A Foreword from the Narrator:
The following are three accounts from the lives of three separate women, from their own perspective and (at least partially) in their own hand. The women differ wildly: in outlooks, in temperaments, and -- especially -- in regards to morals. But it is these three women who will, ultimately, shape the future; not just their own or that of the Dead Man's Hand, but these moments may eventually shake Sin City Championship Wrestling to its core.

This is a story about decisions -- those these women have made, those they will make, those they had made for them, and those they may forever regret not making.

But then, every story is, in the end, about the decisions we make.

This is a story about the journey to those decisions, about the consequences of making them, and about the emotions that led to them. Emotions like hate and love and anger.

But then, every story certainly features these things as well.

This story, however, is rare simply from the fact that it features grains of real, unadulterated truth, and these are as rare as diamonds when one deals with the Dead Man's Hand.

Enjoy them while they last.

* * * * *

'I don't know how else to put this
It's taken me so long to do this
I'm falling asleep and I can't see straight
My muscles feel like a melee
My body's curved in a U-shape
I put on my best, but I'm still afraid.'

* * * * *

Madison: Airport Rendezvous
It was the second week of March, during the build-up to the St. Patrick's Day Temptation that everything started to go to hell.

I was tired. I was cranky. I'd just spent close to seven hours on an airplane or in an airport. (People who travel are assholes -- it's a known fact of the universe, right up there with 'no one ever refills the ice tray.') I wanted to go home and go to bed. It had been a hell of a week, after a BITCH of a week the week before.

(There's a sliding scale, keep up.)

I schlumped off the plane, dragging my bag behind me -- one of those wheeled bags that never seen to have the handle at the right height. I cannot tell you how many times I used to have that thing tip over and skid across the tiled floor at airports.

'MOMMA!'

It's amazing how one word, pitched to such a volume, changes everything.

My girls and my best friend were at the airport waiting for me. The mother in me thought about being mad at Darien -- it was after ten o'clock on a school night, after all.

The person side of me decided the hell with that, though, because I had two seven-year-old girls run-jump-tackle-hug me as soon as I passed through security. They looked tired (I don't remember the last time they stayed up this late), but I didn't care. Summer's hair was mussed, and Dakota had gotten some chocolate ice cream on her favorite t-shirt (which meant that Darien had bought her chocolate ice cream while they were waiting for my flight to land! Grr!).

I didn't care, though. I set my shoulder bag down (Darien scooped it up without me asking) so I had more arm to hug with.

Dakota was (surprise!) talking. '...on the TV -- I know we're not supposed to watch, but Uncle D said it'd be okay, since I reallyreallyREALLY missed you an' stuff. Ohmygod, Miss Alanna was back on the TV! She's so tight!'

I laughed a little; really, how could you help it? 'Yeah, it was good to see them.'

'And it was pretty cool how Daddy, uhhh...' Dakota looked back at Summer; the two had been at odds about Hunter since his visit to their school. 'Nevermind. It's just so great to see you and I have so much to tell you like how Mikey Hallings totally got this booger and -- '

'Hey.' Darien Thorsen had one of those voices, you know? Even back when he was just my bodyguard. People listen to what he says. 'Your momma just got off a real long flight. How about we save the barrage of questions until after she's had a chance to have something to eat, okay?'

It's funny -- people always told me I was blind as a bat when it came to Darien's feelings for me, but that's not really true. I knew how he felt, and I'd just... grown accustomed to it, I guess.

Those feelings would make the inevitable end of my battle with my husband -- my ex-husband -- and Alexandra Pierce all the harder.

'Can we get Pizza Hut, Momma?' Summer asked. She rarely said or asked for anything, but Dakota more than made up the difference, so very few people realized just how unearthly her quiet really was.

'Lil.' Darien's booming voice always quieted when he dealt with her. 'It's almost ten o'clock, and you've got school tomorrow.'

'Aww... let the damn kid have a piece of pizza, you asshole.' The speaker was another woman -- one I hadn't seen in months and one who, quite frankly, I didn't expect to see at the Greater Rochester Airport.

'Auntie Ratsy!' Dakota shouted, and Cecilia Sicarii was the second victim of one of my daughter's patented run-jump-tackle-hugs. Let me just say that, as far as crossbody blocks went, Dee Sabuani packed a rather surprising wallop.

