Chapter 3 of No Romance

Chapter 3. Jack Learns the Consequences of Refusing Romance.

The thing that moved Jack McDowell was action. The action of movement, to be specific. When he needed to move, he moved, whether that movement be emotional, physical, or mineral. Right now he needed to move away from his annoyance with himself for giving Annie a faint, tiny, flickering matchful of flame of hope.  He understood her from the very beginning, which was, for purposes of our story, when she tried to strike up a conversation with him. This attempt to “strike up” struck indeed---the match, and Jack was afraid that in trying to blow it out, his mouth might serve instead as a bellows.

So Jack needed to move, and he had the perfect motivation for doing so: the arrival of this particular henchfellow, and the AK47 in the cold, dead, slippery hands. This man’s appearance indicated the presence of criminality on the island. Annie’s words on the plane had plainly hinted at this possibility, and now that he had proof, and needed a way to get off the island, Jack decided to investigate. And since it was literally Annie’s supposed job to investigate (she called herself an investigative reporter, remember), he allowed her to come along with him. Maybe she could prove useful.

Maybe.

After sorting through their things, and after Jack had holstered Wrench on his right hip and expropriated the dead man’s assault rifle, and after Annie had equipped herself with a replacement notepad and pen (mightier than the sword, perhaps, but probably not mightier than the AK47) (unless the pen could set off a nuclear device with a single click, or the ballpoint at the end of it could sharpen into a knife or blowing dart of some kind) (and if it could do ALL those things in addition to being able to write, well then, that would be a pretty powerful weapon, far mightier than a sword), they set off through the jungle in the direction the tragically unskilled guard had come from.

A forty-seven minute-and-twenty-three-second’s hike later, they came to a grassy knoll, an inclining crest, and at the crown of that crest they saw what they came to see. Down the curving, nearly vertical slope, and stretching out across a wide expanse of sandy beach from where the jungle in large part ended down to the many docks built on the water’s edge, lay some kind of...compound? Half a dozen large warehouses, smaller buildings in between, a large bay behind it all and bordered everywhere by tall chain link fences topped with barbed wire. And populating it all were two different kinds of people: those with guns, and those without.

“This is obviously a smuggler’s base, but I’m wondering how I know that,” Jack said in a quiet voice.

“It’s the guns,” Annie said in a similar, hushed tone.

”Yeah, so why are there guards with guns?”

“Isn’t that what guards do? Hold guns?”

“But why are they there at all? They’re the only ones on the island!”

“They’re guarding the ones without guns, obviously.”

“But why?” Jack wondered. “Are they slaves or something?”
“Whatever it is, it’s good material,” said Annie, withdrawing her equipment from a raincoat pocket. She started writing, looking up occasionally, but not at the smuggling compound. Rather, her eyes, as they had done on the plane, flickered up at Jack, and every time they did, her mouth suppressed a grin. If Jack had noticed this, he would have probably left her right then and there and gone off alone. Sort of like how he would be doing later that night. But his mind was dreading something else at that moment: the terrible thought that it would be up to him to free these poor defenseless, enslaved workers.

And so he sighed, and frowned.

------------------------------------------------------------

They stayed away from the smugglers, and set up a makeshift camp area after another hike, this one slightly shorter at about forty-six minutes, eight seconds. Somehow a fire was made, though neither one of them had ever had to make one without modern technology before. After eating a little bit of food (Jack, kind of always prepared, had packed some trail mix) they complained about not having more food. This turned into a conversation about personal responsibility, choice and accountability, then somehow into a discussion about the overwrought message of Godzilla, then into a question Jack had about aliens (“Why can’t they ever be as complex as human beings, both good and bad?”), then about the United States Congress, then about shoddy journalism (a topic on which Annie curiously had little to say) and finally about unsung heroes that were actually sung heroes, just in a different way. A different key, if you will.

“The adventure movies tell their story to the world. But if any of that kind of thing ever actually happened in the real world, they would be famous, and probably rich, and they’d probably get a book deal, and then a movie about them. And so the cycle would continue. But really, Annie, have you ever heard of me before?”

“No...”

“That proves my point. I don’t think I’m a real person. I don’t live in the real world, where I would get fame and glory for all the stuff I’ve done. I’m in a stupid little adventure story, good for nothing but itself. A damb sequel.”

“And I’m in it too? I’m part of your story?”

“An essential part. But I refuse to acknowledge it. It’s the only thing I can do to rebel.”

