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October 3, 2007

Wednesday

It's a case of mistaken identity.

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Dave: All Hands Raised

"Mark!  Mark, thank God!"  I ran up, grabbed his shoulders.  He was was the sweetest sight in the world. 

"Mark, listen.  I don't know -- I was by the museum, just taking pictures, and this van rolled up and cops poured out, pointing and shouting at me.  I ran down an alley, and I could hear sirens all around, so I headed for the hotel.  I don't know what's going on, but --"  I smiled, feeling sudden relief.  "-- but I'm damned glad I ran into you."

Mark looked down at me, a slight frown.  "I beg your pardon, sir.  You have me mistaken for someone else."

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Ted: Ed's Story: or How Sara Got Her Man

I had to steal a crappy buggy and pray to make it to the Coyote District in the Belt, where my brother said to come if I ever got into trouble, because the Russian mob on Mars was pissed I saw their marked cards and won at a crooked card game.

Of course, that buggy didn't last.

I put out a Mayday on the junk radio and hoped.

When she came to my rescue, asking if I was 'Ed', it seemed like a good time to change my name.

Seemed like a small price to pay to be with her.

Read more from Ted's .

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Jim: Keeping Quiet

At the Waltzing Mathilde, Jack sat in a darkened booth, nursing a mug of something almost like beer and listening to the drone of conversations all around him.

All over the Belt, people were talking about ‘The Nightmare’. It seemed everybody had it – the dream in which a claw ripped the dreamers out of their homes and into space.

Only Jack knew it was because of his accident with the tiny life on Asteroid Kansas. How could he have known that Kansas wasn’t just another barren rock?

Jack could never tell anybody about what happened. He would not be found!

Read more from Jim's .

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David: The Good Stuff

I opened the box. Teddy asked me, “What’s in there?”

I leaned back to let him look. “Looks like 24 bottles of something, Teddy.”

“Is it hooch?” he asked, as if I’d know, and swiped one bottle from the box.

“Hey! Leave that alone,” I admonished, as Teddy popped off the cap and took a swig. “We’re getting paid to steal these, Jim, not drink ‘em.”

“What did you call me, Gary?”

“Jim,” I answered through a sudden headache. “That’s not right, is it? Duffy? Seamus? Marmaduke?”

“Here, drink this,” offered Nicholas. I did.

“Feel better now, Barnaby? Er, Vincent?”

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From The Comments: Christopher Cocca

Joanna was pretty and stacked and everything about her was wrong. Mattie was yellows and blonds like fallow fields or dry stalks of wheat pushing up through old train tracks, but Jo was dark hair shining red and curvy like a Coke bottle. Mattie was the kind of girl you’d marry one day and then never do anything else with, but you figured with a girl named Jo you had to get it all in now before everything burned out. Mattie made all kinds of sense; Joanna made me crazy. Years later I still catch myself almost calling Mattie “Jo.”

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Tanya: Untitled

“I’m so glad I finally found you,” I sighed, slumping into the seat next to her. “I have so much to explain…”

The young blonde looked up from her margarita, bemused. Right for her to be mad.

“I missed you every day. You and your mama. I hired…”

She edged her chair away, sneering. I’d been asking for this.

“I hired a private detective to find you, Karen. I want to make it right. Make up for walking out. Please…”

But when I tried to hug her, The Girl Who Was Not Karen suddenly became The Girl With The Taser.

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