Harry Dick is in the Hands of Anna Daniels

March 19, 2024

It's amazing the shit you take for granted when it's no longer available to you.

For two decades, he had been stuck behind bars and between cement walls with the occasional scrap of fresh air the guards would allow. But actually feeling the wind without a single damned thing obscuring it was something he could learn to get used to again. It felt good. Freedom–in any form you can get it–always feels good, but it tends to be even better after a struggle.

And damn if he hasn't had his share of struggle to get here. From rooting through his own shit for a lockpick to crawling through other people shit and trash to the very same woods he would play in as a kid. Somehow, the convict had made it back full circle: with nothing but his pick and his wits, with nobody but his own self.

…or so he thought.

“Just broke out?”

He held that pick like it was his dick. His eyes darted about to find the source, but it was a cheeky little whistle that caused him to look up. They focused on a pretty little figure lounging on a tree branch.

“You a cop?”

He knew it was a stupid question the minute it launched out of his mouth. She wasn't dressed the part, nor did she seem that bothered by a grungy escapee ruining her doing god knows what. One could never be too careful though.

“Not our style. Just figured you were the person we were led to.”

“We? How many people are here?”

“Just you and us.”

“And who the hell is us?!”

The sentence was a little too loud, echoing across every rock and tree surrounding them. It made him flinch. He flinched even harder seeing her slip from the branch and land on her feet. That couldn't have been good for the knees.

“We’re a lot of things. Semi-retired wanderer of timelines, quasi-retired temporal janitor, fully retired mindfuck soldier, co-head trainer of Glass Jaw Academy, professional wrestler, decent wife, okay dog mom, Wavemaker, taker of two documented souls, a doctor of head kicks, occasional shill meister, and overall nuscience.”

She smiled and extended her hand.

“But you can call us Anna Daniels. Who the hell are you?”

The man blinked as he lowers his salvation/weapon and shook her hand.

“Harold. Harold Dick. Current fugitive of misjustice.”

Harold Dick, current fugitive of misjustice, saw the face of Anna Daniels, insert huge amount of things here, contorted into curiosity.

“Dick as in Fred Dick? Red hair, Michael Jordan jersey, complete dumbass?”

“You know my idiot son?”

She sighed.

“Brother, you have no fucking idea.”

_____

Oh, wait a sec. A question from the audience?

Well, okay. Since you asked so nicely, you may ask the question.

…

How'd she get there? How the fuck you think she got there? What part of semi-retired wanderer of timelines don't you understand, ya idjit? Just because she doesn't do it as often as she used to, doesn't mean she can't do it. Most of the time, Anna Daniels just doesn't want to. Most of her memories end up turning into a blur of comedy, violence, comedic violence, and ongoing travel to begin with. Even somebody of the Gallifreyan persuasion only has x amount of space in their mental databanks before things start getting merged, diminished, or--horror upon horrors!--deleted.

Add the Multitudes in the mix and…woo, boy.

So, yeah. She keeps her multiversal and multi-lineal

(Is that the right word? Fuck it. It is now.)

travel to a minimum. Because if you bounce around too much with an already bouncy brain, eventually you'll have no memories left to merge, diminish, or delete. And given that everything you are is in your head, one may understand why she'd rather not lose that at this point in time. No pun intended. The mind of Anna Daniels may be a messy minefield of “But for me, it was Tuesday” memes. But that's her minefield.

No, dear. What you should be asking is why she's there.

____

“So let me get this straight. You're here because of a wrestling match?”

“Yep.”

“That's a year in the future.”

“Roundabouts.”

“And you chose me to keep track of because there's a manhunt for me.”

“Well, ‘chose’ is a strong word. You were chosen for us. Apparently, it was between you and DB Cooper. DB Cooper lost.”

Harold ran a hand through his graying hair as if trying to message some common sense into his brain.

“How do I know you're not some wackjob?”

Anna stopped him from walking past.

“Buddy, you're a fugitive from the law and we haven't summoned them to drag your ass back to Fat Angelo with the fatter cock. Does it matter?”

It was a damn good point, he gave her that. Did it really matter? Even if she was a random crackpot, she wasn't half bad company for his first night out. Didn't even look half bad either. In the grand scale of things, this wasn't half bad. His thoughts barely got to wandering before he realised she was asking another hard-hitting question.

“Huh?”

“We were asking what you plan on doing now that you're out.”

Several years back, ol’ Harry would've gone on a whole spiel of dreams and aspirations. Get some fake documents. Leave the state. Hell, maybe leave the country. Rustle up a life for himself somewhere where the drinks come easy and the girls come cheap. Die with a smile on his face that he would never have to hear the name Fred Dick ever again. But time passes by, even in jail. A man gets older no matter where he is and sick as it sounds, one adjusts to their environment. What did he want to do now, if given the chance?

“Shit, man. I just wanna go home.”

Stupid statement number two projectile vomited out of his mouth. After twenty years, the man had no home to go to. So why did she nod?

“We get it. You're mentally tired and need something comforting.”

Anna sniffed.

“And a bath. You smell like shit.”

The elder dick scoffed. It wasn't the first time a random stranger told him that.

“So…how do you know my son?”

“We're co-workers.”

She rolled her eyes so hard, it was a miracle they didn't pop out of her head.

“Oh. Are you his manager or something?”

