Ross Van Loan
07-31-2013, 04:51 AM
A convoluted assemblage of lenses and lights atop flexible antennae squatted atop Van Loan’s head as he, seated at his esoterica covered workbench, worked at his original Fen-Space task. He was the Senshi Toy-Armourer tasked with maintaining their stock of NARF (No Actual Real Functionality). With the five-power lenses locked over his hazels, and a single probe light hanging above his forehead he looked like an artisan angler fish as he meticulously soldered the filigreed patch that disguised the battery compartment of the tiara of someone or other by the typically over-the-top name, Solar Heroine Princess Coruscatia.
“Solar powered so long as the triple As hold out.” He quipped, as he completed the final, Fabergé touch. The goddess of Nerds, Arete, had preserved his privacy just long enough to complete sun-gal’s tacky-tiara touch-up : then in trooped the so nearly fast friends as to be only one step removed from being conjoined : creepy as one was still trying to pry the pants off of the other.
“Hey, Hon, Carmine’s brought her calendar entry.”
Van Loan removed his hat of manifold optics, a delighted smile ludicrously lighting his cyan physiognomy.
“ Our first actual entry?"--Hayayama wasn’t scheduled for her ultra-nude photo shoot until Solar Noon two days hence--"Sugoi! Give it up, Carmine!”
Her jade eyes were lit with a roguish spark unnoticed by the expectant and rather credible Van Loan as she handed him a steel case twenty-two centimeters long by fourteen centimeters wide.
Van Loan released the twin set of clasps. “There’s something familiar about this design, but I just can’t place it.” He swung the casing open ; grinned his ‘oh, shiny!’ grin.
“A 20.3 centimeter replica of the Genesis Device! Fantastic collectable! ” Van Loan picked it up ; the look on his face when the tactile sensor enabled the unit’s vibratory feature was inner-thigh slapping funny.
Carmine, the Carol Marcus of this particular instrument, smirked ; Wandblume spit-took her Mountain Dew into the tank of mock-Reagent being prepped for fluorescing .
“Oh, eight inches.” He turned it over in his hands, a slight frown descending upon his features.
“It only has the one setting?”
Carmine did her best, “KHHHHAAANNN!” : the device leapt into full strobe-lit vapor-venting and, of course, max-tilt trembling. Van Loan did a startled little jig that had both women howling in helpless fits of hilarity. Then he too collapsed in laughter.
“I......never thought...... that I would hear......myself say this but ; Best! Vibrator! Ever! Carmine, you’ve got yourself a whole month : which one would you like?”
Carmine tried to look serious. “One of the cold, lonely ones.”
Wandblume snorted : “When a girl has to throw an extra log in the fire?”
Carmine tittered : “Another honest expression falls prey to euphemism!”
The giggling-guffaws repossessed the lot of them.
****
‘Twas the second day of ConClave and all through the fortress legions of mech-mice stirred : sometimes even combining into larger mass-mouse mess-managing machines. They scooted and scampered about the floor and scuttled through walls of the convention waging their never-ending war against their nemeses, Clutter & Shambles. The con-goers, around whose feet the mice wended and weaved, had their pet name for the animalized janitorial staff : they dubbed them Howards.
Van Loan was presiding over the panel, The New Madatomy, held in the Luigi Cozzi Chamber. A Hipster--he was done up in the very retro-now denim craze : he looked like Farmer in the Dell gone loco-- in the audience addressed the panel members.
“But isn’t Mads not only a pejorative but also the sole bailiwick of loner nutbars and psychotics like Agatha Clay?”
Van Loan meta-rolled his eyes, which is to say he rolled them only in his mind. ‘Ah, that explains what he’s doing here : biding his time until he can unleash his brilliant observations upon the Unenlightened.’
“Up to six months ago your statement would have been...conventionally accurate : Mads were classified as being isolated, bitter excommunicates of their various scientific fields. Since then, however, I have been...cultivating an interlink, a network, a community where, before, none had existed.”
“You mean to form a bund of Mads?”
‘There it is!'’thought Van Loan. ‘Now is it just lone Hispster posturing, or....”
The room grew still as a churchyard as the battle was finally joined.
***
The new pods were deep and black enough that the only things to escape their depths were the voices of their owners, and the odd flash of eyewear.