“What...what do you mean?”

He almost wanted to say it out loud: I refuse to fall in love with you. But obviously he didn’t, and Annie moved the conversation forward for the sake of convenience.

“So this kind of thing, jumping out of planes and finding smugglers, that’s typical for you?”
“And killing guards. I can’t count how many mindless henchmen I’ve killed.”

“All in order to save the world, right?” Annie said softly but sarcastically.

“Saving the world IS a typical day for me,” Jack said. “So today has been very underwhelming.”

“Oh come on, when have you saved the world?”

“Like I said, you’ll never have heard of them, but I’ll share a few: I saved the world from the Soviets twice. Then I stopped a Japanese nationalistic fanatic who wanted to nuke Pearl Harbor in revenge for his grandfather being shamed. Another time the American government was so self-loathing that they decided to declare war on themselves. I had to punch each politician in the face until they changed their minds. And one time I went back in time and assassinated Hitler in his bunker. Everyone thought he killed himself, but no, he was actually about to set off nukes he had stolen from the future and blow up the entire world, except for his bunker. Afterward he and his actress friend were going to repopulate the world. It was an interesting story, because he used the same channels of time travel that I did, and we pretty much passed each other in the night.” Here Jack paused. “Those may have been just in the movies...but frankly, it’s damb hard for me to tell which is which.”

Annie, he just realized, was writing all this down. Or at least writing something down. He wondered what kind of thoughts were going on that notepad.

“What’s going on that notepad?” he asked with a typical angry frown and a bit of a growl in his voice.

“Um...” said Annie, not looking at him as she continued to write, “Hold on just a sec...um....Okay.” She raised her head to look at Jack. “Now, what was the question?”

Then she smiled. A sparkling smile. All while still retaining some of her shyness.

“Are you really being purposefully coy?” he said. “Because ---”

Her smile evaporated. “No, no, no!” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not---I’m sorry, I’m not doing...I’m not going....” She continued to stammer and mutter strings of words full of all manner of spurts and starts.

Jack couldn’t quite figure out what was going on in that head, and he suspected that she didn’t know fully either. But beneath it all, that crush of hers was surely flourishing. He knew that much.

And so he continued to stare at her as she struggled to speak.

Finally she arrived at, “I’m just rewriting a lot of what I was writing on the plane. My notes sunk with it, you know. You know?”
“I’m not sure I do. Was it really so important?”
Annie blushed at this. Jack sighed at that. Then he frowned at the fact that he sighed, then sighed at the fact that he frowned. Then he let forth a bestial yell, not at Annie, but at himself, and really, at both of them. He was stuck in his role as much as she was. And together...
Annie rose to her feet in fright. At that moment he had no presence of mind to be compassionate or selfless, and so did nothing to assuage her apparent fears. In fact, he turned away from her, and only heard her leaving; he did not see it. When he turned back, however, and found her gone, his eyes fell on the notepad, which she had left on top of her open pack. Curiosity mixed with bitterness at the world compelled him to walk over and pick it up. He read it right there, standing up as straight as that sign on the beach.

A few words and phrases jumped out at him immediately, and were all he needed to see. The first word: dreamy.

He’s a hero, and I get to be his girl! I get to be rescued! Wherever I am, I know I’m safe, because it’s his duty to save me. I don’t need to be afraid of anything anymore.

When he’s thinking he looks like Sherlock Holmes, but with the body and hair of a Greek god. Oh, that hair! The way it bounces just so when he turns his head.

He’s far too handsome to be named Ruggles. I love that his name is Jack! I already know what the name of our first son is going to be.

It went on for far longer. He flipped through the pages, getting angrier with each one. Not a trace of what had been happening with the murder they had witnessed, the plane crash they had managed to survive, the armed guard who had nearly ended their lives, the smuggling operation they had discovered.

Just him.

“Jack?”
He whipped around, and there stood Annie in her raincoat, looking...odd. Her eyes had connected with Jack’s, but had such a vague, unfocused feel to them that she did not see his inflamed temperament, nor what he held in his hand. Her own hands clutched themselves lightly in front of her person, as if offering him something.
“Jack...I want to tell you everything...I want to...give myself to you.”
And those offering fingers reached the edges of her coat, starting to pull it open.
“No.”
The word left Jack’s mouth so swiftly and forcefully that she stopped and stepped back. Her eyes and mouth opened wide as if she had just been struck. Then she finally noticed the notepad in his hand and a look of horror came over her, much more horror than she had expressed at any of the other horrifying things that had happened that day. Her face turned white, then red, then white again.
And Jack opened his mouth, delivering a message so fiery it was practically a sermon, and commanding her with all the force and energy of his being.

