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No, no, no, no! There had been progress, really there had been. Now Hokee was regressing to a point past where they had started from. Why did he have to mention leapfrog? Now the boy was stuck on not only French Fries, but French cuisine. Maybe if I hurt him more, the pain will make him wake up, he thought with a scowl. Alister had been very clear that he was to approach Hokee today, which didn’t make sense. The boy had to be able to understand why he was going for a joyride on a hospital gurney, but at this point Sledge doubted that Hokee even knew he was in a hospital.

Because it was today that he had to talk to the teen, Sledge had no other choice but to continue putting up with the insanity. More movement, more talking, and most importantly, do not let them wear out your patience. The more insistent that Sledge was, the better his odds of getting this whole job over with. “Not French fries, not frog legs. Nothing to do with food of any type.” Should he say nothing about girls as well? So far Hokee’s thoughts had been going around in circles as his consciousness went down the drain. Best not to bring the girls up again in case Hokee decided that being told to abstain from them meant he had some incurable disease again.

In any case Hokee was trying to get up once again, only to have his body fail him before Sledge had to interfere. To think that earlier he had worried that he was going to worsen Hokee’s injuries in transferring him to the gurney. At this rate the boy would end up offing himself before the drugs wore out. “No mate. Let the frogs attack the pretty pretty pony. We want to stop it.” Sledge was so grateful that none of those attractive young nurses were around to hear that, but even more thankful that no macho men had overheard him.

“What do you say we hop out of here for a minute? See if the fresh air clears up your brain?” He hadn’t thought that this would be needed, and thus hadn’t packed any actual clothes. This was a hospital though, and there were people who would be staying for a few days. Pinching something to hide Hokee’s bare bottom shouldn’t be a problem at all.

Apple pies? Was that some sort of American slang that he had never heard of? David had heard that things were as American as apple pie. With Hokee having been able to understand the words at last Sledge thought that this might have been some bit of insight to the teen, a window into the unmedicated mind. Perhaps apple pie meant the two of them. But wait, that was more of a slang term for women, at least it was across the pond. He knew that over here pissed meant angry, not drunk.

Then the French fries returned. Had Hokee not actually heard anything before that would make the little bit of sense that he had made nothing more than a parrot like mimic. If that were the case than Sledge was the fool who believed the bird could talk. “Already said no to the fries,” Sledge offered as a reminder. His pride was stinging. Was the daftie only capable of thinking with his stomach? Surely in such a condition food would be the farthest from his mind. “Keep eating them and you’ll swell up into a lard arse.”

Not that he really was one to talk. Until Kaitlyn had recruited him David had been on a diet comprised entirely of fried fast food and what you could microwave at the 7-11. His innards had rebelled against him, wanting actual food and not something with barely more nutritional value than the packaging that it came in. Now that he had access to an actual kitchen it would make sense to cook frequently. It wasn’t as though David was lazy. More along the lines of being able to cook only a few edible things. Some habits are just bad for you, but you do them even with that knowledge. Sleeping with a unicorn probably was bad, and the con man chuckled. “Don’t play leapfrog with them either,” he offered as advice to the morphine fueled lump.

Progress at last. Hokee did indeed get that the unicorn was to be stopped. Word by slow word the message was getting across. Why he even managed to get that the unicorn was the end of the world. Slightly though. Pony was close to unicorn, just lacking the horn and the powers. Also there was only one unicorn, not multiple ones. He was so close to getting Hokee to understand. Repeat repeat repeat and eventually the teen wasn't going to be so clueless.

Repetition didn't clear up a mind though. Sledge had no exposure to the internet unicorn cartoons, and thus thought that Hokee was speaking nonsense again. Even if he had gotten the reference it wouldn't have made sense. It wasn't Charlie the unicorn that was evil, it was those two unicorns that tormented Charlie that were malevolent. "Candy mountain?" he asked. All he could think of was that little kids game. It was one of those places that you passed by wasn't it? Or maybe it was that song that kids sang in primary school, the one about the streams of lemonade. Suggestive of something else, and if he remembered right, it actually was talking about alcohol.

"No, no candy mountain." Honestly this was worse than trying to talk to a three year old. This was yet another reason to avoid the drug ring. You get people who have the combined intelligence of a house plant. Remembering what happened earlier when Hokee mentioned french fries Sledge amended himself. "This has nothing to do with food or treats of any sort. Don't doze off, or you'll miss everything."

AIDS? Forget about hearing half the words, Hokee was making up Sledge's part of the conversation, or having a nice chat with the drug bunnies hopping around in his circulatory system. Just how long until the meds took the edge off the pain and granted him a window of opportunity before Hokee's body let him know the extent of the damage. "You do not 'ave AIDS." What you do have is a brain of bricks, thought Sledge, though he kept that to himself. If the only thing that Hokee had gotten out of the conversation thus far was contracting a horrible disease, being told that his skull was filled with a construction material would result in something even more obtuse. Bricks for brains? He had gone through an unnecessary surgery that would gradually replace his innards with various bits and bobs so that he could be cloned.

"Can you focus for just one minute?" Kaitlyn should have warned him that you should never make plans the days you stop by Alister. His hot date was going to have to wait for another day, if he could convince her to give it one more go. If Hokee couldn't clear his mind up long enough for David to deliver the message the whole evening might as well go to pot. If he could just stay awake and semi intelligent for three, four minutes the Brit would be fine with that. "World, going to end. You, healthy."

