This is a little side-story to Chris Jones'
"The Virus" fanfic that I've been pondering for a
long time now.

    It contains some very personal references,
but they don't affect the story.

    It means a lot to me, particularly given
the time of year, and the memories of someone I
cared deeply for.

    This one's for you, Tasha.

    Ed.



    Exceptions to the Rule.

    by Ed Becerra

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

    It's an old, old adage that it's the exceptions to a rule that
prove the rule. I suppose this is just such a case. Frank disagrees,
but then Frank's always been a grouch.

    The Virus had just started spreading outside Japan, and
people were panicking left and right. Although the gay and lesbian
communities _were_ indulging in a little self-satisfied smirking. From
their point of view, it seemed like a fitting vengeance for centuries
of gay bashing. And of course, the transgendered community considered
it a gift from the gods.

    We should have seen that one coming from a mile away. Heh.

    It's when it reached certain.. uhm.. _unique_ communities
that the real trouble started. Frank was the first and most obvious
non-case. He didn't catch it, he didn't change, and it was, more than
anything else, very in-yer-face, as the kids today call it. Folks
noticed right away. Not Frankie's fault, tho. He always was a pretty
stand-out sort of guy.

    I got a phone call from a friend in Bavaria. He told me that
the underground was beginning to notice that certain gothiks weren't
catching the Virus, either.

    I just swore a lot. The whole gothic thing had been a godsend
(you should pardon the expression) to my lover's particular 'ethnic'
group. She'd been able to openly take part in society for the first
time in centuries. Now that camouflage was being stripped away with
brutal speed.

    Then it reached North America. People were getting pretty
frantic by then, barricades and firewalls (literally, in some cases)
being erected in hopes of quarantining the infection.

    It was to laugh. Heh.

    But we're not laughing any longer.

    Now we're on the run. Just about every person who still
clings to some faint hope of a cure is hunting us. Before, all we
had to do was worry about religious idiots who wanted to burn us at
the stake, or some other fool traditional form of execution.

    But now, they wave scalpels, not torches. They carry biopsy
kits instead of pitchforks. They seek to drag us to medical labs and
autopsy morgues, not churches.

    I think I'd prefer wolfsbane, myself. Or silver. Talbot feels
the same.

    Strange. First we were decried as monsters who sought to
defile and destroy the innocent. Now we're hailed as the possible
cure to the Virus. Yet either way, the end result's the same. We're
treated as things, not people.

    Imhotep and the others who are partial to warm, dry weather
have already bugged out. They're heading first to Petra, that
"rose-red city, half as old as time", in the Jordan desert. Then on
to the lost city of Ubar, in the depths of the Sahara. Anyone fool
enough to chase them THERE.. deserves whatever they get.

    Tasha and I are headed to Antarctica. Kerguelen Island. It's
located where the cold Polar waters meet the warm Indian Ocean, and
it's very isolated. Yet there's plenty of animal life there, sheep
from a failed wool raising attempt, rabbits, goats and pigs. I can
feed on them, and Tasha can feed on me. Frank and John are coming with
us, as are a few others. I understand that some of the Diggers girls
want to join us.

    It will be lonely. But anything's better than being turned
into a lab animal by desperate people seeking to learn why WE don't
change.

    If you're reading this, you're either one of them, or you're
someone they're hunting. Either way, you can expect a warm reception
on Kerguelen Island.

    It just won't be the reception you're expecting.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

    All rights to Ranma 1/2, Tenchi Muyo, Sailor Moon,
the Universal Pictures movies "The Mummy" and "The Wolf Man",
and all other movie, tv and literary references are reserved
to their creators.

    All rights to the Ranma 1/2 fanfic story "The Virus"
are reserved to Chris Jones.

    This _particular_ story is copyright to Edward
Becerra, October 24, 2000 AD.

    Thank you, and I hope you enjoyed reading it.