The chair on the left swiveled with an electric whirr to face the slight ocular twinkling within the gloom of the other chair.
“Bund? Yayoi, isn’t he being a bit abstruse?”
“ Umbra is a Hipster, Mikuru. Besides, it’s a very smart room : the message is clear enough.”
“Yayoi, you really think he’s mustering a power base?”
“Mikuru, of course not : he’s not the type.”
“Yayoi, then why the HUMINT asset?”
“Setting up her rump.”
“Oh, are we being unforgiving?”
“I prefer retributory, dear : it sounds more just.”
“And ass-covering” Mikuru mumbled.
Yayoi’s pod, in the process of turning back towards the display, paused briefly. “You say something, dear?”
“Yes, I’m sure we’ll catch her ass!” Within her chair, she winced : ‘Oh, that was an awful recoup, girl!’
“Red Cheeked, dear.” Both chairs went back to watching the unfolding time-lapse drama of the panel.
***
Van Loan confronted his accuser with the scene-chewing gravitas of a supervillain. “Uncovered my Master Plan, have we?” The first chuckle was so convincingly dark that the panel members on either side of Van Loan looked a tad uncomfortable. The audience gasped ; in the very back, Wandblume face-palmed.
Hipster cracked a snide smile. “Feel like monologuing?”
The second chuckle wasn’t dark at all : it was patented Van Loan. The panel guests relaxed into their seats ; the audience leant forward in anticipation ; the Hipster, caught by the sudden reversal, took a step backwards ; Wandblume’s palm cracked a blue eyed gap in between middle & ring finger.
“How about a good expounding, instead?” Van Loan paused, squared his papers on the podium ; pitched them into a flutter of foolscap. “ There are exactly two things in life that I’m serious about : Shego and fun!”
The crowd sniggered. A wag shouted: “Are those two factors mutually exclusive?”
Wandblume, sashaying to the panel table, momentarily borrowed Van Loan’s thunder as she kissed him, assiduously ; cuffed him, cursorily. He took the very good & the hardly bad at all with what he thought was charming equanimity : to everyone one else, his was the the aplomb of a puppy.
She redirected her beau’s microphone flex to respond to the wit : “Haven’t you been listening? Today’s word is Inclusivity!”
The room loved that. Hipster sketched a sardonic bow ; exited, impervious to a gentle gauntlet of gibes.
“Great panel, babe! What was the subject again?” His beam, doting-jaunty-screwball, did that thing to that part of her brain that found this particular eccentric nerd hot ; and that translated to seriously weak knee syndrome.
She procured a perch of Van Loan lap. “Us, dummkopf!”She smooched him again.
At about the twentieth second into the buss-duration, a series of polite coughs & various other social cues ended the sweet tangential arc. “You’ve got a panel to helm, Liebling.” Shego decoupled from Dr. D ; was about to make her way out to the con-floor when another member of the panel audience, a svelte blonde beauty in a tan Sam Browne belted min-skirt affair, launched one final panel-breaking interrogative bombshell : “ Why aren’t you two spliced yet?
The linebacker with silver discs for eyes sitting next to her had that long-established look of the dutiful but uncomfortable boyfriend.
Wandblume considered Van Loan : the audience considered the couple ; Batou considered his shoes ; Starling rephrased the question : “ I’ve sat stakeout on you two...”
At the utterance of ‘stakeout’ the room once again went quiet with the exception of Starling who was far too locked into a verbal-inertial roll to be able to assess her tactical position. Not so, Batou : with a briefly shocked look replaced by resolute determination, he slung his girl over his shoulder and made for the exit. She continued, equally resolute to impart her intimate grasp of the couple’s wedlock potential.
“...long enough to know that you two should have formalized Player Two status six months ago!”
The poleaxed expression on Van Loan’s face vanished two microseconds before the one on Wandblume’s face ; the Crowd, however, looked shocked, stirring towards riled.
Wandblume, always the more socially tuned of the two, brought it all back from the bitchy brink by dramatically P.A.ing her Man, “Do you promise to forever be crazy about me?”
“I do!” Van Loan looked so radiant he was probably emitting on the 0.1µm through 5.0µm wavelengths. “Do you promise to be mad about me forever?”