Dear lord now he was talking like an unevolved neanderthal. Given the state of his companion David should probably stick to words with two syllables or less, forget all the conjunctions, proper nouns, pronouns, adverbs... Slaughter the Queen's English and start grunting. Either that or start to babble utter nonsense and hope that it translated into actual words to the teen. Yes Hokee was under the influence of some unknown (to Sledge) drug that made his mind about as useful as a lint roller in a flood, but you would think the mention of an apocalypse would garner some attention. "Unicorn destroy world. You help."

Alister's future seeing abilities had provoked the need for this intervention, and had given Sledge his marching orders. This beaten up teen was needed to prevent the apocalypse. An apocalypse brought about by a unicorn. The con man had to wonder if Alister had known about the collision in advance. Simply getting Sledge to accept the strange, and highly unlikely, source of the end of the world had been a sisyphean task. Unicorns were too noble in mythology. Perhaps the road was indeed paved with good intentions. With the teen floating in a cocktail sea of pain medications and the dregs of adrenaline leaving his veins it may very well be easy to accept that one My Little Pony was the four horsemen.

Of course Sledge had no clue if any surgery was necessary for Hokee. He had fed that rubbish to satiate the bird. Nothing on the medical chart made sense to him, if there was any sense to be made in the first place. Had he been able to decipher the scribblings that decorated the charts he would still need some sort key for the abbreviations. What was needed was time, time to be able to have a chat with Hokee in private without risk of interruptions. Speaking of unicorns and destruction might be easier under influence of prescription drugs, but such conversation could easily be waved off as a hallucination.

"No chips for you mate," Sledge responded to the incoherent mumblings. The words were not important, other than to make the injured party aware that he was not alone. Get him to talk, and keep talking. Preferably with sentences that make sense. "Iffin Chase was one of those anklebiters back there, 'e's fine. There's more important things we need to talk about." It was an interesting balance between keeping Hokee out of the room long enough for his lie to be convincing to the lady he had left behind, and getting him back before someone who actually belonged on the hospital staff swung by and found the empty bed. He was it in a real bad way, but surely if there was a pressing need for surgery the teen would have been put under promptly. This sort of tension was the thrill of the scam, the risk of being caught and having it all crash in on his head.

Police could be daft apeths, that much Kaitlyn had gotten right, but the girl didn't understand how imperative it was that he stay in America. She was still young enough that a prison cell was nothing more than a holding area to her, a slap on the wrist. What did she know of jail, or the retribution of his crimes? There was nothing left in England, he had become too much of a presence on the police's radar. Coming to America had given him a clean slate. This time, he wasn't going to be caught.

"Don't matter, you're young. Tear up a little and you'll get away with murder," Sledge told Kaitlyn. His brother had said something along the lines the first time that David got caught trying to pinch a video game. Having a young face wasn't a bad thing when it came to lies. Rounded faces were more trustworthy because curves were thought of as comforting. "Still, get caught with something serious like M, and once you're eighteen you won't be able to get away with anything."

As he was eating his spaghetti there was an unfamiliar tinkling tune. Sledge looked about confused, wondering where the noise was coming from before remembering that he now had a cellphone. The little screen was lighting up. "Begging your pardon, but I believe it's rude to answer the phone at the table," Sledge excused himself, flipping the fedora back onto his head and walking away from the table.

Sledge knew that he could influence people into doing things that might be outside of their nature, and he knew that he was good at it. He hadn’t realized that he had such power over his shopping assistant when it came to her ears. Buttering her up by complimenting her features had been a tactic to cement her willingness to help him, not to get her to put holes in her head. Was he going to have to always watch his mouth around people? He had a tendency to drop flirtatious smiles and chat up lines to any lady that caught his eye, even if he knew there was no chance. “Even if sterling silver doesn’t irritate your skin, it’s possible to ‘ave an allergy to it, and that isn’t something you want in your ears. Gold is less likely to cause a reaction, or get an infection.”

When it came to allergies Sledge was in the know. Seafood hadn’t been frequent in the Duckland house, but the first time he had clam chowder there had been a mad dash to hospital. Nobody knew then that his struggle for air and coldness were symptoms of anaphylactic shock, and that the cause was the meal he ordered in the pub. Once it was established that he should stay clear from all shellfish his mum and da had been given pamphlets about allergic reactions. “Sense of doom” had been a symptom, and while that was useful in his situation, when it came to ear piercing it was less then helpful. Having something called a gun put up to your head was enough to trigger a sense of doom.

“Does she need parental consent?” Sledge asked the sales person. He didn’t know all of the regulations in the United States.

“Minors under the age eighteen need either their parent’s or legal guardian’s signature on the waiver and their parents have to be present.”

Damn, that tossed a spanner in the works. It wasn’t as though Sledge could lie and say he was either one of those to the girl. For one he hadn’t even learned her name. Even the most useless parents had an inkling to their child’s name. The whole name thing aside, they had not entered together, and he had approached her asking for help. Even if all that had not been a problem, lying about having a family relation to the person that you already were lying about a niece you did not have was a stupid mistake. “Why don’t you take a look at their starter options?” Sledge asked the teen, his devious mind already thinking of a way to make this work. With the teen distracted David gestured for the associate to lean in. He began to address her, exaggerating his accent and hating the way he sounded in his head. “Listen, she’s a student at tha’ Xavier Institute. Parents dinnit want ‘er, so she’s been legally declared an adult. Summin’ ‘bout parental emancipation… Me, I’m not in charge of ‘er, just provided th’ lift ‘ere, but it would mean th’ world to ‘er iffin she could get a pretty stone in ‘er ears.”