From susang@VITINC.COM Sun Jun 16 19:39:10 1996 Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 00:02:07 -0400 From: "Susan M. Garrett" To: Multiple recipients of list FKFIC-L Subject: Dead Letters (1/1) Not a real story. Not much of one, anyway. Just a reminder about FKFIC-L rules. And after Jamie's nice warning, too. **** Dead Letters by Susan M. Garrett Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. That was the noise that had awakened her from her sleep in the basement. Yawning, Urs wandered from the back room and onto the main dance floor of the club, hypnotized by that sound. There wasn't much that could wake her from her daylight slumber and she'd really tied one on last night--Vachon was acting a lot like his old self lately and things had gotten a teeny bit rowdy, although she remembered LaCroix putting a firm stop to the party before anyone could break any furniture. He was always antsy about stuff like that, having broken wood lying around. But he'd actually been kind of fun, later, talking about the good old days when you didn't have to hide bodies and you could feed your way through a whole city without worrying about the law coming around to-- Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her fist and padded toward the bar. Maybe it was Vachon? The party broke up so late he probably didn't get back to the church on time . . . . Urs stifled a giggle at the thought of Vachon getting to church on time. Although vampires occasionally married, Vachon was just the marrying kind. Maybe she'd mention that to his little mortal friend, Tracy. That one seemed just a little too tied down to the mortal schtick of career and family to be hanging out with Vachon. Then again, Vachon did what he wanted to do and it wasn't any of her business what . . . . Scritch. Scritch. Scritch. It was really starting to drive her nuts--that . And it coming from the bar! Storming at top speed through the club--well, as much as she storm wearing a black negligee, robe and high-heeled black slippers with pom-poms on the back--Urs bared her teeth and opened her mouth to snarl at whoever was suicidal enough to wake her up at this time of the afternoon-- And came face to face with LaCroix. He was standing at the bar, back toward her, turning just as she reached him. In less than a mortal heartbeat, Urs' eyes went from angry gold to wide-eyed blue and her fangs receded. She perched herself on the stool beside him as if that was her intent all along. But LaCroix didn't seem to be fooled. She could have sworn he was smiling, although he didn't look like he was smiling. "Did I disturb you?" "No. No. Just--" Urs yawned, then froze in horror. "Um--couldn't sleep?" When he didn't pursue the matter any further, and the 'scritch-scritch' noise started again, Urs craned her neck to peer over his shoulder. There was no light in the bar, but she could see perfectly. LaCroix was writing something--silver ink on black paper. He seemed to write a few lines, then folded the paper in half precisely, opened a matching black envelope and slipped the paper inside. It was the pen scratching on the paper that had made the noise that so annoyed her. Scritch. Scritch-- "What'cha doing?" she asked, in her best 'I'm blonde--deal with it' tone of voice. Scritch. LaCroix folded the slip of paper, never even looking up at her. "Catching up on some things I've been neglecting lately." "Penpals?" Again, she thought she saw him smile. "In a manner of speaking. There's been a problem with the fiction list lately. I'd been meaning to do something about it." "The fiction list?" Urs chewed on her fingernail for a moment. "You mean, the computer stories?" "Yes," said LaCroix--his tone was almost gentle. "The list." "I know what you mean." With a sigh, Urs leaned on the bar and gestured at nothing in particular. "Javier dropped my files for me and there were all these people asking for parts of things and they shouldn't be, right?" She looked up at LaCroix and found him staring down at her intently. "What?" "Would you mind putting those away?" "Hmn? What? Oh." Urs straightened with a smile and rearranged the sheer robe over the sheer negligee as LaCroix returned to his scritch-scritch-scritch. "It's not like they can't e-mail the authors directly. Or ask on the other list--that Fork-knee--" "Forkni-L" supplied LaCroix. "Yeah, that one." She tilted her head and gave him an even wider smile. "You say that so cute." He barely glanced at her. But he glance at her, which she considered at least one point in her favor. But then LaCroix went back to his mail. "I'm very concerned about these