“No!” he said again. “No romance! I refuse, and I won’t let you tempt me! Do you know how long I’ve dealt with this? This prison I’m in? How many rewards and glories I’m offered for conforming to it, to submitting to the sadistic gods that compose my life? How much I have to deny myself to retain even the slightest hint of identity that wasn’t given to me by someone else? And now you’re going to just take the power that you have and abuse me! Tempt me, try me, destroy everything I’ve built myself into, everything I’ve sought to change! Just so you can have a little dambed emotional fulfillment! I will not be in your presence a minute longer if this is how it’s going to be! Either you leave or I will. Whatever dambed adventure we’re meant to go on, I will not allow romance to be a part of it. So get over me, do whatever you have to do to get away from it, torture yourself for all I care, just don’t torture me longer than I’ve had to bear already.”

He threw the notepad down on the ground and then himself onto his sleeping mat. Annie, tears flinging from her face, darted back into the dark jungle. He gave her no mind, assuming that she’d return eventually, and knowing that either way she’d be kept safe. From there he found solace in sleep.

As you can plainly see, Jack was in a state of rebellion. It’s taken a few tricks to get him here on this island, but now that he’s here, he can’t escape until the work he has been given to do is finished. Undoubtedly he will fight us every step of the way, but in the end, he’ll give you the finest adventure story you’ve ever experienced in your life. So don’t abandon him now: we’ll get him to behave for you. That’s a promise.

---------------------------------------------------

In the morning he woke up alone. A few embers still glowed in the firepit. Hearing the birds with their songs of the dawn gave Jack comfort. Also, knowing he wasn’t dead by the gun of a man or the claws of a beast or the stinger of a scorpion or the venom of a snake or the eye of a tiger or attacked by any of the other sources of violence so prevalent in the midst of so much life---that gave him comfort too. But it also pricked his conscience to be uncertain of Annie’s fate.

According to what he knew of these kinds of stories, she was most likely just fine. But occasionally, very occasionally, deaths of major characters did occur.... And even if she wasn’t dead, she could be captured somewhere, making it his job to save her. This was more likely. And thinking on it, he wondered what would happen if he just left the island, right now, somehow... Although he knew in the back of his mind that such a thing was impossible, and the only way out was to play the little game he had been given.

After waking up fully and taking care of typical morning routines, he began collecting his things and stuffing them back into his pack. When he finished strapping on the sleeping mat (which, for the life of him, he couldn’t remember packing), he slung the pack on his back, kicked some dirt into the glowing embers, and started back into the jungle.

But he only made it one step away from the camp. Literally one step, for all around him men with guns suddenly emerged from the brush. At least a dozen of them, looking mean, tough, stoic.

“Oh, come on, guys, how long were you waiting there for me to get moving?” Jack groaned. “Half an hour? An hour? Two? Good grief almighty.”

Then he caught sight of the woman standing in the midst of them.

Annie?
But it wasn't Annie.

Chapter 2 slightly revised

I made a few small but significant changes to this chapter. It doesn't change the story in any way, so you don't have to read this one if you've already read the previous version, but if you're reading Chapter 2 for the first time, read this one.


Chapter 2. Don’t Get Swept Away!

Too distracted by Annie’s avian leap to jump from the plane properly, Smith’s fall was more like that of a tortoise. He barely cleared the floats on the plane, and afterward just kind of plunked into the water.

His feet touched the bottom and he pushed his way back up. He broke the surface just in time to see the sea-colored seaplane crash into the sea. It didn’t explode as Smith had warned of, instead sliding rather anticlimactically into the water. The downward angle of its nose caused it to flip over itself and eventually tear in two before it sunk. It didn’t look half so dangerous as Smith had thought it might, and in fact it even looked survivable. Smith shrugged at this, then remembered that he had just seen a man murdered on that plane, then remembered his own circumstances of being stranded on an exotic island, then remembered the burden of the soaking leather jacket on his shoulders. After remembering all this, he remarked to himself, “At least the water feels cool.”

After catching sight of Annie making her way to shore, Smith followed suit. The breaststroke, because he knew no others. And even that he was a little shifty on.