Rat caught up Dakota in her arms, twirling around in a circle as she stumbled backwards. Hot pink sneakers spun outward in one direction; Rat's rainbow of braids whistled in the other.

'How the fuck are you, Tiny Dynamo?' Rat asked, managing to heft Dakota overhead.

The little girl giggled. The mother in me winced. Rat was such a bad influence -- who curses around a seven-year-old?

'I'm jus'... too... sweeeeeeeet!!' I imagined nearly everything Dakota said coming with at least two exclamation points.

'Damn skippy you is.' Rat grinned, her metal-capped teeth gleaming in the fluorescent lighting. How that woman ever got onto an airplane is completely beyond me. Rat (who they called the Little Dynamo) ruffled Summer's red-blonde hair. 'Heya, kiddo.'

Lil smiled; it was just a quick blur across her lips.

Rat swung Dakota onto her hip. 'You girls...' She said it like 'grrls,' half a mumble and half a slur. '...have gotten super-mondo-gigundonormous!!' I also pictured almost everything that Rat Sicarii said as ending in double exclamation points. 'It's a good thing your sweet Auntie Ratsy works out like whoa, eh?'

'I work out, too!!' Dakota gesticulated as she spoke -- yeah, the chocolate ice cream was such a bad idea. 'We're climbing rope in gym class and I'm, like, zoomzoomZOOM fast!'

'Oh really? You'll have to tell me all about it.'

'I could show you, but, uh...' Dakota's face got all serious. She leaned forward to whisper. 'I don't have any rope with me.'

'It's okay,' Rat said. 'I don't think they'd let you bring it past security.'

'They so suck!!' Dakota said with a firm nod. 'We have one I put up in the tree at home, though. Mom, can we go and show Auntie Ratsy my whiz-bang climbing skills?'

'Maybe later, honey,' I said.

'Yeah, it ain't exactly happenstance that I'm in Upstate New York.'

'It never is,' Summer said quietly. She turned those intense eyes up to Rat. 'Are you here to talk about Poppa?' Dakota's eyes snapped to Rat's face as well, which twisted into a doubtful face.

'Uh. Kinda, yeah.'

Summer nodded. 'I thought so. Come on, Dee. Let's get a bottle of water.'

Seven-year-old girls have a remarkable ability to slither out of the grasp of an adult, and, for this case and this case alone, Rat qualified as 'an adult,' as Dakota managed to slither to the ground.

'Darien...' I began. 'Will you...'

'Yeah, no problem,' he said immediately, trundling off after the two little ones.

Rat watched him go, narrowing her already beady brown eyes. 'You still haven't told him, have you?'

'What, the truth?' I snorted. 'He wouldn't understand.'

'You sure about that, Mads?'

'I...' I stopped, running a hand through my hair. 'Yeah, no. That's a lie. I don't want him to understand. He'd stop seeing me as an angelic, pristine being, and I don't think I could take that.' I blew out a sigh. 'So you're not here for a personal visit to catch up with the girls?'

Rat's shoulders blurred in a short shrug; I still remember the stiff leather of her jacket crinkling. 'Wish I could say otherwise. It ain't just that Rapscallion dude you gotta worry about. You know that.'

'There's a reason we're out here in the boonies, so Alex's people don't get itchy when it comes to the twins... I've heard this all before, Cecilia. Did Tall, Dark, and Bland send you out here just to reinforce things?'

'Well, you knew that once we put you on the court, they'd send a goon out on the ice against you to prevent you from kicking a touchdown.'

'Wow.' I laughed. 'I don't think it's possible for someone to screw up a sports metaphor more.'

She waved a black-nailed hand through the air. 'That's not really why I'm here, either.'

'Then why are you here?' I turned towards my ex-husband's best friend and stood my rolling suitcase up straight.

'Have you seen Bubba recently?' It takes a lot to make Rat Sicarii uncomfortable, but she shifted from foot to foot as if she was trying to find a position that wouldn't make her question overly invasive.

'At the shows, sure. Had that swell confrontation with him after Alex kicked the crap out of me in Salt Lake.'

'I, uh, I meant...'

'You meant what, Cecilia? We've been at this since we sat around that dinner table eighteen months ago and decided what had to be done, and you and I have known each other too long for you to start double-dealing at me.'

