Friday the 13th~Chapter 5
Sep. 13th, 2013 07:32 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
mrua7.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
section7mfuLink to Chapter 3 http://section7mfu.livejournal.com/78451.html
Link to Chapter 4 http://section7mfu.livejournal.com/78843.html
He walked nervously through the grey corridors of UNCLE’s San Diego headquarters; his eyes darting back and forth looking for anything that might jump out at him or fall or slip.
George Dennell was a high strung, emotional wreck at the moment, as it was Friday the 13th. He never left his home on that date for fear of what retributions fate would send his way. No talisman or charm would do, no, not for George Dennell.
Why Alexander Waverly had to send him to California to present a new training program he’d developed for keeping agents reports more simplified was beyond him.
“Couldn’t have been for the 12th or the 14th...it had to be today,” he grumbled.
“Aaaah,” he let out a startled shriek as someone came up behind him, tapping him on the shoulder and taking him completely off guard.
“Why George darling, fancy meeting you here,” said April Dancer, “I thought you never left New York.”
She wrapped her arm around his as they continued to walk.
George found himself completely tongue tied. ”Wow, ugh gee April...I um.”
“Relax will you, it’s not like I’m going to bite your head off. It’s just me, silly goose.” She smiled at him charmingly and that melted away his insecurity. “So what are you doing here so far from home?”
“Ugh, Mr. Waverly sent me here to present a seminar on the new filing system for field reports. No more triplicate...they’re going to be scanned into our computer database. It’ll mean a lot less paper and once file 40 is loaded onto the mainframe computer, that will mean a lot of hard copy paper to be shredded...shredded, oh God isn’t that an awful word?”
“Shredded? I suppose that depends on what’s being cut up into tiny little pieces.” April grinned.
“Oh no, don’t use that phrase, ‘cut up.” He cringed. “It makes me too nervous.”
“George, why are you so jumpy dear, what’s wrong?”
“Don’t you know what day it is?”
“Why it’s Friday of ...OH, now I know what you’re fussing about. It’s Friday the 13th. Tsk, George I would have thought an intelligent man such as yourself wouldn’t be drawn into that superstitious nonsense.” She innocently batted her eyelashes at him.
“April, how could you not believe in it? I mean so many bad things happened to people on this day. and all because they’re too careless to...”
“George, you name me anything significant that happened on a Friday the 13th!” April challenged him.
“Well the Knights Templar were arrested on a Friday the 13th and imprisoned by King Philip in 1307 to name one.
“That’s an awfully long time ago.” April snickered.
“Hey I’m just getting started...”
In 1521 the Aztec empire fell to Cortez on a Friday the 13th.
April covered her mouth, trying not to laugh out loud, knowing that Cortez didn’t conquer them all in one day.
“In 1932 the largest brush fire in all of Australia scorched over 5 million acres on..”
“Yes I know George on Friday the 13th,” April repeated.
“The Nazis kicked off the blitz on Friday the 13th, starting 76 straight days of bad luck for the British.”
“George, I think you’re mistaken there, as my memory serves me correctly, the blitz began September 7th and ended on May 16th.”
“Oh, ooookay, maybe I was thinking of September 13th 1940, when German bombs hit Buckingham Palace, destroying the palace’s chapel. Well here’s another one....On May 13, 1960, at Cape Canaveral, it was the first launch of a Delta rocket to send the Echo satellite into space. The first stage of the multistage rocket worked fine and it took off of the launch pad, but trouble developed with the second stage of the rocket and the satellite never reached the intended orbit and Echo only orbited the Earth for a few months. Now how’s that for bad luck?”
“Sorry, you still haven’t convinced me.” April ducked as a maintenance man swung around the corner with a ladder balanced on his shoulder nearly missing hitting her in the head.
“Those are mere happenstance, and not proof of bad luck,’ she said, not batting an eye.
The door to Research and Development suddenly opened and something came flying out into the corridor; April reached out and snatched it just before the object hit her in the face. She looked down to see it was a cricket ball.
“Oh sorry miss,” A lab tech came running to her. “We were just experimenting with a solvent to make a ball travel faster. You weren’t hurt were you.”
“Not in the least, “ she smiled, handing him back his experiment.
The tech accepted it, turning away from her, and just as instantly as he’d appeared...he slipped on the floor landing on his bum.”
“See now if that isn’t bad luck, I don’t know what is,” George insisted.
“Excuse me,” the embarrassed tech said. “ I must have
gotten some of the solvent on my shoes.” He hiked himself up, heading back to the lab.
“See, a reasonable explanation, just a careless accident.” April smiled, “No such thing as bad luck,” she said, hiding her crossed fingers behind her back.
“That’s the operative word George, ‘careless.’ Did you know that there’s actually a disorder for people who really believe in the power of Friday the 13th? It’s called ‘friggatriskaidekaphobia,’ April shrugged her shoulders, amused she was able to pronounce the word. “Things happen to people everyday, and most often accidents happen because of carelessness. Just because it’s Friday the 13th doesn’t mean that bad things are predestined to happen to us.”
“How can you believe that, I mean look and Napoleon and Illya; now those two have learned their lessons about the 13th, after all the spills and falls and injuries they’ve gone through.”
“Those things happen to them...us every day dear. You really shouldn’t take them out of context. We have dangerous jobs and things are bound to happen in and out of the field.”
“Hey I even heard a rumor that your partner carries a four leaf clover for good luck,” George snickered.
“Tsk. Yes Mark does and I know Illya and Napoleon carry a pocket full of trinkets on Friday the 13th...for all the good it does them. Think about it George, those charms to ward off evil, wouldn’t they be just as potent on any other day of the year? Yet still we have bad things happen to us all the time?”
George stared at her as they kept walking together, not looking where he was going, and slammed right into a wall.
“Ow! See April I told you, bad luck today.”
“There there.” She patted him on the back. “Darling, that was pure carelessness, as I said. You just weren’t looking where you were going. Now let’s hurry, you’re going to be late for your seminar.
George didn’t see April crossing her fingers behind her back.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-09-13 11:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-13 12:03 pm (UTC)Newsletter for Friday, September 13
Date: 2013-09-14 04:09 am (UTC)Re: Newsletter for Friday, September 13
Date: 2013-09-14 04:16 am (UTC)