I’ve posted fiction here before, and I’d like to try again, if that’s okay? This is an original piece of fiction that has – over the last three years – become the base for a much larger piece that I seem to always be attempting to finish. The full work is galled ‘The Guardians’ and Ryan and Dana are the two main characters for all easily explainable purposes…

Dana Fallon grumbled to himself as he made his way back to the server room at the adoption office. Ameryth, the strange redhead who ran the satellite office just South of Dublin, had told him there were heating problems affecting the network. Dana mumbled something about not being a repair man, and shuffled his worn skater shoes out back to check the issue. The room felt like it was on fire, the heat from the server practically baking in the small closet they’d kept everything in since Dana had installed the system his first summer as an intern. He peeled off his top layer – a tourist sweatshirt he’d picked up on a vacation to Edinburgh – and in his much lighter t-shirt and slight baggy jeans he got down on his hands and knees to inspect the vents that lined the floor of the room. Quickly finding that they had been shut – he’d have to talk to building maintenance and the cleaning crew about not touching the things in this room – he cranked the lever to open them again and felt the building’s cooling system pump fresh air immediately into the room.

Why Ameryth couldn’t have gotten off her chair and done it herself, he wouldn’t ask. She rarely did anything particularly ‘work’ related, except for shuffle files back and forth between the cabinets surrounding her desk. She painted her nails a lot and fixed her lipstick in a small mirror she kept on her desk where other people might keep pictures of their children or a beloved pet. But Dana was glad for the job; not many people would hire a college graduate with a BA in ‘liberal arts’ from Cork College and no real world experience at all. He had a knack for computers though, and his grandfather had made some calls, and so he became the systems IT guy for this do-nothing office an hour outside the city.

He came around from the back of the offices to see Ameryth brushing off a young woman. A woman with startling black hair and pale skin – she seemed upset and Ameryth was as cold as he’d ever seen her. The young woman clearly restrained herself as her voice was low and her smile steady; she turned and left the office quickly.

Dana approached Ameryth’s desk to ask if everything was all right, but the tall redhead stood quickly and said, “If you’re going to leave, you might as well get on with it. They’ll be gone soon.” He realized quickly that she was right, he wanted to see if he could help the stranger in some way Ameryth had refused. How his boss knew all of that, he couldn’t tell but he sped from the building in hopes of catching the young woman anyway and found her just outside with two teenage girls.

Dana walked slowly toward the group, trying to calm his heartbeat, and in his slightly citified Irish accent said, “If you need information, I’m the one who can get it for you.”

The stranger turned, the other girls shot him annoyed looks, but she smiled brightly in a way that reached her eyes and seemed to warm Dana all through. She took his hand in greeting and said, “Ryan McGill. You’ve got my attention.”

To be continued…