reposts." "Yeah--don't you just hate it when something shows up again and again and again?" Urs shifted on her bar stool. "You know, Javier once found a piece of a story I couldn't find by sending a note to the listserve." "Odd." "What's odd?" "Vachon--" LaCroix looked at her, his expression blank. "Vachon had told me that you had found it for him--that he hadn't known that you could do that." "Now why would know how to do ?" asked Urs, blinking in her best imitation of her master and throwing a little 'I'm blonde-- I am' into the mix. "Why indeed." He met her gaze for a moment more, then went back to his scritch-scritch writing. Urs leaned closer and looked over his shoulder as LaCroix wrote. "But you didn't say what you were doing." With a sigh, LaCroix turned his head . . . and nearly bumped noses with her. "I'm giving our misguided . . . friends . . . the information we just talked about." His voice was quiet, almost a whisper. Urs found herself staring into those hypnotic gray-blue eyes. "But, they'll only do it again, won't they?" "Not after they receive one of these." A black envelope suddenly appeared before her eyes. Urs nearly fell off her stool in surprise. The next thing she knew, LaCroix was pressing a small stack of the envelopes into her hands. "Make certain these go out in the evening mail," he instructed her. Then he turned and started to walk away . . . but stopped. "And Urs--?" "Um--yeah?" she asked, trying not to look down and read the address on the top envelope. "You might want to wear something a little less . . . revealing when you go to the post office." Urs waited until he was upstairs before she blew a raspberry at him. Gathering up the envelopes, she reached behind the bar and picked up the stamp holder when a quiet, distant voice sent a shiver through her. "I heard that . . . ." And she was very glad that this story wasn't on that list. ***** The End For those of you who don't know, to retrieve part of a story you send a message to this address listserv@psuvm.psu.edu You can place whatever subject you like in the header. The body of the message will be basically the same each time, with a little bit of difference. For example, say you want a list of all things posted on FKFIC-L for the first week of June. You would send the following message: // JOB Echo=No Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * search * in FKFIC-L from 96/06/01 to 96/06/08 Index /* This would give you a list of the subject heading, the dates they were posted, and the index #'s. Say you want to retrieve indexes # 0067 and 0068. You send a message like this: // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * search * in FKFIC-L from 96/06/01 to 96/06/08 Print all of 067, 068 /* It's that easy. Now say you want to find all parts of a story called "Immortal Way." You can send this message to this listserve. // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * Search immortal in fkfic-l Index /* This would give you a list of all items indexed that had the word 'immortal in them. Once you have the Index numbers, you'd send the following message: // Database Search DD=Rules //Rules DD * Search Mortal in fkfic-l Print all of 373, 375, 400 /* Try not to retrieve more than 4 indexed parts at a time because they drop into your mail box as if they were digests--some mailboxes can't handle large posts like that. There are very few rules on FKFic, but like Jamie says, we need the few we have-- *No reposts without dispensation from a listowner (and these are given in rare circumstances). *No talk or chatter without fiction--if you want to talk fiction, write to ForKni-L. There've been some good fiction discussions there in the past. If you want to talk, it belongs on ForKni-L to begin with. *If you're missing a part, try to retrieve it through the listserve. If it's too old to retrieve or you can't manage to make the listserve do what you want, post to ForKni-L and ask someone to help you. If you have problems with the FTP site, contact Cynthia Hoffman (choff@VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU), our fiction FTP deity, who is even now trying to get that thing back in order. *And need I mention that it might be nice to contact the occasional author to let them know that you read their work? Just a reminder. With the war coming up, we want to keep the list junk down to a minimum. And the sanity you save may belong to WebGoddess Jamie. Regards susang@vitinc.com -- http://www.vitinc.com/~susang STILL Faithful Ravenette. "Friends help you move. Real Friends help you move bodies." http://members.aol.com/CuznJamiMR/SaveForeverKnight.html