'Socially. Outside of the office.' Rat sighed, and I was glad I was a dirty liar for so long, because it kept me from blanching. 'I guess I mean... have you and Hunter been fucking around on the side?'

'What the hell gave you that idea?' Rage is a good barricade emotion.

'Jonas has people, just like Alex does, Mads -- people who watch folk, people you don't notice, people who're damn good at their job. I told him that there's no way you'd be that fuckin' stupid, to go get your badonkadonk on. Tell me I'm right. That I'm a genius an' I oughta tell him to go get hosed.'

I was spared having to answer Rat's question as Summer's loud-soled shoes banged against the tile. I looked that way.

'So, Auntie Ratsy?' Dakota asked. 'Are you coming back to our place? I can show you my climbing skills!'

Rat shook her head, beaded and braided dreadlocks clattering together. ''Fraid not, Tiny D. I gotta flight to Philly with my name on it, and I'm Jonesing for a cigarette.'

'Miss Thatcher says that cigarette smoking can lead to serious health complications,' Summer observed.

'Ask Eddie Lambert that sometime if you meet him,' Rat said. 'Darien...' Cecilia tipped an imaginary cap. 'Pleasure as always.'

Darien had one hand behind his back, looking at me. But he nodded. 'Rat, take care of yourself.'

'Girls, remember what I always say?'

'If you've got it, flaunt it!' Dakota called, as if by rote. 'And if you don't got it, steal it from someone who does.'

The Dynamo gave Dee a crooked, metallic grin. 'You remember!'

'Unfortunately,' I muttered.

Rat backed away, ruffling Summer's hair as she went. Summer frowned, pushing up on the bridge of her glasses with her thumb.

Darien waited until Rat was out of sight before he produced a small, sleek black cellphone. 'This rang while we were at the concessions stand,' he said with a frown. 'I didn't answer, but you wanna tell me where the 816 area code is and why there's a guy calling you from it?'

'Why do you assume it's a guy?'

He just gave me one of those looks, but Dakota answered for him.

'Mom, you're totally hot!'

Summer just stared in that way she always had and I never paid attention to.

'I thought you had an iPhone,' Darien said finally. 'You paid five hundred bucks for that thing.'

'It's being serviced, so they gave me a loaner.'

It was a lie, and I feel rotten about it.

We went home finally, and as bone-weary as I was from all my traveling, the weight of my actions over the last few weeks -- and those actions I knew were yet to come -- were weighing down on me, and I didn't sleep that night.

* * * * *

'Propped up by lies and promises
Saving my place as life forgets
Maybe it's time I saw the world
I'm only here for a while
But patience is not my style
And I'm so tired that I gotta go.'

* * * * *

Interlude -- 'Rabbit': A Requiem for a Lost Soul (Act III)
There is an American movie, a dreadfully bad sequel to a horrendous horror movie.

'I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.'

I wish I could say the same.

I remember it vaguely, sure. I remember a lot of reading -- the classics, mainly, though you'd be unsurprised to know that I read Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Machiavelli's The Prince.

I remember the training: it was grueling, hours and hours of sparring, followed immediately by two games of chess.

You do not want to know what would happen if I lost either the sparring match or either of the chess games.

I will not pretend to be ungrateful. I was nothing before Margaret took me in. A whore in cum-soaked panties.

Now I was being given the chance to be something, to be someone.

And if the price of that opportunity was that large swathes of my life were gone, large pieces were blurry nothings that I can never hope to recall, then I say, 'So be it.' I embrace the forgetfulness. I cherish the loss.

I have dreams about being different people under the tender mercies of Dr. Ernst. I was Becky Jennings, a blonde cheerleader; I remember giggling a lot. I was once Gina Charles, preppie-yuppie (yup-preppie?) college student.

I think I might've been black once, but that's almost too ridiculous to count.

One day (I think it was the second week of March, though I wouldn't swear that on a Bible), I found Margaret in her study. The woman read every newspaper she could get her hands on. I don't mean just the London Times or the New York Post or the Dallas Morning News. I mean she read at least twenty papers a day. Not every word, but enough that she'd understand them.

I lingered in the doorway; Margaret's study was her own space. Not even Charles would dare to enter it. 'Who am I?' I asked.