“I do!”
“There’s got to be someone on this station that can make this stick!” He turned to the audience. “A free lifetime ConClave membership to the Fen who can find us our clerical substitute!”
The room emptied in a rush.
Batou looked mightily relieved.
Starling looked almost as happy as the almost completely married couple.
“Solar powered so long as the triple As hold out.” He quipped, as he completed the final, Fabergé touch. The goddess of Nerds, Arete, had preserved his privacy just long enough to complete sun-gal’s tacky-tiara touch-up : then in trooped the so nearly fast friends as to be only one step removed from being conjoined : creepy as one was still trying to pry the pants off of the other.
“Hey, Hon, Carmine’s brought her calendar entry.”
Van Loan removed his hat of manifold optics, a delighted smile ludicrously lighting his cyan physiognomy.
“ Our first actual entry?"--Hayayama wasn’t scheduled for her ultra-nude photo shoot until Solar Noon two days hence--"Sugoi! Give it up, Carmine!”
Her jade eyes were lit with a roguish spark unnoticed by the expectant and rather credible Van Loan as she handed him a steel case twenty-two centimeters long by fourteen centimeters wide.
Van Loan released the twin set of clasps. “There’s something familiar about this design, but I just can’t place it.” He swung the casing open ; grinned his ‘oh, shiny!’ grin.
“A 20.3 centimeter replica of the Genesis Device! Fantastic collectable! ” Van Loan picked it up ; the look on his face when the tactile sensor enabled the unit’s vibratory feature was inner-thigh slapping funny.
Carmine, the Carol Marcus of this particular instrument, smirked ; Wandblume spit-took her Mountain Dew into the tank of mock-Reagent being prepped for fluorescing .
“Oh, eight inches.” He turned it over in his hands, a slight frown descending upon his features.
“It only has the one setting?”
Carmine did her best, “KHHHHAAANNN!” : the device leapt into full strobe-lit vapor-venting and, of course, max-tilt trembling. Van Loan did a startled little jig that had both women howling in helpless fits of hilarity. Then he too collapsed in laughter.
“I......never thought...... that I would hear......myself say this but ; Best! Vibrator! Ever! Carmine, you’ve got yourself a whole month : which one would you like?”
Carmine tried to look serious. “One of the cold, lonely ones.”
Wandblume snorted : “When a girl has to throw an extra log in the fire?”
Carmine tittered : “Another honest expression falls prey to euphemism!”
The giggling-guffaws repossessed the lot of them.
****
‘Twas the second day of ConClave and all through the fortress legions of mech-mice stirred : sometimes even combining into larger mass-mouse mess-managing machines. They scooted and scampered about the floor and scuttled through walls of the convention waging their never-ending war against their nemeses, Clutter & Shambles. The con-goers, around whose feet the mice wended and weaved, had their pet name for the animalized janitorial staff : they dubbed them Howards.
Van Loan was presiding over the panel, The New Madatomy, held in the Luigi Cozzi Chamber. A Hipster--he was done up in the very retro-now denim craze : he looked like Farmer in the Dell gone loco-- in the audience addressed the panel members.
“But isn’t Mads not only a pejorative but also the sole bailiwick of loner nutbars and psychotics like Agatha Clay?”
Van Loan meta-rolled his eyes, which is to say he rolled them only in his mind. ‘Ah, that explains what he’s doing here : biding his time until he can unleash his brilliant observations upon the Unenlightened.’
“Up to six months ago your statement would have been...conventionally accurate : Mads were classified as being isolated, bitter excommunicates of their various scientific fields. Since then, however, I have been...cultivating an interlink, a network, a community where, before, none had existed.”
“You mean to form a bund of Mads?”
‘There it is!'’thought Van Loan. ‘Now is it just lone Hispster posturing, or....”
The room grew still as a churchyard as the battle was finally joined.
***
The new pods were deep and black enough that the only things to escape their depths were the voices of their owners, and the odd flash of eyewear.
The chair on the left swiveled with an electric whirr to face the slight ocular twinkling within the gloom of the other chair.
“Bund? Yayoi, isn’t he being a bit abstruse?”
“ Umbra is a Hipster, Mikuru. Besides, it’s a very smart room : the message is clear enough.”
