My Alex Abel.

[Chad Underkoffler]

Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 17:06:43 -0600 
From: Gregory Paul Stolze <holycrow at mindspring.com> 

[snip]

> This year she showed up again.  Like him, she's in her fifties 
> - a well preserved, stately woman.  He's gotten over his 
> hurt.  Sometimes he's even felt bad about how he treated her.  
> When Mona came back into his life in 1999, Alex hoped he might 
> have a chance to make things right, but he didn't really get a 
> chance to put things on a good footing before Mona made her
> offer.

> See, Mona was still in bad shape.  Still needed money, just 
> like she had back in the 80s, when she had was divorced, 
> abandoned and pregnant. (She hadn't mentioned that detail when 
> she was asking Alex for money then.) She needs money again, 
> but this time she's got something to trade: her daughter
> Ruby.

> Ruby is a rare beauty.  She's nineteen, intelligent, and ready 
> to do anything to help out her mother.  Anything.  Mona is 
> willing to basically sell her to Abel (a man she considers a 
> callous bastard, and with some reason).  

> What does Alex do?

My Alex Abel would first be highly offended: recall, he's black, and
any hint of *selling*  people would get him a little angry-- and I see
my Alex's anger as being the cold, calculating kind.

Next, he'd want to know exactly *why* Mona needs money. He'd also want
to know why she thought he'd be in the market to purchase another
human being.

Further, he's curious about why Ruby would allow herself to be sold.
What is she getting out of it? It could be simple love for her mother,
or could be something else.

Alex would come to the following realization: either there's some deep
plot moving against me, using this woman from my past and her
(possibly my) daughter as tools, or Mona is a terribly disturbed
individual.

Alex with arrange a meeting with Ruby. He'll offer her a highentry
level mid-level mundane job in a minor corner of his holdings "as a
favor to her mother." During the "company physicial", he'll have his
people (medical, psychological, technical and magickal) go over her in
depth, looking for DNA evidence, magickal tampering, Brain-rinses,
implanted bombs, whatever. Then she gets left in her position for
awhile.

At the same time he's having that first meeting with Ruby, he's sent a
TNI strike team to kidnap Mona. She MUST be disappeared, with an
adequate cover story for her abscence at various places for the next
few months. Mona will be placed in a very secure sanitarium, and will
also be examined for medical, psychological, magickal, etc.
booby-traps. Alex has instructed his doctors to discover answers to
his questions above: why does Mona need money, why did she think she
could sell her daughter, and why did she think Alex'd buy her?  After
they find out why Mona did what she did, Alex has instructed his
doctors to help her. He fears that his "kicking her when she was down"
15 odd years ago is what sent her over the edge. He wants to help
stabilize her.

Alex will tell Ruby (maybe after a couple days) that he's had Mona
checked into a santiarium for observation, stressing that offering a
member of your family for sale doesn't appear to be sane. He knows
that Mona has issues with him, and that he will allow her to confront
him when she's better. As soon as the doctors allow, Ruby will be
allowed to see Mona. (But under observation, of course.)

If Mona and Ruby are catspaws (and especially if Ruby ends up being
his daughter), Alex will strive to *ANNIHILATE* the faction that would
do this to people. Period. If Mona is just unhinged or even just plain
mean, Alex will try to make amends, within reason. 


My 2 centavos.



==
Chad Underkoffler [chadu at yahoo.com]
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/5751/index.html
"Hold your breath. Make a wish. Count to three."




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