“Good thing you brought that raincoat!” he called out to her as she stood up in the shallow water, soaked and dripping, and began walking up to the beach.

She paid him a withering glance. After that, she ignored him.

As he also rose to his feet, he noticed for the first time a sign, posted straight into the sand like a legendary sword. While surely no legendary sword, its placement and, frankly, its oddity, suggested a similar significance.

Annie didn’t seem to give the sign a second, nor even a first look. But upon drawing parallel to it, she flumped down on the sun-beaten sand like a cat in the sun. Smith, halting before the sign, did give it a single look, and would have given it a second but he didn’t need to. His first look was long, for the words on the sign perplexed him:

Welcome to Rainswept Isle!

(Don’t get swept away!)

After the words perplexed him, the very existence of the sign did the same. Then he, too, flumped down on the sand on the opposite side of the sign from Annie.
“What do you think that sign means?” he asked conversationally.
“Haven’t the mistiest...” she said.
Smith felt that suddenly their roles had reversed, and quickly withdrew back into his calloused self. He would offer no more attempts at small talk. And, thinking this, he remembered that he hated small talk. This, with a quiet “Hmph!”, reinforced in his mind his own character, and he remembered his place in the story: the sequel of which he was apparently the star. Then he sighed, and, as was his wont, frowned.

Both were catching their breath, lying in the sun. After several minutes, Smith sat up. “Hey,” he said in a gruffer voice than before. “Hey, you’ll want to take that raincoat off if you want to dry properly.”

She turned her head to look at him and shook her head like a little girl.
“What, are you naked under there or something? You really should take it off.”
Still lying in the sand, she rolled over, away from him.
He shrugged, then started to take off his jacket.
Then, interrupting him, she rolled back over and sat up too. In this position she asked a very genuine question: “Who are you?”
“A prisoner,” he said. “I’ll tell you the rest later.”
He had forgotten about taking the jacket off and, leaving it on, instead stood up. After dusting some of the wet sand from his person he indicated the jungle behind them with a nod of his head.
“Come on,” he said.
“Come on what?” she said, a bit of fear in her voice.
“We should go,” he said, again indicating the wall of jungle.
“We’re going to go in there?” she said, quite a bit more fear, or maybe just hesitation, or maybe just raw, shocked incredulity in her voice.

Or maybe it was just quite a bit more fear. The jungle did indeed look thick, dark, and foreboding.

“It looks so...thick, dark, and foreboding,” she said as if she were overhearing us (which she might have been).

“Well, that’s where our gear is. And I would think that to be our first priority. Then, after that, we can determine what we need to do.” He started making his way towards the jungle.

“Will we...will we be safe in there?” she asked after him.

“No,” Smith said.

She stood still, waiting for him to say anything more, but he just continued walking up the shore, saying nothing.

“What are you here on this island for, anyway?” she asked, now following him.

“Apparently some grand adventure,” Smith said. “That’s what it seems, anyway. I’ve been led into these types of things before.” Then, again in a gruffer voice as he heard himself talking too much, “Come on. You’re dry enough. Let’s go.”

They passed through the brush and into the shade of the canopy.

“Say, do you remember even getting on that plane?” Smith remarked, stepping over a portruding root. “Because I’m not sure if I do.”

----------------------

Billy Huggs, future Head of C Toon in Commandant Amon Dem’s League of Most Noble Guardsmen and Henchfellows, hated most other men.

It wasn’t that he was bitter and gay. In fact, it was quite the opposite of that. He loved women and hated to see men be hurtful to them. It was a man’s responsibility, he thought (and asserted often), to use their superior physical strength given them by nature to protect women who could not otherwise protect themselves. (He had originally thought this to be all women, until he witnessed for himself the work of that female assassin who’d been hired by the big boss a couple of years ago. He couldn’t ever remember what her name was, but he did remember that it sounded like a man’s name. Regardless, her handiwork forced open his mind and recalibrated his perception of women, or at least the possibilities of women.)

At heart, Billy Huggs was sweet (making him, in layman’s terms, a sweetheart), and always dreamed of being with a girl. Not of doing anything in particular with her, just being with her. Being close. And her wanting that. Wanting to be with him.

