It's a crime I never told you about the diamonds in your eyes

I'm so sorry, my love. When those big, burly men of violence entered the room with their knives and calipers, you thought they had come for me, to beat me, to torture and kill. That is, after all, why you called them, believing that they could extract the information, the whereabouts of those twin priceless gems, the ones which you used blackmail, extortion, and murder to rope me into helping you steal from the Sheik's vault, guarded as it was by the most elaborate technology.

You knew that I had comfortably and quietly retired from pulling jobs like the one you wished to pull. But you knew, as well, that my expertise with cybernetic implants would be indispensible to your effort, and so you arranged to upend my life, to plot the death of several of my dear and trusted friends, all to drive me into giving you my unique skills. And so, when I finally acceded, and I told you of my plan to carry out your crime, you had your natural, sparkling blue eyes replaced with my own custom-designed and intricately crafted cybernetic pair, eyes capable of a projection which would fool the Sheik's retinal scanner. But you see, my love, I knew all along that when I first suggested having the implantation done instead to myself, you would balk, expecting me to use the power of those cybernetic eyes to double-cross you. No, you had to be the one to obtain the implants, with their maps and charts and internally projected information. But what I failed to tell you was that, despite all of those capabilities, I constructed each eye to contain within it a hollow space; each just large enough to fit one of the Sheik's twin diamonds. And so as you slept -- oh, I know you don't normally sleep at all, and surely not soundly, but the most precise dose of a powerful narcotic was built into those eyes as well, along with the necessary nano-injection system -- I was able to obtain the diamonds from where you had hidden them. That part was easy, I simply downloaded your visual record and watched you secrete them in that amateurish compartment you'd had implanted in your hip. But you thought I'd fled with the diamonds in hand, and so you scoured the Earth to find me, caught me (as I let you), searched me to no avail, and called in a favor from these thugs of your acquaintance. All precisely as I expected.

So you see, my love, these big, burly men come with their horrid tools designed not to extract information from me, but to extract a pair of diamonds from you, diamonds which you will surely be shocked to learn have never left your person. And it is unfortunate for you that the extraction will, of necessity, be a rather brutish sport. I am sorry, truly sorry, that you will suffer so, my love, no matter how evil your machinations against me. For though I never took them from you at all, I never told you about the diamonds in your eyes.


----

A DREAD CHAMBER production.

Alex refused to look him in the eye. Jason was used to it. Alex was a regular, and usually managed to visit his office at least once a week.

"Why did you take it, Alex?" said Jason Roberts, vice principal of Adenvale Elementary School. "Where did you put it? Do you still have it?"

The boy focused on his feet. He was hunched over in the little chair, and was trying very hard to ignore the man looming over him.

"Alex, answer me. Where did you put it?"

The boy remained silent. Jason sighed and snapped his fingers. The signs carved onto the office floor began to glow orange. The chair itself began getting warm, and a small breeze picked up despite the fact that they were indoors.

"Where did you put it?"

The boy scowled and dug through his pocket.

"I'm sorry, okay?" he said, not sounding sorry at all. "Take it back. She can have the stupid thing, I don't want it anyways."

He pulled out a strange looking bauble from his jacket pocket. It was roughly the size of a golf-ball, and at first glance it could be mistaken for some kind of glass water lily. The layers of petals were all different shades of blue that seemed to be moving, flowing up and down the petals edges like running water.

Jason took the gizmo and checked to make sure it wasn't broken.

"You just sit here and think about what you've done. Mrs. Oyama's already contacted your parents. We will be having a talk about this, Alex."

"Yes sir," said the boy miserably.

Jason stepped out into the hallway where a little girl was sitting on one of the waiting chairs. She was the same age as Alex- no more than eight- and looked as though she'd been crying. The yard duty teacher who'd brought them both in sat beside her.

"Olivia?" he said, crouching down to match the girl's height.

"Yeah," she sniffed.

"Is this yours?" He held out the bauble.

"Yes!" she snatched the bauble and wiped her eyes. Jason noted that while one was a nice shade of blue, the other was a murky grey.

Without hesitating, the girl held the bauble up to her eye and began pressing it in. Instead of hurting her, the bauble melded smoothly with her face until it was absorbed completely into her skull. When she looked back up, both eyes were blue.

"Did he say why he took it?" she said, getting up.

"Well, no. But if you ask me, I think he likes you."

"Oh."

"Now, you'd better get back to class. Ms. Nancy will escort you," he nodded to the yard duty teacher. "I bet Mrs. Oyama is is waiting for you."

The girl grinned, showing off two missing front teeth. "Okay. Thank you, Mr. Roberts."

And the little girl ran off.

"Olive, wait!" Mrs. Nancy picked herself up and hurried after.

Jason smiled and went back into his office to wait for Alex's parents.

IT'S ON! *Ding ding*