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(:)-(:)-(:)-(:)-(:) EPILOGUE (:)-(:)-(:)-(:)-(:)

"There was really nothing else to call it. The Nightmarnes Job has become Team Target's textbook example of a 'you can loose your cookies from fear, but you CANNOT panic' mission.

"Reith still serves in the P-teamer ranks, although he gets cakewalk missions; about a foot of his taidle section is paralyzed, and he gets bad headaches still, according to Medical.

"Nothing said officially on how Penny and Everett feel about each other now, but Personnel files list them as working together; and I might add they have proved a highly efficient and greatly successful pair.

"Medical won't tell me ~ I suspect under threat of death from a certain party ~ but I do know OCley has retired from Active Mission Duty and insults his beat-up desk, his paperwork, and anything breathing that gets within his sight. I believe he got many, sudden and large ulcers from Black Night(as that mission's veterans also call it).

"Three Dash Two(his designation for the Nightmarnes Job only) is now Operations Leader Three, and thanks me for the recommendation I gave him ~ to my face ~ but I hear he curses me for it behind my back. (Now HE answers other teamer's stupid questions, is what I guess gets his golem.)

"The Dees are 'collecting' pearls off of Prolific Island in the Sapphio Sea and One Dash One is a link in the smuggling run to Import Island. (I'm only jealous if they have a decent tan.)

"Two Dash One has been promoted ~ from mission teamer to executive administrator ~ and is currently running 'front' and supply duty, at the Afflowtin City M.E.C.H.A..

"Two Dash Two is an instructor at the Organization's weapons training station, Targetyne, about eighty or ninety miles west of the Delite Forest Battle Complex, somewhere north of Frozen Lake.

"I am overseeing air-tightly planned, covert and open-field operations the entire Ifaenn continent over, as OCley Eight. (Thanks to ex-OCley Two, who recommended me for promotion after Black Night.)

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"Who the customer for the Nightmarnes Job was, is still sealed, and with the authority of my promotion, I dared to ask(not two months later) when that particular envelope might come unglued. It was with no little jolt to my system, that I got my reply in the form of a call from Big J himself ~ Live.

"He didn't waste my time or his ~ he didn't speak any longer than a minute: 'There are personal secrets, government secrets, eternally concealed secrets, and I trust you know there are Organizational secrets,' he told me meaningfully ~ I didn't have any trouble guessing what the bottom line was.

" 'The particular information I understand you desire purely out of curiosity,' he continued almost cheerfully, 'falls under every one of those headings... and more.'

"And then he finished in a voice, the quality of which I could not pin down, and still cannot; 'funny' is the most fitting description I can settle on. I will not claim it gave me chills, but I do recall his exact words every so often, and in the exact tones he spoke them in: 'I would even go so far as to say it is a Dark secret,' he informed me ~ And then he hung up.

"I don't know how I knew, but somehow I did, that it was 'dark' with a capitol 'D'. I have decided that if even Big J puts it that way, I don't want to know the who, the why, and even the what for certain(I still suppose the human remains were the unspecified target for Black Night). I fear what I do know ~ the how and when ~ might be details I would live longer not knowing."

"But as OCley Eight, I keep my eyes open anyway. What worries me is that I'm only human...

...I have to close my eyes with disturbing regularity."

(:)-(:)-(:)-(:)-(:) REVIEW NOTE (:)-(:)-(:)-(:)-(:)

This story may be perfect, but I have a terrible feeling there is a major Plot hole. I'm on the inside looking out, so you might see what I cannot. Please mention it to me if you spot the downed section of the Plotline.

Thanks,
SVVC ~ A.K.A. 'Sora'