Billy Huggs had a problem with self-esteem, and rightfully so. He was dreadfully ugly, and good at not very much at all. It was because of his emotional condition (which shouldn’t be called a disorder, as it was completely logical) that he never felt worthy even to be in the same room as a girl, let alone hold one in his arms (though this was his deepest wish). Carnal desires were never at the forefront of his mind, probably because he knew he could never get that far anyway. It was more than he deserved, he knew. He didn’t want much. Just...affection. Holding hands, kissing, and, yes, hugs. Hugs and holds, and then kisses and maybe...maybe even caresses. He treasured in his heart two words that he never could bring himself to say out loud, for they were far too much to ask for, but were in fact his greatest goals in life: cuddling and snuggling. These words were as sacred to him as anything could be. He dreamed of saving a woman and then holding her, making her feel protected and safe. That, he knew, was his purpose in life.

His sensitivity towards women did not go unnoticed by his fellow guards. Practically all his “colleagues” fell under that category of men whom he hated: partly because of his perception of how they treated and thought of women, and partly because they all teased him so much about it. “Tease” was a mild word; in fact, he was roundly abused by them on a regular basis. And it didn’t help things that his last name was “Huggs.”

The only way he really went on was by knowing, deep down in his sweet little heart, that he was right about these things, and they were wrong. Indignation, self-righteousness, the higher plane: he rode standing up on the skull of the tallest Clydesdale.

And someday he knew he would find her. Whoever she was.

But how could he ever find a woman when there seemed to be only piggish men on this blasted island?

This was constantly in the back of his mind as he did his guard duties. It should be said that there was something about him he considered most excellent, and so it was pursued with the highest level of priority: his work as a guard, particularly in this jungle. He knew the jungle terrain and topography with exceeding precision and had an innate sense of direction. His tracking abilities even rivaled that of the native tribes on the island. He was an exceptional guard, and he knew it.

This, however, as opposed to his feelings on women, did go unnoticed by his fellow guards, although not by Commandant Amon Dem. At least he thought. What else could it mean when Amon Dem, the beloved Head Hermano, sent him out to perform scouting duties so often, to patrol the Outer Invisible Magnetic Super Perimeter? No, Billy Huggs knew his work was valued and his abilities appreciated...and that his skills in the jungle totally made up for the fact that he had never fired a gun in his life, and was scared out of his mind to do so.

------------------------------------------------

Thick, yes, dark, yes, but foreboding? Not as much, but only because they were already inside and among the alien nature. It was absolutely beautiful, what with the impossibly tall trees and the tropical ivy that wrapped around them, climbing to the very top in its eventual goal to suck the lifeblood out of the tree and use its hollow, skeletal remains as its permanent home; the stones and boulders blanketed with moss, which had clearly never rolled a day in their life; colorful flowers with shapes and forms that could easily be carnivrous; and the feeling that they were surrounded on all sides by pure life, albeit life that was all about destroying its fellow life for its own selfish purposes, putting Ayn Rand to shame. The soil they stepped on was dark and rich, soft beneath their feet, full of decomposed flora and fauna. A plethora of bird cries could be heard echoing in the branches above, never letting the jungle trekkers forget they were not alone. Butterflies fluttered past, alighting on flowers the size of your head that looked like they could swallow your head. Mosquitos and other bugs swarmed in nearly invisible clouds with a low but incessant buzzing; however, they didn’t attack either Smith or Annie, for they needed to look handsome and adorable, respectively, for the story to work.
Despite the beauty and splendor of the given prose, however, neither Smith nor Annie really took much time to notice. Smith walked far ahead of her, and with such purpose and lack of hesitation that one could easily surmise he had been through such environs before. Annie, too, surprisingly enough, after a few glimpses around, didn’t seem to care. She seemed to be paying more attention to Smith, and keeping up with his determined pace than taking in the myriad life around her.
It turned out not to matter much that Annie’s raincoat hadn’t fully dried off on the sunny beach, because once inside the jungle the humidity kicked in. It felt like a very effective sauna, or like helping your brother move out of his house in Alabama on a summer’s day with no air conditioning just the two of you. Besides the humidity, sweat was also piling up on them. But like with the mosquitos, it did not affect either of their physical attractiveness.

“You said you were a prisoner,” she said after a particularly long bit of silence. “What did you mean by that?”

“You’ll see soon enough,” he grunted without looking at her. And then, softly, to himself, “It’s only a matter of time.”
“Wha-what are you doing here, then? Are you running away from something?”
“I already told you. I’m visiting family.”
“An escaped prisoner---”

“Who said I had escaped?”

