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I will never be an actress, Felicia thought dismally
the next morning as she left her apartment. The hallways were strangely quiet,
possibly due to the absence of Felabba's pets. She had no idea where they were
now, since Felabba had been arrested. She could only hope she wouldn't be next.
As she walked the streets, Felicia was positive everyone could see her treason.
She felt like she had a huge sign pointing to her, screaming "ARREST ME!". Somehow
she made it into the building and to her working area. The propaganda writers
carefully avoided her.
She found it difficult to do her work. She half-expected
a note or something from another writer, perhaps even Kiddo, but nothing came.
The logical part of her mind stated that it was only for her own protection,
that Kiddo was avoiding drawing any attention to her. But the emotional part
of her mind was screaming that she'd been caught and that Un-eairkagh's police
force were just waiting for her, just outside the door...
Lunch rolled around and Felicia sat with Adoriblelapin
for normality's sake. She hardly ate and hurried back to her work as soon as
she could. Six more hours until she got off. She couldn't take this.
Eventually Felicia's work day did indeed end.
It couldn't come soon enough. She stopped to talk to Gryphon and Megz though,
not wanting to appear as if she was in too much of a hurry.
"I think I'm gonna be put into the graphics
propaganda section," Megz was saying, the gleam of anticipation in her eyes,
"so I'll be doing both written and graphical. Won't that be fun?"
Felicia could only offer a thin smile of congratulations.
Once home, she gathered up her bundle of papers
and hid them under her jacket. She walked past the viewscreen as if nothing
was usual and out the door. Spike had instructed her to head to the industrial
section of the city. It was dark and dingy and she really had no reason to go
there normally. However, she was arranged to meet with a girl by the name of
Jessie.
Jessie found her rather than vice versa. The
girl didn’t say anything, merely took the papers that Felicia handed her.
"Deliver these to Kiddo somehow,"
the girl said, handing her an envelope in return.
"How?" Felicia questioned, hiding
it under her jacket.
"I don't know. Figure something out."
And the girl walked away and soon vanished in
the press of the buildings. Felicia eventually wandered home, her mind occupied
with thoughts on how on earth she was ever going to get the envelope to Kiddo.
She had no real reason to search her out and she didn't know who among the writers
could be trusted. Furthermore, she had the fact that she may be under surveillance
already to take into account. Just the thought of being caught made her sick
to the stomach.
Felicia spent another sleepless night with her
mind bouncing from one wild improbability to the next. By the time morning came,
she’d decided that she was defiantly not cut out for this double-agent
type thing. She was an editor, nothing more. However, she couldn’t really
see a way out now. If she refused to help, Kiddo could easily drop a word with
the right person and she’d find herself in jail. Kiddo herself would be
immune from any consequences as she was Un-eairkagh’s owner.
She glumly went to work that morning with the
envelope under her jacket. She kept it with her in her work space, hoping someone
would stop by. As she sorted through the papers to be edited that day she found
another hand-written note. It directed her to skip her lunch and instead stay
at her work space. Someone would meet her there.
Lunch rolled around and the other editors filtered
out. Felicia stayed where she was, pretending to be still working. Soon she
heard footsteps behind her. She turned and her heart skipped a couple beats.
Standing behind here were two of the building’s guards, Drake_da_dragon
and Chet Flash.
"Felicia Snowflake?" Drake said, "Come
with us please."
Weakly, Felicia stood. She felt faint and dizzy
with shock and fear. A million butterflies inhabited her stomach. She walked
between the two, her mind racing. How could she have been found? Who had figured
it out? Worse, had someone turned her in? She couldn't help but think of Felabba.
The two led her to an office high up in the
building. The escorted her inside and then left. The office was huge and richly
furnished. There was a single viewscreen on the side wall, blaring out the weather.
A large chair sat behind an impressive desk, and in that chair sat an imposing
figure resplendent in an orange and yellow superhero outfit.
"El Picklesuar?" Felicia stammered,
having heard about this particular Neopian before.
"Indeed," he responded smoothly, pushing
a button on his desk.
The viewscreen shut off.
"You can... turn it off?" she gasped.
"It's one of the many privileges of being
a high officer for Un-eairkagh," El Picklesuar replied.
"Why am I here?"
"Don't try to play innocent Felicia,"
he replied, patting the envelope on the desk before him.
Felicia gulped nervously.
"It seems you’ve been running errands
for a certain child_dragon," he said.
"Well... I..."
She was quickly interrupted by the doors crashing
open behind her.
"What is going on!" an infuriated
voice demanded.
Felicia stayed still as the newcomer marched
past her. She caught a glimpse of a short, brown-haired girl with white wings
and a dark blue Pteri tail as she passed. The girl stood directly before El
Picklesuar and proceeded to chew him out for arresting Felicia.
"She's our best editor we have!" the
girl was saying angrily, "And has done nothing wrong."
"Kiddo. Stop lying to get her out of trouble.
I don’t know why Un-eairkagh keeps you around, really."
Kiddo stopped in mid-sentence and stayed still,
trembling with barely-controlled anger. Drake_da_dragon solemnly entered and
took her by the arm.
"Com'n," he said, escorting her out
the door.
"Now that that's taken care of..."
El Picklesuar resumed as the pair exited, "What to do with you?"
Felicia couldn't reply.
"Lets see. Consorting with rebellion members.
Smuggling information to the opposition. Conspiracy with known traitors."
He quickly filled out a paper and slipped in
a desk drawer.
"That's it then. Afraid you’re off
to jail."
As if on cue, two guards she’d never seen
before entered and took her by the arms.
"Wait!"
But El Picklesuar did not acknowledge her as
she was taken away.
She was held in a large jail cell with a bunch
of other political prisoners. She recognized two as writers, BluDragn3 and Soggydude.
BluDragn3 was slouched in a corner, muttering to himself and shredding what
looked like an article. Soggydude quickly recognized Felicia and walked over.
"Guess they didn’t like my writing,"
he said with a weak grin.
Felicia couldn't reply.
"They've been nailing a lot of writers
recently,” he added, “You know they got Felabba. Battlesunn was
arrested just last week, along with Al_the_Chia. I think child_dragon has a
hand in this, trouble just seems to follow her."
"She's just trying to keep her family together,"
Felicia replied glumly.
"Oh?" Soggydude replied, arching an
eyebrow, "What if I told you that Aldrai was caught years ago and the whole
rebellion is a farce? A way for weeding out the traitors? That was how I was
caught."
"But... then why?" Felicia gasped.
The writer shrugged.
"She's a good actress, isn't she? Kiddo,
I mean. Sometimes I wonder if it's actually her that's in charge."
"That's ridiculous."
"Felicia?" a new voice questioned
from the jail cell entrance, "Come with me."
She turned and reluctantly faced the guard.
Just before she followed him out she turned and faced Soggydude one last time.
"Does Un-eairkagh even exist?"
He smiled at her sadly.
"Does it really matter?"
****
The sound of soft music drifted across the morning air. Felicia groaned and
sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. She peered around, quite confused. There was
no viewscreen on the wall, her room was it’s normal spacious self. She
shut off the alarm and padded into the kitchen. Plenty of good food and a large
supply of borovan.
"It was just a dream then," she said
out loud, quite relieved, "Just a dream."
Suddenly the phone rang. She picked it up and
was a bit surprised to hear her co-worker Darrell on the other end.
"Felicia! Where are you?" he asked
worriedly, "You’re an hour late to work!"
Felicia let out a startled yelp and hung up
the phone then dashed off to get ready for another day as The Neopian Times
Editor.
The End
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