“It's true! I saw it. You've got to believe me; please, listen to me. I'm not crazy; I'm not. He really is a vampire, or a werewolf, or a goblin, even an ogre maybe. I saw him . . . I saw him change. He's not what you think!” Eugene struggled against his bonds, his eyes wild with pleading. Constance had no choice but to bring him down to the psych ward; he had shown no sign of mental breakdown. His last routine evaluation came back normal, and in all the years they had been together Constance had known him to be faithful, reliable, and quite sane. Eugene had planned a surprise candlelight dinner for the two of them; she could tell something was bothering him as he poured the wine, and the uncharacteristic shake in his hand as he gave the toast caught her attention, but she was not prepared for the violent outburst when he cut into the duck.

The door slammed shut with a loud bang. The room was near empty, only a lone figure, draped in a piecemeal leather trenchcoat decorated the bar. The room, lit with the garish neon lights advertising sexual drugs, mood altering beverages, and reminding people to floss, was simultaneously depressing and welcoming. The handbills on the wall were faded and curling, and nearing an inch deep. The floor was scuffed and stained to the point where no one could tell what it was actually made of. Even the figure at the bar seemed run down and unkempt, a lonely figure too broke to afford the drugs that whispered promises of harems full of satisfied women. The only thing in the entire room that looked cared for was the bar, a shiny hunk of sculpted metal, smooth, polished, sleek, and cold and forbearing.

My boyfriend Matt gave me an invitation to visit the Black Moon node. I took one look at the address and shook my head in silent disgust; my boyfriend had been duped by one of those hoaxes that reach Urban Legend status. It took some restraint but I sent him a polite email explaining how it was impossible for that address to go anywhere and that he had fallen prey to a mere joke. A couple hours later I was seated at a small table belonging to a rather popular outdoor cafe, sharing a cup of imported coffee with Matt. We chatted about the usual pleasantries and gossip for a while, and when the conversation began to lag he brought up the Black Moon hoax.

I looked with satisfaction at the message scrawled across my bathroom mirror. "You could die this easy", it proclaimed in bright red waxy letters. I had written the message with a particularly gaudy red lipstick. Not my lipstick, I only wore earth tones. The red lipstick was purely for business. I called the police, and took a nice hot bath.

After the bath, I tossed my robe on a chair, and put on my street clothes. Leather pants, black turtle neck, and my snakeskin cowboy boots. Yeah, cowboy boots. I thought about hiding my gun and badge, but local enforcement types don't react well to out of town cops that try to keep their presence a secret. Best to be open about it, I decided. I waited for nearly half an hour in the humid little hotel room. It must have been nearly eighty degrees in the late summer Florida night, and the stupid air conditioner refused to actually condition the air. Unless frustration and heat stroke were the conditions it was designed for.

“We need to break through the Noetic Barrier. We need to bring thought, reason, pure intellect to F.R.A.N. in the next seven days or the plug will be pulled on our project and if we are remembered it will be as the team who tried and failed. There is no second chance. This is the last piece. I know we can do it, don't disappoint me.”

“You are wasting your time Doctor Turing.”

I am a gadabout. I am a gadabout and I am paid very well for it. People still whisper about me behind my back, when they don't think I cannot hear them, as if I had some terrible disease. I feel no personal shame in what I do. It's not who I am, it's what I do for a living. I got started after I graduated college. I wasn't overly social then, but I got around enough to have a good feel for social vibes. I had heard of gadabouts. A few people would pass around numbers of one they had used to find a really hip hang out, or maybe they were going to host a party and wanted some advertisement. After graduation I was disenchanted with the line of jobs I was getting, and that is when I applied at the Agency.

The meeting of the United Fogram Federation came to order as some of its younger members shuffled in, looking for a chair or a stool apart from the “grey beards”. Those who considered themselves True Fograms were divided; half rejected the notion of accepting younger members, even if they shared the same conservative bent, the other half freely welcomed and encouraged new members, happy to strengthen their ideals and attitudes and ensure their longevity. The argument had been continual for the last year, when the membership criteria broadened. The group was dying out, losing members, even so, the new push for fresh membership was not terribly effective. Few young people wanted to associate with older folk, even if they shared a common ethic.