“---traveling to a tropical island filled with smugglers---”

“By the way, how do you know that?”

“---to visit family members.”

They both stopped in their tracks and stared at each other. A brief silence punctuated the exchange. Then they heard a bird cry that sounded more like a pterodactyl’s shriek. It helped break the silence. One of the many uses of dinosaurs. Another use will be shown later on.

“Well I’m glad we’ve settled that,” Smith finally said, turning away. “What a story, huh?”

“Actually,” said Annie, in a voice as if to herself, “that IS quite a story.”

“I also asked a question,” Smith said, pushing a jungle fern out of the way to pass through it. “But I’ll repeat it: how do you know there are smugglers on this island?”

The fern swung back and hit Annie in the face.

“Um,” she started, flinching, “My sister told me.”

“So you have family here too, huh?” Smith smirked. “Sounds like a helluva true story.”

“As true as yours,” she snapped back, “Mr. Ruggles Smith!”

She tripped over a root.

Smith smirked again. “Fair enough,” he said.

Literally out of nowhere, they came upon an open patch of ground that led up a slight slope to a ravine. And “literally” is meant literally: it did not exist before they got there. Before they came upon it, it resided in the same place as the passengers in the background of the Ad Nihilum, wherever that is now.

“So your name isn’t really Ruggles Smith?” she said, catching her breath.

Smith glowered at her and turned aside, staring into the depths of the green, green jungle. Then he sat down on a moss-covered log.

“Of course it isn’t. Who would name their son Ruggles? That’s not the point,” he said, shaking his head slowly.

“What’s the point then?” she asked very honestly.

“Fine then,” he said, a little exasperated. “I’ll show you what the point is. See that rickety old wooden bridge over there? That goes across this ravine?”

She looked. “Yeah,” she said. Then she blinked, and looked again. “But wait. That wasn’t there a minute ago.”

“You’re beginning to see already,” Smith said. “Now go walk across it.”

“Why?” she said suspiciously.

“I’m showing you,” he said, a slight growl in his voice, the kind of growl housecats emit when they’re held too long.

“It looks dangerous. What if I fall?”

“I can guarantee you you’ll be fine. You’re with me. That’s all you need to know.”

“Oh, big macho man then, is it?”

He smiled grimly at her but said nothing. He again indicated the bridge with a nod of his head. Her face then showed a hint of fright.

“You’re sure I’ll be fine?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay...” she said timidly, and turned toward the bridge.

She took two long steps then turned back again, as if confirming he was sure about the whole thing. He simply nodded encouragingly, as if to a child. When she reached the bridge she made as if to turn around again, but stopped herself. As she took her first step, he stood from the log he was sitting on.

For the first few steps across, everything was fine. Then, as she stepped on the correct plank, she looked back at him once again, confused.

At that instant, the ropes connecting the bridge to the near side of the ravine snapped.

She screamed. He screamed too. Very different kinds of screams, both in terms of pitch and intent.

“ANNIE!” was what he impulsively cried as he put his muscular frame into motion.

She clung to the wooden planks as the bridge fell, swinging against the far side of the ravine. She even managed to hang on as it slammed against the face of the cliff. Now, as she clung desperately, she continued to scream, but in short little bursts.

Smith, already moving, reached the edge of the ravine and launched himself as far and high as he could go, nowhere near enough to clear the gap, out into nothing—

—and grabbed hold of a vine hanging down from a tree, a vine that had escaped the Smith’s notice before the moment when he launched from the edge. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t seen it before; he knew it would be there.

He swung heroically across, and let go at the other end, landing hard on the ravine’s edge. Quite impossibly he caught himself and held on, digging his fingers into the rock. When they slipped they found a curiously convenient plant with thick roots to grab onto. Grunting and with teeth clenched, he pulled himself up and onto solid ground.

Now successfully on the other side, he dashed over to the fallen bridge, where Annie’s screams had died down into soft little whimpering cries.

“Can you climb up at all?” he asked as he lowered himself to the ground and reached down to her.

She didn’t respond verbally, only with wide, terrified, angry eyes. But she did as he suggested, and started climbing up the fallen bridge like a ladder, each wooden slat a rung. Soon she was close enough to reach his outstretched hands. He grasped onto her, and helped pull her up the rest of the way. With a final heave they spilled upwards, onto the jungle ground, and together they lay there, once more catching their breath.