“Yayoi, you really think he’s mustering a power base?”
“Mikuru, of course not : he’s not the type.”
“Yayoi, then why the HUMINT asset?”
“Setting up her rump.”
“Oh, are we being unforgiving?”
“I prefer retributory, dear : it sounds more just.”
“And ass-covering” Mikuru mumbled.
Yayoi’s pod, in the process of turning back towards the display, paused briefly. “You say something, dear?”
“Yes, I’m sure we’ll catch her ass!” Within her chair, she winced : ‘Oh, that was an awful recoup, girl!’
“Red Cheeked, dear.” Both chairs went back to watching the unfolding time-lapse drama of the panel.
***
Van Loan confronted his accuser with the scene-chewing gravitas of a supervillain. “Uncovered my Master Plan, have we?” The first chuckle was so convincingly dark that the panel members on either side of Van Loan looked a tad uncomfortable. The audience gasped ; in the very back, Wandblume face-palmed.
Hipster cracked a snide smile. “Feel like monologuing?”
The second chuckle wasn’t dark at all : it was patented Van Loan. The panel guests relaxed into their seats ; the audience leant forward in anticipation ; the Hipster, caught by the sudden reversal, took a step backwards ; Wandblume’s palm cracked a blue eyed gap in between middle & ring finger.
“How about a good expounding, instead?” Van Loan paused, squared his papers on the podium ; pitched them into a flutter of foolscap. “ There are exactly two things in life that I’m serious about : Shego and fun!”
The crowd sniggered. A wag shouted: “Are those two factors mutually exclusive?”
Wandblume, sashaying to the panel table, momentarily borrowed Van Loan’s thunder as she kissed him, assiduously ; cuffed him, cursorily. He took the very good & the hardly bad at all with what he thought was charming equanimity : to everyone one else, his was the the aplomb of a puppy.
She redirected her beau’s microphone flex to respond to the wit : “Haven’t you been listening? Today’s word is Inclusivity!”
The room loved that. Hipster sketched a sardonic bow ; exited, impervious to a gentle gauntlet of gibes.
“Great panel, babe! What was the subject again?” His beam, doting-jaunty-screwball, did that thing to that part of her brain that found this particular eccentric nerd hot ; and that translated to seriously weak knee syndrome.
She procured a perch of Van Loan lap. “Us, dummkopf!”She smooched him again.
At about the twentieth second into the buss-duration, a series of polite coughs & various other social cues ended the sweet tangential arc. “You’ve got a panel to helm, Liebling.” Shego decoupled from Dr. D ; was about to make her way out to the con-floor when another member of the panel audience, a svelte blonde beauty in a tan Sam Browne belted min-skirt affair, launched one final panel-breaking interrogative bombshell : “ Why aren’t you two spliced yet?
The linebacker with silver discs for eyes sitting next to her had that long-established look of the dutiful but uncomfortable boyfriend.
Wandblume considered Van Loan : the audience considered the couple ; Batou considered his shoes ; Starling rephrased the question : “ I’ve sat stakeout on you two...”
At the utterance of ‘stakeout’ the room once again went quiet with the exception of Starling who was far too locked into a verbal-inertial roll to be able to assess her tactical position. Not so, Batou : with a briefly shocked look replaced by resolute determination, he slung his girl over his shoulder and made for the exit. She continued, equally resolute to impart her intimate grasp of the couple’s wedlock potential.
“...long enough to know that you two should have formalized Player Two status six months ago!”
The poleaxed expression on Van Loan’s face vanished two microseconds before the one on Wandblume’s face ; the Crowd, however, looked shocked, stirring towards riled.
Wandblume, always the more socially tuned of the two, brought it all back from the bitchy brink by dramatically P.A.ing her Man, “Do you promise to forever be crazy about me?”
“I do!” Van Loan looked so radiant he was probably emitting on the 0.1µm through 5.0µm wavelengths. “Do you promise to be mad about me forever?”
“I do!”
“There’s got to be someone on this station that can make this stick!” He turned to the audience. “A free lifetime ConClave membership to the Fen who can find us our clerical substitute!”
The room emptied in a rush.
Batou looked mightily relieved.
Starling looked almost as happy as the almost completely married couple.