Free Don't Label Me! by Arwen Jayne Page A

she’ll have all the after hours marking and
teacher meetings that Hideo usually contends with.”
    George tried to get a handle on all the
strands of what was going down. One thing was sure, Simon had been
busy. “So you don’t need me for a few days?”
    Simon poured the ground curry powder into a
jar and then wiped his hands on a towel before giving George a good
hard look which spoke of hidden knowledge as well as a deep
affection for his friend. “Go George, with all my love.”
     
    George found Doc working one of the town’s
main building sites. It’s where he himself should have been if he
hadn’t been so busy avoiding Mendal, Upal and Ally. While he was
over the whole ‘Ally prefers them to me’ rejection thing he still
felt awkward being around them. “Hey Doc, you got a moment?”
    Doc swung down the scaffolding with the ease
of monkey. Gods the man was fit. He might be small but the the wiry
Balinese silat martial artist and the town’s general medical
practitioner was someone the wise wouldn’t take on. “So we’re
going?”
    “ Sheesh, you’re one step ahead of me.
This whole connected mind thing the town’s got going these days
takes a bit of keeping up with. I thought you’d be at the clinic
anyway.”
    “ Nah, no patients these days. Their
repaired genes means that nobody needs me unless they need first
aid or they’re pregnant. I open the clinic on Wednesday afternoons
for the expectant mums. I gather from what I picked up from Simon
that you’ll be needing a guide.”
    George showed him the map. “We need to find
this place. Speak any Borneo-ese?”
    Doc laughed. “Not the local Dayak dialects
but you can go just about anywhere in Indonesia, or Malaysia for
that matter, using the standard language.”
    “ Don’t you have some unresolved issues
with the Indonesian government?”
    Doc made a dismissive gesture. “Hardly
matters now. I can teleport out of their way faster than they can
say boo. Plus they won’t expect me outside of Bali. I’ve got no
reason they know of to be snooping around a remote cave system in
Borneo so they’re not going to be looking for me there.”
    “ We’ll need Melissa too apparently.”
Although why they needed to put the town’s high priestess of the
local Wiccan coven at risk was beyond him. He could only assume
that Simon saw some difficulty that would require her unique
skills. Inside the Boswell parallel universe everyone could see the
faeries whose space they now co-inhabited but in the slightly lower
dimension outside they still seemed a little handicapped, all
except for a few of the Malakim like Simon, John and Meta and a
couple of the humans; Helena who lived with her mate in the Yungas
and Melissa whose return from death’s door had changed her
somehow.
    “ We’re here.” Rob announced, a heavy
pack strung across his broad shoulders. The man was his usual quiet
unflustered self. His pretty ex-waitress wife, who now worked in
her own business making clothing and curtains as well as giving the
odd tarot reading, leaned affectionately against him.
    Melissa giggled. “You should have seen the
Major reading the riot act to Adin when we dropped him off with
Sally. Sheesh, he’s not even a year old. I think it’s more likely
Crystal and Sky will get Adin into trouble. Anyway Adin seemed
happy having all the attention. You have to see the grin on his
face.” She took her mobile phone out of her back pocket and passed
it to George.
    George did his best not to roll his eyes,
ugh, baby photos, but he knew it was important to Melissa so he
duly looked at the photo for a second or two. “He does indeed look
a happy chappy.” He then passed the photo to Doc with a certain
amount of relief at having dealt with that task. Personally he
prefered kids when you could start talking to them. Although with
the speed Adin and John and Sally’s daughters were growing that
wouldn't be long. Crystal and Sky already chatted merrily with all
the townsfolk