“What the HELL was that?” she uttered in a combination of amazement and absolute fury. “Did you KNOW that was going to happen?”

In that moment he thought he saw a glint of something else in Annie’s eyes that wasn’t her. Like when she swan-dived out of the Ad Nihilum. The Annie he had so recently come to know wouldn’t curse like that....

He decided to ignore it, and then answered her question directly.

“In a short answer, yes.”

“And you still sent me over it?”

“If I wasn’t here, it wouldn’t have happened. I was here, and so it did. It couldn’t have happened without me here to rescue you.”

Her glare, heavy breathing and angry eyes really weren’t all that attractive to Smith. Good thing, too. He didn’t want this situation to blossom into anything else. He worried about that possibility more than anything else right now. She seemed the type to make a big deal over being rescued from certain death.

“Fine. I want the long answer then,” she said. “Who are you?”

He sighed, opened his mouth a few times, trying to start, then shut it before saying, “This is the world I live in,” he said. “Governed by cliché after cliché. Trope after trope. I’ve seen myself in more movies than you’ve probably seen at all. I am a hero, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

She stared, as if waiting for more. But that’s all he offered.

“So…” she said slowly, “What’s your real name?”

“You still want that?”

She folded her arms and nodded.

“My real name…is Jack McDowell.”

Just as had happened when he gave her his fake name, a sudden stream of laughter burst out of her, and at once she clapped her hand over her mouth. But that did little to suppress the giggles.

“Yeah,” he said dryly. “It looks like you understand.”

----------------------------------------------------

“We want Huggs all around...the perimeter,” current head of C Toon, Tommy Blast, had told him.

Billy Huggs had detected a joke in that line somewhere, something sarcastic, or maybe derogatory...but he couldn’t tell, because the faces of Tommy Blast and the rest of C Toon were as straight as Tom Jones himself. After eyeing them all, still a bit wary, he nodded, and without a word, grabbed his forever unfired AK47 and left the base, going out into the jungle on his usual route.

------------

“Tell me if you somehow spot a big column of smoke coming up from the ground before me,” Smith --- no, Jack --- said to Annie. “I should warn you: the only reason I consented to tell you who and what I am is because I feel like I have to take on that identity again for now. I realized that the second I saw that quiet conversation Eli Noyce had with the pilot, whatever his name was.”

“Hilti, I think.”
“That sounds right. No doubt we’ll meet him again on this island before we leave it. And I am going to leave it, as soon as possible. You can stay here all you want, but as soon as I’ve done what I came here to do, I’m finding my way out of here.”
“And what have you come here to do?” Annie said in a more interested voice.
Jack did not reply. Another leafy branch swung back in her face.

-------------------------------------------------------

After an hour of patrolling the perimeter line, which was itself a good half an hour’s hike outside the actual compound, Billy Huggs happened to pass through a clear patch of ground where he could see the sky. He stood there for a few minutes, taking in the direct sunshine. It made him happy. For some reason, he wanted to eat an orange.

And then he caught sight of the reason he wanted that fruit in particular: thick orange smoke was rising in the distance, probably about 300 meters north of where he was right now. His thirst to prove his capabilities superseded his fear of perhaps having to fire his gun, and without a third thought, he ventured away from the Outer Invisible Magnetic Super Perimeter, north towards that pillar of smoke.

(His second thought was that he still really wanted an orange.)

---------------------------------------------------

Jack, still far ahead of Annie, could smell smoke. It reminded him of Christmas.

“I smell smoke!” Annie said, sniffing strong sniffs. “It reminds me of Christmas!”
Jack turned back, frowning, always frowning. “Strange,” he said. “I had that same thought.”
“I think it’s like a fire in the fireplace,” said Annie. “That’s what I associate it with. Do smoke flares usually smell like that?”
“I’m not sure,” said Jack, still frowning. He didn’t see the look of adoration in Annie’s eyes at that moment. If he had, he might not have seen what was behind her, and done what he was about to do. And it also may have ended up killing her.

---------------------------------------------------

Billy Huggs saw the man and woman from across the shallow ravine. He stayed in the shadows, behind some foliage, just watching them. The man wore a black leather jacket and the woman a long gray raincoat.

He had also spotted the orange smoke column; it billowed up at the head of the ravine, a good fifty yards down the way behind a boulder. Undoubtedly it was their destination. But he didn’t think about that. He was focused on them. They were together. A man and woman, alone in the jungle. Who or what else could they possibly need? They had each other. How dare anyone who had love want anything else? Selfish people who don’t realize how good they have it.