The old woman looked up from her copy of the day prior's Chicago Sun Times; living in London often meant Mags (NEVER let her hear you call her that) had to wait for yesterday's news, but she never seemed to notice. Her eyeglasses hung on a chain around her neck, though I often wondered if they were there just for effect.

'You are whomever you want to be, youngling,' Margaret said, looking back down to the news.

'That's not really an answer, ma'am.'

'It is the only answer that matters.' Just her eyes came up. 'And you know that contractions are lazy, Rabbit.'

I hated that nickname and everything it stood for. I am not a scared little girl.

'I apologize, madam.' I could never meet her gaze.

'Accepted. What has brought on this sudden onrush of doubt?'

'When you were training, didn't -- ' I caught myself under her steely gaze. 'Did you not ever consider whether it would not be best to just be yourself?'

'Who were you before, Rabbit?' I froze, but not just because I didn't have an answer. 'You were nothing, you were inconsequential. If Dr. Ernst makes you someone else and you remember a sliver of that person, you are one sliver better than you used to be.'

'What do you... you...' We were trained well, those wayward children who lived in Margaret Winters' estates. Though some of my favorite reading was then -- and still is now -- Good Conduct Well-Chastised and Vice Amply Rewarded, we did not live by the harsh rules set out therein.

So I did not cry out or tear up when the pain in my midsection brought me to my knees. I simply collapsed in as dignified a manner as I could.

The vast swell of unconsciousness swept up out of the abyss to claim me soon thereafter, but I'm pretty sure that I didn't puke on Margaret's antique Persian rugs.

Or, at least, if I did, she never said anything.

***

I never knew the girl they called Rabbit.

Not then, and, perhaps, not at all. So what I'm about to relay to you I have pieced together from hearsay and rumor, from interviews I have conducted and what reports have not been sealed.

Margaret Winters and her entourage took Rabbit to the hospital on a lonely afternoon in March.

They didn't tell her what had caused her fainting episode or her pain, and the doctor who performed the checkup soon became just another victim of the random violence that so pervades the modern European city.

It was this moment -- this very fucking instant -- when Margaret Winters' relationship with her protégée changed forever, however she would not learn how for nearly a year.

Three days after Rabbit returned from the hospital, Margaret Winters' Home for Wayward Young Girls got a little bit larger.

But that's a story for another time.

* * * * *

'What am I supposed to hide now?
What am I supposed to do?
Did you really think I wouldn't see this through?
Tell me I should stick around for you
Tell me I could have it all
I'm still too tired and I gotta go.'

* * * * *

Katsidy: I Am A Lying Bitch-Whore
People think it's easy to be me.

I think people figure that being hot solves all of life's problems or whatever. Like the fact that I don't have to buy myself a drink at a bar means I have an easy life or that fucking anyone I want makes up for fucking anything.

It was the second week of March when my best friend asked me to do something horrible.

Usually, I'm not adverse to this. She also asked the last week of February, the first week of February, and, at last count, one hundred and twelve times prior to this last request. It's okay, because I usually like doing bad things, and most of her suggestions were godawful amounts of fun.

What bothers me is how Alex looks at me when she asks these things. Like I'm some kind of plaything or toy that she can point in the direction of some man she wants to ruin and be sure that it will undoubtedly happen.

Still, it'd be nice to be treated as a regular person every once in a while. Maybe we could go out and get a drink once in a while.

Though I'm fairly sure she drinks, like, absinthe or human blood or something, and the kinds of bars we'd have to go to do get that kind of stuff would mean I'd have to wear such bad clothes. We'd prove the Undertow right, and I wouldn't allow that to happen.

We were zipping along the road when my phone rang. The caller-ID read 'J. Cross,' so I raised my hand to quiet Alex (not that she and I spent these car ride gossiping or anything) as I fit my Bluetooth behind my ear.

'Mmm, hi,' I said when the call connected.

'What are you doing right now?' Jordan Cross asked me, halfway between perturbed and turned on. But that was his default condition when it came to me.

'I'm heading to the grocery store.' I lie easily; it's second nature. 'I'm completely out of milk, can you believe that?'

'What if I told you I was sitting outside your place?'

'I'd know you were lying, because I never bring anyone to my place.'

'Honey,' he said, miming my words from a couple of weeks earlier. 'I work for Sin City Championship Wrestling Security. It's our fucking job to know where the talent is at all times.'

