Some people enjoy waking up to a beautiful day, birds chirping, sun shining, all that nostalgic crap. Today Liz woke up to the distinct feeling of pain and a metal detector in her face.

          "Hold still, I think I've found something." Gloria, the bearer of the metal detector, was standing over her. To her disgust, Liz had a pretty good view up her nostrils. Looking around Liz realized she was in some sort of grungy apartment, lying on the floor.

          "Don't worry, we're not trying to hurt you." looking to the side Liz realized that Liz squatting next to Liz was Avery. Liz's head pounded. She was no doctor but Liz was pretty sure being knocked out twice in two days couldn't be good for her.

          "Where are we?" Liz stuttered

          Avery shrugged "my friends apartment, she's away and asked me to water her plants. I figured she wouldn't mind if we stayed here until things wore off.

          Liz stared at Avery "you knocked me out." she said harshly.

          Avery looked surprised, but then smiled to herself "you wouldn't let us do this if you were awake now would you!" she gestured to Gloria who's metal detector was beeping over Liz's leg.

          "Well, maybe that's a sign that you shouldn't do it at- oww!"

           "Got it!" Gloria lifted her pocket knife out of Liz's now bloodied ankle and fished out a small chip with her gloved hand. "that makes five!"

          Liz sat up and rubbed her ankle, only know did she realize she had four other cuts around her body. Her left middle finger, her right wrist, behind her right ear, and her shirt was rolled up to reveal another one just above her belly button. Self consciously, Liz tugged her shirt down. "Five chips, would they be that through."

          "Not just five," said Avery eyeing Gloria's metal detector. "We believe that there's a sixth, they may even go as far as adding an eighth or tenth."

          Gloria threw a sideways glance at Avery and sighed, "Avery's convinced that there's an even number of chips in there."

          "That's because there is an even number of chips in there." The two ladies seemed to have a glaring standoff, it would have been hilarious if they weren't talking about exacto-knifing chips out of Liz's own body.

          "It's my body, so it's my call" Gloria and Avery looked up, surprised that Liz had dared to break the awkward silence, "and I say there's only five chips."

          Avery's face reddened until it looked like she was going to hurt herself, "It. Doesn't. Make. Sense. Why would they put an odd number of chips in there."

          "It absolutely makes sense, Maggie loved the number five." It was true, there was something weird about the number that always compelled her to pick it. Maggie had five emails, five hamsters, five 'crushes' (or so she claimed) and five different pairs of dangley earrings she liked to rotate between. And yet, all of it had been part of one big double life.

          "I'm sorry Elizabeth, but none of this information can be considered relevant when we know that she was lying to you all the time. Now, about the tracking chips." With that, the old shrews started up on another argument about how many chips were installed. 

          It doesn't matter, she thought, almost announcing it to the world. My best friend tried to kill me and my whole world was flipped upside down and none of it matters because i'll probably dead  within the next twenty four hours. Liz tried to rub away the headache steadily creeping up her spine, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to go horribly wrong and, for the heck of it, she would be knocked out again!

          She didn't really mean any of this, but yet she couldn't get it out of her head as she realized what she had been missing all along.

                                                                                    __________

          "You called for me?" Eva Larkson stood at the end of a long, narrow straight with observation windows dotting the hallways. Strangely it reminded her of the high school she use to attend, fake attended, in her fake life. When the project had been first proposed to her she had been so disgusted with the prospect of living and befriending a girl much younger than her she had locked herself in her quarters convinced she rebelled long enough they would give the project to someone else. They  didn't.

          Honestly though, she had grown a little attached to Ms. Elizabeth Frost. The girl was so pathetic it was impossible to not fall for her, she was like an injured puppy. Eva was a little disappointed when the girl had shown up useful she almost felt bad to be betraying her. Almost.

           "Yes I did," the Generals voice shook Eva back into reality, "our scientists have dissected the chip and determined it's not the information we were looking for."

          "General Thomson, if you're suggesting what I think you are."

            "I'm suggesting exactly  what you think I am, you alone know enough about Liz to find out where the real chip is."

          "But she'll find me easily recognizable, she'll know not to trust me."

          "Larkson, I'm not asking you to gain her trust, I'm asking you to find the information. Now do you accept assignment or not?"

          Eva smiled, that malicious horrible grin she hadn't felt herself smile since she had left the base. "Of course, General, I would be delighted."