(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/7/7d/6a00e55003818f883401543213d274970c-320wi.jpg)<br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;">Sue, the Cook</span></span><br/><strong>Location:</strong>The train station<br/><strong>With:</strong>His "niece," Sophie<br/><br/>I glanced at the big clock again. The 14:04 was late by over an hour now.  Ain't no one on the platform seemed overly worried, though.  Such was life on the periphery, where things were not as neat, shiny or orderly as in the core.  It was something I was used to, growing up here on Shadow and all.<br/><br/>Vendors went a-peddlin their wares among the travelers, some of whom even rolled out and laid down on their fleatrap bedrolls.<br/><br/>A Chinese woman was cooking up some chicken stew on a camping stove.  I chatted her up a bit to pass the time, as us backwater folk tended to do.  We talked recipes and even shared some of the things I picked up in town.<br/><br/>None of this type of thing happened in the core neither.  On fancy rocks*, people kept to themselves, and it was possible to feel all lonely like even when surrounded by millions.  Out here, folks chatted up about the weather and shared.  They was nice people.<br/><br/>People of the earth.<br/><br/>You know.<br/><br/>Morons.<br/><br/>Which was part of why I left Shadow behind in the first place.  Because of silly stuff like I knew I was about to see.<br/><br/>Finally, the train came a-whizzing in on its mag-rails and the folks got a move on.  One great unwashed mass pushed out of the train, and it was met by another equally great, equally unwashed mass that pushed in.  I stood on the side and observed the herds, sighing to myself and shaking my head.  No one was waiting or making room for no one and there was a-pushing and a-shoving and a-shouting and a-cussing, but in the end everybody seemed to get where they wanted and the crowd on the platform thinned out.<br/><br/>I looked around and couldn't find nothing or no one, but I didn't know what I was looking for neither.  Last time I wrote "home," I got me a wave telling me to be at this here spot, at this here time, for this here train.  Whatever it was, it didn't come out on its own.<br/><br/><strong>“Is she yours?”</strong><br/><br/>I turned around and saw me a big mountain of a man, a conductor for the Alliance Periphery Railway.  Stood in his shadow even, like I was being eclipsed.  Somewhere up there in the silhouette of his head, his face looked down at me like he had a score to settle.<br/><br/>He had a teenage girl with him.  He was firmly grasping her upper arm and he forcibly thrust her out to me, making the girl stumble forward.  She was the sweetest thing, clearly blooming towards womanhood, yet petite and innocent like a child in her white ruffled dress.  When she finally looked up from under her large straw boater, I looked down into the face of an angel, framed by long tresses of fire-red hair.<br/><br/>I didn't get a chance to protest his treatment of her before he spoke up again.<br/><br/><strong>”Know some shame, man, raise her right!”</strong><br/><br/>I raised a hand but he turned away to return to the train.  I looked back at the girl as the conductor then unloaded a huge steamer wardrobe from the train and placed it next to the girl.  He clearly seemed glad to be rid of her and her belongings.  He said one last thing.<br/><br/><strong>”Spare the rod, spoil the child.”</strong><br/><br/>The conductor then spat on the platform and then got back on the train.<br/><br/>I noticed all this out of the corner of my eyes.  My focus was on the girl in front of me.  She wasn't just no girl, she was a girl I rescued sometime ago, except she was more grown up than I remember her last.  I addressed her directly.<br/><br/><strong>"Howdy, Sophie.  It's been a while."</strong><br/><br/>I put my hand on her shoulders and looked down at her pretty face.  She looked just like her momma.  I pulled her close and wrapped my arms around her, holding her long and hugging her tight.  Height, build, hair, eyes... hell, she even smelled like Alyce.<br/><br/><strong>"How ya'll been, Sophie?  What you got there?"</strong><br/><br/>As she answered my first question, I took the sealed letter that was in her hand.<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">The Letter</div><div class="spoiler_body">Dearest Sue,<br/><br/>I’m sending Sophie to you in the hopes that you can keep her safe when I can no longer.  You have done so much already for me and mine and yet I keep asking you for more.  It shames me to put such a burden on you but there is no one else I can turn to.<br/><br/>I saw a man sneaking about the back of the house yesterday and another one today.  I did what you taught me, hiding in the crowd on my way to work, turning corners, and I watched him in the reflection of a shop window, hurrying to catch up with me. <br/><br/>There can be no doubt anymore.  They know where I am and, more importantly, where she is. They are coming for my Sophie, Sue, and I fear the net is too tight already for me to escape. <br/><br/>I have booked passage for two on a colony ship heading to Miranda.  It’s really far out and they are still looking for settlers there.  It sounds like a reasonable thing to do for a woman on the run.  But you and I know these people: they are not easy to shake.<br/><br/>While I go towards to my fate, drawing off the dogs, a good friend of mine will put Sophie on a liner under a fake name. I pray that she travels safely and it is you, dearest Sue, who will read this letter and not them.<br/><br/>Please take good care of my Sophie and give her the love and safety that she deserves.  Ever since you took her out of that place, she hasn’t been quite the same and now that she is blooming into a woman, she has become even more difficult to handle.  She will need stability and a firm hand at times.  Sophie can be a real brat, leaving me quite literally at my wits end.  And yet, she is the only thing that I have left of my sister, the woman you loved, and there is nothing and no one I love more in the Verse than her. <br/><br/>Sophie does not know of my fate, nor of the peril she is in. She comes to you in the belief that she is just going to visit her ‘Uncle Sue’, and seeing you again is something she has been looking forward to for a long time.  It breaks my heart to know that my last words to her will be a lie, but I fear it is the only way she can be safe on her journey. She is so fragile, so sweet, and I don’t think she could shoulder the truth. <br/><br/>Forgive me to ask so much of you, when you have already given so much. You are the only one I can turn to. <br/><br/>As I leave this world to be with my sister in a better place, I leave my heart, my Sophie, with you.<br/><br/>Remember me,<br/><br/>Amelia DeLaurents   <br/><br/></div></div><br/>I kept a straight face as best I could while reading the letter, but inside I was feel awful anxious about this new responsibility.<br/><br/>After our initial meet and greet, I wheeled Sophie's trunk toward the hover mule.  I had her sit near me as I drove back to<em>"The Line</em>.  The whole time I tried not to stare.<br/><br/><strong>"Why was that conductor all flustered about ya'll?  What kind of trouble was you causin' on that there train, Sophie?"</strong><br/><br/><br/><br/>*Well-to-do-planet run entirely by the Alliance.<br/>