I let a grin curl through my words. 'Except the address I gave Smitty-dear was when I was Trouble, and so is a lie. Nice try, sweetheart, though I think you'll love the girl who really lives in that apartment. She's sexy, and she's a police officer.'

'You just never stop playing your little games, do you, Kathryn?'

I tipped my head back with one of my low, throaty laughs. 'They're so much fun, Jordan. Wouldn't you agree?'

'Just what is it you're playing at, Kat?'

'Right now? I'm thinking I'm playing at my clit.' I crossed my legs. Across the seat from me, Alexandra suppressed a snort. 'Wouldn't you like to see that?'

'You're... you are not.' He didn't sound as doubtful as he'd hoped.

I grinned, shifted the hook of the earpiece so it got closer to my mouth, and caught my breath in my lungs in an 'Oooh'.

His voice thickened. 'W-why are you doing this to me?'

I grinned, wide and long. 'Mmm, because it's so much fun? You did have fun, didn't you, lover?'

'I... I guess.'

I love it when they put up a fight. When they try to hold onto their moral fiber, because they think that I'm some kind of poison. 'Wellllllllll.' I drew out the word. 'If all you're doing is 'guessing,' I suppose I could stop. If that's what you.... mmmgod... really want me to do.'

Jordan only provided me silence as an answer.

'I didn't think so.' I didn't even try to mask the triumph in my words. 'Tell you what, hon. The grocery store I've gone to visit is a special favorite of mine and is out of town anyway. How about I stop by afterwards and let you decide once and for all?'

'Where are you?' he asked -- I could hear his frown.

'If I told you that, you'd think less of me, dear.'

'Don't really think that's possible, dear.'

I almost laughed aloud. 'I'll make it up to you, baby. I promise.'

'Like I believe your promise holds any water?'

I stretched out in the backseat of Alex's limo. 'Oh, come on. It has to hold at least a thimble full. I'll talk to you later, lover.'

I managed to suppress the gales of laughter when I pressed the button behind my ear, but only because Alex was in the car, too, and she hated it when I was unladylike. I pulled the phone out of my purse, flipping open the keyboard.

'Now what are you doing?' Desade didn't look up from her leather portfolio.

'Hush, you,' I said off-handedly. If people knew how I spoke to the Director, they'd probably have drawn and quartered me years ago. 'I don't ask you what you're doing when you're playing with these monkeys' minds -- pay me the same courtesy when I'm stringing along their libido.'

'What are you talking about?' She still wasn't looking up as my thumbs glided along the keyboard. 'You ask me that all the time! 'Alex, why are we doing this?' 'Alex, should we maybe try something else?' I get these questions from you all fucking day, Kat.'

If people knew how the Director spoke to me, however, they'd probably have an embolism.

I glanced up, grinning. She'd managed to not change her expression; she was so stone-faced.

'Who is that text to?' she mused, crossing fiercely through a line of writing.

'Benji Dill.' I grinned. 'Why, who did you think it was to?'

'I know you have always been close with Alanna Marshall, even when your stepbrother and Lance were at odds.' Now she looked up and leveled that hard gaze on me. Even though I've known her so long, it was hard not to shift away. 'I trust I do not have to worry about you?'

'Honey, you always have to worry about me. I'm a hundred twenty pounds of trouble in a killer dress and stiletto heels. But I haven't given fucking Alanna Marshall another thought since last Wednesday.'

The woman the rest of the world knew as Desade had some bad habits that didn't involve random crucifixions and bad hair days. One of them was her propensity for chewing the end of a pen. We'd tried everything to get her to stop (hypnosis, bad flavors, positive and negative reinforcement), but eventually it came down to banning her from having disposable pens, because it wasn't dignified for her to walk around with a chewed-up pen cap.

'Mm.' She tapped the pen against her lips. 'I believe the phrase is, 'Do not bullshit a bullshitter,' Kathryn. I do not deny you your right to have a friendship with the other side, as it were. Heaven knows Damon Hayes and I had our share of personal moments, even while I was preparing my endgame.'

'You and Damon were hawt.'

Desade never rose to those kinds of comments; hell, it was the first time she'd mentioned Hayes to me in years. 'The moment that your relationship with Alanna Marshall becomes a problem for my operation, however is the instant that decisions will need to be made. Do not put me in that position.'