They were talking, but Billy Huggs couldn’t make out their words. Why weren’t they holding hands? How could they be together and not be holding hands? If only they could know how much Billy Huggs had been deprived! How desperate he was for even just the mere touch of a girl! If they knew how much their relationship was truly worth, they would definitely be holding hands.

And there was the movement! The man was reaching toward her! Billy Huggs was about to burst into tears of envy and pain---!

But the emotion changed on a dime. The man wasn’t reaching out to hold her hand, but to grab it, and jerk her away! The man yelled something, an exclamation, just as his fingers closed around her wrist. Once in his grip, the man dragged the woman several yards away.

At the sight of such violence, of such domestic depravity, Billy Huggs moved forward, out of the shadows. Not to do violence; in fact, he had forgotten the automatic he held in his sweaty, slippery hands.

“HEY!” he yelled across the ravine, his face enraged with indignation.

The man and woman looked up and saw him, and even across the ravine, the whites of their eyes were visible.

“Come on!” the man shouted to the woman, and they took off running in the direction of the smoke.

Without thinking much, Billy Huggs took up the chase, suspecting the smoke to be their destination. Given the raw vacancy in his mind, Billy Huggs continued to forget he was carrying a gun, and consequently that he might look very frightening to unarmed, “innocent” people. He didn’t want to attack the man, just teach him to not take women for granted! And maybe the woman might see how brave and kind he was, how he could protect her and treat her as she deserved to be treated...and maybe she’d appreciate Billy Huggs for the sweet spirit he housed inside....

He ran parallel to them along the ravine as they zig-zagged through trees on the other side. He wondered why they were running so fast. Did they think he was going to hurt them?

The large boulder at the head of the ravine separated him from the smoke. As both parties reached this point, Billy Huggs started to round the boulder, and at last they saw each other up close.

The man in the leather jacket hurled himself at a spot just next to the smoke while the woman stayed a distance away, yelling something inarticulate. Billy Huggs was only twenty feet away when he realized what was at the base of the smoke: the man was fumbling through a large pack, out of which he soon procured a black, shiny, steel revolver.

Billy Huggs stared on in horror. The sweat on his hands, from the jungle, from the chase, from his nervousness with guns, slipped on his assault rifle as he tried to raise it to defend himself, but it was too late. The man had already cocked and aimed.

And it was there poor Billy Huggs met his end. If he had died five seconds earlier, he would have died with a dream in his heart. As it was, it was more like a nightmare come true. Then he woke up from his nightmare, into the great beyond.

-----------------------------------------------------

“Okay, that does NOT smell like Christmas anymore,” Jack said, coughing with his face scrunched up as he dragged his and Annie’s gear far away from the smoke.
Annie just stared wide-eyed at the body of Billy Huggs.

“Uh...Jack...you just...you just shot a guy,” she said with a whimper.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Jack said, sniffing and shaking his head to clear the smoke and acrid smell from his face and lungs. “Henchmen have no souls.”
It took Annie a few seconds to register what he said.

“Wait, what?”

“They’re not real people,” Jack said matter-of-factly. “They don’t have feelings, they don’t have desires, they don’t have life stories, and they don’t have core personalities other than that of doing exactly what they’re told to do. They’re just empty tools in the hands of whoever’s using them. So what this means is that somewhere on this island is a villain. And I intend to find out who he is and where he’s at.”

“But, but, but if he has no soul,” she said, pointing at the body of Billy Huggs, “why didn’t he shoot us?”

Jack shrugged. “He probably wasn’t very good at his job.”

Annie just stood there, a strange listlessness in her eyes.

“No doubt we’ll need Wrench here for the rest of our adventure,” Jack said, holding up his revolver.

“So you think we’ll be in danger, then?” she said.

“We’ve already been in danger, sweet strawberry lips.”

Immediately Jack closed his eyes and mouthed some angry words at himself for what he had just done. The words had come to his mind far too easily. He needed stronger safeguards against the gods. And because his eyes were closed, he didn’t see Annie’s reaction: a blushing, gushing, open-mouthed smile, eyes bright as Rudolph’s nose that seemed not to see the bloody corpse upon the ground just a few feet away.

“Thank you,” she said, glowing, “for pulling me away from that snake earlier.”