing. Life was cheap here and BIAD reflected on how the gulf between the rich
and poor would endure into the future, it was part of the human make-up.

The last of the slayings was in small alleyway beneath the railway viaduct between Chamber Street
and Royal Mint Street and the poor soul who would fall victim to the so-called 'Jack The Ripper' would
hopefully be his final one.
History had told us that.

But BIAD knew otherwise, these killings were part of a larger scheme. Keeping his collar high and the
scuffy cap pulled low over his long fringe, the Man-Girl pushed on through the grime-filled alley towards
the viaduct.

Back on the Army Base in the future, the sentries would be -by now, accepting it was to be another quiet
evening and for the thirty-eight seconds of 'their time' the Man-Girl hoped the guards wouldn't be tempted
to stroll further into the hanger.
Let sleeping dogs lie and all that.

"You're a very naughty boy, Jack" BIAD whispered sullenly as he left the laughingly-named Angel Lane
and followed a line of dingy terraced houses. The smoke that killed the sky and seemed to be ingrained
on every surface of the city told of human industry and an ignorance of what pollution could bring to the
populace. High chimney pots belched sooty fog from every rooftop and somewhere in filthy backyards
and tired wharfs, men and women coughed their lungs into exhaustion.

The hermaphrodite in the stevadore's attire and red high-heels spotted the tall Policeman just as he
stepped across a channel of sewage that made it's way to the lowest part of the alleyway. If it hadn't
have been for the glint of his uniform buttons from the gaslight the Officer had just strolled under, BIAD
would've continued his walk and he was confident that he would have been noticed.

Leaning into a doorway, Boy In A Dress tracked the 'Peeler' taking his patrol and BIAD knew that it
would be on his next circuit that he would discover -what BIAD hoped would be a dead male clutching
his instrument of death in his hand instead of the poor female lacking a head.

"You should not be here" a low-voice growled from the tiniest of alleyways that Boy In A Dress had
missed. The darkness that resided there seemed be more powerful and substantial than the rest of
the evening's tenebrosity.

BIAD's nails immediately lengthened and the long hair that had been packed down into the coat
and under the hat, slithered and roiled like disturbed snakes. Whatever waited in the two foot-wide
corridor of 'Hobbs Lot' was dangerous and his senses knew it.

The fog continued to swirl along the cracked and litter-strewn pavement as he searched the gloom
for the owner of the voice and just as he was about to step out of the shadow of the paint-worn entrance,
the one who gave the ominous warning revealed himself.

"It was agreed that this would come to pass without your interference, Anomaly..." the seven foot-tall
stranger advised from beneath his heavy hood. As one shape loomed from the passageway, another
slowly came into view.

It would be trite to say that only when the full compliment stood in a line together along the dismal street
would BIAD have realised who they were, but the sight of the first of the group had told him all he needed
to know.
It was The Seven.

"...And you are dabbling in measures that will have consequences. There are rules that you are fully
aware of" the same figure added. Boy In A Dress stepped closer for two reasons, one to show that he
held no fear of The Seven and secondly, because he didn't like the smell of urine coming from the dirty
doorway.

"I didn't agree to this though..." BIAD hissed and felt his fingernails slowly slide back beneath the skin.
Whatever physical powers BIAD held, were nothing compared to these guardians of realities.
"...Nobody said that innocent women were to be gutted in the name of some arcane belief that tributes
of innocent souls will keep all of this going!"
The smaller being's tone smacked of sarcasm and doubt.

The lean statues never moved and the blackness of their cowls told BIAD nothing, such is the way of
The Seven. "Well, I'm going to go and put a stop to this" the Man-Girl said evenly and didn't wait for a
reply, he pulled the grimy coat lapels closer to emphasize his obstinacy.
Turning his back on the grey-robed giants, BIAD strode confidently towards the viaduct and readied
himself for the Ripper.

"You are an anomaly and you walk alone..." One of The Seven announced. "...It is stated that you as
The Abandoned One will greet a day when you become the dark force that will hold sway of this species"
BIAD's gait slowed as he stared into the shadows of the little tunnel under the railway track

"The future of this reality will commute on what happens this evening and even though your desire to
emulate the childish morals of this species is in some way, laudable, we know that you do perceive the
larger situation here and will wish to not disturb yon exigency"

Far off, a boat sang it's sad foghorn lament and for a few moments the perculiar strangers at the entrance
of Hobbs Lot waited among the swirling mist to see how the dice would fall. The Seven always spoke the
truth and the other party in the street knew it.

A female cried out in the darkness of the tunnel and then there was silence.
Boy In A Dress breathed in deeply and with the same absence of sound, vowed to find out what these
slayings were really for.