The car jerked to a halt, forestalling any answer I might have given, but I'd long ago stopped responding to Lexi's threats -- just encouraged her to follow through on them.

The bony-ass Mr. Hawke jerked open the door.

'We've arrived, ladies.'

***

There is an old saying, quoted often in politics; it's even said to be an old Vulcan proverb.

'Only Nixon could go to China.'

If that's true, then only Alexandra Pierce could go to this house in Paradise Valley, Arizona.

They parked the car up a block; since the home was buried at the end of a cul-de-sac, any kind of unnecessary vehicles were liable to draw his attention. Desade and Katsidy were ferried out of the limo, which quickly made itself scarce. As soon as the Director exited the auto, a short girl whose dark brown hair was not real met her.

'The house is at the end of the block,' Lauren Fox said, extending a set of keys based around a silver star. 'He doesn't have many neighbors -- kind of lives by himself at the end of the street.'

'Why doesn't that surprise me?' Katsidy asked.

Desade rarely responded to snide women. 'Will any of them be a problem?'

'Hawke thinks that the old man in that house right there might be an issue. Little bit jumpy, he's called 911 twice in the last year.'

Pierce nodded slightly, her hair coming in front of her face. 'Have you spoken with him?'

Lauren frowned a little, her lip piercing shining in the afternoon sun. 'He didn't respond at all to Susie's bike having a flat. Suggested I go up to a hardware store a few blocks away and wouldn't even drive me. I was thinking of bringing out Rebecca Bainbridge, see if he'll do an interview about neighborhood heroism.'

Desade pursed her lips, shaking her head. 'Too many visitors are liable to increase his attention.'

'I could go see him,' Katsidy offered, adjusting her tops. 'I'm sure I'd give him a heart attack, but he'd be nice and distracted.'

'Is that your plan for everything, sis?' Lauren Fox rolled her eyes.

'Stepsister, you ungrateful little...'

Desade held up a hand. 'Does he have family? Relatives nearby?'

Lauren flipped open her memo pad. 'He's got a daughter who lives around ten minutes from here. From what Susie saw, he's got pictures of her everywhere.'

'You say that like it wasn't you,' Katsidy mumbled.

'Call her,' Desade said. 'Get her to come see her father. Have some hamburgers delivered.' Savant nodded, but Desade wasn't done. 'Has Ashe set up his equipment?'

'The boys are set up about three hundred yards off to the left. They've got the full spectrum, just as you asked.'

'Excellent. I want every instant we are inside watched, and I do not want them to leave until well after Smythe and the others have returned.'

'Of course not. We're stirring the pot, have to see what bubbles up to the top.'

'Can we just do this instead of cackling fiendishly about it?' Katsidy got bored quickly. She'd folded her arms and was tapping her foot on the ground.

Desade's smile stretched, just a touch. I think this kind of thing still brought some excitement to her black heart. 'Run interference, Lauren, but stay out of their way.'

Desade and Katsidy, the oddest of associates -- one who ran hot, the other who ran cold -- crossed the street to the large house as if they belonged there. Katsidy even whistled, until Pierce's glare quieted her.

The keys Alex was given were almost wholly useless, but one of them fit easily into the lock, and it opened without fanfare.

Twenty-five minutes later, a large, tattooed man dressed in black and still dripping from a workout, arrived at the house.

His name was Mayhem, and he was here because this was his house.

* * * * *

'I get to go home in one week
But I'm leaving home in three weeks
They throw me a bone just to pick me dry
I'm following suit and directions
I crawl up inside for protection
I'm told what to do and I don't know why.'

* * * * *

An Afterword from the Narrator:
It is not often that the narrator of a story matters. He (or she?) is an omniscient, all-seeing-eye, bound to tell the truth as they see it.

I am not omniscient, though I very much wish I could be, because I would have been able to prevent the horrors of the next few weeks from occurring.

My name is Jonas Stryker.

In a few weeks, I will be dead.

* * * * *

'I'm over existing in limbo
I'm over the myths and placebos
I don't really mind if I just fade away
I'm ready to live with my family
I'm ready to die in obscurity
'Cause I'm so tired that I gotta go.'

[All lyrics taken from 'Zzyzx Rd.' by Stone Sour, from the album Come What(ever) May, available now from Roadrunner Records.]