“No, you fuckwit. We're a wrestler.”

Modern day convention frowns on a man looking a woman up and down without consent and a blood pact. But being trapped in hell for a while meant that Harold wasn't exactly up to code.

“Huh.”

“What?”

Her head whipped around quicker than he could even think. Plus there was a look on her face he knew very well, one etched into his grey matter by his mother and several other women in his life. It was the look of disgust.

“Well, don't get me wrong, little lady. It does look like you take care of yourself just fine. But aren't any women rasslers…”

Harold was trying not to complete the sentence, but the daggers were already out.

“Say the line, Harry.”

The convict sighed.

“Slutty. They're sluts who pose for Playboy, scratch at each other in their underwear, and strut around with butterfly belts. Which is fine. I certainly enjoy the view.”

Harold Dick was expecting an ass whooping. Perhaps if the Muse hadn't spent most of her time before this baking cakes and eviscerating people with her words, his entrails would've started hanging from a nearby oak before he could get the second syllable up. Instead, she could only groan in the exasperated fashion of every femme fatale who has heard such a thing eight billion times.

“That way of thinking is so fucking lame, man.”

“You know what's lame? Try being in prison for twenty years for no damn good reason. I've been up and down that particular mountain a time or eighty-five. Nobody appreciates you, everybody fucks you, and the so-called authority couldn’t give a damn less. It’s a dog-eat-dog world in there, girl. Sometimes, you're the one that bites and others, you're the one who gets bit.”

For a moment, her eyes lit up with realization. Light whiff of cromagnon sexism aside, Daddy Dick had a good thought. A thought that she didn't particularly like.

“It may not seem like it, bud. But we're pretty damn sure we work there.”

____

You ever felt fuckin' trapped?

We have more than a few times. One of our first matches was a Monster’s Ball. Ya know, the thing where they have to throw you in a cell without light and food or anything for however many days. They kept us in there just enough to drive normal people crazy. We lost that one, of course. But there's been multiple times where the pressure is suffocating. With each passing second, the walls feel like they're going to cave in. You know that they won't. Or at least, you know they shouldn't. The vibe doesn't really go away.

Another time was when we were trapped on an murder island. Apparently, we didn't know the cardinal rule of never wrestle on a damn boat. Us and a whole bunch of our co-workers landed on the beach and watched as the cruise liner sank to the ocean floor.

A few minutes later, we saw the man that was signing our checks get his head blown off by a gun that one of the lunatics smuggled in. His skull exploded into more pieces than we can count.

An hour later? Lord of the flies type shit. An old friend of ours proclaimed himself as god of the island. Started loading up with all kinds of weaponry. You probably don't think that Time Lords could ever lose count of the days. But when you're in survival mode, you don't really care about things like how long you've been in the situation or what the day is. You're just hoping to breathe air a little bit longer. You will do literally anything you have to just to have that one moment of freedom.

You've had us trapped here for a while, Lindsay. Your meaningless nonsense and post-big show amnesia has screwed up things bigger and harder than you know. You kept us in a cage to the point where for a while, we didn't even want to leave the bastard. What's the point? There was nothing left for us out there, after all. Everything we touched turned to shit. Every risk we took did next to nothing and no matter how many of your clit suckers we outstaged, you always found a way to screw us over. Didn't even have the decency to use lube!

All the while, the pressure is there. Feeling like a sardine in a can, no room to move up or down. Everything on your schedule, right? But the schedule is always subject to change depending on what relics you did up from your glory days before being the head bitch in charge stole your soul. PRIME stole your soul and you thought it fit to steal mi–

ours.

And when that didn't work, you had the brainwashed amongst us give it a go. That really hurt, Lindz. Being reviled by management is one thing, but having your fellow inmates see you as less than dirt? That's a whole new low, especially for you.

Yet where are they now, Lindsay? Where are your white knights now? Where are all your heroes? The ones with the shiniest armor have either retired or simply pissed off to who knows where. Every single person you favored as a sort of demigod to keep us low level demons in check is gone. Who's left?

The Glue? We have words for them, but we don't feel like wasting them.

Towel and his goon squad? They're called Nobodies Heroes because nobody cares. Plus, it's a rather stupid name. N-O-B-O-D-Y-APOSTROPHE-S, you numb nut critterfuckers.

It sure as hell isn't the Red Army because we know you don't like any of them very much either.

Hey! Maybe it's your beloved Vae Victus. Oh. Wait. They suck too.

Everybody else in this match sees it as an opportunity. A chance to possibly steal the big title shot if you actually fork it over. The odds of that happening are about fifty-fifty considering how WarGames ended up. And no, we will not let that go.

To us, this isn't an opportunity. It’s all about making a statement. When you're sick of dealing with bullshit, the best and quickest way to rise above is to go to the biggest, craziest motherfucker around and out crazy him by beating him to death. “Manhunt” is some halfassed gimmick name to make it sound better than what it is.

This is a prison riot.

Honestly, it's about damn time.

__

Harold Dick couldn't believe his eyes.

Right in front of him was his old house. It wasn't exactly the way he left it. But that didn't matter. Inside, he would be embraced. Cared for. Loved. He only had to do one thing.

“Ease up on your boy. Part of the reason why he's so dumb is because of you, after all.”

That would prove hard. But he was willing to give it a try.